Wilco de Kreij is the founder UpViral. He is a full-time online marketing “whiz kid” who started at the age of 16, when he started selling sunglasses online. Over the next decade and then some, Wilco has developed several online marketing applications and WordPress plugins. Rotterdam.

Whether you’re a pro or just getting started with webinars, you won’t want to miss this episode. Wilco de Kreij shares his unique method for promoting webinars, evergreen webinars, and how he uses FB ads to recruit an army of affiliates.

TOPIC WILCO DE KREIJ COVERS

→ His unique method for promoting webinars, evergreen webinars

→ How he uses FB ads to recruit an army of affiliates

→ How do most people get affiliates

→ What does his process look like

→ What does he learn to do to get these affiliates

→ Why does he want to move into the auto webinar world

→ The conversation covers traditional and Wilco’s unique way to get affiliates for webinars

→ And a whole lot more

LINKS & RESOURCES

→ Wilco’s Personal Website

→ Upviral.com

WATCH THE INTERVIEW

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READ THE TRANSCRIPTION

Bronson: Welcome to another episode of Growth Hacker TV, Bronson Taylor. And today I have Wilco to carry with us. Wilco. Thanks for coming on the show.

Wilco: Well, thanks, man. Thanks for having me.

Bronson: Absolutely. And you coming to us from the Netherlands, a place that I hope to visit someday. I keep wanting to get there, but it never quite happens.

Wilco: You said, man, it’s good.

Bronson: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I’m glad to have you on the show because me and you actually did a lot of business together. And it’s cool to have people on the show that you’ve actually worked with and done things with so many mean you actually did a webinar together and it went really well. We both made a little bit of money from it, and so I thought we would just talk for a little bit about webinars. I mean, I know doing the webinar with you, I learned a lot. You’re obviously ahead of the curve. You’re doing things other people are doing. You’re seeing things in a unique way that it definitely leveled up by a webinar game doing one with you. And so that’s what I want to do is just talk about webinars and let you share that with the people. So I’m with you.

Wilco: Yeah, man. Let’s do it.

Bronson: All right, let’s do it. So, you know, first of all, you know, let’s talk about how people normally do webinars. And then we’ll give it the twist, how you do it. So, you know, webinars, you need affiliates, you need somebody’s audience to go and give the webinar to. How do most people get affiliates? What’s the normal playbook in that regards?

Wilco: What say the normal playbook is just to ask as much as you can and just hope that people pray that people will actually promote. And usually what a lot of people do is like sort of back scratching kind of thing. Like, I promote you, you promote me. And the end result is that two people promoting each other, but usually the customers are actually like data or they’re not benefiting, benefiting from it. Because what happens is that people say, Hey, I’m going to promote you. And if you promote me in two months from now and two months later, they see the actual product or the actual service that that’s being sold, their only webinar, and they’re like, Huh? But then they already made the promise. They’re already committed to it. So that’s a problem, right? And most people will still do it. But yeah, that leads to I’d say yeah, low quality of for, for everybody involved in reality.

Bronson: Yeah. So there’s no quality control because you’re basically doing it as a favor, not because you actually think the product is of value for your people.

Wilco: Exactly.

Bronson: And you know, you said, you know, it’s a lot of just, you know, kind of put it out there and praying and hoping that, you know, people do it. I mean, what does that actually look like? Using Gmail, blasting out emails to anyone that you think has a list saying, hey, you want to do a webinar? Hey, I’d be happy to do one in return. I mean, is that what it really is?

Wilco: Well, actually, a lot of it like in marketing I’m in a lot of it actually happens on Facebook. So it’s actually exactly like that. But except it’s actually my Facebook inbox instead of on and you know, and obviously like a lot of people, they sort of start spamming over what if you want to go to like that and and Facebook groups are the other Skype groups where they know a lot of people are in that are you know they’re doing affiliate marketing basically. So to just bolster their stuff, they’re like, hey, you want to you want to promote theirs. And they just copy paste that in like 20 different groups and like and even so, they’re doing it a bit smarter that they’re going for like the, the so-called launch calendars or just like calendars where you can actually post your date whenever whenever a new product or service is going live or when you have a special offer. But even then, it’s sort of like hoping that like people will actually promote while I think you can, you know, you can do it smarter than that, basically.

Bronson: So let’s get into that to what’s smarter than that, right? You actually have kind of a like a scientific way of going about getting affiliates. So what does your process look like? What have you learned to do to get these affiliates? Well.

Wilco: I wouldn’t say it’s changed everything, but I think over the years, like I’ve been to a lot of events, talking to a lot of affiliates and and I’ve actually been there right where you actually have to ask people to promote. And even though it’s super annoying, like I just told you, but it’s also very valuable because you see the exact things like the things they ask and things how to where to respond to you get after a while you sort of see like, Oh, it all works. What doesn’t work? And what I notice is that basically an affiliate makes a decision whether or not they’re going to promote your your product or service or your webinar to their audience based on basically three things. Like usually there’s three different things and they decide on one or two of these things. So the first one is the product, like some affiliate said, just focus on the product. Like if my customers like if this is going to benefit my customers, they’re going to promote it, right? Like all they do, all they want to do is just get the best thing in front of their customers. If you have something that the affiliates themselves is using in their business, they’re like, Oh, I’m using this. You should use it as well, right? So that’s one group of affiliates just for the product, right? So second group is those who just want to go for the best conversion possible. They’re just like they’re calculating, like, where do I get basically the highest EBC, the highest earning per click, and they compare various offers in the high for that offer. I can make this amount of money for that one. This amount of money, right? Really just about evaluating like how much does that how would it actually convert to my audience? Right. And a third group. Like the people who are just promoting it for their friends. And that’s sort of like what I call the back scratching a way of promoting. So it really just, you know, I don’t know, do you promote me? And what I’ve decided to do in my business, like initially I did that as well. I’ve made various commitments where people ask me, Hey, I can promote your product. It’s awesome, but you have to promote me. And two months from now, and exactly like I just described things, bad things happened. I saw the product was not good. So I decided in my business, I’m cutting out that third that third portion of the affiliates, which might lose you some affiliates. But, you know, you want to do what you want to do what’s right and you don’t want to do that kind of things. At least that’s my opinion. You want to run your business however you want to run it, right? So I’m sort of ignoring that. But that leaves me two groups of people that basically depend on who are, you know, just focus on having a good product and who focus on conversions. And what I’ve learned is that it’s really just branding that and putting that into their brand. I’m not just saying like, hey, you know, it’s converting good and it’s a good product. I mean, they need to believe it. Like without a doubt, they need to think when they think about your product. It’s like, Oh, this is awesome. My customers need it. And it’s going to be it’s going to be, you know, it’s going to convert insanely well. And if then they see a message or two, you ask them, Hey, hey, do you want to promote it? Like, Yes, sure, I would like. And that just I think changes the game and I would. Yeah, it’s just so that’s sort of like the logic behind how I even start my marketing and my affiliate.

Bronson: Yeah. So how do you get those ideas in their brain? How do you actually prime the pump so that they think that’s the product it’s going to convert? So when you come to them, they’re ready. How do you do that?

Wilco: A lot of it is actually using as not using Facebook ads, mainly Facebook video ads. And that’s just right now because, you know, it’s a it’s a real good way to, interestingly, a cheap way of advertising at the moment. And also because video is, you know, you can do a lot more video than just text. So whenever I launch something new, I know that everyone is going for their affiliate attention. Right? So I don’t want to be one of all of the other people. So what I do is I usually pick a date, let’s say, two months in advance and from two months in advance, I’m going to start I’m going to start on my video ads, and I target various custom audiences. So these are people that I’ve already visited my affiliate page in the past or who are on my affiliate list. So it is a relative relative short, a rather small group of people like five, six, 7000 something, something in that order, which means that you can you can, you can you don’t even have to spend a lot, but you can just make sure that everyone is going to see your video ads. Right. So from the from the moment it starts, the first video is all it’s about is just making clear that they know that the launch or that special offer that is coming up. Right. And all I’m doing is branding it in. And they’re going to see the logo. They’re going to see they’re going to have a first glimpse of what it’s about. But it’s really just about making clear that it is coming. Right. Just getting that first message into into their into their mind. Now, if they watch that video and they’ve seen, for example, 25 or 50% of that, you can create another custom audience. And that’s for those who are familiar with Facebook ads, which means that as soon as they’ve seen that video to a certain percentage, they’re going to be automatically added to a second custom audience, which means that you can then target a different pattern. So the second ad that I show to them would be one of them for one for one of these on off point. So the second ad will be like, oh, it’s, you know, I’ve done these other launches in the past and like this one almost converting at this amount. ABC This one was converting at the like this amount. ABC Overall sales was this I’m really sort of like bragging about the numbers even though I personally hate doing it. But to make to get this point across, it works because if I just say, yeah, it’s convert good, it’s converting. Well, like they don’t believe that, right? So they want to see hard proof. And for example, if you already did a test promotion for on your own list or with another as from another affiliate, you can even show these numbers like, oh, you know, doesn’t this person he promoted it and here’s how it did for him, like hard numbers. So this video is just about getting the point across that by the end of the video, they’re like, wow, like this converts, even though they might not you know, they might not be thinking like, oh, this is the product my customers need, but at least now they know it converts right then the next video and you can switch these up, the order doesn’t really matter. Our next video would be just like a case study where I’m showing like first of all, what the actual tool or service does. In my case, I’m focusing on sales businesses. So what told us, and basically some epic and a really good case study that attack that proves that what I actually says it does it does it really really well right. So by the end of that video, they’re like, wow, wow. And because this audience is so small, I’m going to I’m going to I’m going to show those ads over and over, like usually the average frequency to. So the average time every everyone would actually see that every video would be like 20 times. 25 times.

Bronson: That’s awesome.

Wilco: And, and that’s over a two month period, right? So even though it’s not like they’re like super into it, even though it’s not like they’re like, oh yeah, what is this like? But they’ve seen it over and over. And after two months in their mind and I make it appear as a big launch, right? It’s not like, Oh yeah, I’m doing this thing I. I’m once again making it. So I’m sort of like bragging like this is going to be the best thing ever, right? And it’s actually the best thing since sliced bread and you need to be involved. And after seeing that for two months in a row, 20 to 25 times for each of those videos, while rest assured that I know they’re there, like it’s in their mind. And obviously, because everyone’s busy. I think the last video last step is maybe even the most important, because just a few days before the launch or like five days before the launch, I switch off all the other ads and I promote all these people just like right away, this is it. In five days it’s going to happen. So right now, this is when you when you actually need to get ready. And a lot a lot a lot of our affiliates are just coming from this campaign, just from Facebook video, which everyone could actually do, but not a whole lot of people are actually doing it.

Bronson: Yeah. No, I mean, that’s incredible. That’s that’s that’s playing chess when everyone else is playing checkers in terms of trying to get affiliates. So I love just how you put all the pieces together. I love how you prime the pump. There’s actually a new book out. I can’t give the name of it. I know it’s called a pre suasion and it’s about persuading people before you persuade them. And I haven’t read it yet, but I got a feeling that what you’re doing is right in line with pre suasion, so there might be something there too. So, okay, so that’s the live webinars, that’s big launches, that’s affiliates. But you’re actually doing something even different now. You’re actually moving on from live webinars to auto webinars. So first, just tell me this. Why why are you wanting to move into the auto webinar world? What’s making you want to do that?

Wilco: Well, like the one side, the affiliate model, which I just described, it’s good, right? Like you can put a lot of volume in a short amount of a short amount of time, but at the same time, you’re pretty much depending on someone else to grow your business. Right. And that’s just not the ideal role model for me. Now, I’m still using that, but I don’t want to be depending on it. So over the last, I’d say just over a year or so, I made it my core focus to basically add other channels into the business while maintaining the affiliate. I didn’t want to I didn’t want to replace that, but I do want to add auto ones on top. So one of the channels I’ve been working on for a while now is always the Facebook ads, right? It’s the easiest thing to do. And something I’ve been doing before for a while is what’s what’s called the pre the Jeff Voelker pre three part video sequence. I’m not sure if you’ve seen it, but basically a driver, three content videos where your teach your audience something and then after those three videos or after, for example, three or four days, you don’t show them an offer, right? So initially I started running Facebook ads into that to promote that first video and then were going to get an email about the second video and then they’re going to get an email about the third video and then they’re going to get a pitch and using Facebook ads now that that didn’t work and did not convert well enough, mostly because there’s a big time spend and this is for cold traffic. Right. So they’re seeing this dude is Dutch guy and like five days later, a part of those people, they’re not going to be interested anymore because they have already seen 20 different other opportunities on Facebook or things that they’re interested in. So it’s really hard to capture their attention. So I went looking for like, what are the strategies there? And when asking around and I saw I heard from some friends that they had really good results with webinars. Now personally I don’t like doing webinars at all like, like I do a lot with video. That’s fine. But when I do, when I’m live, it’s just one of those things, you know, like everyone has their, their skills, like hasn’t that’s not one of them. Plus, because I’m from the Netherlands, it also means that if I would do live webinars, I have to I just have to do them at the in the evenings. And I sort of I value my personal time right at work and I have private time as we all do. So I was like, I don’t I don’t really like that, but I do like the idea of getting, you know, the the ads up and running. But I don’t really want to keep on doing life long hours. So I started thinking about automated webinars and that part I mean that that I do like. So that’s when I start doing auto webinars. But of course like initially I recorded an auto webinar as if like just a person record and that’s it drove ads into it, did no work, did not convert. And I realized that that’s obviously because even though I don’t like doing webinars, I do need to get the skill of doing lectures right as a certain skill to get a certain way of, of, of, of getting your points across. And you sort of need to capture your, your your tone and your voice and just get them to believe the right thing during that presentation. So that even before you get into the part where you actually try to sell them something, try to make them an offer, they’re really convinced that they want to have it. And that’s just a skill and certain things that I still needed to learn. So yeah, I started doing a lot of live webinars solely for the purpose of getting it to convert. So I could then turn it into an auto webinar after. And yeah, that’s sort of what I’ve been working on for the last. I know a couple months, like six months. It’s just it’s a lot of fun.

Bronson: Actually, and it’s working. The ROI is positive on auto webinars. It’s all moving in the right direction.

Wilco: Really? Well, yeah, actually, way better than I initially expected. At least it’s going faster. So right now we’ve got two auto webinars running. I’m not a big, big fan of sharing numbers, but this one I can sort of share. So this one we just started last month, we did like 10,000 revenue from that webinar and is the second one. We just scale it up. So far it’s at 7070 this month, 70,000. So next month it’s definitely going over 100. The other one is already on it plus a month and the price varies for the other one. It’s like one. And to force a $1 and $4 out and this new one is actually $1 in $9 out, which is obviously going to throw up a bit if we’re going to scale up forever because add costs will rise and you’re going to saturate your initial market. But even I’m pretty sure that we should keep it at like 1261127. So yeah, I’m really happy with those numbers because you know, and it’s so far it’s really scalable as well. I would have thought that we would run out of our audience, but the other one has been running for, I don’t know, three or four months at a stable. And it’s it’s going really well.

Bronson: Well, it’s incredible. Well, I know what I’m doing. When this calls over, I’m setting up an auto webinar. So that’s a real good webinar. I know we don’t have a webinar where we got the recording.

Wilco: And one thing that that’s really good to do as well is do and that this really lowered our cost per lead as to not just make it about the webinar because everyone is doing a webinar, but make sure you give them something sort of like a bribe. I actually literally tell them I got a bribe for you, like if they actually join the webinar. So because I’m, I’m in software, I run two sized businesses for us, it’s quite easy to create a piece of software, like a little tool that they can do that they can use, which we just created for the sole purpose to give it away for free on the webinar. And right from the very start, when they see your ad, I know I’m telling them like, Oh, we’ve got this training coming up, it’s about this and this. But you know what? To bribe you to be there. I’m going to give you this for free if you actually show up. And that really that thing right there lowered our cost really dramatically. And I’ve actually seen the biggest difference between those two webinars that I just described, the one as cooperating. One, two for the other one right now, 129. The biggest difference is actually because of the bribe, the thing that I’m giving away so much more valuable, like people that they’re at, like they’re literally asking it at every point in the webinar, like where is it like where they get it? And obviously they will get it at the end of the presentation because they need to stick around. But that really helped this big time to lower cost per lead. So if you’re doing it.

Bronson: And it’s a great idea, it was good. Yeah, I like that a lot. All right. So, I mean, you’ve given us a ton of information. I mean, if anyone’s interested in webinars, using it to grow their business, using it to grow the revenue, they now know how to get affiliates the smart way. If they want to do live ones, they know how to do some of the pieces of the auto webinar if they don’t want to wake up in the middle of the night because they live in the Netherlands. So you get on some really, really good information. So let me close out with two questions. And these are the two questions that always end with, first, what are you doing as soon as this episode is over, eating food, walking the dog, having a big business meeting, like what happens as soon as you hang up?

Wilco: Well, actually, I’m going to go downstairs and drink drink some wine with my wife. It’s already the evening here. And tomorrow it’s a free day in the Netherlands. It’s Kings Day, which means it’s a holiday. So we’re just chilling out tonight, actually.

Bronson: Oh, well, thanks for coming on the show. Even though the holiday I didn’t even know. So even more of a commitment there. And then the last question, what’s the best advice you have for any startup that’s trying to grow?

Wilco: The best start for a start up. Like whenever you release something, you’re proud of it, you’re releasing it too late. It’s it’s all right. If you’re a little bit embarrassed of whatever you’re doing, it means that you’re. You’re pushing yourself to deliver fast.

Bronson: I’d say. Awesome advice. Awesome advice to end on. Wilco, thank you so much for coming on Growth Hacker TV.

Wilco: No problem. Thanks for having me.