Would you believe me if I told you I have a friend who is a wildly successful digital marketer and has zero social media presence? I don’t know if I would believe it either, but it’s true! I met John Meese in a mastermind class and he is absolutely brilliant. He used my business as a case study to talk about what he would change to my digital product suite. Want to know what he said? Here’s how to make big bucks without using social media.

 

 

John Meese helps smart professionals turn their wisdom into wealth by building a thriving online education business. He is the author of two books: Survive and Thrive: How to Build a Profitable Business in Any Economy and Always Be Teaching: 50 Illustrated Insights on How to Grow Your Business by Creating Content Online.

As I said earlier, you will not find John Meese on social media, but he does write a weekly illustrated newsletter at johnmeese.com called, “Sell Your Smarts.” John first dove into the digital marketing world about a decade ago where it mainly focused on email marketing, blogging, and selling courses. Along with this as his foundation, he worked as a fractional CMO where he helped behind the scenes in multiple different companies earn anywhere between 2-20 million dollars in revenue.

To prove to himself and to other digital marketers that you can still grow without social media, John deleted all of his social media accounts and started from scratch. He didn’t want to just show up on social media because that’s where everyone was. He wanted to show up with a strategy and actually find the best ways to make money and grow revenue–and that’s exactly what he did. 

 

 

How to Make Money Without Using Social Media 

Creating this blank space to create strategy was super important to John because he was distracted by the dopamine hits that come from posting and getting engagement from it. We all love that positive attention, but John wanted to show how he still generated revenue with or without social media. 

 

Money Maker #1: Client Creation Machine – Attract, Nurture, Sell

John broke down digital marketing content into three different phases: attract, nurture, and sell. If you have been following me recently you have probably heard of this concept, but it’s where you break down your content strategy and nail down which phase the content falls under. You can apply this strategy to your social media content or to your overall marketing efforts in your business. Click HERE to learn more about how you can use this attract, nurture, and sell content funnel to grow your business. 

 

Money Maker #2: Gateway Products

John uses several gateway products to help attract new customers. Some of his favorites include:

• Guesting on podcasts
• Email newsletter
• Books 
• Ads

John sees his overall framework for his business revenue as follows:

• Membership product(s) fund your core operations, e.g. a hired team, software, etc.
• High-ticket flagship product(s) fund your lifestyle
• Gateway product(s) fund customer acquisition

You can check out John’s website HERE and poke around at his different products to get an idea of what type of products you could create for your business. He has his initial crash course, “Sell your Smarts” which he uses as the beginning step on his customer journey map. This course will help his customers adopt his philosophy and become raving fans. 

You can set up this same strategy on your website. Think about what products you are selling and decide which one could be used as your gateway product and how you can set it up to lead customers to purchase your next higher-priced product. 

 

 

Michelle Gifford Case Study with John Meese

As I am growing my business and evolving my products, I am super grateful to get John’s feedback on my business and products. He gives such amazing insight! And while this case study is on my business suite, think about how you can apply this same feedback to your website and offerings.

Here’s a sneak peek of the business case study with John Meese! My main current offerings include:

• Grow the Gram (high-ticket flagship product)
• Insta Social Society (membership product)
• Instagram Audit (gateway product)

John recommends that even if you are only offering your high flagship product a few times a year and it’s only available to your most loyal customers, still find a way to talk about it as often as you can. This will help it get more attention from followers and customers who may only be interested in the lower ticket products, but after hearing it so many times and trying out the other products, they may be ready to commit to the higher-priced item. 

The next pro tip John gives is to check out the open benchmarks on Baremetrics. This website has access to tens of thousands of subscription customers. It has analyzed all the data and can share the top price points for customers who pay a certain price for their subscriptions across all industries. 

Basically, you can use this resource as a guide to help you know what to price your membership product at. The top four price points for monthly memberships are $99, $10, $49, and $50. I am currently selling my monthly subscription for $45. John recommends bumping up my monthly subscription to $50/month just to give myself a little raise since the data shows that people are willing to pay the price anyway. 

 

 

Online Education Products

As John mentioned earlier, he recommends having some type of gateway product that encourages clients to purchase the next higher-priced product at the end of their experience. For instance, he recommends I keep my Instagram 101 course on my website and reframe it to be my gateway product that leads people to buy my Grow the Gram 8-week intensive course. 

Think about what products you are selling right now and how you can incorporate this sales ladder through online education. If you sell digital products such as courses or a membership, how can you reframe it, so each product builds upon the next? Setting it up this way is how you will give your customers the best experience and journey in your business. 

 

Product Pro Tip

John wants to emphasize that even though you are offering (at least) three different courses/products that doesn’t mean you have to cover three entirely different philosophies. There will be a ton of overlap, and that’s OK. People need to hear the same message in multiple ways for it to stick. 

It’s OK that you’re teaching the same things in the higher-priced products. Those more expensive products are priced higher because they offer more help like live coaching and implementation strategies. You can still cover the three pillars that your framework is based on. 

 

 

How to Make Big Bucks Without Using Social Media

My friend, this is how you make big bucks without using social media. If you felt at all compelled by the information shared on this blog post, go check out John’s website HERE! Sign up for his newsletter and he will get you started on your journey. He really is the best and has so much knowledge that he wants to share with you. I’ve learned so much from him while we’ve been in our mastermind together, and I know you’ll gain so much from him. 

If you want to stay in touch with me you can find me on Instagram @iammichellegifford! Otherwise, you can catch my podcast HERE where I’ll be doing a follow-up episode on this chat I had with John about what I’m planning to implement in my business. It’s so good to learn from other entrepreneurs, so I hope you’ll come along and get some tips and strategies that will help explode your business!