BIO: Ralph Burns is the Founder and CEO of Tier 11, a digital marketing agency that utilizes a proprietary system called Customer Acquisition Amplification™ to unlock the online potential of purpose-driven businesses to help them scale and grow.
STORY: Ralph spent $30,000 to build a membership site and got over 10,000 email subscribers, but only two people paid when he launched the site.
LEARNING: Do your research. Create a minimum viable product first to test the market.
“All the traffic in the world doesn’t matter if your offer sucks. You have to have something that people will want to buy.”
Ralph Burns
Ralph Burns is the Founder and CEO of Tier 11, a digital marketing agency that utilizes a proprietary system called Customer Acquisition Amplification™ to unlock the online potential of purpose-driven businesses to help them scale and grow.
Ralph’s 100% virtual agency, with people in 30+ countries and 6 continents, manages a portfolio of social media advertising customer accounts in over 57 industries with an annual spend in excess of $100 million.
His podcast, Perpetual Traffic, has been downloaded well over 8 million times and has helped tens of thousands of people grow their businesses through online traffic and conversion strategies. Ralph splits his time between Boston and Cape Cod, Massachusetts, with his wife and two college-aged sons.
Before we get down to Ralph’s worst investment ever, let’s first tap into some of his nuggets of wisdom on successful digital marketing.
According to Ralph, when trying to sell something online, you should first find the customers because you launch your product or service. The best way to do this is to give potential customers something of value in exchange for their contact information or even their time. This is what Ralph refers to as a transitional lead magnet. In essence, this isn’t what you want them to buy, but something free and of very high value that they get in exchange for their name and email.
Ralph says that you should remember that you’re customers’ guide. Understand your ideal customer’s most significant problem standing in the way of achieving their goals and help them solve this problem. Once you do that, you become the trusted adviser who will help them get to the promised land.
According to Ralph, walking your customers through the hero’s journey is important because, typically, people don’t want to buy from strangers. So give them something of value to transition from a stranger and build trust. Then you can put them on a drip campaign that’ll maybe subtly give them even more information and then ask them to make a purchase.
Ralph believes that Facebook is still a valuable platform for businesses, but for success, you need to connect with your avatar. Understand their biggest problem, then hit them right between the eyes with a message that resonates with them, and they stop the scroll.
When it comes to advertising on Facebook, the right price point for acquiring a new customer, according to Ralph, depends on many factors. What’s critical is understanding what the economics are and implementing a sales funnel.
Ralph worked as a regional director at a big diagnostic company in...