How Ryan Levesque Generated Over 2.8 Million Leads & 175,000 Customers In Less Than 2 Years

    Tim:Welcome to ConversionCast, the only podcast that gets to the heart of the metrics. Now here’s another data driven case study.   What’s up fellow marketer? I’m so fired up for today’s episode because you’re about to discover a strategy that’s responsible for so many lead and so many customers you might not even believe that it’s true. Because this is so powerful, we’ve broken it down into a simple to implement set of steps right on our website. So go download it right now at ConversionCast.com/RyanDownload. Again that’s ConversionCast.com/RyanDownload and you’ll be really, really glad you did.   With that said, today’s guest is Ryan Levesque. You may or may not be familiar with Ryan but he’s a guy behind as you’re about to hear, 2.8M leads, yeah million and 175,000 customers for his clients all in just 23 months. That’s less than two years. He developed this formula called the survey funnel formula while growing several of his own businesses in noninternet marketing niches to six figures each. I don’t want to spend any more time prepping you for this episode because it’s seriously powerful and you could literally implement the strategy today. This is a longer episode and if you’ve been listening to ConversionCast for a while, you know that the only time that I do longer episodes is because there’s so much value there and I just couldn’t stop the fun.   So get the steps to implementing this strategy right now by going to ConversionCast.com/RyanDownload and then listen on. I’m Tim Page, the Conversation educator here at LeadPages. This is ConversionCast and here is Ryan Levesque from the Survey Funnel Formula.   Hey Ryan, good afternoon how is it going today?   Ryan:Man I’m so pumped to be here and to be talking to man.   Tim:Man, the same here this is going to be a lot of fun. I love what we’re talking about today. I have not had anybody on to talk about and so that’s super exciting. What I want to dive into first is you know, you’ve done what we’re going to talk about with a lot of different clients, most of them in fact maybe all of them and you can probably correct me here, most of them have nothing to do in their business with the internet marketing world. Is that right?   Ryan:I think that’s pretty much accurate. I’ve been involved in spaces everything from sports markets like tennis instruction, golf instruction, basketball instruction to do training to beekeeping, weight loss, fitness funding, the list goes on. But for whatever reason I’ve tended to stay away from the internet marketing market.   Tim:You know what I love this because it’s funny you know when you go to an event or you talk to your audience or at least this has been the case with me. I always hear people like I want to learn the tactics that aren’t just working for the info product marketers or aren’t just working for the affiliate marketers and this is that. So I’m excited for that. So we’re going to focus on kind of one case study that you’ve had. So the first thing that I want to hear is what were the results that you were able to get for this client?   Ryan:I mean that’s a really good question. So what we’re going to be talking about is a formula that I’ve used in I think now 23 different markets. I say 17 markets because the number is always growing and if I were to keep up with the current number it would always change. But it’s 23 markets now and the results overall on the whole across all these different markets basically is this fall is that I had to calculate this for a resent presentation. That’s the only reason why I know this. It’s 2.8M leads, 175,000 customers in the markets that I just mentioned.   Tim:Wow.   Ryan:And those numbers by the way are in just the last 23 months alone. The only reason why I know those numbers is because I literally have to go through across all the markets that I’m involved in and add everything up for this stupid presentation. I was just as amazed when I heard those numbers and I saw them for myself. In fact I had to triple check them because it’s seemed impossible. But I’ll give you an example. In just one of the markets that I’m using this right now and I have to keep some of the details somewhat vague.   Tim:Absolutely.   Ryan:Like the confidentiality of the clients that I work with, but in just one of these markets alone, we’re putting anywhere between six and nine thousand leads per day through just one of these funnels using the exact formula that we’re going to be talking about on today’s call. So the results are pretty staggering and they’re just growing.   Tim:Yeah and there’s nobody here listening right now that’s going to go I’m not interested in that.   Ryan:[Laughs]   Tim:So that’s fantastic and of course you know, these results are not guaranteed and they’re atypical however you’ve gotten great results with a lot of different markets and so even if it were only a tenth as good, that would probably change somebody’s business. So I love that and that’s why I’m stoked for this, before we do that, tell us you know, who are you, what do you do? How did you get into doing this? So the brief summation of who Ryan Leveque is.   [0:05:13] Ryan:That’s a really good question. So in college I studied neuroscience. I went to Brown University. I studied and taught neuroscience there. I thought I was going to go into academia and decided it wasn’t for me. But I was still really interested in consumer psychology. So I took a job on Wall Street working for the investment bank, Gold and Sachs. I was really interested. It’s sort of investment psychology and psychology of markets. So along the way made my way over to China. Spent five years working for the insurance company AIG and also speak Chinese and live overseas. While I was there it was basically living out of hotels, opening up sales offices across the country, tendered to a blackberry, living on a plane and quietly I found out that I had some friends who in the meantime were quietly making money, “on the internet” basically selling eBooks. I said that looks really interesting. So I eventually found a mentor, someone who had replicated this process in a couple of different markets. His name is Doctor Glen Livingston. I reached out to him and asked I could work with him directly and trained under him. I basically the process that we’re going to be talking about today. I use it launch six-figure business in the jewelry making space then a six-figure business in the gardening space and then a six-figure business in the memory improvement space.   All using the methodology that we’re going to be talking about today and I started attending masterminds and people basically said hey Ryan, what you’ve done for your business, what would it cost for you to do that for my business. I got started online fulltime in 2008 in the wake of the global financial crisis and AIG was bailed out by the government and didn’t think I was going to have a job. So I use it as the perfect point to quit and go fulltime as an internet marketer and now as we’re recording this it’s 2014 and almost 2015 so it’s been basically seven years doing this fulltime and building out these survey funnels in market, aftermarket initially for my own business and now for client partner businesses is basically what I do all day every day to the point that my wife has to shake me in the middle of the night and say that I’m mumbling about surveys in my sleep. So that is the short answer and I love it. I love every second of it.   Tim:That’s great. I love to hear that. So this is for  -you know, if you’re listening right now, this is fun because you’re going to hear a little bit of extra excitement in my voice. I mean I love every interview that I’ve been doing that’s a lie. I don’t love everyone. That’s why you haven’t some of them. But I love most of them and in reality most of the time I know about the strategy. In this case, I only know just a tiny bit of how this works. So I’m learning this as you are so I think I’m really excited about this. So why don’t you kind of dig in? Can you tell us kind of how it works?   Ryan:Yeah, absolutely. So given the timeframe, there isn’t enough time to talk about every aspect of what I describe as the survey funnel formula. So what I thought would be useful is we pick one very specific aspect of it, something that I think is interesting, unique and also most importantly something that someone can listen to this call right now, take down a few notes and immediately after they finished listening to this call go into their business and start implementing this right away. So when I talk about this in longer venues, I say that there are four slightly unusual surveys that I use that are part of this survey funnel formula.   What I want to focus on today is the second survey in that group and it’s something that I call a micro commitment bucket survey. Let me describe what this is just verbally so you can kind of visualize what this looks like. So Tim, you’re obviously familiar with a squeeze page. You’re obviously familiar with the concept of a landing page because you work with you know, you represent the company that basically has taken this concept mainstream. Now one of the challenges with a typical squeeze page is and I’m giving the psychological sort of background before we get into the —   Tim:Yeah.   Ryan:Actual what the strategy is but the challenge with the traditional squeeze page just asking someone for their name and email is that sometimes that’s too big of a leap to ask someone to make if they are not yet familiar with your business. In relationship terms the way I look at it is it’s sort of akin to meeting for someone for the first time and reaching out our arms to give them a great big hug.   Tim:Okay.   Ryan:For some people they might be cool with that but some people that’s kind of weird. Like the had appreciated if you maybe waved from afar, maybe shook their hand first. They’re sort of baby steps along the way. [0:10:02] And asking someone for their name and email as the first step before someone knows who you are and knows about your business, sometimes it’s too big of a step to ask them to take. So what I do and what’s typical of the funnels that I built is I use what I describe as microcommitment to warm up to that step. So instead of starting with a name and email if you ask people a series of nonthreatening multiple choice questions that lead up to that, what you can find is two things happen. Number 1, in some cases it can dramatically increase your opt-in rates if you position things that right way. Number 2 it also gives you key information about your prospects that you can use to persuasive advantage down the road.   So as a quick simple example, if you operate in a weight loss phase for example, if instead of asking someone what’s your name and email, give me your name and email and I’ll give you a copy of my free amazing report that shows you how to lose weight in seven days. If instead of taking that approach which is really what everybody in the marketplace takes if you take a step back and you say time out a second, before I can know whether or not I can help you, I first need to ask a few questions about who you are so I can put you in touch with the best match solution for you.   So if you just take a moment now to tell me a little bit about yourself, I’ll put you in touch with the best match resource for whatever it is that you’re trying to solve. All you need to do is click on the button below and answer the questions that pop up. If you were to ask questions like firstly are you a man or a woman? The reason why I ask is because men and women tend to struggle with different weight loss challenges. Someone answers that question and they say I’m a man. Which of the following would best describe your age? You might ask someone a decade of their age, 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s etc. Then you might say something like what’s interesting about the men in their 40s that I worked with is that they tend to struggle with one of several weight loss challenges. Typically they either A, have belly fat, B have this other or C have this other thing, choose which the following best describes you.   Then and only then do you present them with the opt-in form where you say I’ve got some good news. Based on the information that you’ve told me, I have a free report that solves the very challenge that you’re looking to solve. All you need to do is tell me where you’d like me to send it to you, just give me your name and email and I’ll shoot you a copy of it. So what you’ve done there is you’ve flipped the squeeze page or the concept of the squeeze page on its head and you’ve put what I described as a microcommitment bucket survey on the front end. The micro commitment part are the series of baby steps that you’re asking someone to take and then bucket part is using that information to now funnel people into one of several directions based on the way in which they answered the questions.   So for example, we could now sell this person a product that’s specifically geared towards men of a certain age who are specifically looking to get rid of belly fat. Versus if the person would have said that they’re a woman in their 50s looking to get rid of cellulite, we could sell them a cellulite product. So in a nutshell and this is very high level because they’re basically three or four levels deeper that we can get into around the psychology of this and how to position this the right way. But on a very surface level, that is what the micro commitment bucket survey is. Hopefully as you’ve heard me sort of describe it, you can kind of think in your mind why this is so successful and why it’s so effective Because you’re putting someone in touch with a better matched solution for what they’re looking for rather than a one-size fits all answer.   Tim:My brain is going nuts right now. So one thing I’m going to want to ask you about is the technology to make this work.   Ryan:Uh-hum.   Tim:And another thing, this is just a point, you know, it’s really interesting, one of the main features of LeadPages that I am just in love with and you know, this sounds really self-serving or something but it’s tying in so much here is like we talk about the two-step opt-in. Right? You get the people to use the two-step opt-in instead of having an opt-in form visibly right on the page, have them click something that makes the opt-in form appear and that’s such a small commitment and it causes that behavioral inertia where they’ve already been in that pattern of compliance. They clicked the button, they might as well continue to opt-in. That’s so – it’s really similar except for you’re putting things in between there and you know what I love is that this really is so flying in the face of conventional wisdom, which says, don’t make it difficult for somebody to opt in. Don’t give them all these things in the process. Make it as few steps as possible.   But you’re saying actually to lead them up to that point with easier commitments. Give them those simple like almost a yes ladder that gets them confident that they’re comfortable doing that. The beautiful thing about that is when they’re done doing that, you now have new information, which allows you to tailor the offer.   [0:15:17] Ryan:Yeah you’re exactly right. So one of the questions people tend to ask me when I walk them through this scenario is they say well doesn’t that hurt your opt-in rate? The way to answer that question is two-fold. I say number one, sometimes it actually improves your opt-in rate, right? Because of that action taking momentum that you’re building up by asking people a simple multiple choice question that’s nonthreatening. It doesn’t elicit that fight or flight response in their brain that makes them say you know what I’m going to click the back button. I don’t know if I’m ready for this type of commitment. Most people say man or woman, I’ll give this a shot. I’ll see where this is going. Get the ball rolling. So that’s the first thing.   The second thing is I’ll tell you what, I will take a lower opt-in rate seven days a week where I’m able to gather whether or not someone is a man or a woman, the age of that person, the single biggest challenge that they’re struggling with and maybe a whole host of other information that I might gather along the way over a higher opt-in rate where all they know about the person is that their email address is PS3 1976 [0:16:20] [Indiscernible].com   Tim:[Laughs]   Ryan:I know nothing else about that person because I know in the first scenario, I can market to that person so much more effectively. I can put targeted and tailored affiliate offers in front of them. I can speak to them more directly in my email follow-up sequences. So from a conceptual standpoint, I’ll take a lower opt-in and in some cases you’re actually going to have your cake and eat it too because you’re going to find that it actually improves your opt-in rate.   To answer your first question around the tech that makes this possible, now there a number of different ways that you can do this. So my partner and I we own a software product that’s called SurveyFunnel.IO. It’s something that does in fact integrate with LeadPages, which just enhances the already great product that you guys have, and I’m a customer by the way. Basically it’s a tool that allows you to build these out on the fly where you can figure out what questions you want to ask. You can branch people into different directions and we weren’t even really intending on talking about the software today so we’re going to spend too much time on it. But there’s one solution that is designed to do exactly just that and then there are a whole host of other third party tools out there and custom setups that you can do where you can bring on a coder or put someone on your team to build this.   So the tech is almost secondary when you compare that to the marketing strategy that drives it.   Tim:Right.   Ryan:So —   Tim:I just want to make sure that somebody can do this and I think hearing the idea that we can do a survey and you know, to collect that information to improve the opt-in is awesome. But I just don’t want anybody to be left hanging wondering how to do that. So there’s a great option and I think I mean clearly it was designed by the people who have kind of come up with this funnel. So that seems to make the most sense. So I can definitely appreciate that. Sorry, I interrupted you.   Ryan:No, that’s cool. I mean this is we built that software because as Tim you and I were speaking I’m not a teacher. I’m not really someone who goes out and teaches. I’m someone who implements this methodology first and foremost. My days are spent building these things out day in and day out and when we started going on the path I think it was three years ago where this became our fulltime focus, that there’s really nothing in the market that did exactly what we wanted and we were custom building out the technology for every individual implementation. So we eventually developed our own tool and this year earlier this year, we introduced that tool to the market and I think that was the first quarter of this year and you know, folks are really benefiting and enjoying the you know, the technology. So yeah there’s an easy solution there for you and it’s not to say it’s the only solution and you know, there are certainly other options out there as well.   Tim:Got it. I love it. Okay. So now the next question is we’ve made the decision. We love it, we want to try this, where do we put this? I mean I know you mentioned it’s a squeeze page or a landing page but I mean where have you found the best success using something like this?   Ryan:Yeah it’s a great question. So I’ll tackle that two different ways. So from a traffic standpoint, I have traffic that’s basically coming from every possible source that you can imagine successfully converting on this strategy.   Tim:It’s beautiful.   Ryan:So Google AdWords, PPC, Yahoo Bing PPC, Facebook ads, media buys, email drops, native advertising through networks like Tabula, PPV Advertising, SEO, social media so Pinterest, Twitter ads, YouTube advertising. So really there’s no traffic source that I’ve found so far that this does not convert on. So that’s the first thing from a traffic standpoint. [0:20:03] As far as where you put it in your business, this is primarily the front end lead acquisition and customer acquisition strategy that is almost exclusive of everything else in the markets that I’m using that. So what I mean by that is we drive for example in the golf market, in the tennis market, the basketball market, all the markets that I mentioned, we drive our primary source for bringing new leads and new customers into our business is through one of these survey funnels.   In many cases, in many of those markets, the ones that I just mentioned, we have multiple survey funnels running at once. In the golf market, we’ve got half a dozen, in the tennis market we’ve got seven or eight of these survey funnels all of which appeal to different segments of the market. From I guess the third part of that equation of how you do you p present this, how do you position this basically the way my formula works is as follows. Simple, send people to a landing page. The landing page has a video on it. The video is two to three minutes long. The video sells people on why they should take the survey. There’s a button below the video. The button elicits a pop up where the questions are asked one question at a time. That’s the microcommitment part. It culminates in an email opt-in form to continue. After they see the email opt-in form, they’re presented with a customized prescription based on how they answered the survey and that’s bridge to an immediate same visit sale that addresses that particular issue. So you’re actually getting the lead and selling to them all in this one immediate same day situation.   Tim:That’s awesome. So it’s a really smooth transition. Now I’ve got a question that may seem kind of dumb because I probably already know the answer to at least the first part but have you tested different variations of the landing pages that have the button that elicits the pop up? And the reason why I asked that question is because we found that the highest converting landing page that we’ve ever tested had just a tiny bit of copy that was something along the lines of you know, free report reveals and then the title of the report and then the button. It’s simple, there’s no video but because of the quiz that you’re doing, or the survey, have you found that that small bit of copy doesn’t elicit a response with the survey or are there other reasons?   Ryan:There are other reasons. So that’s a great question and I have done quite a bit of testing on this over the last you know, half dozen years. What I’ve found and this is a blanket statement so there’s obviously variations across every single market but generally speaking what I’ve found by and a large is that a text only landing page in the way that you’ve described with less text actually yields a higher opt-in rate. However in my speculation as to why this is true, I’ll explain what that is in just a second, but what we find is that when we use a video to explain the benefits of taking the survey and by the way we don’t ever position or even call it a survey to the prospect. They’re going through something else, they’re going through a diagnostic process or something like that.   Tim:Sure.   Ryan:But effectively it’s a survey.   Tim:Right.   Ryan:But the video on the front end improves our same visit sale and future sales conversion rate. The reason why —   Tim:Interesting.   Ryan:– I believe that’s true is because by putting people through a video that’s two to three minutes long, it gives us so much more opportunity. If you think about the same amount of real estate that a little YouTube video for example takes up on the landing page versus the amount of text that you can squeeze into that page, what can you squeeze into that space? 3, 4 bullets maybe.   Tim:Right.   Ryan:That’s about it. But with two to three minutes of copy that’s about two to two and a half pages of Microsoft word document. So you can cram in a significant more amount of text and selling into that video. So even though it might lower our opt-in rate, ultimately what I’m only concerned about is our sales conversion rate and our sales conversion and basically our return on ad spent is the real indicator that I’m looking at. So even if, even though it typically yields a lower opt-in rate, I speculate that people are better presold going in and they’ve had more exposure usually to the face of the business or the talent right if we’re putting a professional tennis player or a professional golf instructor on video there’s more bonding that takes place in that video. So then after they go through the survey and they’re actually being sold a product there’s a relationship that’s already started there. It’s sort of like you see someone on one side of the survey and they say hey go ahead, take the survey and I’ll see you again on the other side. And then it’s after the survey, hey welcome back, great to see you again. It’s like it’s just a continuation of that conversation versus if you’re only using text and the first time someone is seeing the face of the person or they’re seeing a video. It’s a little bit more of a disconnect I guess you might say.   [0:25:07] Tim:Yeah. That makes such great sense and so I think I only have one more question unless you elicit ten more like you seem to keep doing. [Laughs]   Ryan:[Laughs]   Tim:In a good way of course, so what’s the typical video? I mean what should people do in that video?   Ryan:The video that comes before this survey —   Tim:Yes.   Ryan:–or after the survey?   Tim:Before.   Ryan:Well before the survey, basically what you want to do there are a number of different ways to do it and this is where you want to put your marketing brain on where we talked about the devil being in the details. Well part of it is the big idea that you come up with. It needs to be something that resonates with your audience. So first and foremost, there’s a lot of research that goes into coming up with that big idea and we didn’t talk about it today but that’s what comes before the survey, something I describe as my deep dive presurvey, which is designed to figure out what that big idea is and what we actually want to talk about it. So it’s predicated on that type of research. That being said, what do you want to cover in this video? Well basically you want to sell people on the idea of why they should answer the questions, why they should fill this out. A universal appeal that anybody can use right. This is like a cliff notes or a fall back mechanism that you can use if you can’t think of a really great big idea that resonates with people. It’s something that will work in any market and it’s this. Everybody else is putting out a one-size fits all answer. But in reality there really is no one size fits all answer in fill in the blank.   Tim:Uh-hum.   Ryan:But if you take a moment to tell me a little bit about you, your situation, I’ll put you in touch with the best match solution for you. And that is a universal appeal that will work in any market. Because people are always looking for something that’s more specifically geared towards them and is not a one size fits all solution. You can translate that by the way to physical products whether you’re selling electronics or handmade leather-bound journals. You can translate that to selling information products. You can translate that to selling services as a consultant. You can also translate that if you’re an affiliate marketer and really what you’re trying to do is put people in touch with the best match affiliate offer based on their particular situation. So it’s universal across whatever business model you might use and it’s something that is universal irrespective of what market you might operate in as well. So I would say if you’re trying to implement this for the first time and you don’t want to get fancy with all the big ideas and psychology, if you just use that idea right there, that’s something that has universal appeal.   Tim:Yeah that makes perfect sense. So let me see if I can give a really crappy cliff’s notes version to sum everything together. So we start by sending our traffic to a landing page, the same way we might do otherwise.   Ryan:Uh-hum.   Tim:Whether it’s ads or SEO or however we’re sending traffic. On that landing page, you’ve found typically having a video with maybe a small explanation like the one that you just gave, directing people to click the button below the video.   Ryan:Uh-hum.   Tim:The button below the video is to kind of assess how we can best help that person and what their needs are. It takes them to a series of questions and is each question kind of one step that you answer a question and then it goes to the next screen?   Ryan:Exactly. Imagine a pop-up like in the LeadPages when you click on a for example like the claim my spot on one of your webinar templates.   Tim:Yeah.   Ryan:And it elicits a little pop-up with a name, email and button.   Tim:Yeah.   Ryan:We’re talking one of those little pop-ups but instead of those fields, it’s just a multiple choice question, A, B, or C.   Tim:And then they click, you know, they answer it and click next and there’s another question.   Ryan:Exactly and you keep going down that path until you reach the final destination, the final step which is an email opt-in form. Typically name, email with a button that says click here to get my results, click here to get my personalized report, click here to find out my X, Y, Z type whatever it is that you’re promising people it ends in that opt-in and then at the end of that after they do that, you send people to whatever it is that you’ve promised them which is the way I typically do things is it’s a video of some education that’s customized to their situation and then that seamlessly bridges into whatever it is that you’re selling, seamlessly bridges into your offer.   Tim:So the leadmagnet, whatever it is that you’re giving away would really be specific to the answers to the survey?   Ryan:Exactly and typically that means a finite number of buckets. So this is where experience comes in and you don’t want to be putting yourself situation where you’re going to have 20 different lead magnets.   Tim:Right.   Ryan:You want to – this is an 80/20 thing. This is where you want to find out what are the big segments in your market that are worth focusing on and typically if this is your first time ever doing one of these I would highly recommend that you keep things to no more than three to five buckets. And the reason why is because the more buckets you add, the higher the level of complexity exists. [0:30:19] So to keep things simple, three to five buckets the first time that you implement one of these and you’ll see in my experience and I tell people this, there’s only one marketing tactic or technique that I’ve implemented that every single time I’ve implemented it, it’s increased conversion. The only question I have to ask myself is is it worth the time to do this? That technique is segmenting in the way I just described it. It only becomes a question of is it going to be worth the number of hours it’s going to take me to do this to get a 10, 15, 20, 30% bump in conversion. [0:30:57] And nine times out of ten the answer is yes. So it really is a question in my experience of is it worth the time not is it going to work. But again the results may vary. Use it at your own discretion. I can only speak from my own personal experience but if there is one strategy that I’ve used that has gotten results for me personally every single time I’ve implemented it, it’s this. The flipside of it is it does take a little bit of work and as long as you’re willing to do that work it’s really something that I think every business should consider incorporating into their business model.   Tim:I’m going to declare this one of the best episodes of ConversionCast of all time.   Ryan:Woo-hoo. [Laughs]   Tim:I have got notes all over the place here of things to implement. So this has been awesome Ryan. Thank you for sharing all of this amazingness with us and staying on for even longer than I told you you would stay on for. I really appreciate it and I can’t wait to share our results with you.   Ryan:Awesome Tim, thank you so much for the opportunity and I’ll catch you again soon.   Tim:Thanks for listening to this episode of ConversionCast. If you liked what you heard here today, we have something awesome that we want to send you. Our amazing team has created a free reference guide for you with every single split test and piece of conversion data that we have access to here at ConversionCast. This free booklet is packed with incredible case studies and real metrics from real people to show you what’s really working across multiple industries right now. This is the kind of information you won’t find anywhere else. As one of our listeners, we want to give you a copy of this book absolutely free. You can get your copy right now by going to ConversionCastGift.com. Again that’s ConversionCastGift.com. Go there now and pick up your copy and we’ll see you next time.