How I Got 532 Subscribers in 43 Days Using Cheap Facebook Ads

Your email pings.

1 new subscriber to “Your Awesome Email List.”

Whoop de do.

If this were your first subscriber ever, you might jump for joy and bust out the champagne. But instead you think:

ONE new subscriber? Really? That’s it?

Because after all those long hours of pouring your heart and soul into your writing…after doing everything you were told to do to get subscribers…well, you were expecting more.

Your eyes narrow at the total subscriber count on the screen, and for a brief moment, you succumb to wishful thinking…

Maybe if I stare at it long enough, I can make it grow another digit or two through sheer willpower.

Nope. It’s still the same measly old number. In fact, your list hasn’t grown much at all in the past week, or the past month. And it’s annoying as all heck.

You groan.

All this hard work, and what do I have to show for it?

Know what? You aren’t alone in feeling this way.

But all you need to grow your email list at hyper speed is to get the word out in an entirely different way…a way that most bloggers haven’t even considered.

The “Taboo” List-Building Strategy Almost Nobody Talks About

You may be thinking that nobody cares about you or that you’ll be old and gray before you have a sizable email list. You may even have grown to accept this as a fact of blogging.

But you don’t have to be the norm. Watching your list grow doesn’t have to be like watching paint dry. Nothing’s wrong with you, and your people are definitely out there.

All that you need is a shortcut…a faster way to get subscribers that you haven’t tried yet.

It’s not writing epic posts, mastering SEO, or commenting on popular blogs.

(Those methods are almost always a waste of time for beginners.)

It’s not guest blogging, interviewing influential people, or reaching out to A-list bloggers.

(You should be doing those things, but reaching out to the “big shots” is scary, and it can still take several months to get a few hundred subscribers.)

This method is actually so simple that it almost seems like cheating.

I’m talking about buying subscribers.

Now, you’re probably thinking:

Wait-that sounds crazy! Isn’t that some sort of scam?

Don’t worry; we’re not talking about buying a huge list of email addresses and spamming it with your blog posts.

We’re talking about something far more respectable.

What Subscriber-Hungry Bloggers Can Learn from Pint-Sized Entrepreneurs

Do you remember lemonade stands from when you were a kid?

Well, if you ever had one, you’ll know that location is critical.

For instance, which stand do you think would sell the most lemonade: the stand on a quiet cul-de-sac, or the stand in the busy part of town?

Well, the lemonade stand in the busy part of town, of course!

More people passing by means more potential customers.

And it’s the same for blogging. If you expect to grow your email list simply by adding a sign-up page to your blog and hoping potential subscribers just happen to wander by, it’s like putting your lemonade stand in the middle of a cul-de-sac.

Nobody really knows about your blog yet, so few people can find the way onto your email list.

It’s frustrating, but the solution is simple. Set up your stand in the busy part of town.

And these days, that’s Facebook.

It’s where over 1.44 billion people hang out every month. So at least a small percentage of those people could be potential readers for your blog.

All you have to do to turn those potential readers into subscribers is pay Facebook to put up your “lemonade stand.”

What this means in practice is creating a Facebook ad that gets shown to potential subscribers and entices them to sign up to your email list.

And the more ads you run, the more people will see your offer in their Facebook newsfeed, and the more new subscribers you’ll get.

Simple, right?

Why Facebook Ads Are Perfect for Beginning Bloggers (Even If You’re Broke!)

Many bloggers don’t even realize they can get subscribers by advertising their blogs on Facebook.

Those that do know dismiss it for two main reasons:

1. They don’t think they should have to spend any money on getting subscribers – it should just happen organically.
2. They think Facebook advertising is too difficult and takes too much time to learn.

Ironically, most bloggers don’t have a problem spending on things like conversion-optimized WordPress themes and list-building plugins, but the idea of spending money directly to get subscribers seems crazy. So they just ignore it.

But in fact, if you put any kind of reasonable dollar value on your time, it can be much more cost-effective to spend a little money.

For example, let’s say you spend 10 hours writing a guest post (another popular option for building your list) that nets you 100 subscribers. Even if you figure your time is only worth $10/hour, you’re still effectively paying $1 per subscriber.

True, Facebook advertising is complex, and it does take a long time to master.

But you don’t have to achieve mastery in order to spend some money and get results. Especiallywith the right guidance. (That’s what this post is here for!)

For example, here are the actual results from one of my first Facebook ad campaigns:

According to this report, I paid a grand total of $227.05 to get a whopping 532 new subscribers to my list in just 43 days. That means I spent an average of just 43 cents per subscriber!

Not bad for a complete beginner, eh?

But here’s the best part: I didn’t spend $227.05 all at once. On most days, my budget was only $5 per day.

That’s the cost of one Venti Frappuccino at Starbucks.

Facebook advertising is perfect for beginning bloggers because it gives you the following:

• Big exposure
• Quick, cheap results
• Powerful targeting (so you can easily reach your perfect audience)
• Subscribers on autopilot (freeing up time for other things, like promoting your content…or just getting sleep)

Are you ready to go to the busy part of town and get some subscribers? Read on.

The 3 Crucial Elements of an Enticing Facebook Ad

For your “lemonade stand” (your ad) to attract lots of subscribers, we’ve already established that you need to set up shop in a high-traffic area (Facebook).

But in order to make your ad as enticing as possible, you need three essential elements:

1. A juicy incentive (and a landing page to showcase it)
2. An engaging image
3. Intimate ad copy

To give you an example of these elements in action, here is the Facebook ad I used to get the results I mentioned above:

My juicy incentive (1) was a free fitness challenge, which readers could access only after signing up for my email list. I also used an engaging image (2) and intimate ad copy (3). (I’ll explain how to create each of these in the paragraphs that follow.)

Let’s find out more about each of these elements:

1. Creating Your “Juicy” Incentive

These days, your email address is like a currency; you don’t give your email address to just anyone without a good reason.

So your incentive should be as appealing to your target audience as a cool glass of lemonade on a hot summer’s day.

But what makes an incentive so good, so “mouth-watering” that people can’t resist giving their email in exchange for it? Jon Morrow puts it best by asking this question:

What keeps your ideal subscribers lying awake at night?

Find a practical solution to that problem, and you have a “juicy” topic for your incentive.

Next, you need to package that solution in the simplest form possible. You see, when surfing the net, people are in a mindset of avoiding work. And if people think your incentive will take a lot of their time and energy to consume, they’ll bail.

So, instead of writing a 100-page e-book, type up a one-page PDF checklist of tools or resources (essentially, a downloadable list post).

Instead of a lengthy video course, create a mini course consisting of short, actionable lessons delivered via an email autoresponder.

Instead of a 30-day challenge, make it a 7-day challenge.

(7 more irresistible incentive ideas here.)

But whatever form your incentive takes, it must do one thing:

Give them a quick win.

If you can get your ideal subscriber one baby-step closer to solving that problem keeping them awake at night, you have a super “juicy” incentive for your Facebook ad.

Creating a Simple Landing Page to Showcase Your Incentive

Once you’ve created your incentive, you’ll need a landing page with an opt-in form for people to subscribe to your list and get the incentive.

You’ll also need a “thank you” page: the page that visitors land on right after they opt in. That’s because you will place a piece of code on this page for tracking how many people subscribed to your list. (Don’t worry — we’ll cover that later in this post.)

Optionally, you may need some private pages on your website for delivering your incentive.

Here are a few options for creating your landing page:

• WordPress Landing Pages is a free plugin that lets you create landing pages from the WordPress dashboard. The downside is, as with most free options, they only offer limited support.
• ConvertKit (from $29 per month) is an email marketing solution with a landing page builder, designed for professional bloggers.
• “Divi” from Elegant Themes (from $69 per year) is a drag-and-drop WordPress theme that can create attractive landing pages – and much more.
• LeadPages (from $300 per year) is the flagship option for creating landing pages. It’s robust and feature rich, and that’s reflected in the price tag.

Now, once your landing pages are all set up, you can move on to the second element for enticing Facebook ads…

2. Choosing Your Engaging Image

When choosing an image for your ad, you should pick a high-quality, professional-looking photo, right?

Wrong.

Let’s get into the mindset of a potential subscriber for a moment: What is he on Facebook to do? Probably to see what his friends are up to. To look at photos from the latest get-together. To connect with family members from far away.

He is definitely not surfing Facebook to read the ads.

So if at the slightest glance your ad looks like an ad, he’ll ignore it.

Your job is to make your ad look as much like the other familiar items in his newsfeed as possible. Because as he is scrolling down that list of items, he is making split-second decisions about what to pay attention to and what to skip over. And according to Dr. Robert Cialdini’s Principle of Liking, people have a tendency to say “yes” to those they like or are similar to themselves.

So instead of using professional-looking stock photos, use a friendly photo of yourself. That way, your potential subscriber will see you as a regular person just like him, and he will be more likely to stop and engage with your ad.

Here’s an example:

In this ad by Easy Webinar, the smiling photo of a “regular guy” takes advantage of the principle of liking. They also added a warm, grainy filter and framed the shot close to the subject. The resulting image looks a lot like a selfie taken with a smartphone, doesn’t it?

Another example:

This ad image by Luisa Zhou doesn’t even have any text on it: just a casual photo of the subject leaning toward the camera. This image says, comfortable, friendly, approachable.

It also helps that Luisa is an attractive female…Cialdini discovered that physical attractivenessplays a big role in the principle of liking. (If you aren’t an attractive female, not to worry. You can still use this principle by making your photo friendly and likeable. Just smile!)

Bonus tip: If you do decide to use text over your photo, such as a short headline, just make sure it follows Facebook’s policies and takes up no more than 20% of the image. Use a free tool with a Facebook ad template, like Canva, to create your image. Then use theFacebook grid tool to make sure it complies with the text rule.

3. Writing Your Intimate Ad Copy

If your image needs to be personable (not professional) to be engaging, your ad copy should be too.

How do people talk to each other on Facebook?

Do they use corporate speak? Big words? Proper grammar?

Of course not!

And neither should you.

Talk to your potential subscriber like a friend. Get into their head, and use the words they use themselves. Make them feel that you understand them.

Get intimate with your copy.

The following ad by Hilary Rushford gets intimate by using casual language and empathizing with her audience:

So Instagram is all the rage. Forbes says so, Vogue says so, the numbers say so.

But another platform to learn, really?! My photos are kinda blah. I’m not sure what to share. What do I post? Why isn’t my following growing after all this work? And how can I actually make money with Instagram anyway?

Trust me love, I’ve been there!

See what she did there?

She took the questions keeping her audience awake a night, and echoed those same doubts and fears. Then she explains how she felt the same way (she’s another regular gal, “just like you”) and how her free Instagram class can answer those questions.

Your copy doesn’t have to be that long. (In fact, Facebook recommends keeping your copy under 90 characters to keep it from being cut off on smaller screens.)

Erin Stutland uses succinct copy in her ad for a free fitness challenge. She leads with a brief, empathetic statement:

It doesn’t take going to extremes to get a bod you really love.

If you are her intended audience (i.e., people who want to improve their physiques, but don’t want to suffer through hundreds of pushups to get there), you are already hooked. Then, she briefly describes her quick win and gives a clear call to action:

I put together the Say it, Sweat it, Get it Challenge where together, you and I are going to do some super short workouts everyday for a week that combine movement + mantras + of course, fun! Sign up today here 

(Did you notice the colloquial punctuation?)

Facebook also suggests hooking the viewer with a question.

In the following ad, James Wedmore leads with a question that both hooks the viewer and qualifies his audience:

Are you looking to grow your business with YouTube?

In the next sentence, he establishes his authority:

For the past 7 years, I’ve been teaching entrepreneurs how to build their brand with video!

Finally, he clearly states his quick win and how to sign up:

I’m hosting a new webinar showing you The 7 Steps to Profiting from YouTube!

To reserve your spot click the link below:

To summarize, your ad copy should:

• Use simple, relatable language
• Empathize with your potential subscribers
• Clearly state your quick win & how to sign up

Bonus tip: Whenever you see a Facebook ad that draws you in, take a screenshot and put it in an inspiration file. Revisit this file whenever you get stuck writing your copy.

How to Pick the Absolute Best Spot to Attract Your Ideal Subscribers

You’ve gathered your three elements and made the most enticing Facebook ad. But before you run your ad, you need one final component:

Targeting.

Targeting is where you get to choose exactly who sees your ad. Because even the most attractive ad won’t get results if it goes out to the wrong people.

It’s a bit like setting up a lemonade stand outside of a diabetic clinic. It may be in a high-traffic area, but unless your lemonade is sugar-free, those people are probably not right for your offer.

So to find the perfect spot for your lemonade stand, ask yourself this question:

Where are my ideal subscribers hanging out on Facebook?

For the ad campaign I mentioned earlier (the one that got me 532 subscribers in 44 days), my incentive was a seven-day prenatal fitness challenge. So my ideal subscribers were pregnant women wanting to stay fit.

Facebook allows you to target women or men, so that part is simple. But how do you targetpregnant women?

Well, on Facebook, pregnant women tend to “like” pages about pregnancy. Thankfully, Facebook offers a targeting option for that. Taking it one step further, you can also target women who “like” pages related to fitness.

To get started, complete this quick exercise:

1. Make a list of 10 specific Facebook pages where you think your ideal subscribers hang out. (You can find pages by typing keywords into Facebook’s search bar, such as “pregnancy” and “fitness.”)
2. Confirm that each of the pages you choose has a healthy amount of likes (at least a few thousand likes per page).
3. Choose the top-three pages from your list to target.

Once you have a short list of target pages, your goal is to display your ad to as many people who like those pages as possible, while keeping your costs low.

The Trick to Getting the Most Subscribers, as Quickly as Possible, at the Cheapest Price

You have your irresistible offer, your engaging image, and intimate copy, and you’ve figured out where your ideal subscribers are hanging out on Facebook. Now it’s time to pull it all together and run your ads.

The trick to getting the most subscribers from your ads, as quickly as possible, and at the cheapest price, is to use something called conversion tracking. Conversion tracking allows you to keep track of how many people see your ad, how many people click on your ad, and how many people actually take your desired action (in this case, entering their email and subscribing to your list).

This way, you will have a detailed report of how much money you spent per conversion (i.e., per new subscriber). You can use this information to get the biggest bang for your buck: the mostsubscribers in the least amount of time.

This next part is a little technical, but don’t worry…it’s not as scary as it sounds.

To track your conversions (i.e., how much you’re spending per subscriber), you will need to grab a piece of code that Facebook gives you (called a tracking pixel) and place it between the <head>and </head> tags on the “thank you” page you made earlier (the page that shows up right after someone opts in to your email list).

To make it much easier for you, I have recorded a video walkthrough of all the steps to place the tracking pixel and run your Facebook ads.

When you set your budget (as shown in the video walkthrough above), Rick Mulready recommends starting with a small budget (I use a $5 daily budget). If you want to spend more money, increase your budget in small increments until you reach your desired budget. This strategy seems to push Facebook to find you inexpensive subscribers, and it gets your campaign off to a good start.

The Smart Way to Measure How Well Your Ads Perform

Now that your ads are up and running, you will probably be tempted to check them every 2 seconds to see how they’re doing. But that’s the last thing you should do.

You see, it takes a little time before your ad goes out to enough people that you start seeing the subscriptions coming in. So don’t freak out and cancel your ad. In fact, you should…

Wait at least 48 hours before making judgments.

After your ad has been running for at least 48 hours, check for one of the following two scenarios:

What to Do If Your Cost Per Conversion is $4 or Less…

If after 48 hours your cost per conversion (cost per new subscriber in our case) is $4 or less, your campaign is off to a good start.

(If $4 sounds like a lot, don’t worry. Costs usually drop as time goes on because the more people who see your ad, the more people will engage with it by liking it or adding comments, which builds social proof and increases conversions.)

So, if your cost per conversion is $4 or less after 48 hours, run your ad at least one week longer to see if your cost goes down further. (In my experience, it pays to be patient.)

After running your ad for a week or so, you may see your cost get lower and lower. Once your average cost per conversion is around $0.60, you are on track to get 500 subscribers in 60 days. If your average cost per conversion is about $0.30, you’re on track to get 500 subscribers in 30 days. (Assuming in both cases your daily budget is still $5.)

Keep in mind, to get your cost as low as possible, it is not at all uncommon to have to refine your incentive, your ad, or your targeting.

That’s because your ad is competing against other Facebook ads in an auction, so how low you can get that cost will partially depend on how much competition is within your selected audience. (If you suspect that a lot of competition exists for your selected audience, try targeting one of the other Facebook pages on your list, and run your ad for another 48 hours to test this theory.)

Your cost also depends on how relevant your incentive is to your selected audience, and it’s not always what you might think. For example, the first incentive I used for my ads was a PDF checklist entitled, The 8 Exercises Every Pregnant Woman Should Avoid. I thought that incentive was quite relevant for my audience, but my cost per conversion went much lower when I switched to offering a free fitness challenge to the same audience.

What to Do If Your Cost Per Conversion is $4 or More…

If after 48 hours your cost per conversion is $4 or more, stop running the ad. Then, come up with a hypothesis for what went wrong. Is the problem your targeting, incentive, image, or copy? Maybe it’s your landing page that isn’t converting well? What can you change to get better results?

If you have more money to spend, try split testing with another ad to see what works best. But if you can only spend $5 per day, just make one tweak and then run your ad for another 48 hours.

The key is to think of all of this as an experiment. Test different theories like a scientist, and be patient! Once you learn what works, you can repeat it and reap the rewards again and again.

The One Simple Tweak that Could Cut Your Costs in Half

So maybe your ads get a decent cost per subscriber, but you just want to hit it out of the ballpark. Here’s something you should definitely try:

Make a video ad.

Facebook advertisers are reporting that video ads are working wonderfully for them, they’resignificantly more effective, and they’re getting conversions at a mere fraction of the price of static image ads. For example, Derek Halpern created this epic video ad that landed him over twenty-six thousand views so far!

To make a video ad, follow the steps above, and simply upload a video instead of an image.

For the video itself, that could be a topic for a whole other post. But here are a few tips:

1. Apply the same basic principles as your image, and keep it personal and relatable. That means you need to be in the video. You could be talking directly to the camera, or do a voiceover with various shots of you in action (typing blog posts at your computer, for example); it doesn’t really matter, so long as you are the “star” of your video.
   (Derek’s video ad does a great job of being relatable with self-deprecating humor at 17 secs in.)
2. Like your ad copy, what you say in your video should:
   • Empathize with your potential subscribers (“You could have the best product in the world, but if you have no one in the room, you’ll still have zero sales.” 0:37)
   • Explain your quick win (“The big question is, how do you build that audience? Well, I put together a free training series where I’ll show you how to do it.” 1:02)
   • Clearly state your call to action (“All you have to do to gain access is enter your name and email and press, Get Instant Access.” 1:06).
3. The maximum length for Facebook video ads is 45 mins. Different opinions abound about what length works best, but Facebook says to worry less about length and focus more on storytelling.

Just keep in mind that the first few seconds of your video will be silent because it autoplays on mute until the viewer clicks to unmute it. You need to entice people to click the video, so get creative. (Derek sparks curiosity in the first few seconds by walking onto a stage carrying a microphone, decked out in a shiny black sportcoat and sparkly red shoes. It makes you wonder,Who is this goofy guy, and what will he say?)

Grow Your Email List on Autopilot for Just a Few Dollars a Day

Imagine waking up tomorrow morning and receiving another notification from your email list provider…

But this time, instead of one subscriber, you got 10 subscribers overnight. Now imagine that happening again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next.

All without any additional effort from you.

That’s what growing your blog on autopilot looks like. Instead of worrying about getting subscribers, you can focus on what you love most: blogging.

Because if you’re serious about building your blog, but your time is too valuable to waste, spending a little money could be a brilliant move.

After all, what’s the worst that could happen?

Well, you could spend $10 and not get any new subscribers.

(Although when that happens, it usually just means that one of your ingredients is off, and you need to go back and tweak your recipe.)

That $10 is less than the cost of an average American take-out meal. (And c’mon, we’ve all had bad take-out.)

But the more likely scenario?

You unlock a way to grow your list faster and more reliably than you ever thought possible.

So can you truly afford not to give it a try?

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How To Write Product Reviews That Sell

Let's summarise how searching for feedback about a product you are about to buy usually goes...

Step 1: type "product" + review in Google.

Step 2: ​your eyes melt at the amount of star ratings appearing on your screen, half the titles read "is <product> a scam? Don't buy <product> before you read this!"

Step 3: ​Tentatively click on a result that doesn't seem to be an obvious click bait and where the domain name looks trustable (i.e not producthonestreivew.com).

Step 4: ​Land on a page filled with CTA that only says good things about the product and is obviously completely sold out to the product owner.

Step 5: Close your browser in rage after landing on 3 or 4 such sites not knowing what to do about buying the product or not.​

Does this sounds familiar?

​It does to me, yet I actually have done that for a while and if you navigate Health Ambition a bit and look at some of our reviews from a few years ago you will see we were playing that exact game.

But the truth is, even when they rank, these kind of reviews just don't produce nearly as much revenue as they used to anymore.​

The truth is, most people are now fairly well educated about sketchy affiliate sites selling this way and while you can STILL make sales this way, you won't bank the way you used to.

But with every downturn there is an opportunity.

In that case, being the honest kid in the block and producing actual reviews where you are not afraid to be critical about the product and have the reader's best interest in mind can have a massive payoff.

We have been experimenting with that in the past 12 months with great success and generated thousands of dollars in affiliate earnings both on Authority Hacker AND Health Ambition.

We have cleared the board, forgotten everything we knew about writing reviews and looked around to try and learn from the best. We realised great reviews relies on 2 simple things:

1. Trust with the author
2. Bridging features and benefits through real life examples​

While we don't publish a ton of reviews (and we clearly should release more), we have had great success with them earning 3 - 5 figures with multiple reviews in the past 12 months.​

Here are some of our earnings generated ONLY with reviews.

In this post we will be sharing the format we use to write those reviews and earn great commissions on affiliate products.

Enjoy.​

What You Will Learn In This Post

• The 8 steps to writing great product reviews.
• The psychological principles of persuasion that help you sell more without looking salesy.
• How preselling is stronger than selling.
• How to format reviews for maximum efficiency.

Quick Navigation

Step #1: Empathize with your readers

Step #2: Identify the target market

Step #3: introduce the solution

Step #4: Explain the relationship between features and benefits through 

             case studies

Step #5: Appeal to authority

Step #6: Offer social proof

Step #7: List alternatives

Step #8: Use the right format 

Step #9: Conclusion

Part #1: The Summary Box

If you’ve read any of our reviews, you’ve probably noticed a short product summary at the very top of the page.

This summary box is one of the best converting sections on our page. For example, the summary of our Buzzstream review accounts for nearly 30% of our sales. Same for some of the reviews on Health Ambition.

The summary box does two things:

• Captures highly motivated buyers who are just looking for a quick opinion before making a final purchase decision.
• Summarizes the review and gives readers who are scrolling back up the page another CTA to click on.

An ideal summary should at least have the following six elements:

1. A short sentence identifying the product and its intended use.
2. Product ratings under different headers. “Value for Money”, “Support”, “Effectiveness”, etc. are some common. Make these visual by using icons.
3. A summary of the product’s pros and cons. Important to throw in the cons otherwise your review will feel biased.
4. A summary of the review. Keep this limited to 1-2 paragraphs.
5. A CTA. Use actionable copy on the CTA text.
6. The product price, since many of your readers will decide to buy or not based on this factor alone.

This specific box was built with the elements available out of the box with Thrive Content builder, you should be able to recreate it quite easily with it.

Part #2: Empathize with Your Readers

​For those who are still reading and are here to actually read your content, it's time to get personal to stand out from the competition.

Have you ever come across a review where the reviewer was more interested in rattling off the product’s features than actually solving your problems?

Such reviews are a dime a dozen online, and usually do a miserable job of helping readers.

Understand that buyers read reviews not to see the features, they can do that on the seller's website.

What they want is to learn whether the product can actually solve their problems.

They don’t want to hear about all the cool things the product can do; they want to see how the product performs in real life for someone in the same situation as them.

Therefore, the first step in writing a good review is to empathize with your readers.

As it turns out, empathy is directly linked with your likability. This, in turn, affects how much people trust and follow your advice.

Empathy and Likability

In the book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, author Robert Cialdini says that likability is one of the six pillars of influence. The idea behind this is simple: you are more liable to follow someone you already like.

According to The Likeability Factor, how much you like someone is a function of three things:

• Realness: Whether a person comes across as ‘real’ and ‘authentic’.
• Friendliness: Whether a person has an open, friendly disposition.
• Empathy: Whether the person can relate to you and your problems.

How to Use Empathy in Your Reviews

Follow these tactics for empathizing with your review readers and making yourself more likable:

• Friendly voice: Use first-person voice with a casual, conversational style. You should come across as a friend gently guiding the reader through his/her problems.
• Share your problem: Before you even mention the product, talk about your problems and how the product helped solve it. Try telling a story about how your life was before and after you used the product.
• Pressure the pain: Ask rhetorical questions (such as “do you feel you’re wasting hours on social media?”) that pull the reader in and make him silently empathize with your situation.
• Be a real person: People empathize more with a person than with a brand. Address the reader directly as “you” and use real pictures to draw the reader in.

Your objective in the first few paragraphs of any review should be to tell the reader that you’re just an ordinary person like them, and that the review is your personal experience of using that product.

For an example, take a look at this review of Earn1k course from Ramit Sethi:

​The reviewer clearly identifies that he's just a "university student" stuck in a dead-end job. If you are in the market for Ramit's course (which usually targets millennials), your eyes would instantly light up - this guy is just like me!

Another reviewer had the same approach - he identifies his profession, says he was bored and wanted to make something on the side.

This is a situation many people in the market for Ramit's course find themselves in as well. By stating this first thing in the post, the reviewer manages to empathize with the reader.

You are not a nobody in their eyes anymore and the narrative makes people want to know what happens in the end, keeping them on your page.​

Part #3: Identify Who The Product Is For

This is something most reviewers miss - they write reviews for everyone, even if they aren’t the right fit for the product.

The result? Tons of tire kickers who waste your and their own time reading the review.

Therefore, the third step in writing the review should be to clearly identify the product’s target market.

This is quite straightforward - simply include a section in the review that explains who the product is for.

For example, our Buzzstream review states in no uncertain terms that this isn’t a product for you if you send only a 100 or so emails a month.

This does two things:

• It qualifies prospects. If someone isn’t a good candidate for the product, he/she can simply leave at this point without wasting anybody’s time.
• It builds credibility. We identify a few free alternatives or tell unqualified people they should not buy the product. This tells readers that we aren’t just after their money but want them to get the best possible product for their needs. You can earn a lot of trust with that.

Part #4: Introduce the Solution

By now, the reader knows he has a problem and is searching for an answer and trusts you.

This is where you step in and introduce the solution.

You can do this by giving your readers a brief overview of the product. Show them what the product includes, what its capabilities are, and what results users can expect from it.

I like to do it in a video because it makes me more relatable, puts my review on Youtube search which generates traffic on its own and gives a nice multimedia feel to the post.

Essentially, your job in this part is to pre-sell the product.

The principle of pre-selling

In sales, pre-selling is defined as the process of creating an environment that helps customers choose a product.

By demonstrating the product’s value and answering buyer questions, you can leave such a favorable impression that people buy your product without even being pitched to.

Pre-selling is the process of creating an environment that helps customers choose a product, ie sales without selling. 

Which is to say, pre-sales is sales without the selling.

Pre-sales tactics are very effective in product introductions. It lowers your readers’ guard and demonstrates the product’s usefulness without the added pressure of making a purchase decision. Here are two ways you can pre-sell the product:

• Demonstrate value: Demonstrate how the product can solve problems by showing off your own results.
• Educate: Answer questions and doubts readers might have about the product.

How to introduce the product

The best way to introduce the product is to show off your results through screenshots and videos, and clear away common doubts they might have about the product.

For example, in our Buzzstream review, we start off by talking about why we don’t have any link building product recommendations on our website (short answer: they’re mostly crap).

Then we talk about how Buzzstream is different - it’s a relationship building tool, not just a link building tool. Then we get people interested by posting a few relevant emails that resulted in a backlink:

This way, we’ve managed to tell the readers what the product is all about, and how it can help solve their problems.

In our Thrive Content Builder review, we accomplish the same with a short product walkthrough video:

This demonstrates the product’s value, and hooks them in for the rest of the review.

Moreover it shows them I actually own the products which pushes trust a little further.

Part #5: Explain The Relationship Between Features and Benefits through Case Studies

A big part of writing a review is explaining the product’s features and benefits. Most reviewers (and vendors) simply list them out one by one.

The results from this approach, as you might have guessed, are less than inspiring.

The right way to explain products and features is to actually show how they help solve problems. You can do this by creating a case study inside the review. This accomplishes two things:

• It shows how the product works in a real world setting.
• It gives value to the reader, builds trust and they feel compelled to do something in return (buy from your link)

The second part - doing something to get something back - is actually called the principle of reciprocity.

The principle of reciprocity

Robert CialdiniAuthor of Influence

“We are human because our ancestors learned to share their food and their skills in an honored network of obligation”

Which is to say: if you do something for someone, they feel obligated to give back. This is the principle of reciprocity in a nutshell.

We’ve seen this principle at play firsthand on Authority Hacker. We give away so much content that we often get comments from readers asking why we’re doing this in the first place.

That’s not all - we’ve even received emails from readers asking us to share our affiliate links. People have read our reviews and got so much value from them that they feel like they owe us a sale.

This is a powerful concept. Use it in your reviews and your conversion rates will skyrocket.

How to create high value product case studies

The purpose of a case study inside a review is twofold:

• To demonstrate the product’s features
• To help potential buyers picture themselves using the product and improving their lives doing so.

The best way to do this is to create a short tutorial that walks readers through a sample use case of the product.

For example, in our Buzzstream review, we show readers how we used the product to get backlinks for Health Ambition. Not only do we list out the steps we followed, we also show our results:

For your own reviews, follow these steps:

• Identify core features: These are the features that readers care about the most. Whether they decide to buy the product or not will depend on how well these features actually work. 
• Show core features in action: Use a video or screenshot walkthrough to show how the product actually works. For inspiration, take a look at our Buzzstream video review.
• Give value by explaining how to use the product: This is where you can give value and trigger the principle of reciprocity. Your aim should be to walk readers through a short tutorial explaining how to get real results from the product.

In our Buzzstream review, we offered readers a quick overview of the outreach process, then showed them how to use Buzzstream for successful outreach.

We never tried to hard sell the product. Instead, we just focused on helping people with the outreach process. Selling Buzzstream was just an added benefit.

This does not just work with software tools though, you could do the same with blenders by showcasing some smoothies you have put together with it or showing a case study of how you applied the learnings of a course you are reviewing.

Part #6: Offer Social Proof

Social proof is the third pillar of persuasion, according to Robert Cialdini. Quoting results from the Asch conformity experiments, he shows that people are more likely to follow something that is already popular.

People are more likely to follow something that is already popular.

As you’ll see below, you can use this fact to your advantage while writing reviews.

How to use social proof in your reviews

Follow these steps to add social proof of the product’s success to your reviews:

• Add reviews and quotes from other users: To show how others perceive your product, simply add reviews and quotes from other users. You can easily find such reviews on sites like Amazon, or speciality sites like GSMArena, etc.
• Add reviews from power users: “Power users” are bloggers, reviewers and other recognizable online personalities. If they’ve already reviewed the product, use their quotes in your review. This gives readers a nice balance between what lay users and experts think of the product (the same format used by MetaCritic and RottenTomatoes).
• Incentivize comments: A large number of comments on a product shows that it is popular. You can get people to comment on the review by offering incentives through a contest. Check out our earlier post to see how to run a contest.
• Get more social shares: Higher social shares = higher popularity. Buy some ads on Facebook or Twitter to pump up the share count on your reviews. This subtly shows readers that the review is already popular.
• Use giveaways: Another tactic to get more social shares is to run a giveawayon the review page. This will pump up the social activity as your social media followers jump in to take the reward.

For example, in this review of the Earn1K course, Dave clearly mentions results from other reviewers:

This was a great try but something that works even better is to actually quote the other reviews. This way you both earn more trust and avoid "review shopping" because all the important information of all the major reviews are on your page.

No need to go and read anything else until you make your decision about the product and click the link on that page (your affiliate link) if the answer to "should I buy this?" is yes.​

​

Part #7: List Alternatives

We included listing alternatives as one of our 17 most effective affiliate marketing tactics in 2015. This holds particularly true for reviews where listing alternatives accomplishes two objectives:

• Increase sales: If people are not interested in the reviewed product, they might still be interested in the alternatives. More importantly, it changes the question from should I buy it to which one should I buy. This is a powerful change in frame that can have a profound impact on sales.
• Show impartiality: By offering readers multiple alternatives, you subtly tell them that you aren’t partial to any particular product.

Listing alternatives is a rather straightforward process. You can simply include a section titled “Alternatives” or “Competitors” and list out candidates.

We did something similar in our Buzzstream review, where we offered Yesware as an alternative:

Shane from IMImpact goes a step further and offers an entire ‘Do Not Buy’ list, along with alternatives for each product.

While most people try to shy away from doing that because they're afraid of not making a sales, remember that alternatives may also have affiliate programs so if you are playing smart you will make more money doing this not less.

Part #8: Use the Right Format

By now, you have a powerful, persuasive review that gives tons of value to your readers. But before you can hit publish, you also need to format the review for maximum impact.

We have already established the power of formatting in our previous posts.

Follow these formatting guidelines in your review:

1. Use plenty of pictures and screenshots and user generated images

Pictures are crucial for creating great reviews, especially if you believe in the “show, don’t tell” philosophy. Use them generously in your articles, but make sure that you only use real pictures, not stock images lifted from the product creator’s website.

Try to aim for a 3-4:1 ratio between pictures and images. That is, for every three-four paragraphs, include an image.

This gives much needed visual flow to your review. Sites like Trustedreviews.com use this tactic with great success and a study has shown that user generated images greatly improves conversions by a lot.

2. Divide review into sub-sections

Writing a great review isn’t enough; you also have to make sure that it is easy to navigate.

You can do this by breaking down the review into separate subsections. We do this for most of our long posts

Try to use both headings and pictures to mark subsections.

I must admit I have skipped that one for Authority Hacker and have had complains about it, so I will take my own advice and implement those soon!

4. Use symbols and icons

When listing out features, benefits and ratings, use symbols and icons to add visual flair to the page.

It won’t make a bad review great, but it will definitely make your review easier on the eyes, and faster to scan through. Use a plugin such as Thrive Content Builder to make this process easier.

If you are using Thrive Content Builder like we do here is how you can add icons to your content and help increase it's readability:

1 - Go in your WordPress dashboard and click on Icon Manager.​

2 - go on icomoon.io and click on Icomoon app

3 - Select the icons you want to import on your website

4 - Once you have done your selection, click on "Generate Font" at the bottom right.

5 - Then click download

6 - Take the zip file you just downloaded and import it back in the icon manager on your website

6 - Refresh the page you are editing and pick the icon element. This time it should work!

5. Offer star ratings

Star ratings or scores out of 5 or 10 are used in almost every review. Your audience implicitly understands what they mean. They know that 4/5 stars means an almost great product, while a 1/5 is universally recognized as “don’t buy” product.

You can either use star ratings:

Or you can use a score

Both work equally well. You can also add your star rating to your search results with theall in one schema.org WordPress plugin.

6. Divide comparisons into columns

If you’re offering comparisons (say, a pros-cons list, or a feature list across two products), it’s useful to place them into separate columns.

This is a simple, visual way to make a comparison. Users can juxtapose two features/benefits side by side and better understand the product and have been used by magazines forever, it's a classic visual code.

7. Use multiple CTAs

Lastly, make sure to use multiple CTAs throughout the review. You should have at most 3 CTA - one each at the top, middle and bottom of the post.

Use simple, value-driven text on the CTA. Don’t write “buy now”. Instead, use something like “Try the [product name] free trial”, or “Learn more about [product name].

Don’t go beyond three and maybe a few links inside the content otherwise readers will think that you’re trying too hard to sell.

Make sure that the CTA stands out on the page. Use a bright, bold color that isn’t used heavily elsewhere, and give it a big enough size to attract attention.

I have also noticed that animating the call to action and the call to action alone increased the number of clicks on our affiliate links.​

​To Animate your CTA's with Thrive Content Builder follow the steps described below:

1 - first select your button and click on "Event Manager"

2 - In the new window that opened click "Add Event"

3 - Then select trigger "Comes into viewport", Action "Animation" and pick your favourite animation for it.

On our own reviews, we use Thrive Content Builder to create all the above visual formats. From CTAs to star ratings, it has everything you need to make highly readable, visually striking reviews.

Conclusion

Writing reviews isn't quite as easy as getting the specs and stringing together some thoughts. If you want your reviews to sell products (and rank well), you'll have to do some legwork.

Don't be like one of those spammers who write fake reviews and get banished from the SERPs every week. Instead, offer real value to readers and they'll thank you by buying from your link.

Master the art of influence to create reviews that not only deliver value, but also sell products.

And lastly, make sure to organize and format your review well - it's the difference between a review no one will read, and one that gets hundreds of shares.​ 

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