Why This Strategy Works [Paid Ads Strategy]
"It can't be that simple."
Humans are really great at making things far more complex than they need to be. We tend to think that "more complexity" = better.
Because of this, when something seems too simple, we dismiss it.
But at TGA we understand a different perspective. Instead of paths which involve a whole lot more ... we seek to do just enough to make the next step.
When it comes to running ads for yourself or your business, no doubt you start on that process with a lot of unknowns. And that is what makes Laurel Portié's Ad Strategy1 so effective.
It's not just that it leads you to the fastest paths to cash.
It's that you can start it with little clarity of what to say, exactly who to say it to, and very quickly end up in a better position than your competitors.
Below you'll find an excerpt from Laurel's book in which she explains what about her strategy makes it so effective.
But there is one component she doesn't talk about directly.
And it's foundational to The Guardian Academy.
The concept of "What is Enough?"
What is enough for you to grow your business? What is enough for you to get a new client? What is enough for you to consistently do this day in and day out?
Laurel brings this up with a simple question:
If you could have 100 conversations with your ideal prospect ... how many of those do you think would become clients? And how well do you think that would serve your business?
Most people get stuck on "more." They experience a lack of growth in their business, or they aren't making enough money. Part of the problem is they don't know what they are trying to accomplish. But part of the problem is instead of figuring out, step by step, how to get exactly what they want, they just reach for more.
And "more" is a bucket that can't be filled. You'll forever chase trying to reach a pointless point.
However, "Enough" IS a bucket that can be filled, because the idea itself necessitates a definitive point. Enough for you right now may be 1 new client a week. If you aren't certain what you really need, starting with "Enough" to get started will give you a lot more clarity to find the answers.
If you're in a service-based business, such as a coach or a consultant, or even selling a course, it's highly likely that conversations with 100 ideal prospects would yield more than enough business for your needs.
If you accept that as true,
Then you can start to see how the fundamental building blocks of Laurel's Ad strategy give you *everything you need* to create certainty of growth, by building up Enough.
Discover how to do "enough" effectively, with clarity and certainty, with this excerpt from Laurel Portie’s book, Super Duper Profitable Ads.2 Laurel’s methodology, program and book are heavy in Guardian Academy principles that she reinvented and improved specifically for her domain - and has become one of the best advertising programs out there.
As you get deeper and deeper into this strategy, you’ll notice it boils down to three very simple and straightforward principles:
Content
Consistency
Conversations
But don’t mistake that simplicity to mean that it’s easy. It is rather you practicing your “free throws” every day, putting into action the process that will push your business to the next level.
I’m not shy about bragging about my clients and the results they’ve gotten with this approach. In fact, inside our Lean on Laurel community, we have a nearly 100% success rate! How is that possible? Simple… those who implement this strategy win every time, without exception.
If you go back and take a quick glance at the table of contents for this book, you’ll see it’s really about breaking down just those three principles.
I’m going to give you the anatomy of your Content, show you how to use it to create Conversations, then give you a step by step action plan so you can show up Consistently as a source of authority for your audience.
My students build their content strategy around what we call “Power Content.” That means they create content centered around their methodology, with a very structured approach.
It’s also the approach I used in my business, even when the so-called gurus in this space made fun of me very directly and told people that I was a phony and that they were wasting their money doing business with me.
In fact, I even lost some great clients to some of these gurus because they were telling these clients that my strategy would not work because I wasn’t running conversion campaigns. I can’t help but laugh about it now because the exact strategy they said wouldn’t work is the reason I’m still standing today when so many of them fell off the face of the internet from lack of real results.
In this chapter, I want to break down a few nuances of the strategy and explain why it works so well. Because even if you have the perfect strategy, it will be tempting to throw in the towel after a month or two when the guru-types start popping up and telling you you’re doing it wrong and to follow them instead.
If you understand why this approach is so powerful, you’ll be able to stick it out for the long haul, even in the face of the haters.
LEVELING THE PLAYING FIELD
So why does this strategy work so well? In my experience, there are a few subtle nuances that most people miss when it comes to implementation.
They miss them because they are so focused on the strategies that the gurus are pitching, but neglect to realize these gurus have massive ad budgets that beginning businesses just can’t replicate.
Most of the ad strategies those gurus are pitching won’t work for people like you and me.
I had to come up with a way that would make ads more affordable for EVERYONE to have a chance to play in the marketing game.
I thought to myself, if MOST marketers are using conversion campaigns, is there a way I can utilize the video view campaigns I was using to get more viewers for my TV station to reach the same audience, but for a cheaper cost while getting a higher quality client over time?
And this is where my video ads ecosystem was born. Let me explain the elements that make this work so well.
PROLIFIC CONTENT - The first nuance of this strategy is publishing “prolific” content. This is longer-form content that gives your prospect the clarity they need in order to move forward.
A question I get asked a lot is…
“Laurel, can I just do 60-second videos? Those are so much easier to do.”
There is a place in my strategy for 60-second videos but right now I need you to understand the importance of putting out longer-form videos, or “prolific” content.
There are two primary reasons people don’t buy. The first is they don’t know what they will actually get when they purchase. Makes sense, right? Would you buy anything if you weren’t 100% certain on what you’d get after transferring your dollars to another person?
The second reason people don’t buy is that they aren’t convinced they should buy specifically from you in the midst of a competitive market with dozens if not hundreds of other options.
Your prolific content gives you the chance to go deeper on your unique mechanism and frameworks. This helps your audience get clarity on how YOU can help them.
I know 60-second videos are easier, but they don’t allow the space for anyone to get the clarity they need to move forward – at least not in the way that most people are doing them. That’s a little teaser for what’s coming in a later chapter where I will show you how to do 60-second videos a different way.
Next, we’ll cover how prolific content sets the stage for you to build Pipeline Equity.
PIPELINE EQUITY - This fancy term simply means that you want to put out more goodwill content than sales content.
This is a concept I got from working in TV all of those years. 75% of the content is TV shows, news programs, and weather reports that gave value to the audience, but in order to keep the TV station on air, we had to run commercials. Commercials only took up 25% of airtime, but they make TV stations very profitable.
I’m all about simplicity and if it works for TV, it likely works for social media too.
This is why I like a content split of 75% goodwill content and only 25% sales content.
Meaning, that I’m educating, giving, and inspiring a vast majority of the time, and only pitching on occasion. You’ll find that you gain significant momentum with this rhythm.
Think of it this way -- each time you post value-based content, your goodwill rating with your audience goes up. You can imagine a little meter diagram filling up.
And then each time you post-sales content, that goodwill meter goes down a little bit. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t sell, it just means that you have to balance the selling with pure giving through value-based content.
Think about the ads that you see in your newsfeed right now. Most of the people are running the same sales ad over and over again. Their meter looks more like the image below.
That black spot by the goodwill content is not a smudge my friends. That is how LITTLE most people running ads are putting out goodwill content.
They are just hitting their audience over the head with the same sales ad over and over again.
See the opportunity?
When we get into the actual mechanics of how to put these principles into play, you’ll see how the tactics I’m going to give you tie all these things together into a beautiful system.
In your opinion, who would make a better, more qualified lead for your business? Someone who randomly clicked on an ad and filled out a form for a lead magnet? Or someone who has been consistently consuming your content and feels connected to you?
There is no wrong answer here, but for me personally, I’d rather build a ton of Pipeline Equity with a list of Invisible Leads who have been consuming my content. That way, I know they are already warm and preconditioned before they buy anything.
THE INVISIBLE LEAD - When I say an “invisible” lead, that means you literally cannot see the people who are on that list. This is the list that is created on platform by people who engage with your content.
By contrast, most gurus who emphasize conversion campaigns built their lists with off-platform data that was tracked with a pixel.
For my newer folks, a “pixel” is simply a small line of code that can track off platform actions. Meaning, if you’re running ads on a platform like Facebook, the pixel can still track certain actions you take when you are acting outside of Facebook. So for example, if the ad takes you to a website off of Facebook, the Facebook pixel can track that action.
If this all sounds like a foreign language to you, that’s okay, because you actually don’t need a pixel when you use this strategy.
Even though the list is “invisible,” that’s okay, because while you can’t see personal user info, you know that the list is made up of people who are actively consuming your content!
Make sense?
Let me tell you a story about how building an invisible list literally saved my agency clients data when a “pixel fallout” happened with a new release from Apple a few years ago, that allowed people to opt out of getting tracked via the pixel.
I had a client who had spent tens of thousands of dollars on ads that ran to a webinar funnel. Before the “pixel fallout,” she was able to retarget people who visited her funnel and show them more ads.
When the “pixel fallout” happened, a lot of people LOST tracking data and essentially had to start over with building their audiences… not my client.
Alongside of her webinar ads, I had also been running video ads to her audience who were engaging with her webinar funnel, and so while her pixel data was lost, her warm audience was not because those who watch videos on platform, their data stays ON the platform. We were able to continue to run ads to her warm audience and business went on as usual. Unfortunately, that “pixel fallout” caused a lot of businesses to go under for awhile.
This is why it’s important we don’t just have a one dimensional strategy to bring in clients. It mitigates risk.
STEALTH CONVERSATIONS - This is one of my favorite pieces of the whole approach because it allows you to have casual conversations with people and still pitch your offer, but without actually pitching up front.
In Chapter 2 I mentioned that I discovered that giving something away like a checklist or a cheat sheet brought in more comments. I also mentioned that conversations are the fastest path to cash.
So… Here we go.
The “stealthiness” of this strategy comes into play as you will offer helpful freebies that I now call “value bombs” to your prospects and use them as a way to open conversations that lead to sales.
Instead of a pure sales post, you’ll be putting out videos in the newsfeed that lead to sales conversations without the burden of diminishing your goodwill in the process.
Meaning, higher Pipeline Equity because your sales posts are stealthy.
We’ll dig more into this stealth content throughout the book, but for now just be aware that flying in stealth mode actually gets you better results than the more direct approach that most gurus are teaching. And it keeps your goodwill meter much higher over time.
If you focus on the nuances of this approach, you’ll be in a strong position to steer your business any way you choose.
Quick recap -- the nuances of this super duper profitable ad strategy.
PROLIFIC CONTENT - Publishing long-form content that addresses natural human buying behavior.
PIPELINE EQUITY - Maintaining goodwill with our audience by emphasizing value-based content over sales content.
THE INVISIBLE LEAD - using on-platform retargeting based on video views campaigns.
STEALTH CONVERSATIONS - This allows us to still pitch without using typical sales ads so we can maintain Pipeline Equity..
Before we move on, I need to ask you a very important question -- If I could put you into a messenger conversation with 100 of your ideal clients, how many of those people would you be able to sell your program or service to?
Think about that for a moment.
Most people tend to think that all they need are “more leads.” But what good does more leads do for you if they are unqualified? Or worse yet, they are qualified but don’t buy because they don’t really know or trust you yet.
As you progress through this book and get deeper into Content, Consistency, and Conversations, you’ll realize that navigating the conversation piece is what actually puts money in the bank.
How you navigate the development of your stealth content and use of my pipeline equity framework will be the critical variables that determine how warm and pre-sold your leads are. And believe me, having conversations with pre-sold and very warm leads is way more fun (and profitable) than the teeth-pulling method that most funnel strategies create for you.
TGA Principles Applied
- What is Enough3
- Engaging the Field4
- Clarity5
- Certainty6
- The Shortcut7
Laurel's ad strategy is a unique combination of TGA principles which results in all the Clarity you need in order to determine the Certainty that you will get what you want.
Most people who start off with the ad strategy are starting off without Certainty. They aren't sure what messaging will work. They aren't sure how to talk about their offer. They aren't sure how to build goodwill in a way that results in the inevitability of people buying their stuff.
What makes this process unique over most other programs out there, is that Laurel knows you don't know all that when you come into it.
The process itself IS the shortcut to figuring it all out.
Because the only way to learn exactly what to say, and to whom to say it, to get the conversations that will lead to the results you want - You’ve got to come up with ideas to try, and then Engage the Field with those ideas (make the ads, run the ads, have conversations).
That’s the only way.
By following step by step through the program, you discover all the answers to your questions. What to say, who to say it to, how to say it, and how to stand out with Authority even if you're in a field with TONS of competition.
If you'd like a useful FRAMEWORK to figure this all out, Laurel has a very low barrier/cost of entry program built from TGA principles, Ad Coaching for $7.
Laurel Portié is a Guardian and has been a student of our founder for the last five years. Recently, they did a free training condensing everything Laurel has learned and implemented into five days. All five days are available for free here:
The TGA “Out Of Print” Business Development Books and Letters are available by clicking here for Guardian Academy paid subs. A lot of marketers try and resell this stuff, just get it here.
The pre-req or “Starter/Self Stay Guide” to understand marketing and sales through the lens of TGA principles can be found right here.
Social Media: Check the Guardian Academy Instagram for aesthetically pleasing stuff and exclusive video clips. Twitter (Or X) for more frequent updates and insights.
Forthcoming Event and Experience Dates can be found by clicking here. Nothing compares to being in the right room with the right people. It doesn’t have to be our room with us - just get yourself in proximity to the right people, places, and things for you.