good marketers borrow, great marketers steal

Hi {NAME}, Books, articles, courses, and podcasts are great for building your fundamentals. But how do you keep learning once you've built your foundation? There's always a next level. Here's what I default to: 1. Taking action and actually "doing it." There's no substitute for this. 2. Masterminding with others on your level or higher. 3. Observing and stealing. Let's talk about observing and stealing. One of my favorite video games growing up was Mortal Kombat. You know, the ultra violent video game. "GET OVER HEREEEEE!!!!!" Everyone's favorite character was either Sub Zero, Scorpion, or Liu Kang. Mine was Shang Tsung. My friends hated me for playing him. His special ability was he would steal your character's ability and use it against you. I always thought that was badass. It's kinda like grabbing someone's arm and going "Why are you hitting yourself?" [image] I realized early on in my career that you have to move fast in business. Whenever I'm being a perfectionist, I tell myself: "MONEY LOVES SPEED" The fastest way of moving in business is by standing on the shoulders of giants. Let's say you wanted to build an email funnel for your brand. You could do it the slow way. Research and write it out from scratch. Keep split testing. Or you could do it the fast way. Find the company you can for email funnels, that's somewhat similar to yours. They might've spent thousands of dollars hiring a copywriter to build it. They might've split tested the email flow for years. You should find and adapt it for yourself. Instead of starting from 0, you're starting from level 5. So today I want to share two tactics that I "stole" and implemented a few months ago. Conversion Tactics #1: Post-Purchase, Urgency Offer Your customer is HOT after they've purchased from you. The easiest way to increase your average order value is to give them a special offer immediately after they purchase. (You can do this easily with an app like Zipify's OneClickUpsell app.) [image] I want to share with you another tactic that you can use in addition to this. Immediately after they buy from you, send them an email with a time-sensitive offer. My lady bought something from a site called Yandy. And she showed me their email after she purchased. They offered her a deal of 5 underwear for $20, and there's an animated countdown timer below it. [image] Why this works: - You're targeting them immediately after they bought. Hot, hot, hot. - EXTREME urgency. The offer only lasts for one hour. People have short attention spans. There isn't any urgency if you're giving them a deal that's valid for 3 days. You can implement the timer functionality using a tool such as [MailTimers](. TRY THIS: Instead of email, try sending this offer via text message post-purchase using an app like SMSBump. The market is moving more towards SMS over email, especially with Gen Z. Conversion Tactics #2: Gift Cards instead of Free Shipping "Buy $50 worth of products and we'll offer you free shipping. Enter Code: Free Shipping" You've seen these offers on pretty much every e-commerce store out there. You're incentivizing them to order more from your store with free shipping. It's not as effective anymore because Bezos made every American feel entitled to Free Shipping. So, a few months ago I was shopping at Kohl's for the first time. We spent over $100, and they gave us these coupons worth $20. They're called Kohl's Cash. Here's a promotion that they were running last week. [image] Why it works: - The $20 felt like actual money to me. In psychology, this is the loss aversion bias. We HATE avoiding losses. If I don't go back to use my Kohl's Cash, it feels like I lost $20. I would not feel this same pressure if they offered me 20% off. - It's only redeemable between December 10 - 20 AKA prime Christmas shopping season. You're forcing them to use it or lose it. More urgency. - You're encouraging repeat purchases. So instead of free shipping, you can try: "Order $75+ worth of products, and we'll give you a $25 gift card." Give it a time limit of one week. Create an email flow to remind them of how long they have left to use it. 2 Takeaways: 1. Inspiration can come from anywhere. Marketers limit themselves to what they find on spy tools, or online. I saw this strategy used in the "real world." 2. Understand the principles of why a tactic works. Tactics come and go. But the principles of urgency, scarcity, and buying temperature are timeless. Actions: Create a database in Airtable or Notion. Create tags based on what you like about each brand. Here's an example: [image] So if you're working on building out your influencer program, you can filter all the brands that you think have great influencer programs. Observe and look for patterns. Then implement. You Should Know: - An Easy Way to Keep Up /w DTC Brands: I mentioned that I love learning by observing other companies. The problem? There are way too many brands launching for me to keep up with. One website I've been using a lot is [ThingTesting.com](. It curates the coolest e-commerce companies out there. A great easy way to get inspiration on design and business models. - [Italic, the Costco of Luxury](: I LOVE balling on a budget. I used to be really into luxury brands a decade ago. Now, I think of luxury brands as insecurity tax. "Hey, look at meeeee. I spent $500 on some shit that cost them $75 so I can try to look rich. I got $2,000 worth of name brand stuff but $0 saved for retirement." Don't get me wrong - I enjoy quality. I just don't think it's worth the 500% mark up. And I'm not interested in paying to be a walking billboard. I finally found a compromise called Italic. They go to the same factories in China that make all the luxury brands. They procure it and sell it to you at cost. They don't make a profit. Their business model? You pay $125 a year for the membership kinda like Costco. If any of you remember, I was kinda obsessed with premium bed sheets earlier this year. I ended up spending $200 on Eucalyptus bed sheets. They were BOMB, and I don't regret it. I joined Italic and saw that they sell Eucalyptus sheet sets for $100. They came in last week. IT'S LEGIT THE SAME ITEM. Anyways, check 'em out. [Here's my affiliate link.]( You get $15 credit. If you guys sign up, I'm going to get myself some more bedsheets. I love this company as a customer, and I think this is a genius business model. Stay focused, Charles p.s. Thanks so much for all the birthday messages! It means a lot to know how some of you will remember me. My story's not over yet. I will keep learning and growing. Thank you for being a part of my journey. p.p.s. Next week, I'm releasing a step by step tutorial on how to do annual planning. I suggest you book an AIRBNB near nature for a few days to do this. Marketing is Hard, Some Resources to Make it Easier - [The Lead Gen Engine:]( Are you wondering what the best path in affiliate marketing is in 2020? It's running white-hat, lead generation offers on Facebook. [Sign up]( for my free training to learn some strategies. - [The Best Tools:]( A curated list of the best tools in affiliate marketing. If you were forwarded this email, you can [subscribe]( here. [Unsubscribe]( AFFcelerator, LLC 199 E Flagler St #398 Miami, Florida 33131 United States