Salome Schillack:

Hello, and welcome to episode number 55 of the Shine Show. I hope that, wherever you are listening to this episode today, that it finds you well, that it finds you safe and healthy, and that you are having a good human experience today. I guess, whatever that looks like for you. I think sometimes we could be going through bad stuff, we could be going through sad times, and still be able to look at it and say, "Well, I'm having a good human experience today." So, I hope that, that is true for you wherever you're finding yourself.

I have an amazing friend called Zafira. She is a copywriter and I have brought her on the show today to share with you how you can use language to uncover the needs of your ideal customer. Or maybe I should say, how uncovering the language your ideal customer responds to makes you better able to speak to them in a way that makes them hear what you're saying. I worked with Zafira on this. We went through ... It felt like therapy a little bit, I have to be honest. She dug into the deepest pits of my soul and uncovered a lot of things that I kind of knew was there but didn't really know that I know this much about my ideal customer, but Zafira has a beautiful way of speaking and sharing and listening. I think that's probably the most important thing is she has a way of listening to really, really hear what someone is saying and she did that for me in my business.

The year before I worked with Zafira, I made $180,000 as a freelance Facebook ads manager. The year after I worked with her, I increased that to $400,000 that year. I massively increased my prices after working with her because I was better able to articulate who my ideal customer is and how I help them and all of a sudden, I started attracting far better quality clients and we got far better results, because when you improve the quality of your client, you improve the quality of the results you get.

Now, I want to read to you Zafira's official bio so you know who she is and what she does in her words, and I hope that you enjoy the interview with Zafira. So, Zafira is a strategic launch copywriter and a soulful strategist. She is definitely soulful. She's committed to helping coaches and course creators build, grow, and scale a meaningful digital empire by wielding the power of their personality and intuition into telling stories that only they know how to do. I hope that you enjoy my interview with Zafira.

Giving up your time and freedom to make money is so 2009. Hi, I'm your host, Salome Schillack, and I help online course creators launch, grow, and scale their businesses with Facebook and Instagram ads so that they can make more money and have an even bigger impact in the world. If you're ready to be inspired to dream bigger, launch sooner, and grow your online business faster, then tune in because you are ready to shine and this is the Shine Show.

Hi, Zafira, thank you so much for joining me today. I'm very excited to share you with my whole world.

Zafira:

Yay, thanks so much for having me on, Salome.

Salome Schillack:

Oh, you're welcome. I'm very happy to have you here. I would love you to start by just telling us a little bit about who you are and what's the magic that you make there from your little corner of the world?

Zafira:

Oh, I love that, the magic that I make. Well, I'm Zafira. I'm a launch copywriter and brand strategist and I primarily serve coaches and course creators in helping them just build, grow, and scale a meaningful digital empire by using the power of their personality. So what that means is I'm often the copywriter behind sales pages, launches, emails, Facebook ads, as you and I have worked on before, and just being my clients' partner in getting their message out into the world so that they can help as many people as possible, and I do that all from my little cave, my little writing cave here in Vancouver, Canada.

Salome Schillack:

That is awesome and you are spectacularly good at pulling out someone's personality and putting it into words. Actually, creepily so. When I read the copy that you wrote for me, I was like, "Oh my goodness, this girl is in my head."

Zafira:

Oh, I love that. That's exactly what you want your audience to always feel, so I love that you said that.

Salome Schillack:

Yeah. You do. Yes. So I wanted to bring you on because, well, A, because you're really so good at pulling the personality out of someone and nailing it, but also, you're really good at pulling out of us marketers, us coaches, us course creators, pulling out the traits of our ideal customers and understanding the language they use. Where I see a lot of online course creators struggle with this is I will have a conversation with someone about, let's say they want to build their email list and they've decided they're going to start using Facebook ads. They're getting serious. They're going to put money into Facebook ads to build an email list, and they come to me and they say, "Can you please help me because my landing page isn't converting?" Nine out of 10 times when I look at the landing page, I can see that these people have done tremendous amount of work to create a fantastic lead magnet, but there's a bit of a disconnect in the language they use to sell the lead magnet that they have to their ideal customers. So if you had to say to someone who's just starting, where do you even begin looking for understanding how to speak to your ideal customer and put that into copy?

Zafira:

Such a good question, and I wish people would ask me this all the time before they create anything because it would save them so much time. So the key to establishing and extracting the voice of your customer is really by talking to them and really getting in their heads, and there are so many ways to do this. For someone just starting out, it can be as simple as sending a survey to your email list or posting a link in your bio for your social media to really figure out, what are their unique challenges, frustrations, fears, anxieties, and how are you the best person to help them overcome those challenges?

So for example, some really good questions to ask your larger community on a survey are like, if you're a confidence coach, maybe it could be like, "What does confidence mean to you personally? How are you working towards building confidence right now? What would accessing confidence do for you personally? What's getting in the way of feeling your most confident self? What does your ideal day-to-day look like when it comes to showing up in your business? If you could sit down with me for an afternoon, what would you want me to teach or show you specifically?" Just seven to eight questions that are really easy for people to answer, and you would be so surprised by the diversity of responses that you receive, but also, most importantly, be able to establish if the messaging you're giving them and what they're giving back to you have a disconnect or whether there's a potential to build that bridge. The very words you should be using in your headlines, in your benefit bullet points, in your CTA copy, when it comes to just making it really fun and personable, should be extracting the words that they're using themselves.

If you even have extra time, like what I did for you, Salome, when we worked together, was actually get on the phone with some of your past clients. Or if you worked with people that really love and adore you and see your value already, just hopping on a one-on-one call with them and having an interview to talk about the transformations they've experienced before working with you and after working with you are so huge and so key, and even give you the opportunity to extract testimonials you can start [inaudible] pages like this, right? So, long story short, you've got to talk to them.

Salome Schillack:

Yeah. Okay. So there's a lot of things there that you just shared that I want to expand on a little bit, but let's start with talking to your audience. So let's imagine for a moment ... I love those questions examples that you gave, by the way. They're awesome. They're really great, and I would love for anyone listening to really go and write those down and create that survey and send it out, but what if they didn't have an audience? Because here's what I hear all the time is, I feel like I'm selling my soul on social media and I'm just talking to myself all the time.

So, people who are just starting out, who maybe have 200 or 300 followers on Facebook or Instagram and maybe 200 or 300 people on their email list? And perhaps they haven't been as diligent at emailing that list every single week, or maybe they have and people just either don't open the emails or they don't reply to the email, or when they go live on Facebook, they feel like they're talking to themselves. How do you even begin to have a two-way conversation when you're in that beginning phase and you feel like you're talking to yourself?

Zafira:

Such a good question, and I know for so many of us when it comes to putting our messaging out there it feels like it's landing in this big void of crickets. But that being said, I still think that there's a lot of power even with a tiny email list or a tiny following because a lot of the time those are going to be your most organic and loyal people who will follow you till the end. I think Amy Porterfield says that a lot too.

And maybe for a smaller audience, an alternative is to create a free offer. For example, I will offer you 30 minutes or an hour of coaching in exchange for me to just pick your brain for 20 minutes and ask you a couple questions. So the key is always to really show up with value for them. The most valuable thing you can give people is always your time. I'm pretty sure, even out of 200 people, you will definitely get at least five who are willing to do that with you, so just creating an opportunity for them to engage with you organically, to really show up and be of service, and have that be kind of like a mutual energy exchange, you know?

Salome Schillack:

Yeah.

Zafira:

Okay.

Salome Schillack:

I love that.

Zafira:

Yeah.

Salome Schillack:

Even maybe ... I know one of the things that worked really well for me when I started was being very active in a Facebook group, which back in the day for me that was Amy Porterfield's B School Group, where even as an introvert I just had to stretch myself to show up in that group because showing up in Facebook groups is not my strength. But I didn't have an email list and I didn't have clients, but I knew that if I just show up, engage, get to know people, share value, and then take the relationship out of the group, I want to say. I hopped on Zoom calls with people and got to know them and made friends and they started referring people to me and I was able to build it that way, so that can kind of work too, if you're just getting started.

Zafira:

Totally. Yeah. I think the key here with what we're both saying is that it's just starting a conversation organically, right? And just really coming from a place of service. So, yeah, even if it's in a Facebook group, if it's replying to someone's Instagram stories and just creating that connection and seeing what comes back, but like you said, always moving that conversation off the platform.

Salome Schillack:

Yeah.

Zafira:

And making sure you get some real face time with them will be so key for you to help yourself figure out where you're missing the mark or where you can help them more.

Salome Schillack:

Then would you record those conversations and have it transcribed or how would you capture that copy?

Zafira:

Totally, yeah. I always transcribe stuff, or now that I've done a bajillion customer interviews, I'm really good at typing very fast. So, I sometimes am typing right away, but for someone starting out, I think it's important to be really present during the whole conversation, so record it, transcribe it. There's so many free software tools you can use to get it transcribed for really affordably, and then just I like to keep all my customer data in one place for a launch specifically, but for you, it's just you're starting out and you've got those building blocks, just have a little Google Drive folder where you've got transcripts from your interviews and when you're sitting down to write down your messaging think of those transcripts as your big word cloud to choose from.

Salome Schillack:

Yeah. Oh, I love that.

Zafira:

[crosstalk] what comes up over and over again.

Salome Schillack:

I love that, that it becomes a word cloud. So that brings me kind of to what you said is you're going to be surprised by what people share, and they're going to share different things. So if you've had the interviews and you're surprised by what they said and they've shared different things, how do you make sense of that? How do you sift through it and go, "This matters and this doesn't matter?"

Zafira:

Totally, and that is something that everyone struggles with once they've got survey results, they've got transcripts, and they're just sitting with this huge pile of data and they're like, "Ah, what do I do?" I personally really love to create a spreadsheet. One sheet can be for really positive things. So like key benefits of working with me, desires, goals, dreams that they're working towards, and just start putting those things in a column and pulling out the exact words your customers are using to describe their desires, to describe their dreams, to describe their goal.

And do the same thing with potential hesitations, objections. Where are their fears? What are their current frustrations? What are their anxieties? Pull out those exact words, put it in the spreadsheet, and then it's really great to have a space for light bulb moments. Oh, maybe here's an opportunity that I didn't see before. Someone might have mentioned, "I really wish I could work with you on this thing" or "I wish you'd offered X, Y, Z." I sometimes like to surprise my clients with light bulb moments where I'm just like, "Did you know someone actually thought that this was the main benefit of this program, which is not what you're selling?" Maybe your audience is bigger than you think, for example.

So, just keeping it all in one spreadsheet, remembering to just pull out key phrases and words, because that is what you're going to refer to time and time again to write your copy is just those exact words. Even if you got them in long, long sentences, it can be really hard, but as long as you can figure out the key benefits of your program, of working with you that are coming up over and over again or potential things people want to see more from you and you've got that good before/after picture of the pain they're experiencing and what's going on in their life right now, and what it could look like after experiencing your program, that is just going to be huge for everything you set yourself up for going into your launch, or whatever you're doing.

Salome Schillack:

Cool. I want us to come back to that, how you're going to paint that picture of the before and then the after state, but before we do, I just want to ask you about the key benefits. How can we tell what are the key benefits? How do we sift through that and go, "Yes, these are the three bullet points that I need to emphasize over and over that are the key benefits?"

Zafira:

Yeah. So if you haven't had the opportunity to do it already, I always recommend beta testing your program or anything with existing people first before you do a live launch, right? I'm sure you recommend this too.

Salome Schillack:

Yes.

Zafira:

Whenever I interview those people who've gone through beta, I always ask them, "What are the top three benefits of this program, according to you? Or key takeaways?" I always ask my clients the same thing to figure out if we're all on the same page here. Just hearing it from different people can really help you frame that correctly, but it should never be exactly what you think are the key benefits, because more often than not, it's not really the case once people have gone through the program and come out the other side. If you're just starting out, you haven't had the opportunity to go through a beta and you're really relying on just survey data, for example, this can really be found in, for example, a question of, let's see. Yeah, "What would having more X in your life do for you personally?" Right?

Salome Schillack:

Right. Yeah.

Zafira:

So, "What would having more confidence in your life do for you personally?" "Oh, well, maybe I'll be able to show up on Facebook Live," or, "maybe I'll be able to talk to my audience more consistently." That might give you some answers and some ideas for key benefits.

Salome Schillack:

There could be a key benefit and then there could be different ways that that benefit shows up for different people and you could use those different examples of how it shows up for people in different places.

Zafira:

Exactly.

Salome Schillack:

Yeah.

Zafira:

So even if you're highlighting your program and you're like, "You'll get confidence, clarity, direction," for example, all the copy you're using when it comes to amping up the positive side of that should really be speaking to real life examples of how that is going to be applied in real life. 100%, just so you're not repeating those words over and over again, but you're painting the picture right, and that's what's really important is to co-create that vision with your audience.

Salome Schillack:

I love it, and it'll show up in different places on your page.

Zafira:

Exactly.

Salome Schillack:

Yeah.

Zafira:

Copy like that is what's perfect for a Facebook ad, for example, right?

Salome Schillack:

Yeah.

Zafira:

A key benefit in this example, like showing up on Facebook Live, for example, that's an idea for a lead magnet. So, once you get a clear overview of what you're really offering then you just have to extract itty bitty pieces of it. All the pieces that go into your launch from your ads to your lead magnet to everything in between.

Salome Schillack:

How specific do you get with things? Because often I find where we can get stuck is we can easily feel like our benefits are like these big things. Like you say, they're this big thing, like have more clarity, feel more confident. One that I hear over and over and over that I always have to have a conversation with our students because of the ads policy is they would say, "Well, the key benefit is you're not going to feel overwhelmed anymore." I always have to address that because we cannot use the word overwhelmed in Facebook ad copy. Or we can, but we're not going to get away with it for very long because Facebook wants it to be positive.

So, often, I think a lot of our students are clear on the pain points. They're clear on how their clients are overwhelmed, how they're stressed, how they're feeling stuck, but they're not clear on the after state. They're not clear on the benefits. Or maybe they become clear and then describe it as having more clarity, having more confidence, and then I would say, "Okay, what does clarity look like? What does confidence look like? What does it literally show up as in that person's life?" It's those examples that you're looking for, right?

Zafira:

Exactly. The answers you would find to that could be in a question for, well, how would your life change? How would your day-to-day life shift if you had more clarity, more confidence etc, right? And then for something like a Facebook ad, instead of the messaging being like, tired of feeling overwhelmed, [crosstalk] frustrated. It can be more like are you down for a mini meditation. Imagine waking up to a day where X, Y, Z and you're painting that vision of how their day today would have changed if they had X, Y, Z-

Salome Schillack:

I love that.

Zafira:

[crosstalk]. Because I do believe it should always be as positive as possible, so realistic, and we're painting a realistic vision with them, but you should always go into it with the mindset of being their collaborator and crafting this new reality together, right?

Salome Schillack:

That's so wonderful. So, how do you connect ... Once you've created your lead magnet, right? You've created this beautiful thing that you know solves a problem for your customer. You know that this is the thing they need. So, you've got the thing that they need, and you've done the work to figure out what the before and the after state and the pain points they have before and the desires that have after. How do you now merge those two things. Because if I'm looking at it, I'm going I have a lead magnet that they need, but I don't know how to describe it so that they actually want it, and I have the before and after state. How do I put that together on a landing page so that they look at my lead magnet and they go, "I need that. I want that." How do you marry those two things?

Zafira:

Yeah. Oh my gosh, big, big things are playing with in this [crosstalk] diagram, right? You got the data, and you got the lead magnet, and you got the happiest space-

Salome Schillack:

You got that happy space in between, yeah.

Zafira:

Yeah. Well, first of all, zooming out, your lead magnet should always be really like skimming the surface of what you really have to offer, right? That's [inaudible]. So you're not giving away all your knowledge in that PDF or whatever you're doing. But I think the key to it is really being as specific as possible. Like we said, in your lead magnet, and also in your opt-in copy, right? So you shouldn't be trying to solve a super huge problem with your lead magnet. You should really be trying to address a symptom of that bigger problem.

Salome Schillack:

Give me some examples of that.

Zafira:

Yeah, that's a really good question. Let me think of some good lead magnet ideas that I worked with clients on. Well, actually here. Here's a mutual client we both had. Remember Ashley? So, Ashley was a course creator for online boutique owners, and I believe her lead magnet was like this beautiful big resource guide of all the things you need and software and tools. And it was super awesome, and it was high packed with value.

Ideally, at the end of this funnel, we want people to buy her course so she can show them how to just really set up their online boutique store, but she's giving them all the tools really in her lead magnet. And if they were really to go through all of it and implement every single thing, they'd probably be out of the gate and be fine. But what they're really looking for when they land and when we did the research was that they just didn't know where to start, and there were so much information out there. They didn't know which one was right for them. So, she compiled a really curated resource that was tailored to this specific niche. And this really would have been like their Bible for everything they needed to launch, like an online store, right?

So, the symptom that she solved there was there's too much information out there. I don't know what's right for me to do this specific thing, and she went ahead and solved it. In her language on her opt-in copy, I'm sure it would have been something around having just like one place to go to access all this information. Not having to Google a million things to figure it out. And backed it up with her credibility of being in this industry for so long, growing a boutique business to over a million dollars. And then check, check, check. Yes, you're the person I definitely want to learn from because you know what you're talking about, and you deeply understand something that's really, really grinding my gears here. It's just like, "I'm so tired of looking all over the place for the right information." That may be an example of how you might set up your copy accordingly.

Salome Schillack:

I love that. I love how you just described all the pain points. Instead of just saying, "Hey, make a resource of everything you need to know," which-

Zafira:

[crosstalk].

Salome Schillack:

... immediately sends them back into overwhelm. It's like, "Here are the most important things you need to know so you can stop spinning your wheels and stop googling how to start a boutique business." And just because of the change in the language, she's immediately going, "Oh, thank you. Someone is going to help me stop googling."

Zafira:

Exactly.

Salome Schillack:

She can associate with that. I love that. Okay, so I want to expand a little bit on that. headlines. Let's talk about headlines. How do you create an enticing headline and a sub headline that delivers on the promise? How do you go about figuring out what the best headline is going to be?

Zafira:

Yeah, I think you can take two approaches. So, a headline can speak to benefits or it can speak to pain points, right? So, if you're doing one or the other then your sub header should complement it accordingly-

Salome Schillack:

I love that. I've never heard that. But that is so true.

Zafira:

Yeah.

Salome Schillack:

I love it.

Zafira:

So, you've got a headline that speaks to a key pain point then the sub header expands on the benefits that they're going to achieve at the end of it. If you've got ... And then vice versa, right?

Salome Schillack:

Yeah. So, get the benefit without pain.

Zafira:

Yeah, exactly. So, I really like headlines that if they're going to be benefit driven speak to at least two to three benefits. So, I'm trying to think of one off the top of my head. All the ones that speak to, are you ready to access more freedom, and then have X, Y, Z as well in the same headline. And then, in the sub headline you'd be like, this free resource will give you all the tools you need to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I think a sub header is a really powerful place to play with.

A lot of people ignore the fact that it can be so useful because a headline is great, but it doesn't always give context as to what exactly you're delivering, what problems you're tackling, and you're always going to have benefit bullet points on an opt-in page, but it's such a good place to pre-qualify your reader. Like are you the right person for this? Am I solving the right problem for you? And then you're just saving them all the time just in the copy above the fold.

Salome Schillack:

How would you eliminate the wrong reader?

Zafira:

Yeah. So the right things to call out are obviously the kind of audience that you're talking to. So, if we're talking about Ashley, she would have said, you're trying to start an online boutique store or you're an aspiring online boutique owner. And other things to pre-qualify your reader are to really target their pain points, obviously. Like for her it was just like you're googling things over and over again. You're looking for a guide. You're looking for the one place to go for this one thing. Other things you can use to pre-qualify your readers is also a little line of copy above the headline.

Salome Schillack:

Yeah. I like that.

Zafira:

So, a really popular headline formula for example in conversion copy for sales copywriters is the line above the headline would be something like, important question for ... And then you call out your audience. So, for example, I'm working currently on a launch with someone who's launching a program to help people navigate their spiritual awakening. So, the line of copy above her headline is like, important question for anyone undergoing a spiritual awakening right now.

Salome Schillack:

Oh, I like it.

Zafira:

Yeah. And then like her headline was like, if you could navigate through each day feeling more confident and accessing your inner guidance, X, Y, Z, how would that feel? And then there's a sub header. So there's so much potential to play with that and there could actually be three lines of copy in your headline. But yeah, it saves you time. It saves your readers time.

Salome Schillack:

Well, I love the idea of a question as a header.

Zafira:

Yeah.

Salome Schillack:

I feel like you're just opening up this whole new world for me here.

Zafira:

Yeah.

Salome Schillack:

I haven't seen a lot of questions as headers. Is it just because I haven't paid attention to it or is it the new thing?

Zafira:

Maybe. I mean, it's not as common as people would think. I think it's used really strategically, but the formula would be important question for ideal audience, and you could key benefits they're going to achieve. Then a sub header would be like, well, what's stopping you from achieving the things you want them to achieve-

Salome Schillack:

I like it.

Zafira:

... as a result of your course. Yeah. So, you're really ... You're taking them through a journey, but they feel really seen and understood from the beginning if they're your ideal audience. And then they're automatically enticed to go below. So, that's my sales page. You could totally use it for an opt-in page too. I don't see why not. Yeah, I think it's a lot more fun to [inaudible] the copy that way.

Salome Schillack:

I love that. I love it. It's so creative. I'm definitely going to give that a go and play with that. That's fantastic. Okay, what other advice do you have for anyone looking to better understand their ideal customers in the long term? When we just start out I feel like it's like any relationship. I've been married for almost 13 years and I'm still discovering. This Coronavirus isolation has made me discover lots of new things about my husband. How do you keep it fresh and new with your ideal customer? How do you keep discovering more and more of what their needs are and how to speak their language?

Zafira:

I honestly feel like that journey comes through, for example, people who are listening to this are course creators. Every time you're launching a program, you're probably learning something new about them as they're going through the learning process with you. At the end of your program are you collecting feedback? Start screenshotting all the things they're sharing in your Facebook group. Like the [inaudible] they're having. Things they didn't expect to gain out of the experience of working together. Always interview them after they've been through your offer have been through your program.

Salome Schillack:

So you're saying always interview the buyers just after they've bought?

Zafira:

No. After they've finished your program, right?

Salome Schillack:

Okay, so at the end of it.

Zafira:

At the end, yeah. And definitely always survey your list for people who didn't buy your program because that's also [crosstalk] information as you already know.

Salome Schillack:

What are you looking for in the survey of people who didn't buy except for money? Because money's always going to come up, right? Or is there a time when we do want to look for the money reason, or what are we looking for when we're serving your audience who didn't buy?

Zafira:

Yeah. So, two questions to answer there. So, the first one on money, it can be useful to find out about the money factor because then you'll know if your list is really in alignment with what you're offering. Maybe if you're going to continue launching high ticket offers, for example, and they're just not willing to invest, but you've built a strong community, what is the tiny offer you can create in the meantime? Or what is another way to still make use of that community that you've created? Maybe it's creating a membership that's really affordable, right?

Salome Schillack:

Yeah.

Zafira:

But other things to look for in the survey is to help always detail out what are some factors that prevented you from joining. Maybe it was just the timing. Sometimes it really boils down to timing for a launch. Maybe they didn't feel the content is what they needed right now. You should always leave room for an open ended answer, which is just like, what are some other ways I can help right now?

Salome Schillack:

Oh, I love that.

Zafira:

You'll always be surprised by what they have to say.

Salome Schillack:

Yeah, that's when they'll give you the idea for the down sell next time.

Zafira:

Exactly.

Salome Schillack:

[crosstalk] next time or-

Zafira:

Exactly. And that's just what I was going to say. A lot of us don't have down sells ready after our first launch because you've already puts so much energy into launching one thing. That's like a second lunch all on its own. That can be helpful for a down sell. And then it's also really important to only really email the people who have been clicking, especially for the people have been clicking through out, but didn't check out each time.

Salome Schillack:

I love that. Yeah.

Zafira:

Those are the people you really want to find out why they didn't hop off the fence. Because they came so close each time, but there was a reason that they didn't. So you got to get to the bottom of why. Otherwise, they would have opted out of your launch list a long time ago.

Salome Schillack:

Correct. Yes, that is such an important thing. Especially pay attention to those that are clicking and not buying. I guess a lot of the times people might think at this point, "Well, if my list didn't buy then my offer isn't good enough." But it's like you said that maybe your list just isn't a match for your offer. So, it doesn't necessarily mean that your offer is not good. It could be that just using in building the wrong list or your list is not quite there yet. You need to nurture them more or you need to create the tiny offer or doesn't mean you have to drop the price on your [crosstalk] group or doesn't mean that. It just means you have to meet them where they are with something that's going to get them to where you want them to go.

Zafira:

Yes. That is [crosstalk]-

Salome Schillack:

Or you need to change your targeting in your ads.

Zafira:

I know. I think I was just chatting with someone about this recently. Every time I do a launch debrief, and I'm sure you do, too. It's always really challenging because you don't really know what is the number one factor that prevented conversions. And it can be any number of those things. But definitely, I feel like boiling down to how long your audience has been nurtured. What are the origins of bringing people onto this list? When's the last time it was scrubbed? Where was the source of your traffic coming from? Was it social or was it the list? Was it the webinar? There's just so many factors. So, never beat yourself up too badly about it afterwards because it can just be such a huge range of things, but it always provides a beautiful opportunity to reevaluate where you can tighten the screws next time around.

Salome Schillack:

That is so good. So good. And so, let's talk a little bit just about the survey you send out to the people who did buy your course. What are you looking for there?

Zafira:

So, for people who did buy your course, so I wouldn't send them a survey right away, but I would interview them at the end of moving through the program. And then, talk to them about what they were really seeking when they signed up. What was the big incentive when they joined? Because that's copy you want to be using in your launch emails-

Salome Schillack:

That's right.

Zafira:

... for the next time around. You want to talk about what they were surprised by. You want to talk about what they felt were like the highlights of that experience and how they positively impacted not just their business, but also their personal life because as we all know, it's all connected. When you start feeling less stressed at work, you start making more time for your family. You never really know emotionally what benefits are going to appeal the most to your buyer. And it doesn't necessarily always have to be financial freedom and increasing your revenue, and all the cliche things we're used to hearing. It can be so much more specific than that.

You always want to ask them, how would you solve this program to someone else? Because when you hear about it, we're more likely to buy something when we hear about it from a friend or it's [crosstalk] validated source. So when you share in your audience's words how they would sell it to someone, that's the copy you need to be using.

Salome Schillack:

That is a great, great question. I am going to steal that one from you. How would you sell it to someone else? That's a great question. We launched A Lister in March, and I debriefed that a few episodes ago. So if someone's listening and they want to go and listen to the debrief, I think it's episode 51 maybe. Not sure which one it is, but I'll hook it up in the show notes, and I had the idea to do Q&A sessions.

Initially, the idea was people send in their questions, and then I would answer it on a Facebook Live in the group. And then someone asked me a question, send me an email asking me, will the Q&As be live like in a Zoom call or on a Facebook group? I just assumed it would be in a Facebook group. And then I went, but hang on, it's so much better, especially with the topic like Facebook ads where the answer I give depends on so many things that it has to be a two way conversation in order to get a lot of value out of it. So, I just in the moment decided to change it to Zoom calls where I get everyone on a Zoom call, and we're on.

The feedback unanimously from everyone was, that was the best thing they have ever done, and we should just please keep doing that. Based on that feedback, and how well those calls have been going, we're now going into this beta launch for a new membership program, which is very hush, hush still. All very secret squirrel stuff that more will be revealed soon. I can do that in my advertising voice. But wait, there is more information coming soon. But I wanted to say that's pretty much like from that survey that you've just been describing if I didn't do that survey and got that feedback, I would blindly just be launching the course again, not knowing what the biggest value is and not knowing how I can scale it and serve more people even better. So, that's really important.

Zafira:

Totally. Yeah, and was that something you thought was going to be the most valuable thing from the experience?

Salome Schillack:

Not even a bit. It didn't even occur to me, and the nice thing about it is now I have matured in my relationship with my ideal customer. So, where we had a social media relationship before, and then we had an email list relationship. And then they bought the course, they went through the six weeks of support calls. Now I know them by name, I know their business inside out, I'm solving way bigger problems for them, and seeing ... And it's so rewarding because now I can see how they're growing, and I'm learning more about them, which I know is going to help my marketing the next time round. So, there's that evolution of the relationship from where you feel like on social media you're talking to yourself, to building the relationship. To kind of where it's like with my husband, I've been married for 13 years, but I'm still getting to know him.

Zafira:

Totally.

Salome Schillack:

And it's the same thing with your ideal customer and your offers can evolve.

Zafira:

Yeah, you start with setting up the Tinder profile and going on the first day, and now it gets really intimate, and that's where you want to be. And you want to keep that spark alive. So you best keep the connecting up. And you better keep talking to them. Otherwise, it'll flicker out, right?

Salome Schillack:

Yeah.

Zafira:

It totally is building a relationship 100% and that's why I just emphasize so much continuously talking to them and creating those opportunities for connection throughout your process. Just because someone checked out doesn't mean you're on to the next one right away. You have to still continue nurturing that person all the way to the end of the funnel, to the end of the launch, to the end of the month because if you do then they will give you the valuable input you need to power up the next time around really, really so strongly.

Salome Schillack:

Yeah. I love that. That's fantastic. Thank you so much for sharing your wonderful wisdom with us.

Zafira:

Thank you for listening to my endless questions that I'm flinging out.

Salome Schillack:

No, I love it. Can you tell everyone a little bit more about where they can work with you and learn about ... Is it the spa? Tell me about the spa.

Zafira:

Yeah. Well, if you want to find me, I'm at zafirarajan.com. I'm really active on Instagram at zafira.rajan. And as Salome's mentioned, a lot of my services have very wellness, relaxing imagery around them. And for that reason, the most popular service is called The Day Spa. That's where people can hire me to write their sales page in a day, their email sequences, their web copy. I like to think of it as spending a day with cucumbers on your eyes while I write all your copy so you don't [crosstalk].

Salome Schillack:

I love that.

Zafira:

It's my most popular service. Yeah. [crosstalk].

Salome Schillack:

I love that. That is such a good example of exactly the desire we all have. I want to spend the day with cucumbers on my eye while someone else does the work for me.

Zafira:

Exactly.

Salome Schillack:

Well, we'll link up to all of your places where people can follow you and find out about The Day Spa in the show notes. So, thank you so much. I really appreciate you jumping on and I can't wait to have another glass of Prosecco with you in Vancouver at some point.

Zafira:

Yes. Me too..

Salome Schillack:

Thank you so much. Thank you. Bye.

Well, there you have it. I hope that you enjoyed that interview as much as I enjoy having a chat with this amazing, wonderful women. I would love, love, love it if you take a screenshot of yourself wherever you are listening to this podcast. Not if you're driving, of course. But if you are on a morning walk or if you're on the treadmill, or if you're lying on your bed, I would love to see who you are and what you're doing while you're listening to this, and then give me a shout out in the DMs on Instagram, and I will re-share that with you because I want to know who you are, what you're listening to, and what you're loving about it. So please do that for me.

On the Shine Show next week, I am going to be talking to you about ad strategies that will get you more webinar registrants. So, if a webinar is something that is in your near future, I would love for you to tune in and listen to how you can get more registrants using some clever ad strategies. So tune in next week. See you then. Have a wonderful week. Bye.

Thank you so much for listening. If you had fun, please come back next week, and remember to hit that subscribe button so you never miss a thing.