DotCom Secrets: Read This Review Before Buying The Book

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Russell Brunson’s book, DotCom Secrets, is a guide to building high-converting sales funnels.

This book is a go-to for many digital entrepreneurs, so we just had to review it.

In this DotCom Secrets review, we’ll explore who Russell Brunson is and why his secrets are worth sharing.

We’ll also discuss the core topics DotCom Secrets covers and show you how you can start applying them today!

Let’s start uncovering those secrets!

1. Who is Russell Brunson?

Source: Inc.com

Russell Brunson has always been obsessed with sales and marketing; even as a kid, he’d go through advertising materials for fun.

His unusual hobby must’ve paid off because, in 2003, he created ZipBrander — a viral marketing tool.

He kept creating products, keeping a careful eye on the marketing and sales.

From coupons to software, Brunson cut his teeth in a variety of niches, which ultimately allowed him to understand how sales funnels worked across industries.

ClickFunnels was Brunson’s big break into the more conventional digital marketing space.

ClickFunnels’ features

We’ve got an in-depth review of ClickFunnels if you’re interested in the features and benefits.

What matters is that ClickFunnels is currently the fastest-growing, non-venture-backed software company in the world.

Brunson has sold over 400,000 copies of his books and earned over $3 million during the 10x Growth Conference in 2018.

All in all, Brunson is definitely an experienced entrepreneur who focuses on traffic and funnels.

He has all the credibility needed for us to take his book seriously.

2. Who should read DotCom Secrets?

First things first: It’s important to know that DotCom Secrets is meant for the same audience that would use ClickFunnels — so both established and aspiring entrepreneurs.

Since DotCom Secrets deals heavily with ecommerce, you may not find a lot of value in the book if you have a brick-and-mortar store.

However, the sales guidance and techniques can still be applied to a business that isn’t strictly limited to a digital space.

If you’re a newbie, this book might just blow your mind.

If you’re an old hand at digital marketing, it’ll improve the strategies you already have.

No matter your level of experience, Brunson’s easy-to-follow explanations and detailed funnel scripts will take your sales funnels to new heights.

3. DotCom Secrets’ essentials

3.1. Sales funnel secrets

Example of the Value Ladder from the book

Brunson is predominantly practical, so DotCom Secrets is an actionable book.

So much so, that the first chapter primarily deals with exactly how to set the right foundations for sales success.

Unlike other entrepreneurs, Brunson recommends starting your audience research by asking yourself the following 4 crucial questions:

Who are my dream customers?
Where and how can I find my dream customers?
How will I attract my customers?
What do I want to give my customers?

You’ll immediately start thinking about the benefits of your product for your target audience.

Otherwise, you might create a product first and then try to find the right audience — this can be a real waste of time.

But if you start with your audience and create your product with them in mind, you’ll save time and increase your sales.

Here’s how you can implement your market research:

Start by identifying your dream audience as well as where and how you plan to reach them
Create several strategies you’ll use to target them on platforms that you’ve identified
Then identify what value you want to add to their lives and what form your product or offer will take
Even if you’re an experienced digital marketer, take a look at your current ideal customer persona and see if it has changed

The Value Ladder vs. Sales Funnel from the book

Brunson describes the Value Ladder as the path your customers take from subscribing to the lead magnet towards achieving their goals with the help of your products.

This is a really good paradigm:

“As entrepreneurs, we’re not in the business of selling our products. We’re in the business of helping our customers solve their problems.”

Here are some ways you can implement the Value Ladder in your business today:

Build your value ladder with different offers and items at each level
Give away something for free that adds value (a lead magnet) in exchange for the ability to contact your leads
Create a newsletter that promises value regularly via an opt-in form
Set up your product offer as well as upsells and downsells to maximize your sales

After building out your Value Ladder, it’s time to create your sales funnel.

Other “secrets” you’ll find in this chapter include:

How to find and target your ideal audience
How to upsell your customers with your Value Ladder
7 sales funnel phases

And more!

3.2. Funnels in the Value Ladder

Example of the Attractive Character from the book

In this chapter of DotCom Secrets, Brunson uses his own take on the buyer persona concept to help you visualize your ideal customer.

Instead of thinking of thousands of potential customers, you can simply think of one.

This is the main benefit of this approach; it’s much easier to create your sales funnel for one person that shares characteristics with all of your customers.

You’ll also learn the 5 methods Brunson uses to build instant connections with his leads.

However, the best part of this section is where Brunson talks about lead qualification:

Audience segmentation (separating your customers into different groups according to their shared characteristics, so you can personalize at scale)
How to recognize leads who will buy from you and those who won’t
How to create urgency around your offer and offer so much value that you convert leads immediately

Example of the Seinfeld Method from the book

Brunson also elaborates on the Seinfeld Method — a method in which you email your leads daily but without boring them to bits.

Here’s how you can use this to make your marketing more engaging and hook your leads:

Start with the bait for your Value Ladder/sales funnel, and make sure it promises value without it taking too much effort to create
Then progress into your email marketing by creating a newsletter that adds value and promotes your brand
You can also use an automated email sequence to promote your offers to interested leads
Use storytelling (Seinfeld Method) to create an engaging and sought after email sequence
Set up time-limited offers to create a sense of urgency
Use exclusivity to your advantage, and create membership sites with gated content that can be accessed with a subscription

Brunson follows all the best practices of direct response marketing.

These methods are tried and true, so they’re definitely worth taking note of.

3.3. Funnel scripts

Example of a Sales Funnel from the book

Now we’re getting into the thick of it!

The first two sections helped you establish your value and identify your target audience.

Now that you know what you need to do, it’s time to structure it with a sales funnel.

You’ll get quite a few sales funnel scripts, which are great for these 3 reasons:

If you’re a first-time online business owner who isn’t very familiar with the idea of sales funnels, these scripts will map it out for you
You’ll save a lot of time by following the scripts, at least at the beginning
You can always customize your funnel later on (alternatively, we also offer sales funnel templates at systeme.io)

The 7 phases of a funnel from the book

Brunson also touches on others’ success formulas:

Profitable traffic sources — How Andre Chaperon targets the traffic source he owns via email (and what to do with the traffic you don’t have control over)
Key demographics — How to use them to qualify leads, customers, and subscribers
Convincing offers and landing pages — What colors, images, and designs work for different audiences
Ad copy that creates an instant connection with your target audience

To get hold of the above data for yourself, you’ll need to reverse engineer the sales funnels of successful online businesses in your niche.

You also want to take note of all the different funnel steps and see how your competitors use the above choices and information to tailor their funnel — then follow the same formula but improve on it!

All in all, this is a great chapter — primarily because you can get a script and test it out on your audience, so there’s no need to start from scratch.

It saves time and money.

3.4. Building your funnel

Finally, the last section of DotCom Secrets helps you create your own funnel.

By this point, you’ve already learned plenty about the makings of a good sales funnel, so you’re ready to apply the knowledge to your own business.

The 23 building blocks of a funnel from the book

Brunson discusses the universal building blocks of successful funnels, such as:

Lead generation elements — Quizzes and articles
Lead qualification elements — Pop-ups and squeeze pages
Customer qualification elements — Trials and tripwires
Referral and up-sell elements — Bumps and affiliate recommendations

He also shows you how to “stack” funnels, depending on your target audiences.

This is a great way to maximize your earnings out of every customer, instead of just focusing on a particular group.

For example, a lot of people will respond well to email marketing and upsells

However, some won’t want to purchase your standard product or offer, so without a downsell opportunity, you’ll lose revenue.

4. The verdict: Is DotCom Secrets worth it?

Source: GIPHY.com

Honestly? Yes.

While Brunson’s motivations are pretty clear (he shows you how to build a sales funnel with his sales funnel builder, ClickFunnels), he at least offers plenty of strategies and actual scripts you can follow to boost your sales.

There are a lot of books about sales and marketing out there.

In general, a lot of books for entrepreneurs are only there to be lead magnets.

When you dive beneath the surface, they’re just repurposed blog content.

DotCom Secrets offers fresh, practical information.

At the core of his theory, Brunson isn’t reinventing the wheel. He’s actually talking about principles observed in the field.

We all have a way of finding new products — that’s a sales funnel in a nutshell — and each of us responds differently to offers.

We certainly share characteristics of ideal customers who buy certain products.

This isn’t just a theory — this exists in the real world.

Example of the 100 visitor test from the book

What Brunson did with DotCom Secrets was structure the knowledge and turn it into an actionable principle.

He offers scripts and methods that cover a lot of ground — from copywriting to increasing your product value and systematizing your target audience.

Even if you don’t use ClickFunnels, you can still absorb this knowledge and put it into practice.

If you want to find out more about sales funnels and apply them to your business to increase your sales, we wholeheartedly recommend this book.

4.1. Other books by Russel Brunson: Traffic Secrets and Expert Secrets

Source: Medium.com

Russel Brunson is a prolific writer, so if you’re interested in his other books, check out our reviews of Expert Secrets, and Traffic Secrets.

Both books cover traffic and funnels and offer plenty of actionable insights.

5. Start today on systeme.io

Finally, once you’ve learned all the lessons from DotCom Secrets, it’s time to build your sales funnel.

The first option, using Brunson’s own ClickFunnels, seems intuitive.

However, if you want a lot more features or the pricing seems too steep, you should consider systeme.io.

systeme.io’s dashboard

Systeme.io is an all-in-one marketing platform that allows you to:

Build your website visually, without writing a single line of code
Build your entire sales funnel, including landing pages, lead magnets, and email marketing
Automate your sales funnel
Create a membership site with webinars and courses
Acquire new customers through affiliate marketingand blogging

And much, much more!

5.1. Systeme.io’s pricing

systeme.io’s pricing options

The cheapest ClickFunnels plan is $97/month, and it doesn’t include email automation.

Conversely, the most expensive systeme.io plan is $97/month, and our Freemium plan gives you everything you need to create a tightly integrated sales funnel — website and email marketing included.

Systeme.io is a powerful platform for marketing your business and increasing your sales.

6. Conclusion

Reading Russell Brunson’s DotCom Secrets is a good idea.

The book is available for free in its digital and audio versions, so get the book but don’t feel obliged to jump on the ClickFunnels bandwagon as well.

We think $97/month is too high a price to pay, especially if you’re just starting your online business journey.

That’s why you should start with systeme.io, an affordable and scalable all-in-one digital marketing platform.

Other articles about Russell Brunson that may interest you:

- Learn Russell Brunson’s Perfect Webinar Secrets

- Expert Secrets Review: In-Depth And Brutally Honest

- What Is the 2 Comma Club, and How to Join It?

- Funnel Hacking Live 2023 Review: Is it Worth it?

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