
The Best Marketing Method I Know - revorad
http://nathanbarry.com/best-marketing-method/
======
Irregardless
Using a story about marketing to market your new marketing product, eh? I'm
onto you!

I don't have any products to sell, but it was still an interesting read. Good
to see you focusing on building trust before selling since that was one of the
things your last e-book sales page was lacking (at least in my opinion).

~~~
uxwtf
That was exactly what I thought when I came to the conclusion: a nice
marketing story to make an announcement of the product that improves
conversion. Should I trust you product?

------
morganb180
Am I the only one that thinks offering a free e-book and some drip marketing
emails feels like those spammy SEO software companies?

You get a landing page where you have to give your email to get a download.
The "Guide" is usually just some distilled thinking that's rarely worth the
email you traded for it. If you were smart, you probably used an email address
you use for all of your spam, because you know once you get the guide, the
next thing up is a bunch of drip marketing emails to get you to upgrade.

The email tips are often just as vapid as the guide and you know you're in for
at least 4 to 6 of them over the next 60 days, so you ignore every one of them
and route them straight to notifications/promotions/spam.

Drip marketing and free giveaways isn't anything new, and it _can_ be
effective, but it's not a silver bullet to sales, by any means.

~~~
nathanbarry
Don't dismiss a method because some people use it for questionable things.

The goal is to build trust over time before asking for a sale. So putting out
low quality content, followed by emails that aren't worth reading, doesn't
build trust.

Use this method to deliver value and the sales will follow.

~~~
morganb180
Can you point me to one you believe is done really well? The ones I have
encountered, without exception, fail to deliver on this promise, and feel more
like spam and less like value.

~~~
nathanbarry
I think Kinvey does it really well: <http://www.kinvey.com/how-to-make-an-app-
android>

~~~
morganb180
Thanks, I'll check it out!

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erikj54
Was I the only one who saw this for the genius it was. The author walked us
through the pain, selling us the problem. How he would never sell us a book he
just wrote without developing a rapport. Then over the next paragraphs he
transitioned us into buyers:

"Once you’ve had a chance to learn a lot from my material, and you’ve had
enough time to start to trust me, then I tell you about the book."

then

"To put it in web marketing terms, the conversion rate will be incredibly
higher by asking for the sale after building trust."

Followed by how hard it is to do this:

"It’s actually really painful to setup."

Oh but wait! I have a software suite that does this for you: "With ConvertKit
it is easy to set up a new landing page, upload a PDF or another file to offer
as an incentive, then let the subscriber opt in to an email course."

And then the buy now link :).

Pure genius. Nice article.

~~~
nathanbarry
Thanks! I'm glad you can learn from what I say AND from what I do. Your notes
are exactly what I was going for.

------
johnmurch
I am not sure this is THAT big of a pain point. I do like the idea and
direction sort of a mailchimp meets <https://gumroad.com> \- but $37/month?
Although I will admit there are a LOT more non-technical people who still
struggle with wordpress - so maybe more of a integration/leverage from that
might be ideal.

One feature you should think of is hosting the landing page on their specific
domain. For example - the user can buy a domain, point it at the DNS and you
take care of the rest. Rather than having convertkit.com/[some-random-hash] or
a variation of it.

Looking forward to seeing the results and/or how well received this idea is

~~~
nathanbarry
I know a lot of people who know they SHOULD be doing this, but haven't
bothered to set it up because they know it is so frustrating.

Custom domains are definitely on the feature list.

Also, I am quite good with WordPress, have a lot of experience with MailChimp,
and this still really frustrates me.

~~~
johnmurch
You are right - I think the idea of "help building the funnel" is the most
powerful one.

Not just 30 day course or 10 tips on ... but to really help people understand
front-end sales, backend sales and cross promotion.

Super excited to see you hit the $5k/month goal by June :)

~~~
nathanbarry
Yep, it's the best way to sell products online. I'll be writing a lot more
blog posts about the process and how to implement it on any platform (not just
mine).

Thanks for the encouragement! I'm definitely trying to hit that goal...

------
route3
Lots of good takeaways from this post, some of which might be a bit hidden or
subtle.

If you're launching your e-book, SaaS app, online course, etc. you'll need to
build a reputation based on trust and value. Think about it: how many people
will find themselves on your landing page, looking at some of your app
screenshots and click on your big fat "Sign Up!" button because "Wow, I've
only known this company existed for 3 seconds but here's my credit card!". You
can do better!

In this case, a free guide to "Designing Forms That Convert" is a great
example of educational and valuable material. Nathan gets your email address,
you get some information you're interested in receiving and everyone is happy.
If you educate people like this, frequently and with valuable content, you'll
have their attention when you're ready to sell them something that they
actually need.

(Patrick McKenzie earned a reputation in the HN community over the years by
sharing what he's learned. Sharing == educating. When he's goes to sell a
~$500 video course on email [0], he seems to do pretty well.)

There's a reason why Nathan's CovertKit plans include thousands and thousands
of emails. That's what you should be doing: sending emails and keeping a
dialog with people who know you and your work. You don't have to pitch your
SaaS app in the footer of every email, but it's important that you become an
authoritative resource for the market/audience that you're working with.
You'll likely have much better success selling to them.

Final point: writing good copy and valuable content is important and is what
is going to make you money, not your perfectly refactored dashboard code. Are
you a mediocre developer? Enough to handle CRUD and a few extras? Good. Now to
get to work on your writing skills.

[0] <https://training.kalzumeus.com/lifecycle-emails>

~~~
nathanbarry
Well said. The more you teach, the more people will trust you. Focus
everything on sharing valuable information and it won't be hard to build a
business around that.

------
pc86
I eat out a lot because I'm a terrible cook. Even given my lack of culinary
skills, I never get salads or burgers because I can make that stuff at home.

That's why I am stingy as hell with software. I don't pay for anything because
I know I _could_ build it myself if I _really_ needed it. It's worked well so
far and it's a big reason why most of the $ I spend on software is for games.

But I'll be damned if I didn't read this and think "I'd pay a little bit of
money for that."

I've been following Nathan's work here on HN for a while, and I think that son
of a bitch finally got me. :)

Good luck, Nathan; I'm looking forward to see what comes out of CK.

~~~
alanctgardner2
I don't know if I follow the "I wouldn't buy that, I could do it myself"
approach, for a few reasons:

\- variable quality: you could do it, but could you do it as well? It's not
really a boolean proposition

\- updates/patches: you could reinvent the wheel, but do you want to spend
your whole life updating all the various wheels you've accumulated? Paying for
dev is also paying for support and upkeep, especially in the security space

\- time value: this is the biggest one, there's an opportunity cost attached
to pursuing commodity projects. You could write Quicken from scratch, but the
$20 you save probably doesn't cover your effort. And unless you were really
interested in the tax code, it's probably not very fun.

Following your example about food: we have a boutique salad restaurant near my
house. It's like $7 for a salad, which seems absurd. But they're giant salads,
and really filling, and most crucially they offer about 4 dozen toppings. I
can't personally justify having a fridge full of salad toppings: it's a lot of
work to keep stocked on fresh stuff, and I don't know how much money I'd
really save after all the waste. So I pay a little bit for the convenience,
and I can have my kale salad with chickpeas and grilled tofu and beets and
whatever else ridiculous stuff I feel like. It's all fresh and delicious, and
I don't think I could have reasonably produced it at home.

That attitude extends to software as well. If it does what I want, and it does
it well, I buy it. Apparently a lot of chefs end up eating out a lot, because
they don't want to cook when they get home from work.

~~~
nathanbarry
I've struggled with this issue a lot. I think when you are still learning or
have free time it is good to code or design your own solutions. But after a
while you learn that you could spend 40 hours (or more!) coding something, or
you could pay $50/month for it. If you value your time at more then a couple
bucks an hour (I do), then paying for software is a pretty easy decision.

Also I'd far rather have a team working on making it the best software for the
job, rather than what I could do on my own.

~~~
materialhero
Hey Nathan, Here's my impression:
[http://wesleyadam.com/post/42029080908/convertkit-a-
conversa...](http://wesleyadam.com/post/42029080908/convertkit-a-conversation)
I'd love to speak with you about it further. Hit me up.

------
rsobers
I think this is exactly the problem Rob Walling is solving with his new app
Drip (<http://getdrip.com>). Friction-free, end-to-end drip campaigns aimed at
increasing conversion rates. Competition!

I've had success with drip campaigns, but one key factor that is non-
negotiable is that the content has to be phenomenal. It's really not the tool
that matters. The reason why Patrick McKenzie can rave about double-digit
spikes from drip campaigns is because he is a great writer and even better
marketer.

------
web007
(FYI ConvertKit HTTPS is broken, at least on Chrome/Android.)

This was a no-brainer to buy: * I want to do EXACTLY this form of marketing,
and it's cheaper at $100 to buy it than build it, so +1.

* This is not my core competency, so another +1 to letting me focus on building what I want vs need.

* Finally, from an initial read it looks like you know what you're doing, and just the landing pages have enough tips/hints that I bookmarked them for reference whether I use ConvertKit or not. +1 again, and time to bust out the credit card.

~~~
nathanbarry
I'm really glad you find it helpful. Can you provide some more info about the
broken HTTPS? I don't have an Android phone to test on.

------
PhilipA
When you create good free content for the user, they automatically asume that
the paid content will be even better, which makes the selling point so much
easier.

------
makhanko
Unfortunately building trust using this method is becoming increasingly
difficult. The more sellers use it (up to the point that books are written
about it) the more it's being washed out and abused, the more aware consumers
become of the manipulation and the more they reject it. I see more and more
sellers having to resort to statements like "Free something - NO questions
asked, NO registration, NO strings attached...", which defeats the whole
purpose.

------
gurvinder
The problem you are trying to solve is not a software problem. the part which
you are trying to solve is the easiest part of the process. What to give free,
how to get them engaged etc etc are more difficult than just setting up a
landing page on wordpress.

------
nicksergeant
I can't help but feel I've "been had" by the time I got to the end of the
article. Ugh.

~~~
nicksergeant
To be clear: I like Nathan. I like his work.

But the feeling I got in my stomach when I started reading about ConvertKit
was not a good one. This particular post was not a sales pitch that (what I
think to be) Nathan's audience would be comfortable with.

------
dean
Hey! I just met you. Why are you trying to sell me something right after
saying hello?

~~~
nathanbarry
Ha, so true. It's always a challenge to sell to multiple audiences. That's why
the main call to action on that page is to get a free guide on increasing
conversion rates.

------
cpdean
Meta. Telling you how he builds trust by teaching his audience. In turn he's
teaching the audience. So he's building the audience's trust.

Recursive money algorithm.

------
damian2000
... is to get listed on the first page of HN.

------
ultramundane8
That's good marketing for database connections.

------
vicks711
Nathan berry has started to piss me off due to two reasons

One he is always ranting about the book he has written. Two he is giving
generic rant on how to sell stuff.

Come on dude show something original.

