S5E72
· 41:38
Hey. It's Matt from Money Lab. In the last episode, I came to the realization that our home page on swimuniversity.com should be focused on pool owners. And with that realization, I also thought, okay. I'm just gonna have people sign up for the newsletter.
Matt Giovanisci:It'll just be a very simple opt in form on the website, get people into the newsletter, a good a good lead gen system. But during that podcast, I came to the great realization that after discussing my own problems with my pawns, what it is that a customer, I think, or a person who visits swimuniversity.com really wants. And I also think, so what I came so the what I came to was instead of it just being, hey. Subscribe to our newsletter, like, I've talked to Miles Beckler before and he was, like, nobody like, it's a tough sell. Nobody wants more email.
Matt Giovanisci:That's a bad offer. Right? Oh, I'm gonna send you free tips. You're already on my website. Why would you all the tips are here.
Matt Giovanisci:Like, you're here. Why do you need to subscribe? So I came to the idea that I should create a quiz, and the quiz is essentially a free custom pool care plan. And I went, holy shit. That's a great idea.
Matt Giovanisci:I just thought about a quiz, but I didn't think could I turn the quiz into basically a custom cheat sheet? So we've been giving out as our lead magnets these cheat sheets. We have 3 of them, one for pool, hot tub, and one for saltwater pool. And they're basically just static PDFs that depending on which type of page you're on, if you're on a pool article or in your hot tub article, you get served up these offers. However, I'm wondering if the pool care custom plan is a better offer, but we're gonna find out.
Matt Giovanisci:So I got done with that podcast. I jumped on the computer. I talked it out with Steph, and I was like, alright. How can I technically do this? And that's what I wanna discuss now, so that way I can get all my ducks in a row and then execute on it, because it is gonna take some time.
Matt Giovanisci:So the conclusion we came to was I was like, what is the deliverable? What is the actual plan? Are you getting you know, from a technical perspective, are you just getting our cheat sheet? Like, are we just sending you through this custom plan only to just give you something that's not actually custom? And I'm like, that would suck.
Matt Giovanisci:Me, it's a, you know, smart person who is in this world. I would recognize that and be like, that sucked. Like, why did I answer all those questions? You're not actually helping me with anything. So then I thought, okay.
Matt Giovanisci:Maybe it's a custom PDF, which means, which does run into a problem. So right now, I think I would ask somebody three main questions. What type of pool do you own, whether it's an ingrown or aboveground? What type of sanitizer do you use, chlorine, bromine, salt? And what type of filters that you have?
Matt Giovanisci:Those are three questions that I think any pool owner could easily answer, and I could give specific instructions on how to take care of all of those things. Okay? So that technically is a lot of combinations because you could have an inground pool with salt water that has a sand filter, or you can have an inground pool with salt water that has a DE filter. So you just end up with all these different combinations, which means you're gonna end up with, you know, close to 30 different PDFs to cover them all. And then how do you technically go about delivering the right one?
Matt Giovanisci:So the other idea I had was not only am I gonna give you the plan, right, the plan being here's exactly what you're gonna do each week, but I'm also gonna give you a shopping list of things that I think you will need for your pool. That shopping list, of course, should be an affiliate. Those are should should be affiliate links. But with Amazon, you cannot email people affiliate links, and you cannot include affiliate links in a PDF. So the only logical explanation is to just deliver them a web page.
Matt Giovanisci:Because then, we can update the web page whenever we want to. So your plan could technically change and the affiliate links could be updated, and it would fit with Amazon's guidelines. Okay. So now we have custom pages. How do we do that?
Matt Giovanisci:Well, that one is the more interesting problem to solve. You could, technically, if you wanted to if you wanted to do this without any coding knowledge, you could technically do it by creating the the equivalent of the equivalent of a PDF just in page form. So you could create 30 different landing pages. Right? And then depending on which landing page, you would have to determine that.
Matt Giovanisci:The logic of what they are would have to be determined somewhere, and then it would have to know the programming. Whichever you put together would have to know where to send them to. That is difficult. So here's what I came up with. And now I'm I started to think a little bit further.
Matt Giovanisci:This is not that difficult to do, but I do know how to code and I'm gonna try it. And I've already tested it out. So in order to do this with my system, it does take a few moving parts, but I'm already using those things, so we're just gonna try it out. So I'm using Typeform for the actual quiz part. Typeform, there are there are 4 questions right now.
Matt Giovanisci:What's yeah. The what type of pool do you own? What type of sanitizer? What type of filter? And then the last question is, enter your email address.
Matt Giovanisci:From there, I thought we we use Klaviyo to deliver the email. Right? So we have to deliver it somehow. I could, maybe. I don't think we can do this in Typeform, but I could create, like, thank you pages where all of those thank you pages would basically have a button, a custom button with a custom URL that would send them all to the same page, but with different URL variables so that the page could change depending on what type of pool they have.
Matt Giovanisci:But then I that could work. I could do it that way. Instead of using something like typeform, I could use something or, sorry, instead of using something like Klaviyo, and just so I can check real quick, I can create logic. Yes. So if somebody were to type in what type of pool they have, uh-huh, Okay.
Matt Giovanisci:So there's 2 different ways to do this, and one of them actually is a little bit better for the user. So in type form, what I would do is create a logic tree. So and I don't know how I don't know if this is actually possible to do, but I could test it out. So once they finish the quiz, it basically gives them an immediate link to get their plan. So, like, once they're all done, it's like, here's your plan.
Matt Giovanisci:Okay? So that would work, except you would know as a customer that no one actually worked on it. Right? And, also, anybody could fill that out. Okay.
Matt Giovanisci:The better the better move okay. I I already figured it out. The better move is to do exactly what I was already doing. So at the end of the quiz, I basically say, thank you. We're working to put together your plan.
Matt Giovanisci:Check your email. Why do we do that? Because it's like, okay. Then you're just done. You've you know, you close the form.
Matt Giovanisci:You end up back on the home page. Okay. Great. So you can continue about doing your thing. Meanwhile, there's a plan that's gonna enter your inbox at some point.
Matt Giovanisci:What we do there, and this is where it's it's useful, is we take that data, we take that type form data, and we put it into Klaviyo, which is the email marketing software. I thought we could do that with the built in Klaviyo integration, but it doesn't work really it doesn't work fast, and it really only works one way. It's it's basically good for syncing together, but it's not good for lead gen. The better way to do it is to use Zapier because then with Zapier, it's instant, and you can do even more custom things with with Zapier to add additional data into Klaviyo or whatever you need. Right?
Matt Giovanisci:So what I've done is I took those, the answers to those questions, and I made sure and, so I made sure that the answers to the questions are all one word, meaning that they're, like so it's like, the word is salt, chlorine, bromine. It's above ground pool and in ground pool, but I don't use the word pool, and I I combine above ground into one word. And what that helps me do, and I don't necessarily have to do it this way, but I thought it would just be a little bit easier, is then with Zapier, once they fill out that form, I create a Zap that takes the email address and takes those form bits, those answers, and sends the data into Klaviyo. And then what it does is it instantly will trigger a flow. Now what's nice about using, the Zapier integration is that they are also subscribed, whereas and I know this is, like, very technical, but if you use just the Klaviyo Typeform integration, like, just the native integration, they're not actually subscribed for marketing, so you can't actually send them emails.
Matt Giovanisci:It's just it's it's really for sending surveys to people who are already in Klaviyo. That's what it's really for. So fine. We use Zapier. I'm completely fine with that as long as we're using it to get leads and stuff.
Matt Giovanisci:That's good. So and plus I'm already paying for it, you might as well use it. Okay. So all that data goes in the Klaviyo triggers a flow. That flow has one email in it.
Matt Giovanisci:And that email is like, here is your custom pool plan. The custom pool plan email will be, like, well designed. It'll include all of their information that they that they entered, and it'll include a button to get their plan. That button will be a custom URL with dynamic personalization in the URL itself. So I technically don't have to create 30 different pages.
Matt Giovanisci:I create 1 page with 3 URL variables or your, yeah, your variables with different variables within them. Right? And so when when that happens, it it brings them to a page on my website, one single page that is non indexed, where they can see, you know, depending on what's in the URL, if the URL says, you know, let's say swimuniversity.com question mark pool equals inground, right, then it will show the inground material on that page. Right? If it shows filter equals sand, it will show the sand information.
Matt Giovanisci:If it shows unknown, we will show default information. So we also have default for if somebody didn't pick any of those three questions, but just entered their email address. That page is gonna be very difficult to build, but it is step 1 in my grand plan to to create pool profiles. Here's what I did not think about, and could actually be really cool. So it's it's kind of like building a no code system where I could create and this is where it gets a little bit crazy, but so that pool care plan, that page is really what I have to design and what I have to figure out on this podcast.
Matt Giovanisci:So let's do it. Pool care plan. So, basically, it's going to have the it's going to be the cheat sheet. But I'm just looking up the cheat sheet real quick. It's going to be the cheat sheet, but in digital like, it but on on a web page.
Matt Giovanisci:So I'm trying to think of it in terms of an app. I pulled up Sundays. There's a lawn care service. They basically don't have any how to. It's all just product based stuff.
Matt Giovanisci:They have see my lawn data, which is yeah. It doesn't even work. So they show the weather. I don't it's like, okay. Why are we showing the weather in your area?
Matt Giovanisci:It it it gives you, like, what your growing season is, what your average rainfall is, what your soil type is like. That but, you know, what the current temperature is, none of that is actually helpful in my plan. Right? So it says your custom lawn plan has already see my plan. So I have to click another button that says building your plan, and it's probably just yeah.
Matt Giovanisci:It's just giving me stuff to buy. So let's think about it this way. The first the first thing we know is if they're an in ground or above ground pool. So and we can probably look at it in terms of, you know, like, we'll do it as part part of the 3 step plan. Right?
Matt Giovanisci:So we have, you know, we can say improve, and everything can be your circulate your improve your water circulation. And because we know if they're an in ground or pool and above ground pool, we can we can tell them and we know what kind of filter they have. We can give them all types of things here. We could say, and we could do these in boxes, like, step 1 is, like, angle jets, and then we could say, you know, backwash. I don't know.
Matt Giovanisci:Filter check. So, yeah, we can then do but then after that, we can do a cleaning schedule, which is like, okay. I guess it would be somewhat helpful to know where they are in that term because then we could say I mean, we wouldn't know. So I would I would have to get people to enter their address or at least their ZIP code, and then maybe maybe I could get people to if I get them to enter their ZIP code, then maybe I can do a specific plan based on their area. So if it was, like, I don't know, Florida, for example, I probably wouldn't no.
Matt Giovanisci:I think that's a little in too intense because Yeah. We're basically giving them the cheat sheet broken down by individual steps, in the circulation cleaning and then with your, so with, like, cleaning, for example, we could say, you know, I'm just thinking this out loud. We have, like, brushing, skimming, and vacuuming. We could say, like, you know, brush your pool once a week, especially after heavy rain. Here's the here's the brush we recommend.
Matt Giovanisci:You know? That's a link to to the brush. And then we can have, you know, here's you know, you should skim your pool on top of your pool. Here's the skimmer that we recommend. Here's the setup we recommend, etcetera.
Matt Giovanisci:And then we could do with robotic cleaners, we can be like, you know, for vacuuming, you should vacuum your pool. You can vacuum your pool once a week with a with a robotic cleaner or a manual cleaner. Here's the one we recommend. That's great. And then people are like, oh, okay.
Matt Giovanisci:I know exactly what I have to do now. Right? And then they obviously have they obviously have something they can click and and interact with. However, one of the things I know people are gonna ask me for, and I'm trying to get ahead of this, which is, oh, I wanna be able to download this. And I think at that point, I'll just be like, hey.
Matt Giovanisci:You can download the cheat sheet. So, like, we're not you know, you can't download your custom plan, but you can download our cheat sheet, and and I can give them, like, alright. We know that you have, you know, we know you have a a saltwater pool at least, so we can at least give you that. So that might not be bad. And then we just go, like, you could take a screenshot of this or, you know, this is or you can always come back to this.
Matt Giovanisci:It's in your, you know, save this email to access your, you know, I'm just gonna write that down. Save this email, and then, like, bookmark this page. Let's you wanna do recommended products, videos, and articles. Because this is just because basically what I'm building is a sneeze page, where you, I've I've used that term before and I don't I think I heard it from Pat Flynn a long time ago, but it's basically like it's a just a collection of links that are all relevant to whatever you're trying to look up. So whatever or whatever you have in this case, like, we know your pool profile.
Matt Giovanisci:And so, therefore, we can be like, here's a page that has all the relevant information for your specific pool all in one place. Instead of, which is what I think a lot of people do, is they will tailor, like, emails specifically for types of people. And this is where, like, email automation gets really, difficult because it's like, well, I'm just creating 1 page with a few different variables and everything is together on one page. And I can keep resending this page to them every once in a while because it's just a dynamic URL. Whereas with with email, it's like, okay.
Matt Giovanisci:Well, now I have to write, you know, a a bunch of different emails or create a bunch of different conditional statements in order to deliver the right information. And no one's gonna actually appreciate that because in the end, they're like, oh, I didn't even I just you know, these emails just seem on point, but because I have a sand filter, it's like, well, how many emails are you really sending about that one specific thing? I understand, like, email segmentation for pool and hot tub, but as far as, like, even more advanced segmentation, I feel like, well, let me just deliver the value immediately. And then from there, I'm gonna send you consistent, you know, tip emails. Because once you get your pool care plan, you're only getting one email, which is your plan.
Matt Giovanisci:And then from there, what I think the benefit is, like, yes. I'm not giving them a, like, an offer. Right? This is the one problem with the plan where it's like, hey. You're you're, like, here's an offer, and it's like, thank you for subscribing.
Matt Giovanisci:Your cheat sheet is on the way. Oh, I can do that, actually. I'm an idiot. So okay. Hold on.
Matt Giovanisci:Hold on. Duh. Duh. So after they fill out the form, after they fill out the quiz, I can basically have them click a link where they get a free offer. And so that offer can just be for the course, and then they'll get their email, which will be there.
Matt Giovanisci:So, basically, all I'm doing is creating a dynamic cheat sheet, which, actually, when you think about it, that probably would work. I I'm I'm I'd be curious how well that would work versus a cheat sheet. So I can obviously do that AB test where I'm gonna change out, like, my most popular page. I'll change out the cheat sheet for the this new thing once it's once it's built and see what the conversion rate is. Because, technically, it would yeah.
Matt Giovanisci:You would I'd be collecting more information upfront, which which is why I think it won't be as effective in terms of, like, the amount of the amount of leads, but it might be more effective in selling the course because you've you've pot committed. You've answered basically 4 questions, and you know you're getting something custom. And it's like, hey. We you know, here's your here's, meanwhile, like, we're you're you know, we're creating your plan right now, but here's your course. Right?
Matt Giovanisci:And, like, you can get it with a free book or or 50% off or whatever you have it at. And then what's cool about the pool care plan as opposed to the lead magnet, the PDF, is that that email that comes in takes you back to the website where I mean, I guess, we do this now too where there are our products are also there. So but I do think that if I were to run ads to this, which I talked about in the last episode, if I were to run ads, this is a better offer than a PDF because it feels like a service, like a free service, because it technically is. And it doesn't feel like, oh, this is just a PDF. Like, I can just steal this PDF.
Matt Giovanisci:Or, like, I can just like, or I'm not even gonna you know, who cares? And it's and it's unstealable. But I guess if you I mean, if you learn the URLs, you could figure it out. But, again, like, you're again, you know, like, the other thing too is is it actually would be better from a business perspective as well because on the plan page, we can include affiliate links and even links to our own products, whereas with a PDF, we actually can't do that because of Amazon's restrictions. So I have to figure out the only piece now I have to figure out is, what does this actually look like?
Matt Giovanisci:I think yeah. People are gonna wanna download it, but I think just giving them the cheat sheet is enough because, obviously, like, they're not gonna be able to download the recommendations. So yeah. Visually, this is gonna be hard doing a podcast, but I'm looking at I'm looking at Sunday's page, and it's man, it could be so much better. Like, just design wise, it actually kinda sucks because you're not really getting like, there's no useful information in the top in the above the fold.
Matt Giovanisci:There's not a single piece of useful information. You have to click everywhere. So now it says, okay. Here's my custom lawn checklist, it says lawn 2022, and then it gives you to do lists, okay, I mean it's all just JavaScript. It does give you kind of a checklist, but it's really not taking up use of space, although they do have a print button.
Matt Giovanisci:What does that do? Oh, that looks ugly. It's just printing the website. Okay. So that's not that's not good.
Matt Giovanisci:Okay. They have videos, which are good, I think. We could obviously include videos on the page, and we can include links to articles, and we can include links to products because those products are updated via Lasso, so they're always updated. And we can break it down by the 3 c's of pool care, which is what the book's based on, and we can also include, like, okay. Here's, like, quick tips to improve.
Matt Giovanisci:So okay. Let's let's let's let's do this. Let's just write this out. Alright. Because I just I gotta do this.
Matt Giovanisci:Okay. So I'm gonna get my pen, and we're gonna break it down. Okay? So we have improving circulation is 1. Alright?
Matt Giovanisci:And then 2, it's gonna be a cleaning schedule. And all of these should be numbered. So for improve your water circulation, we are going to talk about angling the jets, we're gonna talk about backwashing, and then obviously we can have a link. The link to backwash, or to learn more about backwash and your specific filter, And then the 3rd box could be, I don't know. Cleaning schedule is pretty easy.
Matt Giovanisci:So we got one. We need to do brush affiliate link. 2 is skim, affiliate link. And 3 is vacuum affiliate link. And I I do think there needs to be some kind of, like, each thing is an affiliate link and a video and an article or the video and, you know, video and article.
Matt Giovanisci:So it's like, you know, there's, like, an affiliate. How the hell do you do that? I would need to see something do that. And then 3rd is water chemistry, and then there should be an overall shopping list, and there should be you know, shopping list recommended products. Yeah.
Matt Giovanisci:This is gonna be difficult to figure out because I'd have to I what I'd want to see is how somebody laid this out, how somebody would lay this out. Because I'm thinking now, you know, like, I laid out the alright. So one thing I could do is you can create so I I probably wouldn't link out to articles. I would link out I would link to videos and just have them as pop ups. So I can do that because I already built the code for doing video pop ups.
Matt Giovanisci:So I could create that, which is cool. And then affiliate links, I'd want to see the product. So I'd want to see a lasso box. And I don't think that there's a way to make it look the way I want it to look. So either it's just an affiliate link, which would say which no.
Matt Giovanisci:I because I wouldn't be able to do that on a custom page. I can do a short code. So having the actual display box or or group of displays okay. So yeah. Alright.
Matt Giovanisci:I'm gonna have to look at some dashboard designs and see how to do it. But, basically, that's that's the technical part of it is setting all of this up in using Typeform for the quiz, using Zapier to zap them into Klaviyo for email marketing, and then using HTML, basic WordPress custom landing page. So I'm building 1 landing page. And I'm gonna design this whole page. And I will probably share some of this on Twitter, but I will, yeah, I will basically create I'm basically building software at this point.
Matt Giovanisci:And then one final thing is how I'm planning when I say this was like the first step, what I mean by that hold on one second. I'm just gonna shut this pen. I don't need the marker right now. So I had this vision of creating a a place where somebody could log in. Right, and get information you know, 1, create basically create a Swim University login where they could get access to the course, the courses they purchased.
Matt Giovanisci:They could see their past purchases in general, and they could access, like, a pool profile, and that pool profile could send different things, weather alerts, all kinds of stuff. The problem with doing it is that I don't know how to code. So I was like, whatever I do is gonna be relatively janky, and it yeah. There's some other stuff coming out that we're just like, it might screw things up. However, if I were to do this, I think Yeah.
Matt Giovanisci:I think the way to do it would be the way to do it, it's it's like okay. So WordPress has its own login system, and and Shopify has its own login system. I don't think it's there needs to be, like, a reinvention of either of those. So I think the Shopify one makes the most sense because it will be for customers, and customers will be able to see I could easily make it so they can see their past purchases and, you know, see links to their courses, etcetera etcetera. So I can do that.
Matt Giovanisci:And, yeah. Could I if I know their email address and I have access to Klaviyo, there's an API that I could get access to, then technically, I would also have that information that I would have via email, which means that I could create a landing page or a login dash board on Shopify where it's like, hey. Here's your past purchases. Hey. Get your pool profile.
Matt Giovanisci:And then if they don't have any data in there, I can create, like, hey. Go fill out this form, and that form will basically update Klaviyo, give you that button, and then next time you go to log back in since we now have that information, you know, we'll be able to send you, you know, a more detailed plan. But we will have a default plan. So, like, that page will not be blank. It there there will be a plan.
Matt Giovanisci:So that's interesting. So then I can technically do it, and it would just be a weird marriage between WordPress, Klaviyo, Typeform. Because Typeform, I could use as my form inputs. So I there would not be any form inputs on the website. It would all be done it would all be done through, yeah, through Typeform.
Matt Giovanisci:So it's technically no code, you know, besides, like, yeah, I'm coding the the pages themselves on Shopify and but they're really just, like, display something or not display something. It's not like it it's that difficult to do. And then, yeah, there that might just be how to do that. I the reason to go with again, the reason to go with Shopify's login system as opposed to WordPress is is because at least with Shopify, I'm I'm starting with a good base of data, and I can get people to create their profiles in on on checkout. And so they would get instant access to their courses or at least links to their courses.
Matt Giovanisci:And I just because Podi doesn't have an API, it makes it tougher, but I think I could do it. I could definitely do it with a Zap. And that, technically, that's already done, so they would have access, but they would have to log in. Okay. Okay.
Matt Giovanisci:Just thinking out loud, but, yeah, I think I I think I know what to do. Okay. So there's a lot to do here, but it solves a lot of problems and could be really good for business this year. So I think it's worth it's worth the effort. And, obviously, what's nice about this is that I don't have to build anything crazy.
Matt Giovanisci:In fact, I actually already built it, so it's it actually is functional. Just the pool care plan page is not yet, but all I have to do is design that page even if it was all default stuff to start with, and then slowly but surely ramp it up even when it's live so we're still collecting email addresses. Alright. Well, that's the technical side of it. So we'll see what happens.
Matt Giovanisci:If you have any questions or you have any input, please email me matt@moneylab.co. Bye.
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