What Makes You Click? Emily Lark - Episode Info
Meet Emily Lark.
The first thing you should know about Emily is that she is one of our most successful health & fitness partners! With inspiring passion and ruthless determination, this hard working mom turned her entrepreneurial dreams into a reality! By utilizing ClickBank’s enabling tools and resources, Emily was empowered to take her career as a Yoga instructor to infinite new heights.
Watch as we unveil the inaugural episode of our “What Makes You Click” series and see how Emily shares the story of how she got started, how ClickBank has helped her along the way, and the personal success tips she has specifically for YOU!
Here are some of the highlights of what we learned from sitting down and speaking with Emily:
1 - What did ClickBank do for Emily to get her kickstarted?
2 - What techniques Emily uses to make sure her affiliates are happy and getting everything they need?
3 - Emily tells us how she found inspiration for her product line.
4 - The one particular feature that ClickBank offers that really helped her to get to the next level!
5 - What does she think is one of the biggest mistakes that she made that others can avoid?
Watch the full episode now:
Full Transcript:
Shannon - Hey ClickBankers, we're super excited today to be in our new ClickBank studio which looks fantastic. And we're opening up our What Makes You Click? series. Today we have our very first guest, Emily Lark, with us to share what her experiences are at internet marketing and how she became the successful entrepreneur that she is today. So, thank you so much for joining us, Emily.
Emily - Thanks Shannon.
Shannon - Why don't you tell us a little bit about your product and your business and what you do all day?
Emily - Sure, sure, so I have a product called Back To Life which is a series of DVDs with exercises to help people with back pain. So, I spend every day sitting at a computer figuring out how to
Shannon - Which definitely creates back pain.
Emily - I know, that's what the ironic part. So since I started doing this, before I came on ClickBank, I was always just at my studio, face to face with people, I was very active. And now in the past year and a half, I've spent 12 hours a day sitting in front of a computer and I keep thinking, it is gonna be really ironic if I end up with a serious back condition because of my back pain product. Fingers crossed, not yet. That has not happened, not yet.
Shannon - Do you still teach classes live?
Emily - I do, I do, although now, at this point, the online stuff has taken over so much that I have mostly other people running my studio for me. But I do still teach a couple of classes a week just because that's what I love doing and I'm trying to still stay connected there as much as I can.
Shannon - And then do you have your own daily practice that you do?
Emily - Yeah, yeah, but again not as much as I used to. But yes, I do yoga and I lift weights.
Shannon - What did ClickBank do for you to get you kickstarted?
Emily - Well, ClickBank basically is responsible for me having a business. When I got started I didn't have any experience in marketing, didn't have any experience in the online world at all. And coming in and partnering with ClickBank has enabled me to really jump into this world with a lot of support, with a lot of education and also probably, most importantly, with a lot of connections, too. ClickBank has introduced me to all the people that I needed in order to build and grow my business.
Shannon - So, how did those connections happen? I mean, is it like introductions by email or how did that happen?
Emily - That's a good question. Well, they initially started at the events. Obviously, as you know, ClickBank is really great at throwing events, networking events. So, that's how I started, I would go to the events and connect with my ClickBank folks and then start meeting people in the room as well, other affiliates, other vendors. So, really those events are what allowed me to make in person connections. And then ClickBank has also done a great job doing email intros and Skype intros too, which is how I've met all of my biggest affiliates is from the ClickBank people introducing me.
Shannon - That's awesome. I know, from our perspective, that you do a great job with affiliates, in attracting them and retaining them. But could you share with our audience a little bit like how you do that, what techniques you use to make sure your affiliates are happy and getting everything they need?
Emily - So, I have always gone into it with the mindset that I don't work for myself, I work for my affiliates. I consider myself one of their employees. So, I try to make sure that in my day, if one of my top affiliates reaches out to me, that I am there to get them exactly what they need. And I also try to develop a partnership with my affiliates where we're working on the business together because I get a lot of great insights from them as to what's working and what they need more of. So, I allow my affiliates to help shape my marketing strategy which then in turn helps them to be able to make the sales profitable and helps me to be able to craft my marketing and my product in a way that will work them. So, it really becomes a team effort.
Shannon - That's awesome. So, do you do all of your own affiliate support, or do you have an affiliate manager, as well?
Emily - I just hired an affiliate manager for the very first time, which I have to say I kind of was leery to do at first because I do feel like my relationships with my affiliates are so important. And I certainly don't want to hand any of those off. But I did just hire an affiliate manager who can help me do a better job at that.
Shannon - Well, and from what I found with affiliates is sometimes they need things right away. And you just can't be available 24/7, you know.
Emily - Yeah, yeah, that's true, that's true.
Shannon - So, I can see how that would be an extra support for you, especially working full time, being a mom and yeah.
Emily - It will help the response time hopefully.
Shannon - Yeah, good plan. We have a lot of people who are interested in creating their own product, but they're not always sure what they should do. They kind of say like, oh I'm not really an expert in anything or they're not quite sure what their product could be about. Can you tell us how you found inspiration for your product line?
Emily - Yeah, well I think I was fortunate because I had been working for a lot of years in health and fitness and my product is a back pain product so I've been working with people for many years to help them overcome their back pain. So, I think I started there. It wasn't so much, I want to make a product, but I don't know what to make it about. It's that I have this program and I have this product and how do I get it out there to people?
Shannon - Is there one particular feature that ClickBank offers that really helped you to get to the next level?
Emily - Hmm, yeah, obviously the entire platform, the affiliate marketplace, the way that they handle all the affiliate commissions and payouts is huge. But for me the biggest thing was being able to have a growth manager at ClickBank because I am so stupid when it comes to computers and all this kind of stuff. Even just coming on the platform and learning how to do it. So, my growth manager was instrumental in helping me get started, but then also she was really responsible for making a lot of intros, too.
Shannon - Awesome, so those of you who don't know, ClickBank does offer growth managers, dedicated growth managers, to our platinum clients. So, anybody who has gross sales of $500K or more in a calendar year, qualifies as a platinum client and then, like Emily and many of our other platinum clients, you get access to a growth manager, as well as expedited approvals and lots of other great features. You get invited to some of our events, including Platinum Summit.
Emily - Oh yeah, that's the best part of ClickBank.
Shannon - Oh, okay.
Emily - Getting to go to Cancun and go to the party pools the whole time. Yeah, forget about everything else I said.
Shannon - I think that's the best part.
Emily - Is Cancun, yeah
Shannon - Can you give us some insights on the trends that you're seeing or where you think internet marketing is moving?
Emily - Yeah sure, already just in the past year I've seen a lot of changes just through my own business and what people seem to be responding to more than others. When I first started, I really modeled the ClickBank VSL style marketing which is very aggressive and kind of pushed me outside my comfort zone a little bit, but I wanted to do what I saw was working. And now, in the past year, especially with things like Facebook compliance becoming a real issue for people, I've had to really shift and adapt my marketing. And that's turned out to be a great thing both for my business and also I think for my brand because I've started to shy away a bit from the more aggressive marketing and instead focus more on connecting with the customer in a more human to human way and making the marketing a bit softer. And that has been working tremendously well, in fact, I have a recent landing page, it's a much softer sell, but it's led into by more human Facebook Live videos or just a more genuine video of me sitting on my couch. And we're finding that not only is it compliant and Facebook likes it, but it's actually converting better than the VSL did, too.
Shannon - Really, that would be my question, what do the conversion rates look like?
Emily - Yeah, so it's converting better than the VSL, depending on the traffic, of course. On Facebook, the new softer landing page is converting better. For email traffic, they're actually converting neck and neck, they're the same on email traffic. It depends on the list though. Some lists love VSLs and so the VSL is gonna beat it every time. For the lists that are more ecom-type offers, this one's doing really well and converting just as well as the VSL, so those lists, if not actually, better. And then what I'm finding is that some affiliates are really happy with it because it's also keeping their lists happier, as well. It's not making the customers feel quite as frustrated. So, it's kind of been a win-win.
Shannon - How did you use the ClickBank customized order form to maximize your conversions?
Emily - You know the ClickBank customized order form was super easy to use. I basically had a designer create the banner, the header for the top, with my branding in it. And then we uploaded it and just a couple minutes later it was ready to go. And it's also mobile friendly so that has really helped 'cause a lot of my traffic comes through mobile as well, to keep that consistent.
Shannon - Yeah, and yours is actually one of the ones that we use as an example because of the branding that just follows through from the pitch page. That's one of the things that all of our vendors should really adopt is our basic customized order form or the advanced version. And what's important, is for the user to see that on the pitch page and then on the order form that the branding is the same, the colors are the same and it gives a seamless feel to the experience for the user. I think that you've done a really good job of that.
Emily - Oh thanks.
Shannon - I know you have great refund and chargeback rates. Do you want to share a little bit of what you've done and what you've found has kept your refund rates low and your chargeback rates low?
Emily - Okay, so I think the first thing was that when I was designing the product and designing the marketing, I made sure to make the product very consistent with the marketing, so that people know exactly what they're getting so that there's no surprise. Then a big step that I've taken this year, is that I've launched physical products. Initially I started as a digital product, and now thankfully, I've been able to start manufacturing physical DVDs and that's made a huge difference as well, because that was one of the biggest reasons why people requested refunds. They wanted a physical product. And I just have to say for those people who are considering making the leap from digital to physical, it has been a great thing for my business. It's not only cut down on refunds, but it's actually increased my conversion rates in a pretty significant way, and it's also increased revenue, as well, being able to have a shipping charge included on there as well. So, if you're thinking about it, it can be a big step to go into the manufacturing process, but it has absolutely been worth it for my business, for sure.
Shannon - So Emily, a lot of people that are watching are probably just getting started. What do you think is one of the biggest mistakes that you made, that others can avoid by hearing your great advice?
Emily - Okay, honestly I think one of the biggest mistakes that I see people making in this industry is that they think of this as something that's going to lead to this idea of a quote-unquote laptop lifestyle, right? Where you're working a couple hours a day and you're sitting on a beach and you're making this happen. And to me I think that's a huge mistake to think of this industry that way. I kind of thought it was gonna be like that too, but I have to say, now I work more hours than I've ever worked in my life. And I'm not complaining because it's 100% worth it, but it's a mistake to come into this industry and think that you can just put a little bit out there time to time and that you're gonna be successful and you're gonna make it big. It takes a lot more work than that. And so I say just go at it, go hard, give it everything that you have and come into it with that mindset, as well. That you're gonna put your blood, sweat and tears into all of this and that's gonna be worth it.
Shannon - Yeah, I think that it's just like opening a business as you would if it was brick and mortar.
Emily - Absolutely.
Shannon - You're opening a business. Whether it's online or not, that's gonna be your baby for quite a long time.
Emily - For sure, for sure.
Shannon - So we always like to ask our guests, what makes you click?
Emily - What makes me click? What makes me click is being able to work from home in my sweat pants,
Shannon - Not yoga pants, sweat pants.
Emily - Oh no, no, not yoga pants. No, no, not like the tight yoga pants. No I'm talking like baggy, comfy sweat pants. So being able to work from home in my sweat pants, being able to be home with my kids and be flexible with their schedule while still building my dream business. What makes you click?
Shannon - I love working for a company that empowers entrepreneurs like Emily to live these lives. And honestly, I just love the place that I work in. The people I work with are fantastic. I really can be myself and we have a lot of fun. Thank you so much for joining us today on the What Makes You Click? series and for coming all the way to Boise, Idaho.
Emily - My pleasure, it's gorgeous out here.
Shannon - Thank you, don't tell anyone. It's lovely to have you. We were super excited that you were able to make it. And if anybody has any questions for Emily or for myself, please go ahead and use the comments field below. And make sure you like and subscribe to our channel. Thanks for joining us.
