[social_warfare]
SHOW NOTES
If you thought the impacts of the iOS 14 updates were done, I’ve got news for you.
This is only the beginning. Even Facebook themselves have said so.
The truth is, the iOS 14 updates are going to have long term impacts on the digital marketing world, and you have two choices on how to handle it:
- Step up, adapt, and pivot to meet the demands of the new era.
- Make some noise and cry about it without taking action, and fail.
That’s the cold hard truth.
In today’s episode of the Not For Lazy Marketers Podcast, I’m dissecting the long term impacts of the iOS 14 updates and what you MUST do to prepare your business for what has already changed and what’s yet to come.
And no, it ISN’T optional if you want your business to survive.
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Emily Hirsh:
Hello everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. I hope you guys are having an amazing week. We have been on fire over here at Hirsh Marketing. There’s so much happening. We officially released our updated Ignite course, which was five and a half months in the making. Which to me, I told my team, is like a hundred years because we move so fast. So the fact it took that long just speaks to the amount of quality that went into the update. We updated content, we added new lessons and modules. I’m going to talk about and tie into this episode on why we did that, but the overall result of it was to create it more, it’s rebranded as the Ignite Academy.
It’s not just a Facebook ads course or a specific marketing course, but it supports on all fronts in a holistic way of organic marketing, all the different types of funnels, whether it’s e-commerce, or high ticket, or webinars, got extra trainings so that you can create a profitable, converting strategy in one of those areas. Everything got updated. It got rebuilt on WordPress, which allowed us to create it much more customized so that the content is more organized, easy to go through, clean, clear. Everyone is able to ultimately get results, get their ads live, get their ads running, get leads coming in, more audiences, more sales.
So I’m really excited about this launch, and to celebrate, we are doing a marketing mixer. So actually tomorrow, the day this episode comes out, but it will be on May 19th at 3:00 PM Eastern time on my Facebook live. We’re doing a little party. With that will be super fun prizes and different things you can win. I’m going to show the backend of Ignite, but I’m also going to talk more about why we made these changes and the current state of the digital marketing world. If you want to come, it’s obviously free. It’ll be super fun. There will be prizes and also an opportunity to get a discount to join Ignite. If you’ve been interested, if you’ve been on the fence for that, this is your time. If you go to hirshmarketing.com/mixer, then you’ll be able to go and RSVP to the events. No opt-in, just RSVP and come live at 3:00 PM Eastern time on May 19th. So I’m really excited about that. That is hirshmarketing.com/mixer.
Today I want to dive in a little bit, which is going to be a teaser to what I’m going to share on the mixer, but just talk through the long-term impacts of iOS. The iOS update has been out now for about three weeks officially. They’ve been preparing for it for months, telling business owners to verify their domains and a few things that they’ve been really preparing for. There’s definitely tactical tech things in the backend that have changed in terms of the data available in Facebook Ads Manager. I’ve talked about some of that on the podcast to keep you guys up to date. Our most recent Ads Intel Report had really detailed information on that, so if you haven’t read that, reviewed that, you can look at that.
But I want to talk about more like the long-term effects because I’ve had some time now to really observe this, to look at what big names are saying in corporate even, and high up around these updates. Our team, we have an iOS task force who goes to Facebook’s briefings on these and what this means. Overall, there is a big shift, and I think we’re seeing massive changes in the online industry right now. I’ve been saying that, but it is over and over again, confirmed for me in what we’re seeing.
I want to give you my take on this because I think part of it, I don’t want to say mindset, but it is a perspective that I’m hoping you adopt because I think this is the necessary perspective to have in order to weather these changes. One thing that I love to think about is there are business owners who are going to make a lot of noise and complain about this, or there are business owners who are going to adapt, step up, and pivot where needed. Those business owners are the ones who will continue to be successful through these changes. So here are my thoughts on this new era that we’re entering.
First of all, we’re entering an era where privacy is now the priority for consumers and for users of these apps, the iOS update, I’ve said this, I’ll say it again. It’s an iOS update. It impacts every single app on your phone. That means every possible platform you can advertise on is impacted, so jumping to a new platform is not going to be the answer. Figuring out how to pivot and how to adapt is the only way, or just stop running ads. Which for most businesses, is not an option or shouldn’t be, because one thing is still true. You need leads and sales. That need has not gone away. I’ve literally had people come to me, multiple, and even people close to me, who are just frustrated by it and be like, “just screw the paid ads thing. Let’s go do something else. Get out of this,” or, “how do we walk away from it or control something of this because it’s frustrating.”
I’m not going to say that it’s not frustrating and it doesn’t suck that this is happening for business owners. But that’s not the answer because the need to still generate an audience, and generate leads, and generate sales has not changed. We have to step up and make sure we can still do that in the new era. So in my opinion, I’m like no I’m excited! This is history being made right now. Are you kidding? We’re going to look back on this in three years, four years, just like we did when all the Google changes to the algorithm, however long ago that was. It was probably six or seven years ago. People still talk about that. People still reference that. That is literally what we’re in right now, especially with Facebook and Instagram, because in my opinion, these companies were created and they got away with a lot of stuff that they’re now not going to get away with because privacy has become a priority. From a consumer perspective, that’s a good thing and it probably was inevitable. It was going to happen at some point. From a marketer in a small business perspective, it does kind of suck.
But that is the reality, and we have to adapt to that reality. There is nothing we can change about it. There is no easier route, okay? So with these impacts and going into this new era, you have that option to adapt or to cry about it, right? The businesses that adapt and pivot will continue to be successful. This change was coming. I’ve been saying it’s going to come for probably two years now. A lot of very smart people have been saying that as well, and we’re now here. So we have to step up with that. So long-term impacts of iOS.
Number one, this has been happening for the last year to two years, is actual ad costs on Facebook are going to get more expensive. So what does that mean? Okay. We’ve seen ad costs go up. Now they’re not spiking up the instant iOS updates have gone out, but what’s happening is Facebook’s cracking down. Facebook’s making their ad costs more expensive. There are various factors. More businesses trying to market, more saturated markets. The iOS updates are making things harder in the backend and we don’t know the full impact it’s going to have on targeting and data. I think it’s going to be okay on that front in terms of the effectiveness of audiences, and I think Facebook has enough data to be okay on that end, but tracking will be impacted. Things will be a little bit harder.
So if ad costs are going up, what do we do about that, right? That’s across the board that ad costs are going up. But the only solution to add costs going up when you have no choice, but you have to run ads to generate leads and sales. If you’re wanting your business to grow, the only solution is now you have to get more out of your ad spend. So if you were paying $6 cost per lead, and now over the last year your average has gone up to $10 cost per lead, then we need to get more out of every one of those leads. How do we do that? We make sure our sales conversion is as high as possible. What happens off the Facebook ads gets even more things that were optional, or nice to add in, or were high-level strategies before now are critical to having profitable ads. Because if you are paying more cost per lead, you have to sell more of those leads or that traffic to your sales page.
So what is happening after the Facebook ad is now even more critical, which is one of my points here on the long-term impacts. More expensive costs mean we’ve got to make up for it on the backend. We have to increase that sales conversion. We have to have a next-level strategy. We have to have better messaging. All of that now matters, even more, to make the costs work. Now this happened during the elections too, it was like, okay, costs went up. Do you just turn off ads? Or do you know your numbers? Do you pivot? Do you create a better strategy?
So there’s a lot of unknown still around the actual strategies you can shift and change. There’s a lot of things that we’re testing on the backend to stay on top of this for clients. But one thing I want to start testing more of is how do you get the affordable, inexpensive leads in from Facebook and then convert them on the backend at a higher rate? This means more touchpoints, flash sales, quarterly live events, ways to capitalize on those leads now just became critical to your ad profitability. Okay? If ad cost is going up, we have to adapt to know that.
I think some people are going to be pushed to raise the price of their products because if you can’t afford the ad cost to promote the product, you’re going to have to raise the price of it, which means you might have to make it more valuable. You might have to add more into your product and offer to be able to charge more, to be able to offset ad cost, right? That’s the same in the world. When one cost goes up, then sometimes… Right now it’s happening, for example, with wood and construction. I know this because we’re remodeling our house. It’s insane how expensive it is. There are a few big reasons. One, the cost of gas has gone up. Two, the freeze that actually happened in Texas made it so these big plants couldn’t produce lumber and wood for a month or something, so they got behind. So then the cost of wood goes up, right?
So this happens out in the world all the time. The cost of something goes up, drives the cost of another thing up. I think that’s what we’re going to see is as ad costs go up online, business owners are going to have to make this decision to sell higher-priced products. That’s one of my points is lower-priced, especially digital products, are going to be harder to market on Facebook. I’m not saying they are impossible. If you have a $47 digital product, not saying it’s impossible to actually be profitable with that, but it will be extremely hard because you will have to have very inexpensive ad costs and an extremely good sales conversion, which takes time, and effort. and testing and optimizing to achieve.
So ideally, and I have also been saying this since I started teaching self-liquidating offer funnels, which are those low price digital products. A year ago, I did the podcast secrets series on them in the summer and I said, those are a lead generation strategy, you’ve got to have something bigger on the backend. That is my recommendation. A lot of people are resistant to that, and you know what? You see people out there having these low-priced digital products who look like they’re making millions on it, but most likely, they’re breaking even, and then they’re making money on the backend on something higher priced.
Keeping that in mind, when you look at your offerings it’s important because you have to be able to sustain the price. The only way to do that is to have very inexpensive ad costs, which maybe you can’t. There are some industries, we have clients that are in the education space, you can still get dollar leads in the education space. Also, in the health space, you can still we’ll get pretty inexpensive leads. In the B2B space where you’re targeting other entrepreneurs in the digital marketing area, you can’t. So having a $47 product, it will be extremely hard, if not impossible, to make it profitable. That’s the raw truth that not enough people are saying honestly.
One other thing. I touched on this, but I want to touch on it again. What is happening off Facebook is now even more critical. So your email sequences, your social media, your direct messaging conversations if you sell high ticket, your regular content promotion or offer promotion schedule now is even more important. You have to capitalize, and nurture, and resell and, re-offer your offer to your leads now more than ever to maintain profitability. You need to see Facebook ads still as the vehicle to get an audience, to get leads, but then you need to do the work on the backend to make sure you’re consistently converting the maximum amount of those leads that you can. Okay.
And messaging is a big part of your strategy. If I was to say overall these updates, what this is doing, and this is what I said last month in my webinar, but this is all just being reconfirmed right now for me, is as ad costs go up as marketing online gets harder. It will be people who will say, “oh, I need to jump platforms. This is too hard and I need to start this new strategy or start this new business.” And that’s fine, that’s going to cause that and they will not succeed because you can jump over to a new place and still have your same foundational problems. So all of this is going to highlight broken marketing strategies because if you don’t have your messaging and your structure rock solid at this point, you will not succeed. So if you do not understand your ideal customer, if you cannot attract, if you can not speak to them, if you don’t have a complete strategy where it’s not just front end Facebook ads, but it’s the backend what’s happening after those Facebook ads, how are you converting a maximum amount of those ads? If you don’t have that, you will not be profitable.
These changes are going to highlight the businesses that are missing these things. I’ve been seeing this coming for the last several months. So on the backend of Hirsh Marketing, this is the reason why we updated our Ignite Academy program to include all of this, because it now includes lessons and training on your messaging, how to completely nail your messaging. Then we now have a messaging workshop. We have a strategy workshop. We have, like I said in the beginning, trainings on all the different funnels and the strategies. you cannot now afford to not have a top converting pitch on your webinar. You can’t afford that. So you have to make sure that you have that. So we’ve added that in to the Academy to make it more than a Facebook ads course.
On our done-for-you side, we’ve done the same thing. We’ve added in workshops on our clients’ messaging because next-level messaging, ad copy, creative angles to connect with your audience, ways to attract your audience isn’t just nice to have, it’s absolutely critical. I brought my whole creative team in-house in the last four months because having contractors just didn’t work. It wasn’t enough. We needed to take it to the next level. So we’ve added that. We’ve added a new higher position in the strategy piece of our company now, instead of a strategic internal strategist, we have a strategic director who has more experience in strategy, who is next level on strategy. So we’ve had to up-level to serve our clients, to make sure we can keep the ads profitable.
I’ve seen this shift happen and we’ve made these changes on the backend. If you are with an agency doing your own ads, have an in-house ads person, if they’re not doing this, you will be in the red with your marketing now or very soon. That’s why I’ve been very much speaking out about this because I don’t think people understand how big of a deal this is truly. The iOS updates, all these changes, this is the beginning. Even Facebook says this is only the beginning. We’re going to see this a lot more. It is probably going to get, I don’t know if it’s going to get worse, it’s just not going to get better. With little changes like GDPR or CBO campaigns, those were all big rollouts from Facebook. Those were minor feature differences, or like a minor inconvenience GDPR was where you had to follow some new rules. This is a massive era change in digital marketing that’s going to be massively impactful. So on the backend, obviously, on our delivery, we’ve had to meet that where it is.
My advice is if you haven’t done that in your own business and with your own marketing, you better do it now because it is absolutely critical. So with that said, I’m going to talk even more deeply on this in the marketing mixer. I’m also going to answer any of your questions. If you guys are seeing things with the iOS updates, or you’re worried about something, or you’re unclear about something, come and ask questions on this marketing mixer, which is happening May 19th at 3:00 PM Eastern time. Then on that mixer, I’m also going to reveal officially and really fun, the Ignite Academy course. So I can show you guys the program that we have.
If you don’t know at all what I’m talking about and you haven’t followed me for a while, the Ignite Academy course is our done-with-you program, which basically gives you all the tools, and the trainings, and the resources that we give our clients, but at costs that you can afford now, versus you’re not ready for a full done-for-you option. Then we also have trainings from my team and an Ignite success coach. So it’s not like here’s a course good luck, but we’re going to make sure that you build your funnel, launch your ads, optimize your ads, you start getting those marketing leads and sales. So come and join me, hirshmarketing.com/mixer to talk all about more of this new era, the iOS updates, you can ask questions. We’re going to have a trivia game, prizes, gift cards, all the fun things. Then I’ll show you the backend of the new program, you’ll be the first to see it, and also have an opportunity to get an awesome discount if you want to see about joining and booking a call with our team on that.
So come RSVP, it’s no opt-in required. You just say yes or you can just show up. It’s going to be on Facebook live on my page Hirsh Marketing. So come and join me tomorrow and hang out. It’s going to be fun. I think I’m going to decorate my office with party stuff and have some fun. So hirshmarketing.com/mixer. Otherwise, if you can’t make it at the least, I want you guys to bulletproof your business right now and your marketing strategies right now. I’m going to keep talking about this because not enough people are talking about this. I think marketing agencies and people are afraid to talk about it because they don’t want to scare their clients. I’m like we’ve got to face this head-on, straight into it because there’s no other way around it. So we’re not going to pretend it’s not happening. We’re going to still get results and we’re going to still support small businesses through this because there is no other option. All right. Hopefully I’ll see you guys tomorrow at the mixer. Thanks so much for listening and I’ll talk to you next time.
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