Are you tired of hustling every day to sell your own product or service?
Are you nervous about spending tens of thousands on Facebook ads, with no guarantee you’ll turn a profit?
Do you have a great product or service, but lack a full-scale marketing and sales department to get you the exposure you deserve?
If you answered “yes” to any of the above, you’re in the right place.
The Influencer Marketing Method is the most effective way to build authority, get instant credibility, and grow your audience - even if you’re starting from scratch...
What does that mean for you?
#1. more sales
#2. more revenue
#3. and more winning
The best part?
All you need is a product, an email address, and access to Google.
With those three things, you can easily 10x your reach, impact, and revenue, in a matter of weeks.
I’m going to show you exactly how inside my Influencer Marketing Method program.
But first...
Influencer marketing is a form of marketing that leverages individuals with audiences to spread a message.
In other words:
When you use influencer marketing to sell your product or service, you’re not going “direct” to the consumer with your offer. Instead, you’re filtering your offer through a 3rd party referral.
Who is this “3rd party referral”?
That’s the influencer.
So then you might ask:
What makes a person an influencer?
Infuencers are individuals who have access to an audience of people who follow them, engage with them, and trust their recommendations.
The most effective influencers are those who are considered experts and thought leaders in their niche or industry…
These are the people Malcolm Gladwell calls “Mavens” in his bestselling book “The Tipping Point.”
Gladwell describes Maven’s as “information specialists” and says that these individuals can start “word-of-mouth epidemics” because of how they communicate.
They are givers who want to help others…
Most importantly: their opinions matter to those who follow them.
Because influencers are trusted and respected…
And when they share something relevant and useful with their audience, it’s like a review on steroids.
According to a customer service survey conducted by Dimensional Research:
“88% of customers have been influenced by an online customer service review when making a buying decision.”
But that’s not all…
According to “The Conversation Index: Volume 9” by Bazaarvoice, which compiled data from more than 57 million online reviews:
“64% of US online consumers conducted online research before making a purchase in the past three months.”
And maybe more importantly:
87% of buyers who earn $150,000 or more say that “consumer-generated content” had an influence on their purchasing decision.
In case you’re curious, Bazaarvoice defines “Consumer-generated content” as any form of “digital content that people create about a product or service they have experienced, used, purchased, or considered.”
In other words:
The authentic opinion of people you trust matters - maybe more than anything else.
Straight to business, is it?
I like that.
Here’s the deal:
I’m going to share some of my numbers because I’ve seen the power of influencer marketing first hand…
But keep in mind a couple things:
First: these are numbers based on time-based campaigns where I could directly track the results of our influencers. On some campaigns (like those where we’re using influencers to promote a book on Amazon), it’s just not possible to accurately attribute sales to affiliates. In such cases, I left out the data from my averages.
Second: your results may vary, so consider the numbers below a reflection of what’s possible if you embrace influencer marketer, rather than any sort of guarantee (don’t forget I’ve been doing this for years ;D).
Now that we have that out of the way...
Over the past two years, I have earned my clients over $1,000,000.00 from influencer-generated sales alone.
Typically, we’ll coordinate influencers to promote a product or service over the course of a 4 week period (which I’ll refer to as a campaign).
On average, I found that:
And this doesn’t say anything about the benefit of getting your name in front of tens or hundreds of thousands of people, whether they buy your product or not...
On a recent campaign, I found that, on average, a single influencer who decided to promote our offer was worth $1,851.41 in revenue. Think about that… If I can get 10 influences on board to share this offer, I can be fairly confident that I’ll generate about $18,000.00 in revenue. Now what if I recruit 20 influencers? 50? 100?
And that’s why influencer marketing is so great: You can scale this kind of marketing like crazy.
Why?
Because most industries haven’t scratched the surface with influencer marketing. It’s too new. It’s too confusing (for most). And it’s too unpredictable (for those who don’t know the right strategies to use)...
And that is why you need to take advantage of this opportunity NOW. Let me explain...
I’m glad you asked.
The Influencer Marketing Method works for people who are selling both digital or physical products, SaaS, as well as professional services.
And it works in just about every niche and every industry.
Here are just a few of the industries I’ve personally worked in while using the Influencer Marketing Method:
BUT…
(oh yes, there’s a but)
The Influencer Marketing Method is only effective IF:
Let’s assume you meet the criteria of 1 through 3 above… The question is: Do you have a SCALABLE offer?
HOW TO DETERMINE IF YOU HAVE A SCALABLE OFFER
If you’re not sure, answer the following questions:
If you answered “yes” to both questions above, you can pass go.
If you answered “no” to both, influencer marketing probably isn’t a good fit.
If you answered “yes” to #1, but “no” to #2 (or aren’t sure), the Influencer Marketing Method may work for you, but you won’t have as much flexibility on how you reward influencers for their performance (we cover this in "MODULE 5: Advanced" inside Influencer Marketing Method).
Here are just a few examples of the Influencer Marketing Method at work for various offers in various niches:
In January 2016, I led the influencer marketing efforts for a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign...
We were raising funds for a goal setting journal called “The Freedom Journal.”
The campaign itself was scheduled for 33 days…
In the lead up to the campaign, we reached out to 1,188 influencers.
These were individuals who had audiences that would benefit from a goal setting journal.
Of the 1,188 influencers we reached out to, 266 agree to share the campaign with their audiences. About 100 said they would email for the book.
We estimated that through these influencers we were able to reach over 500,000 people.
The result?
By the end of the campaign, we had over 7,000 backers and raised $453,803.00.
To this day, The Freedom Journal is the #1 most funded, non-fiction publishing project on all of Kickstarter.
It was not easy to get all of these “yes’s.”
We sent over 7,600 emails in the course of a couple months...
This meant many followups and many unique conversations.
Without the Influencer Marketing Method, which uses a simple, yet robust tracking system to make sure no influencers fall through the cracks, a marketing campaign this size would be impossible.
In May have 2017, Jesse Krieger, the founder of Lifestyle Entrepreneur press, hired me to help recruit and manage influencers for his new summit: Bestseller Summit Online.
I immediately got to work implementing the Influencer Marketing Method to recruit speakers and promotional partners.
Out of the 165 influencers we identified as potential speakers and partners, 133 (81%) responded to our outreach, and 66 (40%) agreed to promote the event.
Not only did these partners bring in over 10,000 new subscribers for Jesse...
They accounted for 78% of all sales for the event:
Learning how to get influencers to say “yes” to working with you is an important first step (and you’ll learn how inside the Influencer Marketing Method course)...
But if you want your event or promotion to be as profitable as possible, you need to go ABOVE AND BEYOND for your influencers.
Here’s what some our speakers and partners had to say after we finished the Bestseller Summit Online promotion:
“The one [thing] that really stood out was your friendliness...I felt warmly welcomed as an affiliate… and friend. That was extraordinary.” - Britt Malka
“All of the communication was excellent, easy to follow, and the reminders with the specific posts and social media with links was a nice bonus. It was all very well done” - Diane Mae Robinson
“Love the personalized emails that Tom Morkes sends” - Jyotsna Ramachandran
Creating value for others is at the core of the Influencer Marketing Method.
Yes, you can profit from using influencer marketing to sell your products or services…
But when done right, the Influencer Marketing Method will help the influencers you work with profit, as well as their audiences.
By following the step-by-step instructions inside Influencer Marketing Method course, you’ll build real relationships that will create a win-win-win scenario for all parties (for you, the influencers you work with, and their audiences).
And when you help others win, they’ll continue to work with you for months and years to come.
So… how do you get started?
Well, there are a few secrets you must know first:
Listen, when it comes to influencer marketing:
Cold email DOES NOT WORK.
There’s tons of information out there about how to cold email more effectively…
But the truth is:
Cold email conversion rates are typically abysmal…
If you DuckDuckGo the topic, every now and then you’ll find honest conversations about cold emailing.
Here’s a part of a conversation I found on Startups.co:
“Buddy, we had to send 4000 emails to convert 20 customers.”
Do the math on that real quick:
4000 emails…
20 customers…
That is a 0.005% conversion rate.
If you’re reaching out to a pool of millions of potential clients / customers / partners, this might work.
But when it comes to influencers...
In your niche…
Who are very busy, in demand, and whose schedules book up quick...
Then the pool is more like a few hundred, or a few thousand if you’re lucky...
In this case, 0.005% conversion rate just isn’t going to cut it.
I have averaged a 32% conversion rate when using the Influencer Marketing Method.
And when I say “conversion rate” - I mean 32% of people we reach out to SAY YES to promoting our offer.
On several occasions, we’ve seen conversion rates as high as 48%.
Think about that for a second:
Let’s say your goal is to get 100 influencers to share your offer...
How many people would you need to contact to get that answer?
With the Influencer Marketing Method, about 300 people.
Cold email? Try 20,000 people.
Plus, the extra 19,700 people you reached out to?
They’ve probably all marked your email “spam” because there’s no way you personalized anything at that scale...
I remember being at a bar and restaurant on New Years Eve about 5 years ago…
W.e got there early because we had no plans to stay till midnight - we just wanted to eat and hang out a bit before going to sleep at 10pm (that’s how I party).
Off to the side of the bar was a dance floor.
On the dance floor, early in the night, were a few youths gyrating to the latest pop and hip hop.
One guy in particular caught my attention.
He was kind of gangly, had glasses, and didn’t seem to have a natural talent for dancing…
Anyway, early on in the night, he went up to a group of three girls, and started talking to one of them.
The rest of the night he awkwardly danced around the group, but kept coming back to that one girl.
“No way this is going anywhere,” I thought...
When we got up to leave, that’s when I saw it: the two were embracing one another, and lips (possibly tongue) were involved.
That night stuck with me for the rest of my life because it taught me two things:
1. Don’t judge a man by how he dances
2. Persistence pays off
When I worked with John Lee Dumas for his record-setting Kickstarter campaign, I embraced this motto.
I mentioned earlier that we reached out to over 1000 influencers…
What I didn’t mention was that we followed up with each of them, on average, 6.4 times.
“Tom, you can’t do that. That’s so annoying. I hate when people follow up with me. Reeeee!”
If that was your response, I get it…
...but: you’re wrong.
Not only does this not bother most reasonable people (they just reply “no thanks” if they’re not interested - and so should you if the person is being polite)...
But I’ve gotten 10 to 1 more THANK YOUs for following up than digital hate mail.
Here’s are just a few examples:
This influencer was busy:
This influencer didn’t check this specific email address very often:
This influencer was on holiday:
And this little influencer went tweet, tweet, tweet all the way home:
The moral of the story?
Persistence pays off.
Influencers are just like you and me:
Busy.
Like you, they are working on things that are important, and they want to focus on those things…
Like you, they don’t like people who disrupt their work, or who only want to take, take, take…
And so the question becomes:
How do you get someone who is busy doing important work to notice you, recognize your value (the value you can give to them / their audience), and then agree to work with you?
The answer?
Keep your email short and to the point.
Respect the influencers time, make things easy for them, and they’ll work with you again and again.
Now you might be asking: “How exactly do I keep things short and to the point, and make them easy?”
I’ll get to that in a second, but first:
You might be wondering who I am and why I’m passionate about influencer marketing.
After I graduated from West Point, I served in the Iraq war.
Later, I became a Company Commander and got paid to jump out of helicopters.
In 2013, after more than 5 years as an active duty officer, I knew it was time for a new challenge.
I started to prepare for law school…
But before putting in my paperwork, my wife and I decided to take a year off to travel.
On a whim, I sold my car, bought an around-the-world plane ticket, and took off to New Zealand (with a couple week layover in Hawaii, because why not?).
The only problem?
Neither of us were getting paid to travel…
And a year of travel expenses add up.
I expected to come back to the states in debt. Part of me was okay with that…
But the other part of me wondered if maybe, just maybe, I could make money online while we traveled.
And so began my serious attempt at building a business online.
I started blogging, podcasting, and writing books…
I learned to create courses, and sell them through a combination of webinars, paid advertising and email marketing…
I figured out how to package my expertise and sell high-ticket coaching and consulting...
And each day, I reached out and connected with entrepreneurs who were doing interesting stuff online so I could learn from them.
When I wasn’t enjoying Causians on the beach, I was working my butt off trying to figure out the online business game…
...but it didn’t feel like I was getting any traction.
It wasn’t until we made it back state-side and looked at our financials that we realized that, not only did we not go in debt, we were actually making a profit.
Winner winner, chicken dinner.
So instead of law school, I decided to keep doing this online thing...
Fast forward to 2018:
I now work with thought leaders and fast-growth startups across a range of niches to help them scale their reach, impact, and profit through partnerships, influencers, and affiliate marketing.
High-profile brands and businesses like: Neil Patel, John Lee Dumas, Alinka Rutkowska, Amber Hawken, Joseph Michael, Teachable, and more.
How did I build these relationships?
Short answer: I used the techniques I teach inside Influencer Marketing Method (before I had a name for it)…
And thanks to the Influencer Marketing Method, these are now people I consider friends.
To date, I have used this method on 100+ marketing campaigns, which have cumulatively brought in millions in revenue.
In the past two years alone, close to a dozen have produced more than 6-figures (with several breaking $250,000 in a very short timespan).
Over this time, I’ve learned the importance of relationships, and the power of influencer marketing.
The question is:
So you have a product or service, and you want more sales...
Who doesn’t, right?
Well, there are a couple of ways you can get there.
Honestly, this might not be a bad idea.
After all, if everyone is doing something, then it must work to some degree.
Things like:
None of these are bad; and many are effective in their own ways.
I’m actually a big fan of content marketing…
...but blogging isn’t as easy as it used to be, and it’s harder than ever to rank organically for keywords… and time is ticking…
I’ve had a lot of success with paid advertising…
...about 4 years ago, when it was common to get a FB lead for $1 or less in ad spend. Now, you need at least a 4-figure monthly budget to test out ads to see if they’ll work… and bottom line: they might not.
And there’s nothing wrong with social media marketing...
...but not only is this another medium you need to master, which means another full time job for you (or full time salary for someone else), but the ROI on social media marketing can be depressingly low (not to mention fleeting).
So whichever avenue you choose, you are going to spend a lot of time, a lot of money, and endure a lot of frustration to make things happen...
And let me help you through the entire process.
I created the Influencer Marketing Method to show you how to get influencers banging down your door to promote your product or service.
The best part:
It doesn’t take years to master, and it won’t break the bank.
(in fact, with every campaign I’ve run, we’ve never spent a dollar up front to recruit influencers...sure, you can do this, but why would you if you don’t have to?)
The Influencer Marketing Method is a course that will teach you how to find, connect, and build a powerful network of influencers who are excited to share your offer with the world.
The Influencer Marketing Method will help you increase your visibility and build authority that comes with being referred by big-name influencers in your niche or industry…
I’ll tell you more soon, but first let me ask you this question:
I’ve shared my numbers with you earlier.
A promotional partner (aka influencer) is worth about $1,800 on average to me. If you have a similar average, a single partner would pay for this course more than 10 times over.
And that’s just one partner...
I’m telling you, if you take this course, and actually do all of the work… you will see an a generous ROI.
So,
If you want more leads for your service-based business…
If you want more sales of your digital or physical products...
If you want to become a respected authority in your field…
...and you want to do that without spending years on content marketing, tens of thousands on paid advertising, and an infinite number of disappointment with social media marketing...
Then my brand new course is the answer to all your prayers.
The Influencer Marketing Method is a five module course that will teach you:
...even if you’re starting from scratch with no network.
And the best part?
In Module 1, I will teach you the fundamentals of influencer marketing, and I’ll help you set up your influencer tracking system (using our ‘software stack’ or your own).
In Module 2, I will show you how to do fast, effective market research. You will learn how to position yourself and your product in a way that will allow you to break into dozens of new markets you probably never even considered. I will teach you my “marketing verticals” technique, and you’ll learn about the “sweet spot” when it comes to influencer outreach.
In Module 3, you’re going to begin laying the groundwork for your outreach. I’ll show you my step-by-step process for building your list of influencers, so that when you begin to reach out and connect with them, it’s a breeze (and effective).
In Module 4, I’ll walk you through how to prepare your communication plan for each of the “marketing verticals” you identified in Module 2. I will share with you the strategies I use when contacting influencers, and I’ll show you how to craft a unique strategy based on your product, timing, and market.
In Module 5, it’s time to start connecting. I’ll show you how to you craft the messages you will send, and I’ll teach you when and how to send them (and what to do when you start getting replies).
In Module 6, I’ll show you how to turn these relationships into promotional partners for your next marketing campaign. I’ll also give you my strategies for ensure the influencers you recruit have an amazing experience and WANT to promote your product or service again and again.
Last but not least:
You get up to 3 months of email-only coaching support, FREE ($291 value).
If you come to a point where you’re confused by anything, or would like advice on a specific aspect of influencer marketing, you can reach out to my team and they’ll get back to you with a response.
Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.
You know you’re getting a ridiculous amount of value inside the course alone…
Bonus ut I also want to share some awesome bonuses you’ll receive (these will come out over the next 2 to 3 months, and there may be more on the way...):
Ever want to connect with an influencer, but couldn’t find their email?
In the first bonus lesson, we’ll give you our top tips for searching out the email addresses of your influencers. Instead of using a contact form, having an email address will allow you to track your outreach better, and improve your follow up game.
In this lesson, we’ll deep dive into the secret sauce of “message positioning.”
I’ll teach you how to you dissect your message, and use the “Story Bridge Model” to make your email outreach absurdly effective.
In this lesson, we’ll deep dive into the secret sauce of “message positioning.”
I’ll teach you how to you dissect your message, and use the “Story Bridge Model” to make your email outreach absurdly effective.
You’ll be able to download several bonuses resources to help you through the Influencer Marketing Method process.
This includes templates of the organizational and tracking systems we use for our clients.
It also includes email templates you can work with and personalize when you’re ready to connect with your influencers.
“What if I don’t have a product yet?”
You will experience the most obvious and immediate reward from the Influencer Marketing Method when you have a product or service that’s already selling.
But even if you don’t have a product, or aren’t focused on promoting one right now, it will still help you.
In fact, as I teach in the course, you should continue exercising the method in between launches or marketing campaigns.
That’s because the core of the content is learning to create solid relationships with influencers.
So if you want to focus on creating this network now so you can leverage it later, the course will help you.
“What is the difference between influencer marketing and affiliate marketing?”
Great question:
Affiliate marketing, also known as performance marketing, refers to the way you compensate people who sell your product or service; typically, you pay a commission every time an affiliate makes a sale (or generates a click, or an optin...just depends on the metric you're measuring), at a predetermined / agreed upon % or dollar amount.
Influencer marketing, on the other hand, is all about the person actually DOING the marketing.
So an influencer can also be an affiliate, but an affiliate is not always an influencer.
For example: getting on the right podcasts in your niche can be a form of influencer marketing (depending on how you line up the podcast, what the podcaster agrees to promote, etc.) - and often this doesn’t require any form of compensation.
Or in the case of the book launches we’ve done, sometimes just giving a free book is all you need to offer an influencer to get them to review and share with their audience.
That said, combining influencer marketing and affiliate marketing can be very lucrative.
In the course, I'll show you how to incorporate affiliate marketing with influencer marketing for best results.
“Will you recruit influencers for me?"
No, but luckily this training is designed so you can do it yourself, and it’s about as easy as it comes.
The course includes video training, step-by-step instructions, templates, email scripts, and more.
Oh, and when you enroll in Influencer Marketing Method, you get lifetime access, so you can go through the program at your own pace, whenever you want.
“Is the Influencer Marketing Method right for me?"
When I finally created this course, I had three people in mind:
#1. The business owner with a product or service that’s selling, who has used influencer marketing with success, and wants to know what’s working right now to take their business to the next level.
#2. The business owner with a product or service that’s selling, who has NEVER used influencer marketing, and wants to use influencer marketing to scale their business.
#3. The new entrepreneur, freelancer, or business owner; someone who is just getting started, and hasn’t yet sold their products or services.
Whether you’re established, have used influencer marketing or north, or you are starting from scratch, the Influencer Marketing Method can help.
If you’re just getting started, you can use the Influencer Marketing Method to build relationships before you ever need them (in many ways, this is exactly the approach you SHOULD take, though it’s not always possible).
If you’re established, whether you’ve used influencer marketing before or not, the Influencer Marketing Method can help you scale your business.
This course will take you through every step in the process so you don’t ever feel like a fish out of water.
The Influencer Marketing Method will take you through the basics to help you build authority and grow your list.
The Influencer Marketing Method is a complete system that will teach you how to line up partners who will want to support and sell your product today.
And if you have a network of people who respect you, the Influencer Marketing Method will teach you how to leverage these relationships so that both sides win.
The Influencer Marketing Method is what’s allowed me work with high-profile influencers and brands, and turn role models into clients and actual friends.
It has allowed me to run over 10 six-figure promotions, and launch books to the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller lists.
It’s allowed me to break Kickstarter records, and run summits with massive reach.
And I believe every person reading this right now can grow their business through influencer marketing.