2:7 Generate More Demand - Lawrence Howlett
2:7 Generate More Demand - Lawrence Howlett 

2:7 Generate More Demand

We have a fantastic episode here for you with Lawrence Howlett from New Edge Media and from More Demand, an amazing Web Agency involved with some biiiig players. He shares fascinating insights into running an agency, and also opens up some fantastic strategy you can apply to your business today!

Lee Matthew Jackson
Lee Matthew Jackson

We have a fantastic episode here for you with Lawrence Howlett from New Edge Media and from More Demand, an amazing Web Agency involved with some biiiig players. He shares fascinating insights into running an agency, and also opens up some fantastic strategy you can apply to your business today!

Lawrence Howlett - Entrepreneur

Guest

Lawrence Howlett

Entrepreneur

Action You Can Apply Today:

Create before you consume. Create what you want to do before anything else, blog or podcast. Consuming will cloud your mind. Understand your limitation

Resources:

101 ways to generate leads:

Available to download from https://www.newedge.co.uk/.

WordPress Plugins:

Webinar ignition: http://webinarignition.com/

Yoast: https://yoast.com/

Lead boxes: http://www.leadpages.net/

Sumo me:https://en-gb.wordpress.org/plugins/sumome/

Connect With Lawrence:

Twitter: @lawrencehowlett

Website: https://www.newedge.co.uk/

LinkedIn -https://www.linkedin.com/in/lawrencehowlett/

Transcript

Note: This transcript was auto generated. As our team is small, we have done our best to correct any errors. If you spot any issues, we'd sure appreciate it if you let us know and we can resolve! Thank you for being a part of the community.

Lee: Hi and welcome to the WP Innovator Podcast. The WordPress Podcast for design and Web agencies. Let's make WordPress work for your business. Hi and welcome to the WP Innovator podcast. This is your host, Lee Jackson, and we've got a great episode lined up for you today. Our guest today is Laurence Howlett from New Edge Media. Now, I was listening to Entrepreneur on Fire. That's no surprise to you guys. You know how much I love that podcast. And as I was listening, I was thinking New Edge Media. I'm sure I've heard of that company. Well, lo and behold, I found out that New edge is actually down the road from me. So this is the first podcast where the person I'm interviewing actually lives only five minutes away from me. So that was kind of surreal and kind of cool at the same time. This episode is brilliant, though. It's full of knowledge bombs. Laurence is so experienced in running agencies and has great advice for us, so recommend you hang out for the whole episode. Now, before we crack on, I'd like to read to you a review that's come in. That's been really encouraging for us. And if you do want to go ahead and leave a review, you can head over to iTunes or Stitcher and leave a review for us that helps people to decide whether or not they want to listen to the show. And obviously, for us, it's really super encouraging. So this one came in from Anne. This Anne, 59, is her handle and she entitled this one behind the curtain. Great to hear honest reviews with folk who talk about the struggles along the way, plus super helpful tips. I especially like the question what's the go to plugin? Great job, exclamation mark. So thank you. And that's really cool. We really appreciate it. Definitely made me feel warm and fuzzy. So if you want to make me feel warm and fuzzy and encourage the team here, then go ahead, leave a review on iTunes or on Stitcher and we'll be sure to try and get that read out in an up and coming episode. Now, before we finally crack on, I'd really love to meet you all in the Innovator private group. You can find that on Lee-jackson Devcom forward slash group that's Lee-jackson dev.com/group. And in there you're going to find fellow listeners, fellow entrepreneurs, fellow web designers, web developers, design agencies, etcetera. And we want to grow a group where as peers we can help each other through the complex online marketing and development procedures. So let's get on there, let's chat, let's have fun, maybe even post cat pictures if you want to, and let's catch up there. So without further ado, on with the show. Guys, welcome to the WP Innovator podcast. And today we have a first, which I'm really excited about. It's actually two firsts. We're having a guy who runs a web agency on the podcast who also is based in the UK, so this is my first UK interview at 9:00 in the morning when I'm as fresh as a daisy rather than 9 a.m. The guy is a Laurence Howlett from a New Edge Media and from more demand mate. How are you doing?

Laurence Howlett : Yeah, very good, thank you. It's a pleasure to be on the podcast today and to be your first UK guest. Now that is a first. We all love speaking to the Americans, but it's great to have a bit of, you know, English on the podcast. How about that?

Lee: Exactly. And we've only found out that we literally live like five minutes away from each other, which is also just nuts. Kind of blows my mind. So we.

Laurence Howlett : Still using Skype and.

Lee: We're still using Skype, but probably because I can't even work out how the hell we would record a podcast both in the same room without it all sounding echoey and that I don't have the right kit. I'd have I'd actually have to invest in new kit just to have you here. So yeah. So hopefully there should be no excuses as well with Skype and the internet connection, mate. Yeah, let's hope so. It's it's settings apart. So as I said, Lawrence runs New Edge Media. I heard of him from the John Lee Dumas podcast. He was interviewed on the John Lee Dumas podcast. And I was thinking, I know that company name and it was really bugging me. So I went ahead and I Googled and lo and behold, just based down the road from US New Edge Media. Now Lawrence has also got this really cool website called More Demand. He runs a podcast which is focused on online marketing, etcetera, which is hugely, hugely valuable. And he's also got a course as well, which I've actually taken on. And we're going to talk about more about that later on. But mate, and before I kind of murder all about you, why don't you just give us a short introduction to yourself, who you are, what you do, hobbies, your business, etcetera, just so people can get to know you.

Laurence Howlett : Yeah, sure thing. No, thanks for that. And yeah, I mean, I started my agency 11 years ago now in in university, so that's all I've ever done is own new edge and be one of the directors there. So I started up in university to to actually pay for some flying lessons that I was having. So so I learnt to fly while paying, paying my way in university through doing websites and and I've never ever looked looked back and you know initially obviously we're doing the the sort of starter websites like your plumbers, your decorators your you know garden maintenance companies and and over the years you know we've progressed to have some amazing clients like Anglian Water days in hotels Tesco mobile So you know some of those those sort of proud moments when you bring a big client on board you know. But but it is, it is a journey without a doubt. Through, through the trials and tribulations of growing growing an agency. So but it's been an exciting journey up to now in terms of hobbies and things like that. I absolutely love motorsport. And, you know, motorsport is one of the things I've done since eight years old. I was lucky enough to race with most of the Formula One grid today, Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button and all the guys. So yeah, you can you can check out fully throttled just a.

Lee: Bit of name dropping there. Yeah exactly.

Laurence Howlett : Yeah. You know all the guys that are in the top flight motorsport. So I was lucky enough to, to do that early in my sort of teenage years. And so and then, then I absolutely love running the agency. I love everything about digital marketing. I get an absolute buzz from it. And that's why we started more demand because we saw that, you know, a lot of our customers were getting this new website and, you know, having a website developed by us that has the foundations of search engine optimization, has all the tools and features there to to give them the ability to to generate leads, but they simply weren't executing on that. So we created more demand to help people execute on their digital marketing plan. So, I mean, that's the sort of real difference from the, you know, we've got the strategies there. But I absolutely love tactical execution. And I think that's what matters is getting people to actually take action and, you know, get on with their digital marketing and generate leads. You know, that's what's important for for all websites, you know, out there is whether you're generating a lead for a sale or whether, you know, I still count it generating leads for organizations that are, you know, non profit. They still need to connect with their customers and and, you know, data capture and then learn more about that particular lead or prospect and and how they then help them and serve them better. So that's where more demand comes from, but particularly in the sort of. Business to business lead generation is where I'm targeting for for more demand because I think that's where we can help the best and help serve our audience the best.

Lee: That's brilliant. So I think you've just admitted your hobby is your work, and if you love what you do, it's not really work, is it?


Laurence Howlett : No, this is it. No, this is it. So I do absolutely love what we do. And and I couldn't couldn't imagine doing anything else. I get an absolute buzz from doing these podcasts as well. So, you know, it's it's it's really, really interesting times to be involved in in the digital world.

Lee: It's funny some evenings when I'm saying to my wife, right, I'm just going to chill out now and I'm going to do some programming. She's like, Lee, that's work. I'm like, No, I'm actually going to teach myself something, some new programming, and I absolutely love doing it. Yeah. So yeah, and, and that actually chills me out and I'm quite happy to do that. So and you can also tell the passion in your voice. I love the concept of, of more demand as well, you know, equipping people beyond the build. And I'm reminded a couple of episodes ago, we interviewed a guy who set up a theme website and he said, I can't quite remember how he said it, but which was really funny the way it came out. And he said that we built a website and got exactly zero customers. Yeah, it was just so funny.

Laurence Howlett : That is exactly the pain point of most of you know, our clients is, you know, you build a fantastic website and then you switch it on and they're going, they're sitting there waiting for waiting for the contact form to be filled out. And and you've got to think, think past that, you know, and you've got to have so many more data capture points than just the contact form. So it is, you know, really, really important exercise for all designers, you know, just to think beyond what is, you know, what actually makes it look good and think, you know, how are we actually going to capture data and help the person that's visiting this website rather than just show them, you know, a big pretty picture and a slider on the homepage? You know, it has to go a lot deeper than that.

Lee: Absolutely. Sometimes as well. I wonder what to put on the slider. I feel like I have to have a slider because everyone else does, but I'm never quite sure what to put on there.

Laurence Howlett : Yeah, number one tip, do not have sliders. They don't get used. So. Exactly. I've never clicked.

Lee: I've never clicked. Next I don't think on a, on a client site like the client side on a site I've visited but exactly yeah but they do look pretty. That is the other thing. That is.

Laurence Howlett : The thing. That's the designer's problem. It looks really good though. Really, really.

Lee: Nice. So, mate, over the last 11 years and honestly, you don't look old enough. Young whippersnapper. I think we're the same age. I'm 33. I won't make you admit on air what your age is. But anyway, um, what's been the biggest challenge over the 11 years for your business.

Laurence Howlett : So we've been quite lucky in that we've had year on year on year growth. But that doesn't come without challenges. So one of the main things is keeping the lead funnel, you know, full and, and, you know, ensuring that we've got enough leads to continually deliver on cashflow and also building up and recurring revenue. That's another challenge. I'll go into these a bit deeper in a second, but recurring revenue was was another challenge that we needed to build up the number one absolute pain that's caused the most late nights and early mornings and stress is hosting. Without a doubt, hosting is the number one thing that we have had a nightmare with over the years. We've now got it sorted. But you know, probably take us back to three years ago and you know, we had some big problems with our hosting where we were, you know, sold an incorrect platform, should we say. And and it just didn't work out. And no clients had emails, you know, for about five days. All our clients, you know. Yeah, I know. I can hear.

Lee: The calls now. We're losing money.

Laurence Howlett : Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Lee: No, it's pretty, pretty much that. And and I even had the chief programmer of the parallels Plesk panel on the phone from Microsoft and they didn't have a clue what was going on with it either. So. So but we did successfully sue Microsoft, so that's good.

Laurence Howlett : Well done. Well done.

Lee: So I can just imagine, though, a grown man crying, that would have been me if that would have been the case. Five days downtime. It's just awful, mate. Yeah. So, yeah, so that's sort of the other side.


Laurence Howlett : Yeah, exactly. You know, that's one of the biggest challenges and, and what, what the lessons, you know, came from. That is we just accepted that this big company would be able to, to do what we wanted. And we didn't go into it in enough depth. So we needed to take the time to investigate that properly and actually go and meet people, spend the time with people. You know, I think very much in in our point and click world, you know, we just instantly trust because they've got a good looking website because, you know, it looks good. It it feels right. It doesn't mean that the business behind it is what they say it is. So, you know, I've sort of, you know, urge anyone that's going to do that point and click exercise to actually take a minute and, you know, have a think about what they're getting themselves into, who's behind it, try out their support, call the support line, you know, see if they they pick up. Do they they, you know, native English speakers, for example. Is it are they Linux engineers for for, you know, support for hosting and ask them some detailed questions and because because we didn't and we made that mistake and I have certainly learnt from it.

Lee: That's that's a really, really good, good advice. I'm definitely guilty of the point and click thing. You know, I want things instantly where a consumer society aren't we we we want things now and the idea of applying for a hosting package and waiting 24 hours and talking to people would normally not cross my mind. I'd expect an email within 30 minutes saying Here are your hosting details, upload everything, etcetera. Whereas actually it's so important to find out what is the support like. I've had a similar journey to yourself, not not quite so harsh, but definitely had experiences where with, with hosting providers, you know, it's been regular downtimes and it's certainly affected my credibility with clients etcetera. And then was able to finally find not quite the way you did. I just found it by kissing a lot of frogs. I think you guys must have done the research eventually to find the right guys. I had to kiss a lot of frogs before I found the perfect hosting for. For our guys. And we'd actually sell the hosting. I mean, I'm happy to name drop. It's so host that we use and but we don't essentially we don't host for clients. We ask the client to develop the relationship with the host direct right which I think is unusual for most agencies. But bearing in mind that we supply design agencies, the design agency themselves might then use TSO host or they might use their own host. But yeah, if a client wants us to host, we'll just send them off in that direction to avoid, you know, similar sorts of scenarios that, that you talked about where, you know, I was up at 2 a.m. one morning with the support line trying to sort stuff out. It's it's a very, very scary time.


Laurence Howlett : How is.

Lee: Grid host these days.

Laurence Howlett : Grid.

Lee: Host Oh you use you use them as well.

Laurence Howlett : I've been I've.

Lee: Been through TSO host in their very early days. I understand that they've had a lot a lot of funding and change their model completely and we do now reuse them. But, but yeah, early days was a bit more rocky and.

Laurence Howlett : But.

Lee: Yeah we used their, we only use their set up so we never use grid host itself. I've got a grid host package for development which is flaky sometimes but the actual, the actual. Set up that they've got. It's not cheap, but it works pretty well. And I usually always get someone on the phone and because it knows.

Laurence Howlett : What they're talking about.

Lee: Exactly. And I we've used them now for about three years. They've definitely improved. And I think because I kicked up enough stunk stinks in the in the original days I actually kind of know several of the main guys there. So I'm able to say put me in touch with X, Y, Z. And they're like, Oh, crap, we better. Yeah.

Laurence Howlett : Yeah, yeah. Fair enough.

Lee: Yeah. Cool, man. That's awesome. Um, not awesome for you then, but great advice. Awesome advice. I mean, to say so. I mean, it's fantastic. You've had 11 years of consistent growth. You mentioned that you, you know, two of the challenges as well were things like reoccurring revenue and, you know, your lead funnel, you know, dealing with cash flow, etcetera. Has there been kind of any idea that you guys or something you've been able to implement to kind of resolve those two issues?

Laurence Howlett : Yeah. So in terms of the lead generation, I mean, we've got some, you know, active campaigns and funnels that we we use and we've recently got ourselves into Facebook marketing and, you know, using Facebook ads and LinkedIn ads and a LinkedIn methodology for generating leads as well. And that I'm actually going to do. I'm scripting a podcast right now and it's going to be episode 23 on the More Demand podcast. So that LinkedIn funnel is working really well for us at the moment. And we're also using Facebook ads to point to lead magnets. So for example, we developed Magento websites. So we've got a few different checklists depending on where people are in their Magento journey. So we sort of looked at looked at where people could be. So are they thinking about moving to Magento? Are they on Magento but not getting enough sales? Are they on Magento? And they've got security issues and, you know, all these different challenges that a customer might be having. And then we looked at, you know, who that customer is, where they hang out online. So are they on LinkedIn? Are they in certain groups? Are they in certain industries? And then we'll go ahead and target those specific lead magnets to to them. So that's a way that we've, you know, continually building up our email list of people that are interested in Magento sites. We understand where they are in their journey so that then when we have a conversation with them, we can say, Oh, we noticed you downloaded the, you know, the Magento starting checklist. You know, have you, you know, thought about migrating to Magento? Are you just thinking about opening a store from your, you know, your bricks and mortar store, for example, and then we can have a, you know, a more interesting conversation than just sort of starting from from scratch with them. Plus the fact they've already, you know, downloaded that lead magnet. They've got some value from it. And and it does work really well because all of a sudden you can have a conversation about the lead magnet. So it's not a cold conversation either, you know, Did you check out page two? What did you think of these, you know, these points, for example? And I think that can be done with, you know, any sort of, um, you know, software, whether it be WordPress, whether it be Magento, it's two step beyond the software and think actually where are the person's challenge and how do we help solve that through the software. So not selling the features of the software or it's got this, you know, this CRM. Great. So what can I do with that? CRM Well, you actually we're looking at increasing the lifetime value of the customer because we can do remarketing and lapsed marketing to them through Magento. So that's, that's the benefit. And so it's looking, looking at those and, and, you know, tying that in with the challenges and then go into the places where those people are hanging out online and marketing those lead magnets to them. You know it's an easy, nice, easy soft sell. And then we have an automated funnel afterwards that follows up to to generate appointment bookings. So for example, they've downloaded the checklist. We'll then send them a couple of days later. Would you like a demonstration of Magento? And if they don't answer that, we send them a different email. If they do answer that, that goes into our appointment calendar and then we can show them through Magento. And so, so yeah, we've definitely thought about lead generation in quite a bit of detail and link that up to, you know, where people are in their different stages of development. And we've even got a lead in fact came through yesterday, which is, you know, have you fallen out with your developer while you're developing your Magento site? You know, is it taking longer than six months to develop your Magento site, if I can get my words out? And so, yeah, you know, all those different challenges are where we're targeting people. So it's very challenge based lead generation and that's what's working, working well for us. And we're, you know, more and more being seen as an authority in the market because we're helping solve. Those challenges rather than just go, Hey, we provide Magento design, hey, we provide Magento development, hey, we provide, you know, WordPress design and you know, there's going to become a point where no one really cares about that enough. They want to know the benefit they're going to get out of it. You know, even if you're supplying into design agencies as an outsource partner, you know, you've got to think beyond the skills. What else can you offer? Well, I'm going to always offer on time, you know, delivery or I'm going to be offer, you know, extended support level agreement or, you know, whatever it is to to differentiate yourself from, you know, run of the mill and coder and designer.

Lee: I just love that line. Challenge based lead generation. Oh, that's gold. Yeah, I just wrote that down. I've always I've always kind of marketed myself based on specific challenges to design agencies because like, like I said, I supply design agencies with WordPress code. So they'll do the designs and then they'll outsource all of the code generation and sometimes project management, stuff like that over to me. So kind of it's like an extension of their team. So I've always kind of put that out. As you know, have you got this problem with your freelancer? Have you, you know, is the project running late, all that sort of stuff. But I've never quite coined a phrase for it before. That's gorgeous. Challenge based lead generation. I've unconsciously been doing this. And yeah, I kind of got excited as well about your LinkedIn mythology. I've just written in capital letters, I want this. Yeah, yeah. LinkedIn is rocket science to me, man. You know, I can I can program a complex website and then I try and use LinkedIn and I'm like, WTF?

Laurence Howlett : Yeah, yeah, definitely. So who are all these people? I'm going to.

Lee: I'm going to give you the.

Laurence Howlett : Quick sort of 30.

Lee: Seconds LinkedIn.

Laurence Howlett : Method. Well, I see the light. You hopefully will. So number one.

Lee: Is you got to know who you want to target. Absolutely. Specifically who you want to target. Are they marketing managers? Are they, you know, for example, for you, are they directors of, you know, owners of of owners of agencies? And so, first of all, you know, identify who you want to target. And you can go into LinkedIn and search for people, click on the advanced tab, and then you can literally say what job title you want to target the radius from your post code. So if you just want to target local area, you can do that in LinkedIn as well. You can choose specific industries. So for example, if you wanted to go after agriculture or aviation or whatever it is, and you can target those specific industries. So once you've got a prospecting list, you then want to optimize your profile to talk to those people. So a lot of people's profile is all about them, which is wrong. It should be all about your prospects, not about you. No one cares about you, unfortunately. You know, that's the hard truth. They care about.

Laurence Howlett : Themselves.

Lee: Everyone cares about.

Laurence Howlett : Themselves.

Lee: And so that's the thing you want to, you know, in the summer, it's not about you. It's about your potential prospects, challenges and how you can help solve them. That then links to one of those lead magnets or links to one of those sort of free consultations or whatever it is you can do to help people make that initial inquiry so you can optimize your profile for that. Make sure you've got a high def photo. None, none of this cheesy holiday photo cutouts or crops. Just just go and pay someone.

Laurence Howlett : Delete, delete. No, I'm joking. Don't pay someone.

Lee: To have a proper photo done. You know, it makes a world of difference and expertise section. Again, this is an area where you want to add all your skills so you can get endorsed by your LinkedIn connections and then go and get endorsed and recommended by your LinkedIn connections so that someone goes on there. You've got the proof that you are what you say you are, and people say, Yes, you can do it. And because without that you're just, you know, saying that you can do it with no proof. So get recommended and then go and join a load of groups that your prospects are in. Not that you're in, not not industry, you know. So, for example, for us, if we went and went into the creative pool group, absolutely useless for finding prospects. It's just full of your competitors and you know, go and join local business groups, go and join anything. So for example, if you're targeting, I don't know, ISO 9001 certification for CEOs of aviation, you know, go and find ISO 9001 groups, you know, to to join and find aviation groups to join. And rather than just, you know, join in industry, you know, groups that are part of your your job, you know, you want to go and find where your prospects are and you then want to contribute to those groups quite simply and easily contribute high quality content to those groups. So your top of mind and then just go and connect with all of those group members. Click Connect. You can do unlimited connection requests on LinkedIn and in turn after about one. Today they will ask you to put a CAPTCHA in. But essentially if you're doing 100 a day, your mind would be bored anyway. But now go and do 100 every single day. That's 100 different connections that you can have every single day and just send them a message. And, you know, introducing yourself, not a hard sell or anything like that. Just saying thanks for the connection. Look forward to, you know, helping you further. And then a few days later, follow that up with a with a free bit of advice or a link to a blog post that you've written that's specific to them. And then they're on your website. You know, they're then available to, you know, click through to the contact page to, to fill in the lead magnet form, you know, to download the, the case study or the PDF or the eBook or the checklist or whatever it is. And and that's as simple as it is, you know, go ahead, join these groups, connect with the people in those groups after you know who you want to target and offer them some value. You know, that's pretty much as simple as it is. And it works really well because, you know, there's not a whole host of people doing it right now.

Laurence Howlett : That's brilliant. And that was definitely not 30 seconds.

Lee: Yeah, sorry.

Laurence Howlett : Don't worry. That's fine. I was just trying to write notes quietly without you picking up this time of me hammering the keyboard as fast as I could. I just thought as well, if you drive people to your site, you then got the retargeting pixel from Facebook as well. And lo and behold, you can start appearing on Facebook as well. In front of them. They'll be like, Whoa, these guys are everywhere. Yeah. Brand awareness. I don't know if you recommend that or not. It's just my brain whirring ahead of itself already. I'm like, Yeah, wow. And then I could do this. Yeah. Oh, man. And then I could do that. Yeah, it's exciting.

Lee: It. It's nuts. Yeah.

Laurence Howlett : Yeah, it is. Definitely, you know that Facebook retargeting works so well. And the thing with the retargeting ads is that it's a lower cost per click as well because they've already been to your website. Facebook sort of gives you some kudos for that if you like. And normally you'll find that the, you know, the price per click or the cost per acquisition will go down and you've got a warm audience to speak to. And then if you're really, really clever and advanced, you can even say, you know, if they hit the lead magnet page didn't download it and you can target, you know, retarget that lead magnet to them to get them back onto the website and download it.

Lee: Yeah, yeah. Because you can have multiple pixels can't you or something. I've not got that far yet.

Laurence Howlett : Yeah. It's, it's a single.

Lee: Pixel but now they've got sort of if then rules. So if they've visited this page but not that page then do this. And so yeah you can really get super specific but, but you can also waste a ton of time in there as well. So it's worth, you know, reading up on, I mean, Amy Porterfield's Facebook Ads 101 course is really good for a couple of hundred dollars. And that's that's, you know, where I started my foundation of Facebook ads. So so that's worthwhile program too to have a look around.

Laurence Howlett : Yeah And she runs a great podcast as well as Amy porterfield.com. If you've not heard of the Amy Porterfield podcast, she I think her line is making marketing really easy and she really does. It's a she runs a great she runs a great podcast, but also offers like massive value every single episode, like a massive cribsheet or download or something per podcast. So like normally I'm making notes or trying to remember stuff. And with her you just, you know, you can just sit back, relax, listen and then download whatever it is she's talked about afterwards.

Lee: And that's, that's her marketing as well because that's lead generation because then got to put your name and email address in to download that. So so that's called content upgrades. And so that's, that's another method that we use. So for example, if you're writing, you know, a guide on how to do something really advanced in WordPress, write half of it, give that away for free. And then to read more, you've got to put your name and email address in and we'll send you the full PDF. And so, you know, that's, that's a content upgrade and it works so well. You know, we've got thousands of subscribers now through those content upgrades.

Laurence Howlett : Wow. I can't say I've got thousands yet. Yeah. Subscribers. I'm still building my list. Yeah. I was a bit late to the party, I'm afraid, with this building.

Lee: Yeah.

Laurence Howlett : No, it's landgrab time for. For, for list building for sure.

Lee: Landgrab That's a good way of putting it. So there's quite a lot of courses out there now as well about list building, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to be hitting list building with the course I'm doing with you as well. So let's, let's talk about that. So we've got the the more demand website that we talked about, there's more demand Co.uk where you're running the you have a slider.

Laurence Howlett : Yeah, well, it's a single slide. It's a single.

Lee: Slide. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. For the record, he says sliders. So this is a slider. Yeah. Joking with you man, and it's via this website. Obviously we can access the podcast, but you've also got things like resources, you've got the new course as well. Could you just give us a bit of a lowdown of, of what the course is all about and kind of who the course is specifically targeted at?

Laurence Howlett : Yeah, sure. So. So jumpstart your digital marketing and you know, it's essentially for anyone that that wants to generate high quality value, you know, high quality, high value leads. And, you know, it's going to help you start with the foundations of digital marketing. We're going to, you know, look through email marketing. We're going to look through how to create these lead magnets and how to create the landing pages that they go on, what traffic sources you're going to use to to to pump traffic to those landing pages. And but we're also going to even before all those tactics, we're going to look at the strategy and really diagnose who you want to target, why you're targeting, how you can add value to them, what unique value propositions you can add to them, and what that solution offering is that goes back up to their challenges again. And so it is really challenge focused. And and there's you know, throughout the program there are activities every single lesson to to fill out checklists. You know, in terms of maybe you're looking to generate ten times more leads a month. Well, we've got a lead generation fit test that will show you what that looks like. You know, how many how many more leads is that every single day that you've got to to generate. How are you going to do that in terms of, well, want to generate one lead a day? Does that mean 100 visits a day to your website where you're going to get those from? And it really links all those dots up that that currently, you know, you might be thinking, well, I'm just going to try and do this with a silver bullet. And, you know, it's 100% not a silver bullet of one tactic. It's actually a foundation and understanding of digital marketing and, you know, how you can use that to generate those high quality leads in your business. And so, yeah, it is ideal for for Web agencies, you know, to be honest, that's exactly, you know, where we're sort of targeting the courses, anyone in business to business service based that wants to generate high quality leads. That's where the Jumpstart program, you know, really sort of hits home. And and and we've got also some, you know, additional resources in there, some interviews from Joe Polizzi, from the Content Marketing Institute, Neil Patel from from Crazy Egg and KISSmetrics. And we've got Oli Gardner in there as well from unbounce.com talking about landing pages. And so there's tons of resources in there. And yeah, I mean we've had I think about 4500 students now go through the program. So, so it's, you know, gaining, gaining traction and, and gaining a bit of bit of authority. Should we should we say so? But it is our first course that we put together. And and it's it's it was a really exciting journey to to learn about, you know, this informational product and that you can create and and and the scalability and you know sort of recurring revenue or money while you sleep if you like that that you can have from that without you being there. You know the sales can can roll in. So that was an interesting concept to explore. And from where we were before, which was all project based and you had to be there to, you know, it was money for for hours worked and which is, you know, which is exactly where, you know, all of us are in the the agency world. And we all need to have a think about how we're going to, you know, create recurring revenue, create, you know, scalable income. And and that's exactly where, you know, jump start, you know, sort of helps out in thinking about those different ways to to generate leads and why you want to to generate those leads for for Pacific you know project based or whether we want to do it for recurring revenue and and how we're going to sort of build up our future in terms of our email list because that is, you know, so important. So there is a list building element in there as well because without a list, you know, we have to go and find new people all of the time, whereas with a list we can market to them. And, and you know, it's a bit like thinking of it like an ATM, if you like, you've got a big list and then you can just go and say, right, we need to up our, you know, revenue this month. Right? Let's do do an email blast for this specific product. And you'd be surprised of what the results are, you know, from from doing that that sort of email blast to to a really targeted list with a really targeted product. It's it is absolutely insane, to be honest.

Lee: Yeah.

Laurence Howlett : That's amazing. And the for myself I can actually vouch for the course. I'm working my way through it as well and I'm involved as well on the Facebook community you've got going on there that came with the course. The one of the things that really kind of was an eye opener for me was the lead generation goals section. So that was where you talk to. You know, how many leads do you have to generate? How much? You know, you've got like how much revenue you want. What increase in revenue do you need? Yeah. How many leads do you do you need to generate to generate that? How many leads do you need to get in, you know, based on your conversion ratios, etcetera? But now it sounds like rocket science, but it's not the way you've done it in the course. It's made it really easy. You've provided all of the documentation, tables, explainers, etcetera to make it really easy, right down to the point where I was able to quickly define that. I only need two two sales or two high value sales or five lower cost sales of two different types of product that I do to increase my revenue by 20% in a year, which makes that I don't know, It just makes me feel super focused on that now and it sounds super achievable. In fact, I'm almost tempted to increase that.

Lee: Yeah. Yeah.

Laurence Howlett : I mean that's, that is the, the point of the, the whole course was, you know, when, when I started creating it, I didn't have clarity, I didn't have focus. So to, to create a course that actually helped me through that journey and, and helped me get, you know, focus and clarity on exactly who we're talking to, why we're talking to them and what that means in terms of our, you know, ambitions and our goals. Because, you know, a business that hasn't got goals, you know, is just going to meander through, you know, through life. And so, you know, you need those goals to to achieve, you know, it doesn't have to be, you know, you don't have to want to set the world alight. But like you say, a 20% growth, that's, you know, that's big year on year growth. Um, but once you've defined that and you understand, well, actually, you know, it's only, you know, whatever it is, two more WordPress sites a month or two digital marketing contracts a month or, you know, whatever it is, and you know, that then gives you focus and you can then start applying, you know, the 80 over 20 stuff of get out of your inbox and get on with, you know, doing those leads.

Lee: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah.

Laurence Howlett : So it is, you know, you've got to you've got to really, really you've got to be your own self analyst in terms of, you know, what are you spending time on, What could you be better spending that time on and how does my time being spent align with those goals. And that's that's what, you know, Jump start is going to teach you the principles of that. And it's also going to, you know, teach you knowing your limitations because we all burn the candle at both ends, the wick at both ends. That's the same. And but but, you know, we've got to understand our limitations and have that that bit of balance as well.

Lee: You see, I actually thought it was the candle. So I feel like I've learned something else new. Yeah.

Laurence Howlett : The wick burn the wick, don't you? I think I'm pretty sure I'm not. I'm not sure.

Lee: So, guys, if you're interested in this course, it's more demand co.uk. So go to more demand forward slash resources. It's the second link down. It's a recommended training of a jumpstart your digital marketing. Now, I guess a testament to the way your funnels work was. I actually downloaded your free e-book of a hundred ways sorry, a hundred ideas of generating leads. So that was a nice PDF, which I also then used one of those PDF to Kindle converters and it's on my Kindle now as well. And you've got in there a hundred ideas, but by that you got my email address and then your, your kind of, your funnel then started with the email saying, hey, look at this course. And it definitely appealed to my pain points and boom, you had me. Yeah, I think you had me at Hello mate. Yeah, yeah. And I was in and I started the course, you know, and and me and you didn't have to speak once about that whole thing. That was how the process worked. You were potentially flying a plane. Yeah, I was. Or whatever you were doing, and I was buying your course, so it's really cool.

Laurence Howlett : Yeah. I mean, we've.

Lee: Got, we've got, you know, two different funnels in there. We've got that 101 ways to generate leads e-book and you know, which is, which is a free resource. And you can, you can grab that a couple of different ways, more demand podcast.com and you can go there and download that. And we've also done webinar marketing. So I went through Amy Porterfield's webinars that convert course and, and, and that was an eye opener in terms of what webinars can do. And so more demand.co, dot UK forward slash free webinar is actually another funnel to jumpstart your digital marketing. So on there I've created a one, a one hour video, one hour webinar and that that goes through a three step system that I use to build my agency to, to, you know, half £1 million where it is today and it just goes through at high level what the different steps are. And actually and it actually goes through the sort of jumpstart program at very high level and. At the end of that, obviously there's a pitch just for five minutes at the end. So I've given, you know, nearly an hour's worth of really, really good content. And then, you know, the five minutes at the end is where, you know, you get the pitch opportunity and that's that's a really good funnel. And you could be doing that for, you know, WordPress sites, you could be doing that for Magento sites. And, you know, there's no reason why you can't do a webinar on how to increase your sales through Magento with these four steps or these four tactics. You know, do that webinar, put some Facebook ads out there, do some LinkedIn ads, and then, you know, you've got yourself a funnel set up. And at the end of that, obviously pitch a free consultation or, you know, whatever it is, it doesn't have to be an informational product. It can actually work, you know, really well for B2B lead generation as well.

Laurence Howlett : That's awesome, mate. So you're more demand site is actually running on WordPress. Is there any WordPress plugin that you would recommend?

Lee: Yeah. So on the on the webinar side of things, I use webinar ignition and that allows you to set up automated Evergreen webinar funnels. It does all the pre marketing and post marketing for you, so it will send out as soon as someone registers, it will then send them out an email to say This is the calendar date. You can then, you know, edit those emails to say whatever you want with variable replacements. And then you, you then obviously get the person on the webinar and at a certain point in the webinar as well, you can show a call to action. So at minute 43 in the video, it will then show a call to action, a buy now button or a free consultation request. Yeah, yeah. So it just monitors the video and then yeah, bang it goes, you know, into that button. And then there's a post webinar follow up as well. Now what I do is I actually don't use that part. I then push the contact into Infusionsoft and, and use Infusionsoft because it's got, you know, a lot more funnel settings. Um, but yeah, webinar Ignition is definitely one of them. Big fan of Yoast, obviously big fan of lead boxes and, and that's from lead pages net. So the lead boxes, that's where I do all of my content upgrades. So I use them on pretty much every single podcast to, to, you know, capture some some details there. And and then obviously the the other one is sumo Sumome. You know, I use the welcome mat and I use the scroll recommendation of additional content and and I use the exit intent from, from Sumome as well.

Laurence Howlett : So there we go guys. Not only one but I think about 5 or 6 really good WordPress plugins and pretty much all of them, well even yours potentially all focused on marketing your website and marketing your client's websites. Because remember everything that you're learning through these podcasts you can apply to your clients. You know, this is to help us as agencies grow our agencies. But equally, you know, all of our clients look to us as the experts in our field and as we're teaching ourselves these things and finding these great new services that we can then, you know, apply all of this information to this strategy, these plugins to our clients as well. So it's, it's pretty awesome, mate. You've been absolutely fantastic and I really, really appreciate the time you've spent just filling our brains with knowledge bombs, to coin a phrase. There we go. Knowledge bombs and for stuff to think about. And like I said on my notepad, I have lots of capital letters on things like I want this or relisten to this. Yeah, sure. Which is awesome. So. Okay, mate. Well, what what we always like to do is wrap up the podcast with just one thing. You know, like John Lee Dumas has like, like the parting piece of guidance sort of thing. We like to make sure that people kind of finish the podcast. A lot of people are driving, they can't necessarily make notes and it's great if we can just give them. From your experience, kind of one thing that you feel they could apply to their business today, something that they could start doing that you really feel is going to make a difference to their agency?

Lee: Yeah, sure.

Laurence Howlett : So this this is something that I am, you know, preaching at the moment and I'm doing as well. And and it's a really simple bit of advice and it's create before you consume. So in the morning, before you open your emails, before you do anything on social media, before you go on your favorite blog, create something, create what you want to do. You know, if that's, you know, working on that WordPress plugin that you've got to do, if it's right in that blog post that you need to do, always create before you consume because consuming will cloud your mind. So always create before you consume.

Lee: That's awesome, Create before you consume. That sounds like a great title actually for the podcast. I might use that create before you consume. Although yeah, no, that's always the hard thing. Trying to think of a title for the podcast. Because I'd really like to say, you know, episode X, really amazing episode full of fantastic marketing information for agencies and create before you consume. But I can't really fit all that into the graphic.

Laurence Howlett : So yeah, true that.

Lee: So that's awesome, mate. How can people connect with you? And then we'll say goodbye?

Laurence Howlett : Yeah, sure. So you can, you can find me at more demand Co.uk. My email is Laurence at Moor Demand Co.uk or at more demand team and they're the probably the best places to to reach out and connect. I'm active on LinkedIn, Facebook. You can find me all over the web. Just search. Lawrence Howlett.

Lee: Nice. And you've got one of those names where you actually do appear, whereas I'm Lee Jackson and I think the first five pages are map sellers, authors, you name it. I don't know where I am on the Internet. Yeah. Thank you so much for your for your time. Lawrence. It's been amazing. Have a wonderful day. Yeah.

Laurence Howlett : Thanks, Lee. Really appreciate it. Bye now. Cheers. Cheers.

Lee: Sadly, guys, that's the end of the show. Larissa So Larissa, as you can tell, is terribly upset by that. But it's all right. Larissa Because there is going to be an episode next week, and next week you can look forward to the guys from Beaver Builder, where I actually interview three of them all at once. It's quite an interesting. But these are the guys from Beaver Builder, the amazing visual editor for WordPress. So, um, I guess just put that in your calendar and look forward to it. Um, right. Again, invitation out to the Facebook group that's leejacksondev.com/group, where you're going to meet me, Larissa and other people from our team as well as other listeners who are all running their own agencies or their web development businesses. Be great to see you over there and I'll look forward to seeing you next week.

Comments

PodcastSeason 2

Lee Matthew Jackson

Content creator, speaker & event organiser. #MyLifesAMusical #EventProfs