Dotcom Secrets is one of the most popular books recommended to digital marketers who either struggle to drive organic traffic to their websites or, struggle with traffic conversions. With so much hype surrounding this book, you might be wondering if this book is worth reading. Well, before you spend your hard-earned money on this book, we would like to give you an in-depth review of this book to help you make an informed decision.
What Is The DotCom Secrets?
Written in 2015, by Russel Bruson, the Dotcom secret is a book that seeks to enlighten businesses on the core strategies they can incorporate into their marketing strategy to aid businesses to build engaging sales funnels with high conversion rates.
In this book, Russel shares 28 strategic and actionable secrets that guarantee marketing success for both novices and established online businesses. However, some of the strategies can be incorporated by businesses with no online presence.
For those of you who might not know who he is, Russel Brunson is a renowned industry leader and a marketing extraordinaire who has helped transform and improve the lead conversion rate of over tens of thousands of companies through his books and software, ClickFunnels.
With over 205,381 copies of the first edition sold globally, with an average rating of 4.6/5 star reviews on Amazon, this book has proven effective for tons of businesses around the globe.
Who Should Read This Book?
This book is a must-read for any business that struggles with lead conversions and maximizing the revenue or profit generated by each lead. The book highlights the various funnels and steps online businesses can leverage to create effective and highly targeted email/messages that improve the business' lead conversion. This book is a great read if you are using sales funnels but then you do not know how to maximize your conversion rates.
4 Reasons To Read DotCom Secrets:
1.It is Easy To Grasp, Even For Beginners:
In this book, Russell Bruson makes great use of real-life scenarios we can all relate to, to make it easy for the readers to grasp difficult concepts. Also, all the points are explained in detail and use layman's terms for you to easily understand and grasp, making it an ideal read for beginners.
2.He Shares His Secrets
In this book, you will access the funnels, scripts, and techniques Russell Brunson uses to get the most out of his ads and traffic inflows. In the latter part of the book, Russell shares with you the various funnels he uses, the scripts he uses to make those funnels effective, as well as, his email marketing messages. Hence, you can easily replicate his models to fit your business and get instant results.
3.It Is Practical
All the examples given in this book are practical and they have been proven to help online businesses scale and maximize their cost-revenue ratio. Reading this book equips you with foolproof ways you can raise the value of each customer or lead to help you scale and take your business to the next level.
4.It Is Free
You do not have to pay a dime to get this book; all these power and foolproof techniques are free for grabs.
With that out of the way, let's dive into the review of this book.
Section 1:Ladders and Funnels
This section explains the various stages which we can take a prospect through before actually selling our high-ticket products to them. Also teaches us the type of value we can offer each prospect/lead based on the level they are on the ladder.
Secret #1: The Secret Formula
With this secret, you will learn that the first step to converting traffic into leads involves understanding how to create an ideal customer profile to enable you to identify your ideal customer. Having an ideal customer profile, enables you to understand who needs your product the most and how you can create an effective message or offer that communicates the value your business offers and resonates with the needs of that customer, which eventually drives them to take a buying action.
In this section, Russell Brunson dives deep into how answering the four under-listed questions can help you identify your ideal customer:
- Who is your ideal customer?
- How Do you find them?
- How do you draw them close to your business?
- What value do you want to give them?
With this secret, Russell emphasizes the fact that the first focus of your business shouldn't be on making money, but instead, focus on figuring out the value you can give to your prospects, and when you figure that out, they get stuck with you.
Secret #2: The Value Ladder
With this secret, Russell introduces us to the concept of the Value Ladder. The Value Ladder is a core principle that businesses can utilize effectively to generate a continuous flow of income from newly acquired leads and existing customers. The Value Ladder is a 4-step ladder that businesses can use to communicate their value to prospects and leads.
Essentially, with the value ladder, the more you increase the value of a prospect or lead, the more money you can make from that prospect or lead. Russell further makes us understand that the only way we can increase the value of our prospects is by providing them with more unique values as they rise the value ladder.
With this secret, Russell makes us understand that your aim as a business shouldn't be to sell to your prospects on their first or initial interaction with your product/service/brand; however, your first aim should be to offer your prospects value or a bait. This is because, by offering value to your prospects during your first interaction, you are building trust, and giving them the tip of the iceberg of what your business can offer.
He recommends that you offer free value as bait whenever a prospect interacts with your product for the first time. Essentially, you want to use the free product (bait) to reel in prospects and convert them to leads. Once they become leads, then you want to offer them more value to take them to the next stages of the value ladder and have them spend more.
In this chapter, Russell introduces us to the value ladder and walks us through the various four stages of the ladder, the importance of each stage, and how each stage can generate revenue for your business.
Secret #3: From A Ladder To A Funnel
In this section, Brunson stresses the importance of building a funnel and highlights the difference between a funnel and a value ladder. Essentially, this secret teaches you how you can build a funnel that is in line with your business goal and resonates with your target audience.
Essentially, he makes us understand that a sales funnel is a strategic online process that you can build to take your prospect through your value ladder. This means, that for each stage of the value ladder, you need to have a deeper funnel that has a wide range of offerings to your prospects at that stage.
The reason why you need to have a funnel that has a wide range of offerings is that at each level of the value ladder, every prospect will have a different level of trust or purchasing power; therefore, as a business, you need to build a robust funnel that has an offer and unique value for each type of prospect per their purchasing power or level, given that they are part of your ideal customer.
In addition, Russell further teaches how businesses can generate a continuous flow of income from their existing customers by leveraging the idea of a continuity program instead of waiting for customers to purchase your product or service again. By organizing seminars, online coaching, webinars, live event, or anything else, you can charge a small fee for which interested parties have to pay before they can participate in the event to enable you to generate some residual revenue-- however, the idea here is to provide your customers and leads value whiles making money from it. And as Russell said: "This residual income will become the lifeblood of your business."
So, while Secret #2 focuses on the importance of having a value ladder, Secret #3 focuses on why you need a unique and robust funnel for each stage of your value ladder.
Secret #4: How To Find Your Dream Customers
In this chapter, you get to understand that there are two main issues faced by marketers today:
- The first is that most people are bombarded with tons of information from numerous brands; hence, most people on the internet have a short attention span.
- The second issue is that most marketers send out campaigns to almost everyone.
In this chapter, you get to understand that since your product isn't for everyone, your marketing campaigns can't be for everyone. As such, you need to be able to find your ideal customer (the people that need your product the most and are ready to buy) and focus your marketing message on your ideal customer.
In this chapter, Russell walks through the different questions marketers can ask themselves to discover their target audience, And once you discover who they are, then you can tweak your marketing message to resonate with them and get draw them into your funnel. Also, by knowing who your ideal customer is, you will be able to create a funnel that is tailored to the needs of the ideal customer.
Secret #5: Types Of Traffic
In this secret, we get to understand that all traffic isn't the same, and there are three types of traffic:
- Traffic you own
- Traffic you control
- The traffic you don't control
And in this section, we get to understand the difference between each type of traffic and the various strategies we can implement to maximize each type of traffic.
The traffic you own is the traffic part of your email list or your existing customers that you have their details or contact. With this traffic type, you can send them emails whenever you want and keep selling to them over and over again to make a "pure profit."
The traffic you control is the traffic you can generate from paid advertisements. The traffic you can not control is traffic generated organically.
With this secret, Russell hammers on the importance of owning your traffic; as such, he gives you a clear action plan on how you can quickly convert the last two types of traffic into traffic you can own to enable you to make "pure profit."
Section 2: Your Communication Funnel
In this section, you will get to learn about how you can greatly improve your brand to attract your target audience to you, as well as, various communication techniques you can use to keep your prospects, leads, and customers engaged with your brand.
Secret #6: The Attractive Character
This secret highlight the importance of having a personal brand (attractive character) whether you are part of a brand or an individual. In this section, Russell explains the importance of building a brand around yourself, and how that can be a great way to generate more traffic and even leads for your business. When you have an attractive character that represents your brand, your chances of getting quality leads that will most likely buy your product becomes high.
We've all seen guys Andrew Tate, Gary Vaynerchuk, and even Russell Bruson, easily sell courses and whatnot, just because they have an attractive character.
In this section, Russell explains that an attractive character has three main characteristics:
- The Elements
- The Identity
- The Storylines
And by following these three characteristics, you can also become an attractive character.
Secret #7: The Soap Opera Sequence
The soap opera sequence is a series of 5 emails that you send out to your new email list subscribers. The goal of these emails is to use storytelling and the provision of value to build rapport and warm new leads. This secret will teach you how you can write highly persuasive emails that will communicate value to your subscribers and get them to fully trust you as an authoritative source, and in the end, purchase your product or service.
Secret #8: Daily Seinfied Sequence
Once you've warmed your leads up and they have purchased or even shown genuine interest in your product/service, you do not just want to leave them hanging. You need to ensure that you interact with them to keep your brand in their mind, and this is where the Daily Seinfeld Sequence comes in.
With this secret, Russell Brunson will teach you how to keep in touch with your leads and customers by using heartfelt stories your subscribers, leads, and customers can relate to, and he teaches you how to do it in an entertaining yet compelling way. These stories will ensure that they are emotionally invested in brands; hence, they will always want to buy from you.
Section 3: Funnelology
This section is where you get practical and learn the various trips and tricks you can easily implement to build a high-converting funnel for each stage of your value chain. Essentially, you are learning how to build a funnel in this section.
Secret #9: Funnel Hacking Reverse Engineering A Successful Funnel
This secret might be beneficial for marketers who are yet to build their first funnel. Essentially, Russel tries to help you fast-track your funnel-building process through a process he calls "Funnel Hacking". With this secret, Russell Brunson tries to teach you how you can reverse engineer the funnels of successful brands in your industry or niche that sell to the same target audience as you, to help you build your funnel.
As humans, regardless of what you do in life, some people have been successful in the field you want to explore; hence, it is only wise that you take inspiration from their work, and then build your unique work.
With this secret, Russell teaches you the 5 variables to look out for when reverse engineering a successful funnel. These variables include:
- Demographics
- Offer
- Landing Page
- Traffic Source
- Ad Copy.
Secret #10: Seven Phases Of A Funnel
As stated earlier, a funnel is a model that guides your traffic through to your value ladder. As a marketer, this secret will help you understand the seven phases your funnel should have to make it a compelling money-making module.
You will also get to understand traffic isn't the same, and each person coming to your website has a different intention. Essentially, you get to understand that there are three types of traffic: hot, warm, and cold. So, you need to create a versatile funnel that can treat each type of traffic differently, and deliver a unique and special customer experience to each type of traffic that comes in.
And as Russell clearly said:
The money you make in your business depends on how well you manage the experience of every person who comes in contact with you--no matter how long they stay.
With this secret, you will also learn how to build your funnel to automatically qualify buyers, to help you to separate buyers from non-buyers. You will further learn how to customize your funnel to get the non-buyers to eventually buy from you.
Secret 11: The 23 Building Blocks Of A Funnels
This secret presents you with a wide array of building blocks you can use to successfully build out the four main phases of your funnel, and these four phases include:
- The Pre-frame Bridge
- Qualifying Subscribers
- Qualifying Buyers
- Identifying Hyperactivity Buyers.
In this secret, Russell explains the effectiveness and usefulness of the building blocks under each phase and how you can use them. Essentially, you want to try and test each building block under each phase to see which one works for your business.
Secret #12: Front End vs Backend Funnels
From our value ladder in Secret #2, we learned that there are four stages of value we can offer our prospects and clients, and for each step on the ladder, there are quite a several funnels you can utilize to maximize the conversion rate you get; however, the issue that daunts most marketers becomes choosing the right funnel for each stage.
Well, in this chapter, Russell walks you through the various types of funnels available for each stage on the value ladder depending on whether they are cold, warm, or hot traffic/leads.
In this section, you get to understand the thought process Russell uses to select the best type of funnel he should present to the various types of traffic he encounters.
Secret #13: The Best Bait
I was wowed when I read this section, because, it was practical. Essentially, this secret teaches how you can use buyer's psychology to get prospects to purchase your products by getting them to say "yes," and how do you get them to say yes? It is simple; by offering them bait or a free offer.
In this section, Russell explains the importance of baits and how you can leverage them to get astronomical sales. He further makes us understand that by getting your prospects to say "yes" to the small stuff, you can later get them to say "yes" to the bigger stuff or offer later on.
So, for example, assuming you have a real estate course to sell, you do not just want to start by selling your course to your fresh traffic/ leads of existing customers. Instead, you want to offer them a free guide on say, Why they should invest in Real Estate in 2022, afterward, then through your free course, you can give them hints on why your course can help them invest wisely.
Also, he will teach you how you can use the "Bump Test" to gradually persuade your leads to purchase your most expensive offers.
So, in this section, you will learn the words you need to add to make people take your bait, and how you can sell your products to them afterward.
Section 4: Funnels and Scripts
In this section, Russell runs us through the various funnels and scripts he uses for each stage of the value ladder.
i. Frontend Funnel:
The front-end funnel is the initial funnel that you use to convert leads into customers, and there are three types of funnels Russell recommends you use for the first-timers who just visited your website's landing page: these include:
- The Two-Step Plus Free Shipping
- Self Liquidating Offer
- Continuity
Let's take a look at how you can leverage these funnels effectively.
Funnel #1: Two-Step Plus Free Shipping
This funnel enables to acquire a customer's billing information by giving them a free offer if only they can handle the shipping fee. The idea behind this funnel is that if they can pay for their shipping, then, it means they are interested in your product and they will most likely purchase your other products.
With this funnel, there are three pages:
- The First page:
The purpose of this page is to introduce the prospect to your product with a short video. For your video to be effective, Russell recommends that you answer the Who, What, Why, and How questions. With the Who, you want to introduce yourself to the prospect. With the What, you want to tell the prospect what product you are selling. The Why is to tell the prospect why they need your product, and the How is to tell them how they can get the product.
By answering these questions, you will be able to catch the visitors' attention and create an urgency that will trigger them to want to get your product.
- The Second Page:
Once, they have watched the video and are convinced, you want to take them straight to the second page where they fill out their shipping address and billing information.
- The OTO (One-Time-Offer)
Once the lead has filled out their information to get the free item you are offering, you essentially got them to say a smaller "yes." Then you want to use the OTO page to persuade them to purchase one of your low-end products. Essentially, you want to create urgency by letting them know this is a special offer and the offer is only available for a limited time.
So, how do you know what to say in your video? Or how to structure the billing information to make it secure? Or how do you make your OTO persuasive? Well, luckily for you, Russell Bruson has a detailed script on how you can do all these.
Funnel #2: Self-Liquidating Offer
The second type of Frontend Funnels you can leverage is the SLO (Self-Liquidating Offer), and the purpose of this offer is to help you get leads whiles paying off the cost of running a paid advertisement. With this funnel, instead of offering the customer a physical item in exchange for their contact/billing information and them to handle the shipping fee--like with did with the Two-step plus free shipping--, you want to offer them a free digital product (bait) in exchange for their email, and then afterward, you want to sell them the product they want to buy, and then after, you want to upsell them on your other products.
So, at the end of the day, even if the prospects don't purchase the main product you are selling, you can still have a list of leads who have shown some kind of interest in your product.
This offer leverages the Star, Story, Solution script which Russell will explain in his Dotcom Series book.
Funnel #3: Continuity Funnel
The purpose of the Continuity Funnel is to provide your business with a steady flow of income. This funnel works well when you are selling a monthly or yearly program, such as monthly training or a service that requires a monthly or yearly subscription.
With this funnel, you want to start by offering the prospect a free trial for the service or program, and then when the free trial ends they can decide to commit or not. However, before they can get the free trial, you want to ask for their details such as their emails.
ii. Funnels For The Middle Of The Value Ladder:
The middle part of the value ladder is where the already-existing customer has purchased a product for the first time or your lower-end products, and it is now time for you to sell to them a mid-priced product. And in this section, Russell Brunson will share with you the perfect script you can use to get prospects and existing customers to purchase your mid-priced products.
Funnel #4: The Perfect Webinar Funnel
Webinars are a great way for you to get into details online presentations about a service or product or anything of value. Instead of having to spend tons of money to get a venue where you speak to people, you can easily organize an online session and do the same. The good thing about webinars is that you can record one session, and then repeatedly use that session over and over again to create an "automated Webinar."
To build the "Perfect Webinar Funnel," you want to drive from your already-existing customers or new leads to a registration page to get the user information. With this page, you want to have a short video that explains why the webinar will be useful to them. Then afterward, if they sign up using their information, you want to take them to the webinar and they upsell your product to them during or after the webinar.
The catch here is to make your webinar free and then afterward or during the webinar, you can upsell them on your products or services.
Once you have the contact information you got through the registration page, you can then send targeted emails to each person based on the action they took: whether they joined the webinar or not. Or, even if they joined the webinar, did they purchase the product/service you were upselling or not?
In this section, you will get to understand the three components of the perfect webinar, how to structure your webinars to maximize your sales, and the scripts you need to develop the "Perfect Webinar."
Funnel #5: The Invisible Funnel
This funnel is the "selling without selling." Essentially, with this type of webinar, you are offering your customer or prospects free webinars on something valuable and in the end closing them. With this, they do not need to submit any contact details or make any payment, they can only purchase your product or service if they like the information you shared in your webinar.
And similar to the perfect webinar, Russell will offer you a free detailed script and an in-depth explanation of this type of webinar.
Funnel #6: Product Launch
This funnel makes use of a series of four videos to warm up prospects and leads to a new product you want to launch. The idea here is to provide them with tons of information/value per video before getting them to purchase your new product. And Russell Brunson will be blessing your life by giving you a well-written script on how you can create the perfect product launch funnel.
iii. Backend Funnel:
This is where you sell your big-ticket offers and make the big bucks. luckily Russell has a funnel you can use to execute this perfectly.
Funnel #7: High Ticket, Three-Step Application
This funnel uses a simple three-step process to enable you to qualify and get leads that are hyper-ready to make a purchase. This funnel is ideal for consulting and coaching programs that need an advanced template or script to sell to high-ticket clients.
Essentially, you want to start with a free case study relevant to the client you are targeting.
Is The DotCom Secrets Worth It?
Yes!! It is; this is because with this book, you get industry-expert secrets on how to build your funnel And since it is free in audio and digital formats, you are not obliged to join Clickfunnels if you do not like the knowledge shared; however, I can assure you the 9/10 times, you would find the wealth of information provided in this book useful for your online business.