0:03

What is up you gorgeous bastards? It

0:05

is your boy Spin Drift, aka Rabbi

0:07

Can't Lose, aka Noah Kagan. Today, I'm

0:10

sharing with you five exact

0:12

strategies that each generated over

0:15

eight figures in revenue for

0:17

AppSumo. We have

0:19

experimented over at appsumo.com with so many different

0:21

things to grow our business over the past

0:23

15 years. And

0:26

now, today, I'm going to give you

0:28

the top five that worked extremely well.

0:31

Here's three gigantic things you're going to take away

0:33

in this episode. Number one, giveaways. So, I'm going

0:36

to share exactly how we came up with the giveaway, how

0:38

we ran the giveaway, and how we've still been

0:40

doing them 14 years later. Number

0:42

two, email. I know you all heard me talk

0:44

about email. You all know I love email. You know I love

0:46

to send you emails. Make sure you're on the newsletter, noahkagan.com. But

0:49

I would go behind the scenes of exact things

0:51

that we've been doing to make eight figures and

0:53

more a year via email. Number three,

0:55

about me being a dinosaur on the internet. I'm

0:58

going to talk about the law of 100. I'm going

1:00

to talk about continuously producing content over an extraordinary long

1:03

period of time and have fun along the way. You're

1:05

going to enjoy those three ear nuggets plus a bunch

1:07

more along the way. If you've enjoyed this show and

1:09

you want to know how I'm able to make all

1:11

this happen and fit so much productivity into my week

1:14

and be lazy and go bike riding and do my

1:16

best to be a good husband and father, go back

1:18

and check out last week's episode where I break down

1:20

my $100 million schedule. That is episode 343 in the

1:22

feed. Go

1:32

grab the book at milliondollarweekend.com, check

1:35

it out, join the newsletter, and

1:37

then send me a email at

1:39

slack at okdork.com. Get

1:41

the New York Times bestselling book,

1:43

Million Dollar Weekend. I also happen

1:46

to write it, so I'm biased.

1:48

That's milliondollarweekend.com. Imagine Imagine

1:50

if you could change your life in 48 hours. You

1:52

can, and it starts today. Go grab the

1:55

book, milliondollarweekend.com. It has been amazing to see

1:57

your tweets and Instagrams and all of the

1:59

messages about y'all supporting me, but really

2:01

supporting yourself. So get the book and

2:03

one of the sweetest things you can do is get

2:05

the book and give it to someone else if you've

2:07

already read it or you're already along in your business,

2:09

that's milliondollarweekend.com. Also special free show shout out

2:11

to the listener, John Naylor from the UK. Cracking

2:14

shows, sir. I've lost track

2:16

of how many good ideas and tips I've

2:18

heard here. Keep the episodes coming, John. I

2:21

love you, man. And I love every other

2:23

one of you gorgeous British and global listeners.

2:25

If you wanna shout out in a future

2:27

episode, take 30 seconds right now. Go

2:31

to iTunes, go to Spotify, leave a review. I

2:34

check every single one of them. Thank you so

2:36

much. Let's

2:39

get it on. Number one, giveaways.

2:42

So the story here was

2:44

every Friday, Neville and I

2:47

would do happy hour and it was

2:49

an all day happy hour. Cause why is it a happy week,

2:51

by the way? And I was looking

2:53

at a women's website and in the women's website,

2:55

they were giving away a free trip to Italy

2:57

if you joined this giveaway. It's

3:00

kinda neat. And I kept drinking my

3:02

Sex on the Beach martini and

3:04

I kinda went back to working on AppSumo and I said,

3:06

oh, that was really neat, that giveaway. What if we did

3:08

it for something that appeals to our type of customer? So

3:10

let's try giving away Dropbox, like

3:12

a year of Dropbox. Cause that's what our

3:14

target customer would want. So I ran the

3:16

math and I was like, oh, that's a hundred bucks. I think

3:18

we can make our money back. And I went to Chad, my

3:20

business partner, said, Chad, what do you think about this? And he's

3:22

like, let me just build a giveaway tracking software solution. I

3:25

was like, of course that's what some nerd engineer is gonna come

3:27

up with. And so I

3:29

was like, no, I just wanna launch it.

3:31

Let me be impatient. He's like, no. So

3:34

that was on a Friday. We launched it on Wednesday.

3:36

And I remember cause I was having lunch in downtown

3:38

Austin. So we built this tracking software, we launched it.

3:40

And instead of just giving it away for one year,

3:42

we gave it away for life. And we thought that

3:44

most people are gonna live till 90. So we're gonna

3:47

give away 70 years of it. So

3:49

Dropbox is a hundred dollars a year times 70, that's

3:52

$7,000. But

3:54

what's interesting is we didn't have to pay for it all upfront.

3:56

It's only a hundred dollars a year, but

3:58

we get all these new email signups. if

4:00

the giveaway worked. So we launched the giveaway,

4:02

and I distinctly remember I'm at lunch, Chad

4:04

launched it, this is in 2011, and

4:08

by lunchtime, there was 250,000 email signups. And

4:13

since then, that has generated over $15

4:15

million in

4:18

revenue. For I know my mom's listening

4:20

and she's asking out there, yes, we are still paying

4:22

for this person's drop box. And so it

4:25

was a great test, it was definitely a risky

4:27

test, but it crushed. So

4:30

let me break out a lot of the lessons because

4:32

then we went on to do a lot more giveaways,

4:34

and we're still doing giveaways 15 years later. So there's

4:36

a lot of different things that you can take away

4:38

in your own business about this eight figure opportunity, which

4:40

is giveaways. So number one, look

4:43

outside your own industry. So much of our

4:45

inspiration on Twitter or on YouTube is like,

4:47

let me watch other business people, let me

4:49

look at other AI software companies. Go look

4:51

in totally other verticals, look in wine categories.

4:54

Or one of my favorite examples recently is

4:56

we did a book launch party for Million

4:59

Dollar Weekend, and me and my girlfriend, this

5:01

was her idea, we looked up baby showers

5:03

on Instagram, and then we used that in

5:05

the Million Dollar Weekend book birthday party. So

5:08

number one, look outside your own industry. Sign up

5:10

for other newsletters outside your industry because that

5:12

is how we found this inspiration. Number

5:14

two, we tested it. This is something I

5:16

talk about a lot. It's one of our absolute values,

5:18

which is test then invest. So yes,

5:20

Chad did spend four days building it, and I know we shouldn't

5:23

have wasted that much time, but it was

5:25

a test. All right, so we'll spend 100 bucks a year.

5:27

That seems like a pretty decent test. Now

5:29

in your own business, what I'm noticing a

5:31

lot of people doing, whether they wanna do

5:33

ads, PR giveaways, or other things I'm gonna

5:35

talk about in today's show is can

5:38

you test it in the next few days? Can you test it

5:40

this weekend? Then when it works, double down on it. But what

5:42

I'm seeing people do is spend a lot of money and a

5:44

lot of time on things they don't know. But

5:46

now the opposite side of that is actually just

5:48

as important. Double down on what's working. So let

5:50

me explain exactly. We did that giveaway and we're

5:52

like, holy shit, this is gonna change our business

5:54

forever, which it did. It was an eight figure

5:57

change. Then we did giveaways for life.

6:00

almost every single week for the next year. We

6:02

did Netflix for life, we did Evernote for life,

6:04

we did Spotify for life, and yes, we are

6:07

still paying for these. We gave

6:09

away MacBooks, we gave away AirPods, we

6:11

gave away iPhones, and so we did

6:13

it every single week until after a year of doing

6:16

it weekly, we noticed that the amount

6:18

of signups was happening, but there was zero revenue coming

6:20

in because all of the signups were coming in from

6:22

sweepstakes people. So it was coming in from these websites

6:24

where people were like, oh, just join sweepstakes. But

6:27

the point being, though, is that if you find

6:29

something working, people hear this phrase double down, you

6:32

gotta really double down. So we doubled down every

6:34

single week until we saw that it wasn't working,

6:36

and we pulled it back, and now, we're doing

6:38

giveaways about twice a year. So

6:40

for Black Friday of appsumo.com last year,

6:42

we gave away seven Apple Vision Pros.

6:45

It cost us around $40,000, and we can look, we

6:49

track all the sales and stuff through it, we

6:51

make a break even, meaning we make just our

6:53

money back. And you know what, that's

6:55

fine because the whole marketing of it is cool.

6:58

It's cool, people are talking about AppSumo. People are sharing, hey,

7:00

go check this out. There's this AppSumo site, I don't know

7:02

what it is. Maybe it's software deals, and they have these

7:05

cool giveaways. Now, if you're just getting

7:07

started out, and maybe you don't have 100 bucks a year,

7:09

because that could be a lot, what I have found, here's

7:11

two ways you can run your giveaways. Number one, do

7:13

it with other people. So if you don't

7:15

even have money, go to different software providers. Go

7:17

to different vendors, go to different creators, get their

7:20

stuff, and be the organizer of the bundle. That's

7:22

number one, where, one, those people will promote it,

7:24

but two, you don't even have to own anything

7:26

or put up money upfront for yourself. The second

7:28

thing that you can do is books.

7:31

So with noakagan.com and my own email list,

7:33

a few years ago, I was giving away

7:35

Seth Godin's books. So books are like $20,

7:38

you can even give away a million dollar weekend. 20

7:40

bucks is the cheapest thing you can give

7:42

away to make a million dollars. So I recommend

7:44

you try and give away books, or whatever is

7:47

working backwards from your target customer. And I'm

7:49

just gonna give you a sneak peek, because

7:51

you guys are early on the show. For this

7:53

year's Sumo Day, which we haven't done really

7:55

giveaways for Sumo Day at AppSumo, we are

7:57

giving away a Cybertruck. You heard it first.

8:00

So stay tuned for that, make sure under my email list I'll be

8:02

telling people about it. Second of the

8:04

strategies that's been an eight figure opportunity,

8:06

an eight figure game changer for AppSumo

8:08

is selling your services. So

8:10

remember how I told you Chad was like, I'm gonna build this thing?

8:13

That thing turned out to be kingsumo.com.

8:17

And kingsumo.com is giveaway software that

8:19

we built for ourselves. So

8:21

moving into the second thing, that's an

8:23

eight figure business opportunity. It

8:25

is called AppSumo Originals. So

8:27

in 2013, Damien down in Australia,

8:29

he took that software that Chad

8:31

built, made it a product called

8:34

kingsumo.com and we started selling it

8:36

publicly. So this is just a

8:38

good business principle in general, which is what are

8:40

you making for yourself that maybe you can sell

8:42

to others? This doesn't just have to be software.

8:44

This could be a service you've done that people

8:46

responded well to. This could be anything that you've

8:49

used that benefits you that other people might be

8:51

interested in and you could pre-sell it and see

8:53

if there's interest. And so fast forward

8:55

today, after we did that as an experiment, we

8:58

built our tools for our own needs. So I

9:00

talked about just KingSumo. It turns

9:02

out this is actually our number one driver

9:06

of all new customers, 30% plus of

9:08

appsumo.com. So

9:11

we built two other major products here.

9:13

One is called sendfox.com, which is a

9:15

MailChimp alternative and our mega big hit,

9:17

which is tidycal.com, which is

9:19

a Calendly alternative. We have a

9:21

brand new product coming out. Just stay tuned on

9:23

AppSumo, which is gonna be a DocuSign alternative. I

9:25

used an early version of it. We launched it

9:27

within a month. I think you guys,

9:29

if you've seen my YouTube video where I pre-sold it and

9:31

validated it, I think this is definitely gonna be a seven

9:33

figure business. But the thing for you to

9:36

think about in your own business is what is

9:38

your low cost or free product

9:40

that creates your marketing motion? So I'm gonna

9:42

explain this just so that you can really

9:44

think about it for your own businesses. What

9:47

is something that you can have

9:49

always that just drives new customers

9:51

into your business ecosystem? And

9:53

as I said earlier, is there anything you've

9:55

already done? Maybe there's templates, maybe there's a

9:57

checklist, maybe there's email copy you've done. Maybe

10:00

there's some software you've built. Is

10:02

there anything you've done that you

10:04

can make that public and that

10:06

is your new business marketing motion

10:08

that's continually and consistently around the

10:10

clock driving you in new customers.

10:13

So this is from our marketing advisor Moody Glasgow

10:15

who always talking about marketing emotion and your marketing

10:17

motion again, I'm just wanna repeat it because I

10:20

think it's so critical is what's the thing that's

10:22

out there in the universe that's saying, hey, come

10:24

check out my business. And if you have a

10:26

product like AppSumo which has a lot of different

10:29

things we sell, what's your gateway candy? So

10:31

TidyCal is it, so right now it's about

10:33

$4,000 a day of

10:36

people spending and buying TidyCal. They

10:38

get this product, they use it and then they have

10:40

to buy it via AppSumo and they're thinking, huh,

10:43

what else is here in AppSumo? And that

10:45

is our marketing motion. Now, here's

10:47

what I'm gonna recommend for you if you're thinking,

10:49

huh, what is my free or low cost gateway

10:52

candy to start my marketing motion? So your marketing

10:54

motion, you have to get them in, then you

10:56

get them monetized, then you get them referring. There

10:58

is a motion within your business. So

11:00

how we like to think of it at AppSumo is,

11:03

use a framework for prioritizing things to build.

11:05

So we have three real categories in our

11:07

framework and I love frameworks in deciding almost

11:10

everything in our business. One, do

11:12

we want it? So there's things like AI writing tools,

11:14

we're on the team, no one really just wants to

11:16

use it. There's enough tools out there that we have

11:18

on AppSumo. Number two, does

11:20

it have viral or word of mouth built in? Think

11:23

about that. And number three, is

11:25

there a high cost alternative that doesn't have a

11:27

lock in? So we ranked 50

11:30

different products to try to understand this

11:32

and before, a lot of the tools

11:34

that David, Garrett, Ibaldo, Marnie, Serba,

11:36

Luca, Gary, they're the people who run the AppSumo

11:38

original, they would just kind of build whatever I

11:40

pressured them to build and it wasn't really systematic

11:42

nor structured. And so we built

11:45

things that competed in Klaviyo, no one switched

11:47

off. We built things like things for email

11:49

signatures, it didn't go viral enough, it wasn't

11:51

actually as significant. There's not really an expensive

11:53

alternative that people wanted. But when we launched

11:55

TidyCal, it was like, holy crap, around us

11:57

had been huge. So what is some basic?

12:00

columns or data that you can use to

12:02

make better decisions about what thing you can

12:04

build to start your marketing motion. Two

12:06

other things, when you're building something like

12:08

this, build products or have products free and by

12:10

the way you don't have to build them, you

12:13

could buy other products or you can license other

12:15

products. So we just did this with CleanShot over

12:17

at AppSumo and we just bought licenses to give

12:19

out for free to bring people into AppSumo as

12:21

an experiment. The core thing you need

12:23

to be thinking about is does this support your core

12:25

customer? So when we talked about giveaways or

12:28

when we talked about this low-cost or free

12:30

product, if it's bringing in people who are

12:32

not your actual customers or who can become

12:34

your customers, you're wasting your time. And

12:37

so be very intentional about is this supporting core

12:39

customers or brand new customers and you have to

12:41

be intentional about that. The other thing to

12:43

be mindful here is that we have built over

12:45

six other products in the past five years that

12:47

no one's used. Email badge, Sleepbio, million

12:50

dollar email templates, Shorty SMS and so just

12:52

because you build it doesn't mean they're gonna

12:54

love it. So that's again coming back to

12:56

million dollar weekend and a lot of these

12:58

examples is how do you test it quicker?

13:00

Can you test it in a week? Can you

13:02

test in a weekend? Can you test in a day? So as

13:04

you do it, you know that your customers

13:06

are gonna be excited about. This is something I've

13:09

been encouraging everyone to do and I've seen the

13:11

results of it about building with public, not in

13:13

public but with public, meaning with your customers. Have

13:15

a Slack group, have a WhatsApp group, have a

13:17

text group with your customers. So on

13:19

the regular, you can say, hey I'm working on this kind of idea,

13:21

what do you guys think? Because so many of

13:24

our times we're building and then hoping that those

13:26

other people are interested in what we are doing.

13:28

So that's a nice little hack that anyone can do

13:30

whether you have one customer or thousands, have a way

13:32

that you can chat with a few of the core

13:34

ones that you'd like to on a regular basis. Alright

13:37

number three, being public. In

13:40

the year 2000, there were

13:42

dinosaurs. Now I started blogging

13:45

on okdoor.com and now I'm blogging about random

13:47

college crap. Things from high

13:49

school, my pet frog, and 24

13:51

years later, I'm still tweeting

13:54

and blogging about that said frog and

13:56

creating content and podcasts and all these other things. But

13:58

the point being is that being... in public has

14:00

been the number one way I've connected with

14:02

amazing people like Tim Ferriss. Y'all love this

14:04

guy, I love him too. I found my

14:06

business partner and life partner, Chad Boyda, shout

14:08

out to my man. And this is

14:10

the number one way that I was able to

14:12

promote million dollar weekend. Now, if

14:15

you're introverted, don't worry, you're in luck.

14:17

If you don't know what you shouldn't even talk about in public, don't

14:20

worry about that, got that for you too. Also, if

14:22

you're like, hey, people don't need to be hearing about

14:24

their gardening, guess what, got you as well. So

14:26

here's a few things to be thinking about, about being

14:28

public. And a lot of the

14:30

best things about public, it's not just about

14:33

direct ROI transaction, like I'm public, I get

14:35

money. There's so many amazing benefits about being

14:37

public. You learn how to communicate well. You're

14:40

putting yourself out there, so you're learning about

14:42

communication too. You're just gonna meet awesome

14:44

people. I literally just got back

14:46

from a dinner with Ian Schoen from

14:48

the tropical MBA podcast, and I

14:51

met him because I've been blogging and talking about AppSumo and all

14:53

these things for such a long time. He invited me to speak

14:55

at his event years ago, and now he's one of my best

14:57

friends. A few other things that have been so

14:59

powerful about being public is that it's gonna

15:01

evolve. So if you're writing content, I just started

15:03

writing about college and dating and high school and

15:06

friends. Over time, I noticed I liked writing about

15:08

business and marketing, and people seemed to be responding

15:10

when I put that kind of content out there.

15:13

So don't worry that you have the right

15:15

content right now. Just worry that you're writing

15:17

right now. It's also been an amazing

15:19

place to hire. So Jay Yang, who helps run all

15:21

of social media and content for me, then

15:23

you saw me by being public. And then he's like, hey, I wanna work

15:26

with you. So if you're trying to hire people,

15:28

if you're trying to find a husband, go be public. That

15:30

actually works, but you can hire within your audience. It

15:33

also just creates such cool experiences. When I

15:35

was living in Malibu with Neville, who, by

15:37

the way, Neville Medore, copyrightincourse.com, I met him

15:39

because I was blogging, he was blogging. I

15:41

was like, yo, dog, you blog, I blog,

15:43

let's hang out. And then we became best

15:45

friends 20 years ago. Seriously, true story. And

15:48

we were living in Malibu during COVID, because

15:51

it was cheaper, by the way. It's not that we're

15:53

trying to ball out, it was just it was on

15:55

sale. And this guy, John Sennstrom, was like, yo, man,

15:57

I do spear fishing. Can I take you underwater with

15:59

a gun? Like of course you wanna go

16:01

with strangers and spear fish. That

16:04

all can be tied to the fact that

16:06

for free, I just put myself out there. So

16:08

I encourage you highly to be thinking

16:10

about being public. Number four, pre-fluencers.

16:13

So this is something I covered in Million Dollar

16:15

Weekend. It has been a strategy I've used at

16:17

Mint. It's been a strategy I've used at

16:19

AppSumo. It's a strategy I've used at

16:21

Noah Kagan with this book launch. And it's something

16:23

I recommend all the time. So let me tell

16:25

you a story about this. I talk

16:28

about pre-fluencers and video ambassadors and affiliates. When

16:30

I started at AppSumo, I met Tim

16:32

Ferriss early on right before his book came out.

16:34

And I started sponsoring his site very

16:37

early. And we were paying about $5,000 a month to

16:40

fully sponsor his website, 4-Hour Workweek. You've

16:42

probably heard of it. And so we did this for two

16:44

years. So at the time, $60,000 a year

16:46

is a decent amount of cash. And we

16:49

made millions from it. Millions, literally

16:51

eight figures worth for $60,000 a year

16:54

that we were spending. Now fast forward to today,

16:57

Tim charges minimum $50,000, and it could be higher.

17:01

This is numbers I've seen from a few

17:03

years ago, per episode of his show with

17:05

a minimum podcast commitment. Meaning you have to do

17:07

a few of the shows. So the reality for

17:10

you is that growth in marketing happens

17:12

when you find things that are not

17:14

on the market. So you can do

17:16

your best marketing when you're not doing it on the market. And

17:18

the best way to do that and the highest ROI you're

17:20

going to get is through doing pre-fluencers. And this is what,

17:23

again, I did at Mint. Then at AppSumo, I did it

17:25

with Million Dollar Weekend. Now at

17:27

AppSumo, we're also doing this recently where we're

17:29

on YouTube, we're on Instagram, we're on TikTok,

17:31

looking for people that have good engagement, good

17:33

quality content, meaning we watch it and we

17:36

like it, and it's relevant to the customers,

17:38

aka for AppSumo's solopreneurs. And they're

17:40

not someone who has a press kit. They're not

17:43

someone who has a business manager. And you can DM

17:45

them or email them, and they're excited to respond to

17:47

you. They're excited just to get a few bucks. So

17:49

pre-fluencers has been with AppSumo a huge thing.

17:51

And so one thing I want to share

17:54

with you is we tested it before we

17:56

invested it, coming back to some of our

17:58

themes. So when we started testing affiliate... Marketing

18:00

without humor. which means you promote the product on

18:02

apps email. We give you fifteen percent or one

18:04

hundred percent whatever that the pale to evolve over

18:06

time in. that's important to think about. But

18:08

we tested or what? the google spreadsheet thing

18:10

we used a bit lead tracking link gave

18:12

it to see people said hey just tell

18:14

people about this product. It. Works and

18:16

then were like oh this is working now let's

18:19

actually used as think I'd ever silly it and

18:21

now you know dumbest. Ten years later we're using

18:23

I Impact our com which is about one hundred

18:25

thousand dollars a year. And. We're going to

18:27

be competing with them either sometimes later this year,

18:29

next year with them or for double a Silly

18:32

Software. But. The point is in your own

18:34

business test freelancers. So no I don't have a lot

18:36

a budget great These are people that don't you lot

18:38

of money to be involved you in their excited to

18:40

build a long term relationship because no one else is

18:43

hitting them up. No. One else but you

18:45

are. You're giving him a chance or as a get

18:47

bigger. You're giving them a thing about this. This

18:49

is the same thing kind of one of the see does,

18:51

but you do it in your marketing as he sees has

18:53

hundreds of bats and one or two do well on the

18:55

other. Do okay. Same thing with your preferences. But.

18:57

Most of us should actually do pretty well as you can set

19:00

the payments amounts and a few of them are gonna get gigantic

19:02

and you're going to be with them the hallway and have good

19:04

rates of that. A further thoughts with Martin

19:06

specifically around this and with people answers is

19:08

that if you're doing it, the Marquis never,

19:10

ever was on Twitter begging for a follow.

19:13

Now. Edmunds Kissing Ass gone over to threads

19:15

are people are me kissing ass you're doing Are

19:17

you Did said his twitter ads. When. Everyone's

19:19

pay market rates. Your Enemy

19:21

Pain market prices. So. It's really

19:23

hard to get great are a why when you're

19:25

paying full price and that's why preferences are better

19:28

because there's no market for their routes cause your

19:30

contact them directly is a more work Yes this

19:32

is the shit that doesn't skill. Checks.

19:35

Fear. The key lessons from this eight figure

19:37

opportunity: Pay attention to what chapters your attention.

19:40

So. I don't really care about follower

19:42

count as hear about the engagement count. I.

19:44

Care about the engagement Kept meaning if they have

19:46

a thousand subs I don't really care but if

19:48

they have a thousand views and stuff like five

19:51

hundred comments that's great. So you look for the

19:53

engagement and and look for punted the European attention

19:55

to and book market. And a lot of times

19:57

when I'll do it all just recently. Okay, like your content. And.

19:59

Not. I'm trying to have some very complicated ask, which is

20:01

what I teach people. I'm just saying, hey, I like your

20:03

thing. And maybe later I'll say, hey, can I send you

20:06

my book? Hey, can I give you money for Apsumo? And

20:08

I think some of you who listen to this have probably

20:10

been sponsored by Apsumo. I even think

20:12

Pat Flynn, very early on, 10

20:14

plus years ago, we sponsored his podcast.

20:17

And that was one of the ways we were able to connect with him. And

20:19

now I've been on the show and he's been on my show and we're

20:21

friends and I love Pat Flynn. So again, it's looking

20:23

for people that are kind of capturing your attention and

20:25

the earlier the better. I'll give you another angle you

20:27

can think about this. We're testing foreign countries.

20:30

So at Apsumo, we're testing things in Spanish. Test

20:33

Portuguese, test Russian, test Chinese,

20:36

test one of the Indian languages. Lot of opportunities.

20:38

Again, so the whole concept though is, whether it's

20:40

affiliates or for Apsumo, we're doing a lot of

20:43

video ambassadorships, meaning people specifically that create video content.

20:45

The whole point though is find them early. And

20:48

the last eight figure thing, drum

20:50

roll, brrr, email marketing, a

20:53

lot of things in business are obvious until you do

20:55

them. And so when I launched Apsumo 15

20:57

years ago, for the first 12 months, I never sent an

21:00

email. I just kept every time launching

21:02

these deals, I would just have to go get new

21:04

press. And one time my friend Heaton

21:06

was like, dude, what are you doing? Check out this thing

21:08

called email. It's like an E with a

21:10

mail, it's like electronic. My jokes

21:12

suck today. It's because I'm becoming a dad, I'm working on my dad jokes.

21:15

And I would be like, oh, let me send an email. And

21:17

then we sent an email and then eventually Neville wrote an email

21:19

and then it was like, holy crap, fast forward 15 years later,

21:22

run by a team, his name is shout out Chris

21:24

Grullon with Ilona who's helped really set that up. They're

21:26

generating nearly $50 million a year

21:28

from email. So this

21:31

applies whatever business you're in. If you're in

21:33

gardening, remind your people they need new gardening.

21:35

If you're a pool cleaner, remember, hey, summer's

21:38

coming. If you're a service provider,

21:40

educate your people. If you're an e-commerce person,

21:42

yes, you can have sales regularly, but maybe just

21:44

have cool stories related to the customer you're trying

21:47

to appeal to. People always ask how much

21:49

to send. Ask your customers how much they want to hear

21:51

from you. But generally, I would say the healthiest

21:53

thing is once a week and having at least a 25%

21:55

open rate. At AppSumo, we do

21:57

once a day. We used to do twice a day,

21:59

but we... We saw that our unsubs, opens, clicks,

22:01

we're trending in a downward direction. So

22:04

we wanted to keep our revenue while I get those numbers

22:06

actually trending up. And line graphs are really helpful for that.

22:08

We can do a whole other episode, and I think we actually might do

22:11

something in the future about how we do email marketing at AppSumo. But

22:13

a few of the key lessons about email

22:15

marketing specifically is it's really owning your distribution.

22:18

The last two YouTube videos have barely broke 100,000 views, even

22:21

though we have a million subs, because Uncle

22:24

YouTube's mad at us. They're like, no, not good

22:26

enough. I don't wanna show the children. Please,

22:28

Uncle, just some soup. No. So

22:31

email, you own your distribution. And it doesn't really cost

22:33

you that much more to get that distribution, but with

22:35

SEO, you have to write all these articles. With

22:37

YouTube, you have to create the content. So there's

22:39

a really beautiful thing with email that you can literally

22:42

right now test an idea. Right now, send a promotion.

22:44

Right now, you could just get some love in the

22:46

world if you want your audience to take care from

22:48

you. Number two, having an

22:50

autoresponder and creating a repeatable system is where we

22:52

make almost 50% of AppSumo's email. You

22:55

can create once and leverage it forever. So

22:57

think about this. When you come

22:59

to a restaurant, you know every dish is gonna be the perfect

23:01

one for each person, because you know that these are the best

23:04

ones. With noakagan.com, send it for my autoresponder. You'll see it. I'm

23:06

like, please check out my book. Please check out some of the

23:08

stuff. What questions do you have? By the way, leave a review.

23:11

Every single time, around the clock, it's working. And

23:14

it doesn't take vacation. It's happy to work. So

23:16

create autoresponders, repeatable systems. And number three, create

23:19

urgency and FOMO. See, I'm missing out. So

23:21

as people are getting your emails, doesn't

23:23

mean every single time, because if it's every time urgent,

23:25

you'll eventually get numb to it. But what

23:27

is the reason that people need to

23:30

do something right away? Like there's only so many of them.

23:32

Hey, you wanna go use it this weekend? Guess what? No,

23:35

you don't know what weekend. Hey, we're having an experience. Hey,

23:37

there's limited time. So think about what's

23:39

the reason that someone's gonna take action right away. There's

23:42

so many, some people limit on that. Last thing I

23:44

call it 1080, 10 in marketing. It's

23:46

10% never buy nothing. 10% always buy

23:48

everything. 80% aren't sure. And so

23:50

how do you make your content, but specifically emails,

23:52

so good that people, even if they don't buy

23:54

it, they love your emails. And I

23:57

believe that's one of the key things with AppSumo, why

23:59

we've been doing this. done so well, where

24:01

for a long time, and I would say to this day where

24:03

it's pretty damn good where you're like, hey, I don't want to

24:05

buy anything, but what are they actually promoting? What

24:07

are the new ways they're promoting it? Or what

24:09

are the tools they're actually talking about over at

24:11

AppSumo? And so definitely make your emails so good

24:13

that people will miss them if you stop. And

24:16

how do you know if they'll miss them? Don't send an email. See

24:18

what happens. There's a lot more email stuff. If you guys are curious

24:20

and you want more of that, let me know. We are thinking about

24:23

putting together an email marketing masterclass. So what's

24:25

interesting is I've shared five exact things that

24:27

are all eight-figure activities that you can copy

24:29

in your own business regardless of which business

24:31

you're in. So a few things

24:33

that have not worked. TikTok,

24:36

Instagram, and Twitter. Almost nothing.

24:38

Like nothing. We almost never even post on them anymore.

24:41

Our Facebook group has been hit or miss. Doesn't mean

24:43

this doesn't work for other businesses. I'm just

24:45

saying for us, this has not worked as

24:47

an eight-figure channel. Number two, hiring

24:49

super baller people. Our

24:52

best people have been found homegrown

24:55

and partnering them with super baller people. I think

24:57

a lot of companies are like, oh man, if

24:59

I could only find that one person who worked

25:01

that one company and they'll save me, we

25:03

just haven't had it. Our success has

25:06

really been people coming up, you know,

25:08

Lona, AIM, and Sean, Kellen, and having

25:10

support and paying for advisors that really

25:12

coach those kind of people. Number

25:15

three, CRO. So conversion rate optimization. So we

25:17

have an awesome product team that's doing A.B.

25:19

tests across throughout the entire site as well

25:21

as their email marketing does a lot of

25:23

A.B. tests. Now these all add up to

25:25

eight figures, but a lot of them are

25:28

micro. So it's like, hey, we got

25:30

a half a percent improvement here. We got a 10% growth

25:33

increase on sessions. One

25:35

of them was an eight-figure thing I can just say,

25:37

hey, go do this A.B. test and it works. But

25:40

definitely all of them compounded over a long period

25:42

of time have added up to eight figures and

25:45

beyond. We actually historically have looked at the

25:47

data there and it was about 16% of our tests work.

25:51

And so the thing I always think about with that is that you're going to

25:53

do so many things that are just not going to work. But

25:55

16% of the time they will and that's where you're going to get your

25:57

upside. Last two things launching courses. So

26:00

we've gone back and forth, we've had two

26:02

phases where we've done a lot of course sales on

26:04

AppSumo, and it's something we're actually gonna revisit and consider,

26:06

but really we're focused on software. And so in your

26:08

own business, it doesn't mean exclude things, but

26:11

be mindful how many things you're like, well, we did it in the past, we're

26:13

never gonna do it again, just at least

26:15

test it again. And we are, either this

26:17

year or sometime next year, have some lighter

26:19

tests around courses and content for sale, but

26:21

really we're focused on software, and that's not

26:23

really worked. And lastly, we did these low

26:26

priced offers. We've done so many things, I

26:28

just wanna share some of the highlight reel

26:30

of non-things, but you hear businesses like mostly

26:32

kind of internet scammers, yeah, it's $1 and

26:34

then it's this thing afterwards, and we noticed

26:36

we got a lot of customers who never

26:38

bought anything ever again. So it doesn't

26:40

mean it can't work, again, it could. I

26:43

think what I always talk to our team about

26:45

is what's actually real value in business versus a

26:47

gimmick. And sometimes, yeah, it's like, hey, just

26:50

try it out, it's a buck, doesn't even matter, there's zero

26:52

risk. And most of the times the customers come and they

26:54

don't use it or they don't appreciate it, but other times

26:56

it could work. And so I just try to think about

26:58

what's real value you're creating, and that's urgency and gonna be

27:00

good for the customer, and then they'll be happy about it

27:03

versus just a marketing $1 gimmick. And

27:05

that has not worked for us, we've definitely tried

27:07

that twice, having like a super low priced

27:09

offer for things within our business. So

27:11

a few things that everyone can think

27:14

about and implement overall. Number one is

27:16

giveaways. So look outside your industry and

27:18

run a giveaway. Number two is marketing

27:20

motion. So solve your own problem

27:22

for your ideal customer and have a low

27:25

or free priced product that's

27:27

gonna continually bring people into your ecosystem. Number

27:29

three, content is your opportunity

27:31

magnet. So be public, go be

27:33

public. Number four, if everyone's

27:35

doing it, you're too late, get some pre-fluencers, find these

27:37

people early in the game. Number five,

27:39

email marketing, own your distribution. Now,

27:42

what's interesting with all these things, and a

27:44

lot of people might go do all five, which is amazing and let

27:46

me know how it goes, but it all depends

27:48

that you have a product people want. You

27:50

have to have a business that people want. And as

27:52

you do these things, this is just accelerating that more

27:55

people are gonna want it and have joy and find

27:57

out about it. So you gotta always keep starting. And

27:59

as we. So you talked about a million dollar weekend, as I've talked about in

28:01

a lot of things in business, keep trying

28:03

things, lots of things. Keep starting, throw it

28:06

at the wall. Most of it won't work.

28:08

You know, we've put out these tweets now that go

28:10

extremely viral, hundreds of thousands of views where it's even

28:13

looking at musicians and finding out that how many other

28:15

songs actually make tons of views and people know about.

28:17

It's like less than 10%. And they don't even write their

28:20

own songs. It's even crazier. They're literally using the best of

28:22

the best. And if you can just

28:24

keep going in your own business, you try these things

28:26

out, eventually, yes, one thing will work and you keep

28:28

writing that out and you're gonna have a lot of

28:30

amazing success in your life. I love you and

28:32

I'll see you right there. That's

28:37

a wrap. I hope you loved the episode

28:39

as much as we did creating it for you. Go

28:42

check out my brand new bestselling book, Million Dollar Weekend.

28:44

Change your life in 48 hours. Have

28:46

a better Monday. Next text in front of you,

28:48

love them. Yo, dog. Let's go write some poetry

28:50

slam together. And before you go, tweet at me,

28:52

sign up my DM's at Noah Kagan. I love

28:55

hearing from y'all. And if you're not on my

28:57

newsletter, go to noahkagan.com and sign up. We have

28:59

a media newsletter each and every Thursday coming

29:01

out spicy hot to help you in your

29:03

business journey. We have about how

29:05

I run a hundred million dollar business, how to

29:07

get rich as an extrovert, advice to my younger

29:10

self, advice to my older self, and

29:12

a lot of other goodies along the way. Follow a

29:14

couple of shout outs to the amazing team who helps

29:16

make this happen. Special thanks to Jason at podcasttech.com. Thank

29:18

you to Jeremy for everything you've done. Cammie, Tommy,

29:21

Sylvie, Jay, Memo-ie, Noah-ie,

29:24

from the Dork team for all the magic y'all do.

29:26

The team is really fire. Shout out to Garrett as

29:28

well. And everyone over at

29:30

the AppSumo team, what a treat. It's

29:33

been to spend our lives together and I'm so

29:35

grateful to be the chief sumo and CEO over

29:38

there because there's no way I'd get a job

29:40

at AppSumo today. And we are hiring at AppSumo,

29:42

appsumo.com/careers. Have a tremendous day.

29:45

What's your favorite pickle? Okay,

29:48

honestly, there's two kinds. There's the like dill

29:50

ones, which is the right choice. And then

29:52

like the butter sweet one, which is the

29:55

wrong choice. you