Transcript

 
Sigrun:
You’re listening to the Sigrun Show, episode number 410. In this episode, I talk to Rei Baumeister about how to make 100K a month with Facebook ads without launching. Welcome to the Sigrun Show. I’m your host Sigrun, creator of SOMBA, the MBA program for online entrepreneurs. With each episode, I’ll share with you inspiring case studies and interviews to help you achieve your dreams and turn your passion into profits. Thank you for spending time with me today.
Building an online business takes time. I share with you proven strategies to help you get there faster. You’ll also learn how to master your mindset, uplevel your marketing and succeed with masterminds. Today, I speak with Rei Baumeister, a Facebook ads expert and online business coach. He specializes in helping his clients reach their revenue target by using Facebook ads effectively. In this episode, we talk about how to make 100K a month with Facebook ads without launching.
Before we dive in, there is still time to sign up for my one-day live planning workshop. I’ve created a fun, insightful and effective planning process that I teach my clients to reach six to seven figures. I’ve used this planning process myself to build my multiple seven-figure online business. And now, I’m dedicating a one-day workshop to teach you how you can plan your year, 2021, and make it your best year yet.
You walk away knowing what exactly to work on and when, so you can get more done in less time. Are you ready to set big goals and map out your vision for 2021? Then go through the show notes at sigrun.com/410, where you can sign up for the live planning workshop. You’ll also find all the links to Rei Baumeister. I’m so excited to be here to talk about Facebook ads with Rei Baumeister. Welcome on my show.
Rei Baumeister:
Thank you, Sigrun. Nice to be here and talk to you.
Sigrun:
It’s interesting how we got to know each other though. One day I get an email from my business coach at the time, James Wedmore. I was in his Inner Circle mastermind. And he sent me an email one day saying, “Hey, I know someone who is in Europe, you should get together.” And he connected us because you were in his group coaching program.
Rei Baumeister:
Yeah, exactly.
Sigrun:
So, this is probably three years ago?
Rei Baumeister:
Yeah, I’m trying to thinking about it. I guess three years ago. Time goes by fast, yeah.
Sigrun:
Time goes by fast. And finally, we find ourselves three years later doing these podcast interviews. I was on your podcast, now you’re on my podcast. But, it’s fascinating to me how you get to know people, and how you can actually stay in touch, and keep conversations going, even if they don’t talk for a while. So, I’m happy that you are finally here to talk about Facebook ads.
Rei Baumeister:
Wow. Thank you, Sigrun.
Sigrun:
So, first I would like to know, how did you get into Facebook ads? Why are you doing this?
Rei Baumeister:
I’ll try to keep it short and sweet, because I could talk for hours about that. I’m in the online business now for, I guess over 20 years. I guess I tested everything that’s possible to test. And I was starting out with Amazon and later, was at other companies like Publishing House, publishing brand like Cosmopolitan. Actually, the publisher Jurg Marquard is a Swiss guy, so I guess you know him.
But anyway, so I was running online marketing for those companies. And I was also experimenting with Facebook ads, and Google ads, and SEO and whatever. I saw the pros and cons, but I also experienced on my personal journey, that I wanted to have my own business. So, I built up business units for those companies, which was fun, but I wanted to build up my own business. And I saw an opportunity to show entrepreneurs, smaller companies, what the big guys do.
Sigrun:
What Amazon does and Cosmopolitan, what they actually do, yeah.
Rei Baumeister:
Yeah. Yeah, like running no advertising. And compared to a publishing house where you have to spend whatever, 20K, just for one print ad, you can start with small amounts of money. And that’s how I got started with Facebook ads and also, started with coaching Facebook ads.
Sigrun:
So, how long ago is that now?
Rei Baumeister:
Five years, I guess, roughly.
Sigrun:
And so in the beginning, were you doing ads for people, or were you always right from the get-go teaching them how to do it themselves?
Rei Baumeister:
So, the first years I was running ads for companies. So, trying to understand the system, the rhythm, I’m still trying to figure that out five years later.
Sigrun:
Aren’t we all doing that? They change from day-to-day, so even as an expert you are always learning. So, first you were running ads for entrepreneurs five years ago when you started your business. And then, at some point you made a shift. So now you don’t run ads anymore, you just teach people how to do it themselves.
Rei Baumeister:
Exactly. I mean, there are some exceptions where I have customers that have really big budgets, but 99% of my customers, they are coaches.
Sigrun:
And how long would you say that someone should be doing this themselves, because I get this question a lot from my clients. They’re like, “Oh, I don’t want to learn Facebook ads. I’ll just hire someone.” And I’m like, “Wait a moment. Maybe you should learn a little bit because it costs quite a chunk of money to hire someone who’s good. And the problem is, if you don’t know anything about Facebook ads, you might hire someone who doesn’t know anything, even less.”
Rei Baumeister:
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And I have a lot of … Many of my customers, they have some experience having an agency that didn’t deliver on their promises. So first of all, I’m a big fan of outsourcing. So in general, I like the idea to outsource stuff that I don’t know myself or don’t want to do myself. But when it comes to acquiring new customers, I think that’s a part where I will be very careful what I outsource, and to whom, because I’m dependent on that person or on that company on my revenue stream.
So, what’s the right strategy? That’s a hard question. But I would say if you start out, you definitely should learn it yourself so that you can choose a partner. And then, how do you find a good partner? Then it gets very tricky, because a good partner just works with clients that spends a certain amount of ad budget. So, I guess you should spend a couple of thousand euros per month so that a good agency chooses to work with you, so that’s a problem.
Sigrun:
Yeah, it’s the opposite way with Facebook ads I’ve noticed. Normally, you can just go out and hire anybody for anything, but Facebook ads, agencies are choosy who they work with.
Rei Baumeister:
Yeah, at least the good ones. Yeah. So, if they’re not choosy, you know that you’re probably talking to not a good one, yeah.
Sigrun:
Aha. Okay, this is a warning for our listeners. Yeah?
Rei Baumeister:
Yeah. And then, the point is, I mean, if you spend a couple of thousand euros a month and you find an agency, then at some point, probably, I guess, you think about, “Hmm, I’m spending 3K on ads per month. I spend another 2K for that person, that agency, so it’s 5k. Shouldn’t I now do it in-house? So, the time span where you outsource in my point of view, is a very limited one. So if you ask me, I mean, obviously I’m biased yeah, I would start out learning myself and then, build up somebody in my team and hand it over. That would be my strategy.
Sigrun:
Yeah. So you would eventually try to take this in-house, but that would be someone else? It would not be the entrepreneur themselves?
Rei Baumeister:
Yeah. It can be just a media buyer in the team. Yeah.
Sigrun:
Okay, so now you’ve been doing this for five years. You have different types of programs, I guess, depending on how far people are, there is something that people can start with. And ultimately, you coach people on how to build complete funnels as well?
Rei Baumeister:
Yeah. Actually I changed my business quite a bit. So currently, or already for almost two years now, I just have one product. I like to keep it simple.
Sigrun:
Yes, I like it.
Rei Baumeister:
So, just one product, just one funnel, and one perfect customer, if you want to call it that way. Yeah.
Sigrun:
So, who is your ideal client for that one program?
Rei Baumeister:
So, usually they are coaches, experts, trainers, or agencies, and they already are at a certain level. So, usually they already tried to run Facebook ads on their own. They already tried.
Sigrun:
Didn’t work out so well, right?
Rei Baumeister:
Exactly, so that they’re burned somehow, and that also, sometimes they have already worked with agencies so they have an understanding how it works, roughly. But, they also understand that if you want to scale a business, really scale a business, you need to spend money on ad. So, you can’t spend five euros and expect a 100K launch. It doesn’t work. So, they have a very good understanding on, you have to spend money, and then you get money. I mean, more money.
And that’s my perfect customer because I don’t have to start from zero. There’s some knowledge. There’s also, what was important for me, a product that works. So I mean, you can have the greatest marketing, if your product sucks, I mean, it doesn’t really make sense. Yeah.
Sigrun:
Okay. So, let’s get into one way of what you would recommend someone to do. We want to talk about how to make a $100,000-plus a month without launching, but obviously using Facebook ads. So, I’m assuming the first thing you need to have, I hope I guess it right, you need to have a product that you’ve sold before.
Rei Baumeister:
Yeah, yeah. Exactly. You need to have a product that you sold before that you’re proud of, that you believe in. That’s a prerequisite, definitely. And then, I mean, I guess there are many ways to get to a 100K a month. So, one way is a life launching for example, with the help of Facebook ads. And I did that in the past, but I switched. Two years ago, I switched to a different model, which just fits my personal preference more. I found launching quite stressful, and found it quite complicated. And usually, every time I did a launch, something breaks.
So, I was trying to find a way that’s less stressful. And also, coming from a Facebook ads’ perspective, find a way that I’m able to spend money on ads the whole year. So, I found it frustrating that when doing a launch, I have a two-week window where I spent maximum amount of ads, then my ad gets shut down, or whatever. And then, the last two days, the ad runs perfectly smooth. I get leads for nothing. And then, the launch is over, and it’s so frustrating.
Sigrun:
It is. It is.
Rei Baumeister:
So, what I did now, fast forward, I put it on evergreen. So, currently what I’m doing is, I’m running Facebook ads the whole year, 24/7, and advertising an evergreen webinar that are recorded. And at the end of the webinar, pitch a strategy session or a free call. And in that call, I just sell my offering, my product. The nice thing about the process is that, as I said, I can run ads all the time. And what I personally, because I’m very analytical and introvert, I like to sit in my basement.
Sigrun:
Yeah, like to be in your cave.
Rei Baumeister:
Enough, exactly. So, I can look at the numbers on a weekly basis, and tweak it, and optimize it, and change five minutes of my webinar and make it even better. And that’s a really cool, it’s not relaxing, but it’s not so stressful way to really build up your business. And many of my customers, they build it up to a 100K, optimizing and tweaking the little things, and optimizing the funnel. And that’s the current funnel that I use and recommend, yeah.
Sigrun:
Yeah. So, I found it interesting, so basically you are selling a group coaching program, if I understand correctly. Yeah. And that’s the one program you’re selling. And you’re running a webinar. Obviously, you have some teaser. There’s something that people want to learn, and that’s the name of the webinar, right? They want to avoid making mistakes. They don’t want to burn more bridges or have more failures around Facebook ads. And then, you teach them some other ways. But then, you invite them to a strategy session. So, you have someone on your team, maybe doing that? And then, they join your group coaching program. So, it’s a simple funnel.
Rei Baumeister:
Exactly. And as I said earlier, in a different context, I like to keep it simple. Because usually, when it gets more complex, it breaks. And it’s really hard to scale a complex process. So, the simpler the process, the easier to scale it. Yeah.
Sigrun:
When you have a cold audience, there are often these suggestions that you should warm them up before. That you should, maybe have some visibility ads. Maybe there’s an article about Rei, or he was on a podcast and I’m starting to think highly of you before I suddenly see an ad invitation to that webinar, or some video views. You skip all of that?
Rei Baumeister:
Yeah. I mean, I tested all of that, because it seems like common sense of what the gurus tell you. So, I did everything. I did, how do you call it, launch way, runway launch ads. So, video ads, months before my launch, I did that. I advertised freebies, “Get my free PDF. Give me your email address and then, I nurture you for whatever, six months.” And what I found is, in theory, that sounds obvious to do that.
Sigrun:
Yeah, it sounds totally logical. And when someone says it, you’re like, “Oh yeah, of course I have to do that.” But, you tried it out?
Rei Baumeister:
Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. I spent a lot of money on that. And it works to some extent, so it works somehow. But what I found, if you look at the numbers that, I mean, for example, people, they opt-in for your free PDF, or free whatever, and then whatever, 30% don’t even open the email, yeah? And then, another 20% don’t click the link. And then, another 20% don’t watch the damn thing. So, the more steps you build in that funnel, the less people make it to the end.
And so, what I’ve found is I spend a lot of money on that opt-in funnel, but it’s less efficient in terms of ad budget. If it just goes straight to the webinar and invite them to a strategy session, and sell them the stuff. So, it’s simpler and more efficient.
Sigrun:
So, you’re constantly then running ads to a cold audience. People have never heard of you, but you are then answering a pain point they have, which makes them want to sign up. But, there must be a huge drop off also for cold people. They sign up for the webinar, don’t show up, or show up and don’t book a strategy session. How do you redeem that? Do you try to catch them on later?
Rei Baumeister:
I mean, obviously, there’s all the drop offs in that process. You’re right. Not everybody watches the webinar, not till the end. Not everybody books a call, and stuff like that. But still, there’s less steps. Before, I had whatever, 15 steps where the drop off is. And now, I have four steps. The numbers just are more attractive doing it that way.
Sigrun:
Yeah. And I like, like you said, simple, simple. But what do you do to the people who do not show up to the webinar or don’t book a strategy call? Do you somehow try to get them back?
Rei Baumeister:
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I do have some contingency plans, yeah. On the one side, I mean, I have the email address. So, I do an email campaign, “You didn’t show up,” or “You just watched 10 minutes. Why don’t you get opt-in again and watch it till the end.” So, I’m sending out some emails if they didn’t show up, or if they didn’t watch the whole thing I’ll just send out emails to people that watched the whole thing but didn’t book a call. So, I do different email campaigns. Yeah.
Sigrun:
Yeah. How many? Are there three paths, four paths?
Rei Baumeister:
I have one campaign for people that showed up and watched to the end. One campaign for people that showed up, but didn’t watch to the end. And one campaign, or it’s actually, it’s one big campaign, but anyway, in a couple of emails that didn’t book a call. So, I send them emails with testimonials and another invitation to book a call. So, I guess that’s pretty, standard, pretty basic.
But, the nice thing again here is, I set it up one time and it just works the whole year, and I can tweak it. And if one email has a low open rate, I just change it and look if I find something better. On the Facebook ad side I also have … I mean, I have a campaign for cold traffic. And I have two more campaigns, one for warm traffic that the people that somehow reacted, but didn’t opt-in to the webinar. And one for the hot traffic people that watched a webinar, have been on the page for booking a call, but didn’t book a call. So, three campaigns in total. It’s still simple.
Sigrun:
It’s still simple. And is it most people that still go straight to the booking a call? Is that the majority versus those who come later? How much are you able to grab afterwards?
Rei Baumeister:
Yeah. So, I don’t know, 90% directly book a call. The rest, the whole three targeting thing is nice to have. 90% is nailing a great webinar. And that’s it, yeah.
Sigrun:
So, did you do the webinar live first to nail a good webinar? How do you know if it’s a good webinar? What should people expect? There’s all kinds of numbers. Should you have 3% book a strategy call, or 50%? What’s the range?
Rei Baumeister:
Yeah. I mean, I did many live webinars before, so I have a feeling for what works, what doesn’t work. And then, at some point I recorded it. And the nice thing is, if you keep it running, especially if it’s not live in your backend of your webinars system, you see a curve, how many people drop off after 10 minutes, after 20 minutes, after 30 minutes. And if at some point you see a drop off that’s unusually high, you know that at exactly minute-12, you have a problem. And that’s cool to know, because then you switch it out, and keep running for another four weeks and see if it’s better.
Sigrun:
But what should people expect? If someone is just listening to this interview and then like, “I want to do this,” and they go and record the webinar, what is a good number in terms of converters?
Rei Baumeister:
As when you start out, I would shoot for 10%, 10% of attendees book a call. But, if you optimize and improve it, it could go up to 20% that book a call.
Sigrun:
Yeah, and that means they are watching. So, it’s not just those who signed up for a webinar, but those who are actually watching.
Rei Baumeister:
Exactly. Because, you pitch the call and they last, whatever, three minutes or five minutes. So, they need to get to that point, yeah. And that way, you also make sure that you have people on the phone that know what they’re doing.
Sigrun:
Yeah, that they are prepared. They have watched the webinars so they know what they’re talking about. So, you basically calculate the people who are still with you at the end of the webinar, and from that percentage, anywhere between 10 and 20% is a good number, right?
Rei Baumeister:
No, actually from all attendees. So if-
Sigrun:
All attendees, okay.
Rei Baumeister:
… a 100 people attend the webinar and see the first minute, 10 people should book a call.
Sigrun:
Yeah. So, it’s similar to a launch. We calculate all the people that sign up for a launch webinar, actually, whether they show up or not. That’s how we calculate our launch list. So, this is similar.
Rei Baumeister:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sigrun:
And what do you say to someone who says, “Okay, do I need to have something like a group coaching program and discovery call? Couldn’t I just sell my course that costs, I don’t know, $297, $497, $997?”
Rei Baumeister:
Yeah. That’s a good question. I mean, I wouldn’t recommend that funnel to just anybody with any offering, because doing those calls obviously costs time, either your time or the time of your sales agent. And I wouldn’t do calls if you have an offering, whatever, of a couple of hundred euros, it just doesn’t make sense time-wise. If you sell a course for whatever, $297, I would lead them directly to a sales page and self-service checkout. But, as soon as you have a product with a certain price point, especially group coaching, it definitely makes sense.
And especially also, if you want to work … I mean, if you’re selling courses, probably you don’t have a lot of interaction with your customer. Doesn’t really matter for you who buys your product. But, as soon as you’re selling one-on-one services or group coaching, where you spend a lot of time with the people and where also, we have to be careful who’s in the group coaching, that they don’t spoil the spirit, then you want to look very carefully who you actually invite in your product, or in your program. And so, if you’re selling group coaching or any kind of heavy interactive offerings, definitely you should put a call in between to make sure that you get the right customers. Yeah.
Sigrun:
Absolutely. But, if you look at the cost of Facebook ads, as you say, I’m not even talking about hiring agency. But, let’s say you need to spend a decent amount of money on ads. And maybe you’re doing coaching with someone like yourself, so that’s an investment too, even if you’re not working with an agency selling something for $297 after evergreen, does it pay off?
Rei Baumeister:
Exactly. I would say, selling something for $297, whatever way, is not a great business. I mean, there are exceptions, don’t get me wrong. I have one customer, actually, she’s selling a course for about 200 euros in the consumer space. And she recently made a 100K in a month. But, I mean, there are always exceptions, obviously. I would say, of course you can try to do that if you can pull it off, but it’s way easier to increase your price and make the same amount of revenue with the higher ticket items or offerings.
Sigrun:
So, if someone has a course for $297, they either should maybe change it, make it longer, more valuable. Because, the risk with this price of course, as you say, there are people that do it, but they are maybe in a consumer space. And maybe the lead costs a dollar or two, versus you have to pay $10 or $20 for some other leads in other business, especially in business coaching. It’s quite expensive.
Rei Baumeister:
Yeah, I agree.
Sigrun:
So, people are entering your group coaching program all year long. It doesn’t matter when they join. But, what if people want to combine this method with launching? Is there any way you can see that they could do that?
Rei Baumeister:
So, one part in my program is, you’re heavily focused on Facebook ads because they’re a ditch for the last couple of years. So I mean, for how to run Facebook ads, it doesn’t really matter if you do a live launch, or if you do a challenge, or an evergreen launch, or whatever, as long as somebody opts-in for something. So, the whole Facebook ads thing is 100% the same. I also have customers in my program that do launches, so that’s fine. The only thing is they are limited to their launch period because they’re running ads for one or two months, and then the launch is over. And then, they start again half a year later. But besides that, Facebook ads is completely the same.
Sigrun:
I actually love launching just that I want to defend launches here, but I think it’s a personality thing. Rei, you said yourself, you’re an introvert, you like to be in your cave, and I like to be top of the mountain and be on stage. And I think it’s a very interesting thing that I love launches, but we also have a group coaching program. People can join any time. And we do a monthly information call exactly for this reason. We actually have a live call.
But, the key is here that we’re continuously running ads. We’re not running them just in launches. Because it’s very risky, as you said, to just come and say, “Oh, I want to spend a lot of money now in two weeks.” You can’t even do that because Facebook will not allow you to. But, if you continuously run ads, they start to like you. And so, you can come with your launch and also spend more.
Rei Baumeister:
Yeah, yeah. And the reason for that is that what people don’t understand, at least my customers, and I guess your customers too, they think Facebook somehow doesn’t like them, or whatever. Facebook likes our customers. The problem are the bad guys that try to run ads for stuff that is simply not allowed. And to surprise the algorithm or to surprise all the security systems at Facebook, they go in with short period, huge amount of money until the ad account gets shut down. Then, you add account, same game, until it gets shut down. And that’s the reason why Facebook is very, very alert. If suddenly in an ad account, the spending goes up, I mean, that’s normal for a launch, but it looks like fraud to the Facebook algorithm. And that’s the reason why it’s hard to spend short bursts, a lot of money.
Sigrun:
What do you say to the tiny products? It’s a trend now to sell something for $27, $37, $47 and basically, get a paying customers on your email list. Not have any freebie hunters. Obviously, with that strategy you are not making money on the front end, you’re probably losing. Let’s say, maybe it costs the same to get the lead as you are making money. But, what do you say to that strategy, to continuously run to a super-low price product, knowing that you possibly have to make money with some other stuff later on?
Rei Baumeister:
Yeah. I mean, I have a couple of friends or partners in the industry that run that kind of strategy. I mean, it’s pretty similar actually to a free plus shipping book funnel where you send out a free book, you just have to pay shipping, but the shipping is whatever, nine euros. So, it’s not free but anyway, it looks free. And that funnel can work, but from my point of view, it just adds complexity. You need to write the book. And the same would be, you need to produce that $27 thing or that $47 thing.
And if you’re talking to people that are having a real problem, and I want to spend real money on solving a problem so it’s not some gimmick, then offering them something for $27, I’m not sure if I would get my dream customer. It’s the same like, I walk in a car store where I want to look at whatever, S. Martins. And then, the guy wants to sell me a key chain, whatever. I want to buy the car. It’s one way, but it’s not my preferred way. Yeah.
Sigrun:
I guess there are different opinions on it. But yeah, I was interested in your opinion on it. Yeah. So, what do you see coming for Facebook ads? It’s been tricky this year with pandemic, elections, all these things. What is the one thing people should be, and let’s say, stay wary of? One thing is to not stop running Facebook ads. Is there anything else?
Rei Baumeister:
Yeah. I mean, Facebook is continuously evolving, so they can’t run ads two years ago, whatever, it just doesn’t work. So, one thing that they should be aware of is to just be compliant. Don’t do anything that Facebook doesn’t like. But, it’s actually pretty easy to be compliant if you think from a customer perspective, or from a Facebook user perspective. So, don’t be too sassy, don’t be too pushy, don’t be annoying. If you’re a nice guy in your Facebook ads, Facebook likes you, but also the people like you, that’s your ads. And that’s a pretty safe strategy to be successful on that platform.
Sigrun:
That’s great. Thank you, Rei. I thank you so much. I’m so glad we were able to connect again after about three years of getting that email. Rei, I thank you for sharing. And I’m excited to hear from our listeners. Who is going to go for the goal of $100,000 a month with Facebook ads it has been launching. Thank you for joining the show, Rei.
Rei Baumeister:
Thank you, Sigrun. It was a pleasure.
Sigrun:
Go to the show notes at signum.com/410, where you can sign up for the live planning workshop and find all the links to Rei Baumeister. Thank you for listening to the Sigrun show. Did you enjoy this episode? Let me know that you listened by tagging me in your Instastory or Instagram post using my handle, sigruncom and the hashtag, Sigrun Show. See you in the next episode.