Roland Frasier

Access Rapid Growth Through Owned Media Acquisition

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If you want to grow your business as fast as possible, one of the best ways to do so is by pulling on the 7 growth levers of business.

Today, we’re going to break down the first one:

Media as a growth lever.

If you want to acquire more customers extremely fast, you need to get your offers in front of more eyeballs. You can do that in several ways, but all of them require you to have access to media.

What Is Media?

It’s defined as “the main means to mass communication.”

You want access to the means for mass communication so the greatest number of potential customers can see what you have to sell them.

Media comprises several different types, but there are 5 core groups to concentrate on in your business. But before we get to utilizing media as a growth lever, let’s break down media as a whole. 

1. Paid Media

There’s paid media, like when you spend money on Facebook, Instagram, Google search or display ads, native ads, YouTube, email drops, radio, tv, print publications, etc.

Paid media is highly effective, but your ability to use it to share your offers is limited to how much cash you can afford to spend and your return on ad spend.

One of our good friends, Molly Pittman, has coined it perfectly: “Paid traffic is like a water hose. It’s great, but the moment you shut it off, it stops.”

P.S. Want to scale your business effectively to hit your 10 year goals in one? I’m teaching my Leverage, Exit, Grow, & Scale Intensive where ~20 business owners (mostly war room members) join me and we break down just how to do so using proven methods I’ve used in dozens of businesses. We just taught this workshop a few weeks ago and it truly did wonders for those who attended. Find more info on the next one HERE. 

2. Organic Social Media

There’s also organic social media, like the platform you may of found this article through just a few minutes ago. 

Social media is wonderful, but because social media platforms need to make returns for their shareholders, most limit your organic reach for social posts to motivate you to pay for more access.

Organic social media could be considered a type of owned media because you generally own your social media accounts.

However, I like to think of it as a separate class of media from owned because you are really leasing your social media accounts.

That is you do not have unfettered access, use and control to these accounts because you are subject to the rules, agendas and whims of the platforms’ owners.

For our purposes here, organic social media is a cross between earned media (via likes and shares), paid media (via boosts and social ads) and owned media (your own social accounts).

3. Search Media

Search media is extremely effective because people are in the market for whatever you are selling for they are searching for “buyer intent” keywords.

Search media includes any search engine, including Google, Amazon, YouTube, etc.

Search marking requires you to negotiate a complex labyrinth of algorithmic hurdles to achieve top rankings, and you are forever at the mercy of the latest slap or update.

4. Earned Media

Earned media is exposure to the masses resulting from publicity from other’s creating content about you and your business.

Earned media includes everything from viral content to news coverage.

It typically provides a quick shot in the arm and can, as in the case is Dollar Shave Club or Poo-Pourri, launch huge businesses.

But earned media puts you at the mercy of the fickle press and public.

There is no certainty that anything you create will capture the attention of the public long or deep enough to induce them to share it and cause it to become viral.

Nor is there any guaranty that any press coverage or media appearances will generate the exposure needed to move the sales or profit needle for your business.

5. Owned Media

Which leaves us with owned media.

Owned media is any platform that you own and control that provides you with access to communicate with a group of people.

Owned media includes your blog, social media accounts (Instagram, YouTube, Snap, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.), customer and prospect lists, print newsletter, podcast(s), your live events, and so on.

It’s everything you own and control that allows you to communicate on a one to many basis.

Now that we’re all on the same page with what the different types of medias we have at our disposal, let’s talk about how to use them as growth levers for your business…

Major Growth Lever #1: Rapid Growth Through Owned Media Acquisition

If you own the media, you have the ability to use it to communicate with your prospects at will.

You are not limited by any social platform imposed rules.

There is simply nothing more important in your communications arsenal than owning and controlling your own media.

Home Grown Media

You can grow your own media, creating content, events, newsletters, groups and the like.

That’s a great long-term strategy.

Like planting trees the best time to grow your own media is years ago, and the second best time is now.

But growing your own media takes time and we are talking about accomplishing things quickly here.

So, let’s look at another option… Acquired Media

Acquired Media

You can skip all the effort and hassle of creating owned media yourself and simply acquire other people’s media.

Rather than relying on third party media or taking the time and expense to grow your own, why not just buy it from someone else?

  • Want an extra 100 eyeballs on your next piece of content?
    • Acquire a Twitter account with 100 followers.
  • Want 1,000 people to see your next video?
    • Acquire a YouTube Channel with 1,000 subscribers.
  • Think you could sell more of your product if 10,000 people could see your webinar offer?
    • Acquire a blog with 10,000 unique monthly visitors.
  • Wish you could immediate access an extra 100k email addresses?
    • Acquire a business that already has one with strong open and click-through rates.

 

Owned Media Is The Answer

Your ability to access more potential customers is only limited by your ability to access more media.

You can do that through paid, search, social, or owned media.

But owned media is forever.

The other types of media are controlled by third parties whose agendas and goals may differ from yours.

Their financial interests absolutely differ from yours.

You level the playing field and ensure your continued access to a renewable source of new products and customers when you own your own media.

23 Ways To Acquire Media For No Money Down

Want to learn 23 ways to acquire media for little or no money out of pocket?

Want to find out how to double, triple or 10x your prospect list… and pay nothing down to do it?

Come to LEGS in San Diego

That’s just one of the 51 different strategies and tactics you will take away when you attend my 2-Day Leverage, Exit, Grow + Scale Intensive in London later this month.

Find out more details HERE.

A few times a year, I conduct a very intimate (fewer than 20 people) 2-day deep-dive Intensive.

In it, I detail a comprehensive 51-step strategy and action plan we use at DigitalMarketer, War Room and all our other portfolio companies to grow revenue, profits and value by 10 times.

The link will detail everything covered, as I don’t want to make this article only about this intensive. But I know we have just a handful of spots left, as we typically only offer these to members of War Room. Hopefully we see you there…

As always, be learning & growing,

-Roland Frasier

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6 Key Points for Striking a Non-Cash Asset Deal

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How can you acquire an ownership interest in someone else’s business when you are bringing non-cash assets like your knowledge or time to the deal?

How do you structure a deal to let someone else into your existing business as an equity owner when they don’t have cash but do have something else that’s valuable to your company that you want?

We have done several deals including a recent one like this. So I thought I would share one approach that comprises 6 key deal points to remember:

1. Who’s Involved?

What are the roles of each party? Don’t skip details here, not even seemingly minor ones. Think this as LinkedIn, but for this specific deal. Make sure to include full:

  • Job Titles
  • Descriptions 
  • Employment Agreements
 

2. Detailed Compensation Package Deal Points

Everything needs to be listed and detailed here. Don’t leave anything you know of now to chance and make sure nothing is ambiguous in the compensation package.

If the percentage is to be determined later, be sure to include what it will be based off of and what parties will be involved in making that decision.

This may sound obvious, but you’d be surprised how many deals don’t do this correctly. 

Here’s an example of something we just recently drew up for our last deal:

  • Buy-in for immediate equity + performance-based increases of up to 10%
  • Additional vesting 2.5% per year for four years (time-based component)
  • Plus performance milestones based on revenue (performance-based component)
P.S. If you're finding value from this already, I'm reaching 4+ "Leverage, Exit, Grow, & Scale" Intensive Workshops both on the West Coast and even in London of the next few months. We'll cover deal flow like this and WAY more. The idea is to help you achieve your 3 year goals in the next 12 months (it's doable, we've done it!) If you're interested, you can find more info by clicking the image above.

3. Have a Breakup Clause

Everything’s great, until it isn’t…

It’s important to provide for what happens if things do not work out, so you’ll need to build a breakup clause into the agreement.

In our case, if the other party leaves the business or is terminated, we have the right to buy them out on a pre-agreed valuation formula with pre-agreed terms

4. Pre-Agreed Buy-In is Also a Must

You need to agree on valuation for the buy-in as well. Usually this is done on an EBITDA basis (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) where valuation equals EBITDA multiplied by an industry typical multiple.

Here’s an example of a pre-agreed buy-in using EBITDA:

Let’s say the business is earning $1M in profits and you agree on a multiple of five, then the valuation equals $50,  a 20% buy-in would be $1M (or 20% of $5M).

5. What if the Value is Intangible, AKA Not Cash?

If the buy-in is not for money, but for some additional value they’re supposed to provide, you’ll need to place a value on those non-cash components too.

Here’s how you can do just that:

In this example, the other party’s value is their book of business (much like our most recent deal I mentioned above).

You operate at a margin of 30% profit and the other party’s book of business, or the things they’re contributing are expected to be worth $1M per year, then the first-year value would be 30% of $1M, or $300k.

If the average lifetime customer value (LTV) is 3 years, then the total value the other party’s bringing would be expected to be worth $300k at 3 years, or $900k in LTV.

Additionally, if your company valuation is $1.8M, then the other party’s book of business would  be worth an estimated increase in value of 33%.

$1.8M + $900k = $2.7M divided by $900k = 33%

So, if it goes as you expect, then the other party would receive 33% equity of the agency for bringing these assets/accounts (their book of business).

6. Adjusting for Change Throughout

It’s vital to include language in the deal that adjusts the other party’s equity (continuing the example in #5) based on any variance between what you both thought the value of the book of business (or what they’re bringing to the table) compared what it ACTUALLY is over time. 

Hint: We want to be the teddy bear Leonardo DiCaprio, not “The Reverent” Leonardo DiCaprio (though he did finally win that Oscar… but still)

Here’s how I would contractually adjust for change:

Scenario: after 3 years, the other party’s book of business only turned out to be worth $720k, which is 20% less than the $900k you expected.

Then a fair agreement would be to decrease the other party’s 33% equity to 20%, leaving them with 25.5% of the business instead of 33%.

Final Note:

There are lots of tax issues that come into play here as well as other deal points; therefore, always be sure to secure a successful attorney and advisor to help document and negotiate the deal.

There’s tons of ways to do these deals, so if you have any specific questions feel free to ask in the comments or find me on Instagram (@rolandfrasier), my DM’s are open. 

– Roland

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Reverse Engineering Uber’s Disruptive Model for You to Copy & Use

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One of the most overused terms across all industries is being a “disruptor.” So many already successful companies continually set their sights on this: 

  • “How can we disrupt the market?” 
  • “We need a disruptive idea to really put us back on coarse this year.”

The reason it’s so prevalent in the business today is because the uber successful companies (pun intended) transformed an already mature market and profited in such a way they’ve become the model home of the landscape we’re in. 

 At my most recent War Room Intensive, “Leverage, Grow, Buy & Sell,” we discussed just how brands like Uber & Airbnb did just that and how you can do it too. We’ve shared the full session on this in the video above. 

(NOTE: need some insight or even just interested in attending Roland’s Leverage, Exit, Growth, & Scale Intensive? When they aren’t 100% filled with War Room members, we sometimes offer them to qualified business owners. In fact, we have a handful of seats left for the next two coming up.)

Regardless of the “disruptive” principals Uber established, it still falls under one of the 14 business models every business I’ve come across does. 

You wouldn’t think that “Landlord/Tenant” applies to Uber, but it does. The landlord owns the car in this example, and the tenant is both Uber (for putting the passenger there) and the passenger. 

What’s interesting is when you start mixing and matching these business models with different pricing models, you can get really creative. Here’s how Uber did it:

There’s about 14 basic pricing models to use. Uber’s primary business model was “Broker: Connect Drivers with Passengers” and their primary pricing model is “Volume.” Uber charges a 15-30% broker fee for connecting drivers with passengers. 

As for the secondary models, Uber’s business model here is “Landlord/Tenant: Drivers Rent Car Space” and “Tiered Based on the Type of Car Requested.” Connect that with Uber’s secondary pricing model, “Volume: Distance & Miles.” and “Time of Day Premium (surge fees. Everyone’s favorite.) 

Uber’s third model was rolled out when they created an Affiliate Program to pay out Referral Fees to New Customers,” and did the same for new drivers. 

While it sounds like Uber was disruptive, they simply did something unique in a mature market. You can take these business & pricing models and mix & match them for your business, the same as Uber did to become so “disruptive.” 

(NOTE: the full clip in the video above also details how Airbnb did this too and even more insight into how you can effectively disrupt like these two companies did in their industries.)

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Why It’s Not Too Late For You To Be Everywhere On Social, Why You Really Need To Be & How You Can Easily + Inexpensively Do It & Monetize Your Efforts Without A Lot of Hassle

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I recently had a conversation over Facebook with one of my friends, and he asked me why I was favoring other social platforms like Instagram and LinkedIn over Facebook–where he was almost exclusively focused and where I had already built a pretty decent following.

It inspired me to answer this excellent question to why you need to be socially diverse as well.

Facebook is Trending Down in Growth & Usage in Key Demographics 

A recent Pew Research Center study revealed that bellweather teens, aged 13-17, are moving away from Facebook for social and prefer YouTube, Instagram and Snap.

Only 51% of that demographic regularly use Facebook while 85% use YouTube, 72% use Instagram and 69% use Snapchat.

Facebook is King of the MAUs, But Other Networks Have Huge Audiences Too

Facebook still wins with over 2.38 billion monthly active users (MAU) compared to 1.9 billion MAU for YouTube, 1.3 billion for Facebook Messenger, 1 billion for Instagram; and a paltry 301 million MAU for Snapchat and 260 million for LinkedIn.

Follow the Youth to Discover Where Social is Headed

You can frequently look to teen platform usage to see where the market is moving. If you also want to reach younger audiences, then it makes sense to see where they are spending their time.

Neither of my children (ages 22 & 28) even bother to use Facebook at all. They use YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat.

If you have almost 2x the number of younger folks on YouTube and about 1.5x on Instagram and 1.3x on Snapchat, it makes sense that those platforms are going to be the dominant in the foreseeable future. It’s important to get a foothold in all of them now.

What About Facebook Messenger? Is Messaging Replacing Broadcast?

Facebook Messenger, which is now an app independent of Facebook, serves 1.3 billion MAU but is growing at almost 700,000 users per day according to MobileMonkey, and current trends favor messaging over broadcast apps.

Should I Be On LinkedIn Too?

Bar none, LinkedIn owns the business market and its 260 million MAU are exactly who I want to be in front of for all of my B2B offerings.

If your target market includes B2B, you simply must create a presence on LinkedIn.

Different Platforms For Different Purposes

As you can see, Messenger and LinkedIn serve different purposes for my target markets. While Messenger Stories, bots & ads, and LinkedIn ads provide additional channels that allow me to reach my target market of business users. Therefore, I’m heavily investing in developing those channels as well.

If you want to reach businesses, you need to be on LinkedIn. If you want to connect better with your target market in a more personalized one-on-one basis, then add Messenger to your mix. 

Is It Too Late for Me? I’ve Really Only Focused nn Facebook So Far

Like many people, I focused primarily on building a Facebook following (over 1.1 million as I write this), and that audience has generated millions of dollars in revenue for me, and I suspect it will continue to do so for years to come.

However in the words of Game of Thrones anti-hero, John Snow, “winter is coming.”

If you want to be a person who “sees around corners,” then being prepared for the potential demise of Facebook is just smart thinking.

According to some, Facebook is shrinking now, not growing, or at least shrinking in key markets that might be most important to you. If that’s true, then you should be investing in social presence on several platforms, not leaving all your social eggs in Facebook’s basket.

I waited a long time on Instagram and only now am I playing catch-up to build a significant audience there. The same can be said for YouTube. But, the good news is that it’s never too late.

It’s Never Too Late!

How I Built Over 1 Million Facebook Followers from Scratch in 8 Months While Monetizing it in 90 Days

I waited until just 2 years ago to build a public Facebook page.

I grew that audience to over 1 million in about 8 months with an investment of only $5k per month in ad spend without fancy media or a content team following me around 24/7. It was just me and my iPhone, interviewing friends and boosting my unedited video posts to my target audiences.

I was able to start from nothing, build an audience and monetize it within about 3 months. I’m doing the same thing now with IG and starting in earnest with YouTube, LinkedIn and Messenger this month.

You can do this too!

How We Recently Started Building Instagram And Immediately Monetized with a “Small Following”

We have already generated about $60k in revenue from Instagram through daily organic posts of new and previously created content to small followings of 3,000 and 9,000 followers.

The revenue numbers and the followers will grow dramatically as we self-fund the expansion of these channels over the next year.

You Don’t Need a Large Audience to Monetize Immediately

Remember, it’s not the number of followers or how late in the game you start. It’s the quality of your message and the quality of offers you are able to make to even the smallest of audiences.

So What About Snapchat?

I have a hard time seeing how to really effectively monetize Snapchat. Therefore, I’m setting my sights on Instagram first, then YouTube followed by LinkedIn and Messenger.

Ultimately if Snapchat grows in the areas I care about most, then I’ll be there as well.

The good news is that if you are creating content for FaceBook, it isn’t that difficult to repurpose for YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn and Snapchat.

But the truth is, Snapchat is just another messaging service. So if you want to built an audience there, you would monetize it with the same strategy of creating content–sending it to your audience as messages and providing similar calls to action that you would with Messenger.

YouTube Strategy: Long-Form Video that Feeds Other Social Channels

For YouTube, you need long-form videos that dive deeper than FaceBook, Messenger, Instagram, or Snapchat Stories. Start with longer form videos for YouTube and then edit and cut for stories.

Image-Rich Facebook Content is Perfect to Repurpose to Instagram & Stories

Take your image-rich Facebook content and repurpose it for Instagram. If you’re already using Facebook Stories then that content should work well for Stories on Instagram, Messenger and Snapchat.

Content For LinkedIn

Post your longer form YouTube videos on LinkedIn and or transcribe them into text articles. Better yet, do both.

What About Podcasts?

If you are also podcasting,  post the audio onto YouTube. You can also create images that play and change during your audio. Lastly, you can start videoing your interviews and post the whole thing.

Then, cut up those interviews and post snippets on other social media like LinkedIn, Instagram (don’t forget about IGTV), etc.

I consider podcasting a different channel than social media. So while I strongly believe that everyone with anything valuable to say should have a podcast, I’m not going to cover podcasting here.

Diversify Your Social Presence

Ultimately, you don’t know what any of these platforms are going to do.  The more you can diversify your social presence, the better positioned you are for whatever happens.

For example, Google+  shut down despite having roughly 300 million users. If you built your social presence exclusively on Google+, you’d be starting at ground zero today. Algorithms can change. Social media channels can come and go. Remember Meerkat, MySpace or Friendster?

As my friend & former Google+ rockstar, Yifat Cohen, says, “it’s important for us to realize that we are “building our houses on rented land.”

The Ultimate Goal Is Moving Qualified Candidates to Your Owned Media

Your social channel itself is not a sustainable business model. Creating a presence across all the major platforms helps us draw customers from these marketing channels, but we should be thinking about how to move people into our owned media that we control.

Owned media is media is what you own and control–like a blog, an email list, a phone contact list, an SMS list, a direct mail list, or events you own, etc.

Conclusion

I’m making a push on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook Messenger, and LinkedIn right now to ensure no matter what happens on Facebook, my social media presence will continue to thrive across a diversified array of channels.

So, consider taking some time to start now, get yourself out there, and be omnipresent across all channels.

It’s not too late. I proved that with Facebook over the past 2 years and again with a small Instagram audience over the past 60 days.

It’s not too expensive. I built my Facebook audience with videos recorded on my iPhone at meetings I was already having without editing or fancy graphics.

I built my Instagram audience over a couple months from organic posts of images and content I created with no team of people following me around. It just yielded $60k in revenue in the past 30 days.

It’s not too late. It’s not too expensive. You can monetize it quickly. You can do it as a one-person team.

All that’s left is to take action.

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Seven Creative Cost Cutting Tactics to Implement in Your Business Right Away

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We all want the “big sale.” I’m talking about the one you have to call all your manufacturer, distributors, all of your employees; you know, that order.

As a business owner, it’s one of the best feelings in the world. But something I don’t see talked about enough, is how that sale often cripples businesses. Often times beyond repair. 

In this clip, I share seven creative cost-cutting tactics to implement in your business now and never lose traction on a substantial order.

Of course, It’s important that you already have your financial house in order. Be sure you’re looking at your financials and have your customer acquisition costs, costs of goods sold, etc. all lined out and understood across the board FIRST. 

Then the fun stuff starts. You’ll want to get creative in reducing the amount of capital required run your business and look at what can now be dedicated to your inventory. 

Inventory financing programs – also known as warehouse Lines

Factor receivables for inventory you’ve sold and apply that to the inventory you’re buying

Inventory financing direct from the manufacturer  – I.E. a plan set up to pay the manufacturer a third when you place the order, a third when it lands, and a third when it sells.

Container financing programs – If you’re shipping containers from oversees, or even domestically, there are companies that will finance the container to receive it.

Private money investors 

Sell leads to others who don’t compete with you (one of my favorites!) – get in front of the sale to increase revenue even before you target a customer by selling the lead to a non-competing company. 

Fulfill it on a drop-ship basis – an inventory company holds the product for you and ships it directly to the customer as soon as you receive payment for the order.

Inventory consignment – these types of companies will manufacture inventory and provide it in your warehouse. They own the inventory as collateral in an agreement, but you won’t pay for the product until it ships.    

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Can An Old-School Print Newsletter Or Magazine Grow Your Business + Help You Connect More Deeply With Your Audience?

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Looking for the next revenue stream or advertising media for your online or offline business?

Print media is back with a vengeance. 134 brand new print magazines publishing quarterly or more frequently emerged in the last 2 years alone according to the Magazine Publishers Association.

Print Magazines Are Eating The Internet

Internet companies like AirBnB (which launched AirBnB Magazine), Bumble (which launched Bumble Mag), Dollar Shave Club (which launched Mel), Away (which launched Here Magazine), and Casper (which launched Woolly magazine) are on the forefront of this trend.

Netflix is also printing a magazine to showcase it’s shows to the powers that be in the award community.

Media companies like Meredith are on the trend as well, launching The Magnolia Journal with Real Estate reality TV show Fixer Upper stars Chip and Joanna Gaines in late 2016.

Paid Subscriptions And Reaching Millennials

Just a little over 2 years later Magnolia Journal has 5.6 Million readers and 910,060 PAID subscribers according to Subscription numbers from MRI Starch and Alliance for Audited Media.

Better still, these print magazines are reaching the magical millennial audience that many advertisers find to be so elusive. 29% of Magnolia Journal readers are millennials.

You read that right, 910,060 paid subscribers in just 2 years.

Big Opportunities For Strategic Partnerships With Existing Budgets

Many larger companies already have huge pre-approved and under-utilized print media budgets standing in the wings looking for a place to land.

So, if you are an agency, look there for opportunities to add value and convert high-performing digital content and offers into print content and offers in other people’s magazines.

Taking that from the small company perspective, you could tap into unused budget in larger complementary businesses to co-launch a niche print magazine combining your skill and sweat with their un-deployed budget.

High-Value, Low-Cost Acquisition Opportunities

It might make sense to purchase undervalued established industry magazines. Many venerable print magazines with huge brand name recognition can be purchased for pennies on the dollar to what they would have cost only a few years ago.

You can acquire these well-known branded magazine for little money out of pocket and then breathe new life into them, both through an expanded business model that provides multiple monetization strategies through Online to Offline, Offline to Online, Affiliate, Advertising, Rev-Share, Advertorial, Sponsorship or any other of numerous multiple streams of monetization (MOSOM).

Physical Magazines For Podcasters

A physical magazine would be an excellent additional media modality for podcasters to offer to their listeners as well.

Remember, podcasts, like Facebook groups, YouTube channels and Instagram accounts are properties build on rented land. While it’s great to benefit from the huge traffic that sites iTunes, Facebook YouTube and Instagram offer, you still want to migrate your listeners/viewers/visitors over to your own media properties as well.

Print magazine opt-ins and sign-ups provide an opportunity to give your audience a great reason to step out of those other people’s media channels and come over to hang out with you, give you their email, read your print magazine, give you their physical mailing address.

Capital Doesn’t Have To Be An Issue

If the only thing keeping you out of the physical magazine and traditional print world is capital, consider partnering with someone else who already has it, possibly in the form of un-deployed budget.

Offset costs with subscriptions, advertorials for your own and/or other products and traditional advertising.

But, I Don’t Have An Audience

If the constraint is audience, then consider partnering with people who have them. Meredith, the company that launched Magnolia Journal does that.

Find influencers or companies with niche audiences and partner with them to gain other people’s audiences.

Remember too that the audience does not have to be huge to make this work. We created a print newsletter/magazine for you, our War Room Mastermind members, over a year ago.

It goes out to about 250 members and we also send it to prospective members and audiences we are targeting as content marketing. Given the high value of a new member ($30,000-$40,000) the ROI is huge and also cost to produce and mail is negligible.

How To Get Started

You don’t have to produce a 1,000-page full-bleed September Issue of Vogue to get started. A simple black and white retro-feel newsletter may do the trick. You can expand and increase production value as you evolve and budget permits.

Here are a few ideas on how you might get started with your own print magazine or newsletter.

  1. Get to know the print world. Most magazines accept editorial and advertising. So, reach out and get a media kit and article submissions criteria from other existing print magazines, and explore those options first as a third-party beneficiary of their efforts.
  1. Consider starting a newsletter for your own audience, like this one you’re reading right now, or if you don’t have one, partner with someone who does.
  1. Co-produce your print magazine with a financial sponsor/partner. As I mentioned above, many incumbent businesses have in-deployed or vastly under-deployed print media budgets. Help them spend those budgets by offering the content and labor with them providing the capital and possibly even the audience if they already have one.

  1. If you already have a good-sized list or media property with strong traffic, then create your own magazine and provide your audience with another modality to connect with you. Use War Room member Wayne Deehring’s printing service or War Room member Angela Lauria’s sister’s Perooz service to help create, print and distribute your magazine with a minimum of effort.

What’s the Objective?

The goal of the print media in most cases will be two-fold: First, diversification (multiple touch points for existing audience), and, second, acquisition (new audience).

So, if you currently have a small audience you should think of print as an investment in an audience growth tool rather than an expense.

If I could put on War Room Senior Faculty Member, Jay Abraham’s, hat for a moment, think of it as an opportunity to tap into a highly underutilized resource at a bargain price to apply leverage in your existing vertical.

Or, as mean old Dan Kennedy would say, “you can borrow instant credibility outside your immediate audience by adding a print asset to your existing tools.”

Resources

For printing, check out War Room member, Wayne Deehring’s, USP Fulfillment who handles a lot of printing for us and our events. He can get you a quote on printing and help coordinate production of your magazine or newsletter. We use Wayne’s services for almost all our printing needs for War Room.

Shaun Buck at Newsletter Pro (NewsletterPro.com), also produces newsletters for people who don’t have the time to do it themselves. And, War Room member Angela Lauria’s sister, Gina Lauria Daschbach at Perooz, produces complete done-for-you print magazines.

Case Study

Shaun at Newsletter Pro has been publishing a print newsletter/mini magazine for his company for 8 years. They mail to 9k people every month (they have clients that mail as few as 400 pieces per edition).

They make it a personality-driven piece and last year on leads that had been on their list for greater than 12 months, but until that point hadn’t bought anything, just those prospects were worth over $1.2 million in new revenue into Shaun’s company directly from the newsletter.

Conclusion

If you want to take a page out of several super successful companies’ books, consider starting a print magazine for your brand to better connect uninterruptedly with your audience.

If a print magazine seems too far a stretch, consider looking into this resurgent medium to reach highly segmented audiences with very specific interests.

One thing is for sure, print is definitely on the rebound and created a deeper connection with audience willing to pay for high quality content and an email and social media notification free reading experience.

P.S. We sent this out to War Room members a few weeks ago and is a sliver of the value they share from being inside the program. 

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