Selling High-Ticket Services

August 24, 2021

Selling High-Ticket Services

Selling high-ticket services to a cold audience ... but also doing the follow up for those who (naturally) take longer to sign up.

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From Jo McKee:

This one’s for our fellow agency owners in particular. An agency owner messaged me last week: “I was thinking how you sell high-ticket services to a cold audience. And, the blogs are interesting. Why at least 50 blogs specifically?”

Another sent me a message, asking if we’d help look after their agency’s funnel.

I figured it’s better to show what we’re doing and why, so that agency owners can run with a similar system internally.

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Sometimes, we do...

... sell high-ticket services to a cold audience. While I’m writing this, a new client is filling in their Briefing document after transferring their payment, and their monthly subscription for our services is $4,000. They had booked in via our Top of Funnel ad and the next day signed a contract.

Two others have purchased an All-in-One Business Marketing Kit within the past 10 days, both from top of funnel ads.

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Honestly?

My sales rates aren't yet stellar, I’ve always given a little too much away and sent people off with steps they can take themselves (!) - here are the numbers for July’s Top of Funnel leads and cost per lead which, in themselves, are sustainable.

We don’t miss an opportunity to present our offer to a cold audience, because it’s amazing how often we hear “I just saw it in my feed and couldn’t believe the timing!”

But not everybody works like that. I eyed off a coaching course for nine years before buying! And no agency wants to throw out ad spend like it’s confetti, wasting opportunities that might come together with a little more effort.

Most agency owners reading this will already have the tools and systems to bring in leads via their funnel. Cat Howell’s FB Ads Academy is an excellent system for building an agency. So there’s no need for me to try and reinvent that; this article will be most useful as a reminder to do the work, and an example of how, when you do, the momentum will pick up.

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Scooping up the sales - because we know not everyone buys "right off the bat"

To bring in new clients, agencies need two pillars in place:

  • A service people want, priced where the market can support, and
  • A reputation people can trust

Agency owners know about building funnels and testing offers, so that’s rarely an issue.

But reaching a point where people sense they can trust your brand takes time + consistent action. It’s something many agency owners don’t take seriously, partly because they’re busy and partly because they don’t know where to start.

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Here's how we're working on building our reputation, and how it's playing out.

We’re running ads, but we’re also working consistently to build our domain authority in the eyes of Google AND build authority in the eyes of prospective clients.

At McKee Creative, we certainly haven’t attained any god-like status in the eyes of the market.

Early years were spent hustling with the best of them, where I started as a freelancer-with-contractor-friends to hit those first $10k/months, then hit a steady $20k/month, and only in the past year have levelled up.

But feeding the content monster that is social media is not something that’s ever looked like the funnest way to spend our time. There’s so much out there that is just junk; it’s almost starting to feel like we’re creating a similar pile of rubbish on the interwebs that we’ve done so spectacularly in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch between Hawaii and California.

It’s probably been over the past few months that we have taken our content marketing from “we should really do that” to “we’re doin’ it”, to create momentum.

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Content marketing targets

There are dozens of pieces of data that we could watch, but as a small agency, we need to focus our resources on doing one thing at a time. For us, that’s building (high-quality) volume.

Instead, we are focusing our efforts on creating a library of work that helps people lift their own business marketing game, and builds credibility in the “we know what we’re talking about” stakes.

Why 50 blogs as the first goal?

Definitely not for the fun of it.

It’s initially because Amit told us to.

Amit’s our much-appreciated Google Ads/SEO/YouTube whiz, so when Amit tells us to do something, we don’t argue.

“50 blog posts tells Google you have at least taken the time to make that volume of content, and so you must feel that you have something to say,” said Amit. “From there, the quality of the content and the number of others who refer (link) to it obviously comes into play, but it’s a good place to begin.”

- Amit Peshwe

Our system has evolved into us presenting our offer at the top of funnel in our paid campaigns, then retargeting people with links to our blog posts so that we keep the agency top of mind with prospects so that they start to see that we “know our stuff” on different aspects of marketing.

We spend a small budget on retargeting and watch the frequency. Think of it as a billboard when thinking about frequency, and make sure you’re not exhausting your audience with the same old posts. Hint: this keeps you on your toes to make more copy because you’ll want something to swap out before your retargeting ads get fatigued.

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But we haven't stopped there.

The Learning Lab on our site is set up so that people give us their email address to get access, and we then nurture those prospects on email.

As well as blog posts; we’re working on making sure that even our Services pages deliver high-quality resources, creating walk-throughs that others can access. See this example re Messenger here.

We’re also taking opportunities to do guest posts and podcast episodes, checking opportunities on HARO, SourceBottle, and in masterminds. This has helped bring exposure on Ticker TV, a couple of articles for Inside Small Business, and Digital Distillery, with more in the pipeline.

When an interview or article comes out on another platform, we add it to our site and run it in our ads.

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How do we decide what to write about for Content Marketing?

We’ve developed a spreadsheet based on search queries, and also keep an eye out for the questions people ask on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. Then it’s a matter of getting as much done in between client work as possible.

Keep your eye on the news as well - you never know when a headline will break that is directly related to your niche. When it does, jump on it and make an article in response. Then, go hard on the promotion.

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How do you build authority for your own agency?

The simple answer is that it takes consistency. I know this can be a challenge - I’m a pro at kicking my own projects down the Trello board in favour of spending time on a client’s work.

But there’s no way around it.

Building relationships and a strong reputation doesn’t happen via any magic fairy dust.

You’ve got to show people that you know what you’re doing, and help them trust that you’ll actually do it.

Make a plan, and work the plan.

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Getting help

If you’d like our team to make content that you can then run traffic to, you’re welcome to order it via our Your Ads on Demand service, with a turnaround of 3 business days.

The order form lists everything from single ad copy through to full website content for agencies, but if you don’t see what you need on the list, email me your request, including expected word count, to: grow@mckeecreative.store.

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