Welcome to the Virtual Antics podcast, where we help entrepreneurs streamline their business to six figures and beyond. These short, sweet and info packed episodes will inspire, educate and leave you feeling motivated to take one more step forward in your business. So put down your never-ending to-do list, because in this podcast we are interviewing the best of the best in the entrepreneurial world as they spill their secrets to success. This podcast is sponsored by Nandora, the all-in-one software for entrepreneurs to grow their business, with unlimited landing pages, automations, emails and text campaigns, and so much more. I'm your host, natalie Guzman. Now let's get into it. Welcome back to the Virtual Antics podcast.
Speaker 2As always, I'm your host, natalie Guzman, and today we have Marco Torres, who is the founder of MarketingBoostcom. He has helped thousands of business owners worldwide boost sales and scale their businesses by as much as five-fold through the use of incentive-based marketing. He teaches entrepreneurs how to store sales and marketing through the use of value-added incentives instead of discounts. His Facebook groups combined are home to more than 80,000 active business owners who are raking in sales with his advice and amazingly affordable travel incentive subscription programs. So, welcome Marco. How are you doing today?
Speaker 3Thank you. Thank you, natalie, for having me on the show.
Speaker 2I'm so excited you're here. So tell us a little bit about what you do and how you got started.
Speaker 3We got started with this back in 2017 and it came about as an accident, so I'll tell you a little bit about how we got started and first tell you what we do, as you asked. So MarketingBoostcom is one of the businesses that I founded and operate, and the most excited about is what I really what gets me up out of bed every day, fired up and because we help other businesses. We kind of reach down the ladder and help other businesses grow and scale, and I get a lot of pleasure out of that and have fun with that. Marketingboost provides what I call the wow surprise and the light factor. We provide three different categories of incentives that business owners around the world that are using us can use to acquire more clients, more leads, provide loyalty programs, create trade show giveaways, engagement, grow Facebook groups. I mean, there's a million ways to use our incentives, and so, again, just to summarize, we provide three categories, one being complimentary hotel stays and 130 destinations around the world, from three to seven nights stays, with no time share hoops to jump through or anything like that. We provide restaurant savings vouchers that are good throughout the USA and Canada and hotel savings cards that come in multiple increments, from one, two, three or five hundred dollars, and so these incentives can be used to get, as I mentioned, to acquire more clients, etc.
Speaker 3How I got started was an accident. We were. We've been in the travel space, my partners and I can. I keep on rambling away, go ahead.
Speaker 2I want to hear it. I love a happy accident. It's my favorite.
Speaker 3Yeah, I'll get in the microphone here, but we started this in 2017. We were previously launched a travel business in about 2012 and it was growing, you know, very fast. We were one of the fastest growing travel companies in North America with that website, and we wanted video testimonials. We kept thinking, man, if we only had people giving us video reviews, that would give us the social proof we needed to sell more of these destinations, hotels and resorts we were offering. But we couldn't get hardly anybody to ever give us a video, go that extra mile of not only writing a review, maybe, but better filming a selfie video testimonial. So we came up with an idea to offer a bonus vacation and do a survey. Now, mind you, this is a quick idea everybody can use, because everybody needs more social proof. We all need testimonials and reviews. So we came up with a survey process to when we felt our clients were at the peak of their happiness was day after check, and so we sent them an email and say, hey, how's the hotel living up to your expectation? And if they said, that's great, you know, give us a four or five star rating. We would follow up with an email and a text message, automated, of course, and we would send them a message saying hey, if you know we're thrilled that you're enjoying this hotel and resort, would you go, would you do us a huge favor and film us a selfie, testimonial, and brag about the hotel brand and about our brand, and if you do that, we'll reward you with a bonus three night getaway on us in Orlando or Las Vegas.
Speaker 3Suddenly, we had dozens of these reviews coming in that we couldn't get before then, hundreds, and of course, now we had to turn the campaign off because it was expensive to give people three night hotel stays. But those reviews were powerful. We had exactly what we wanted. We were generating more sales, publishing them on our Facebook and our YouTube channels, on our TV ads, et cetera. And but now we had to turn off the campaign and we didn't want to, but we, so we went back to our hotel partners and this is how marketing boost was born.
Speaker 3We went back to our hotel partners and said, hey, we come up with an idea and let's be. You've got a problem that we think we can help you solve. Let's be honest, your hotel is not full year round, is it? I mean, sure you sell out for certain weekends, special events, holidays, easter, 4th of July, christmas week, but the majority of the year 70% of the year, let's be honest 30, 40, 50% of your rooms are going empty. And yet you still have the same fixed cost the mortgage, the staff, the maintenance fees, the crew, all that stuff.
Speaker 3They agreed and so we got access in a few hotels in Orlando and Vegas to their, their unsold inventory at either ridiculously low price or free. And now we were able to continue, go back to fulfilling those trips for Orlando and Vegas and doing those, giving away our own incentives to get people to give us video reviews. And then we thought to ourselves wow, can you imagine if we solicited more hotels all over the world for this, we would have another standalone business, which is what became marketingmovescom today, where we provide business owners with a low cost subscription access to these very high perceived value incentives that they can use with whatever their call to action is, to enhance their call to action.
Speaker 2That is super, super cool. So basically kind of stumbled onto this need and solved the problem, and not only did you were able to offer your clients like these amazing things but also you were able to help the hotel industry out too, which I always love. Is is so cool. When we're able to like kind of give back to businesses, that's amazing. So now you have a huge Facebook group.
Speaker 2So, what goes into that Facebook group Tell me, like what happens in there, because every Facebook group, I find, is a little bit different. You can get different value from different groups. So what kind of value do you bring to your members?
Well, a few things. One, the community and our group. The purpose of it is obviously is to teach business owners how they can use these marketing boost incentives to grow, whatever business they're in, and use them, because a lot of business owners, when they envision an incentive based marketing, which is what we teach, they don't really get it. And so what do you? You know, well, I'm not in the travel space, so how would I use travel incentives to enhance my real estate business? Or how would I use travel incentives? I'm an insurance agent? Or I am, you know, I'm a plumber. How would I use an incentive you know, travel incentives. So they don't get it.
Speaker 3So, in the community we are, you know, we provide, we always examples and we have huge libraries of videos that we've created for our, for all kinds of industry niches, and graphics that are editable in Canva, and we encourage and run contests with our group members to show for them, to show the community, how they're using these incentives and what their Black Friday offer was and what their Christmas promotions are looking like and what their, you know, valentine's Day promos are gonna be about with the you know, couples getaways and incentives that marketing boost offers.
Speaker 3And so we encourage our members to share what they're doing that's working and to help others along the path of learning how to use the incentives. And then we have our guides section with a whole library of training videos and content. We go live with training and we have our own podcast that we have guests on, where we're showing business owners, you know, and encouraging them with success stories and what have you, over and above incentives, but helping people grow their business and go down that entrepreneur journey, which is sometimes very lonely, and in the community we help each other along.
Speaker 2Yeah, and what I love about those types of groups too is that you're giving them kind of reminders like, hey, start planning for like how many people you know? Be honest with yourself, totally miss Black Friday. That was me.
Speaker 2Me and my team totally missed it. We had so much going on. It was a great month for us, but we totally missed it. And we didn't miss it for our clients, though, which is always a good thing. But those types of Facebook groups give you reminders, right and so, and you also feel like you're not alone. So if you did miss it, I'm sure someone pops up in that group. We, like I totally missed it, but I love that, and we need that accountability and support as entrepreneurs because, like you said, super, super lonely. I became a mom and entrepreneur at the same time and I feel like I was put into the most loneliest positions in the world, where all you have is this tiny little human and then you have a brand new business and it's like they're both babbling and not making sense. So that is amazing, that you've created this support network of people that are there to support you, and you know also, they pretty much have kind of the same goals, especially when it comes to marketing. Is that right?
Speaker 3Exactly, yeah, everybody. You know we used to be called advertising boost before we changed our name to marketing boost a few years ago and when we realized, you know, most of our members don't consider ourselves, nobody really considers themselves an advertiser anymore. We're marketers. You know, we're marketing gurus before we're advertising gurus, and so we decided to change the name to marketing boost a few years ago and that's been a big boost as well. But back where I forgot the question.
Speaker 3But at the end of the day, the community and the goals that we're all searching for here is to is to, you know, help, because so many business owners today, I mean is never in my mind has never been a better time to be an entrepreneur than right now.
Speaker 3The technology that's available that, for example, that you provide, bringing software and solutions to, together with you know, virtual assistance and software together I think it's powerful.
Speaker 3We do some similar things with our marketing boost solutions, product line, and the idea being is that there's never been, in my opinion, a better time to be an entrepreneur, has never been easier, in the sense that technology is so affordable and able to build everything from sales funnels to marketing campaigns, to email texting, voicemail, broadcasting. It's all available and affordable, but now you got to stand out from the crowd Because you OK, it's easy. You know, when I started as an entrepreneur online entrepreneur in 1996, it wasn't an easy task. So there's a, but today it's a lot easier. On the other hand, there's a lot more competition and one of the things we do with marketing boost is give you some of those those tools, incentives that might help you stand out from the crowd, might make your offer be completely different than your competitor, and then give people a reason to select, you know, to get off the fence and do take action with your business, versus not at all.
Speaker 2Yeah, I'm always telling my clients one of the most important things in your business is your tech stack. That's the technology used to run and promote and grow your business right. So having something like marketing boost is really really great because it's giving the incentive. It's because you said you could use it for referrals. What other things can you use a marketing boost for? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3Yeah, that's a great point. I mean, we are launching a rewards platform here pretty soon as well, so that you can give people digital rewards cards that might include you know, when you do 10, you know, visit my restaurant 10 times will reward you with one of the following incentives. Or when you refer three clients our way, we're going to reward you with one of these. You know, $500 hotel savings, cars or five nights in Cancun on us, and so you know, these, these incentives, with a little bit of creativity, can be used for, I mean give. I'll give you some case study ideas here. For example, I had a company that generated over a million dollars in the first year using marketing boosts in additional cash flow in their bank account. And they were a windshield and replacement repair company which doesn't make any. There's no tie in to travel right? Well, in their marketplaces they have to give cash rebates to consumers when they select, if they choose them to install their new windshield versus somebody else, because typically the insurance companies pay for the windshield. So they're one of their ways to attract the customers. A choose us and we'll give you cash back, since they don't even have to pay for the windshield. But that cashback was expensive, right, giving everybody $150 $200 cashback checks. When they found marketing boost, they trained all their installers to go when they finished installing the new windshield, that go and say, hey, you have $200 cashback coming to you, or we can trade that for five nights in Cancun or Cabo San Lucas, mexico, on us instead, or you could get three nights in Las Vegas, and so you know we'll keep the $200 cash and give you three nights in Las Vegas on us instead of cash. And so they got you know bunches of people to accept the bonus offers and sent instead of cash, and they kept over $1 million in additional cash in their pocket. That's obviously an ongoing program for them.
Speaker 3Another idea was we had a business owner who had a subscription model. He had hundreds of people paying him $97 a month for his advice and what have you on stocks and cryptocurrencies and everything else he came up with. Even when he found marketing moves, he came up with a campaign to say, hey, if you pay for 12 months in advance, you get into our VIP club, whatever you call it, or six months in advance, you get there. You know he created different levels if you pay for six or 12 months in advance, and he did stuff like his own incentive, like if you pay for 12 months, you get the 13th month free and you get five nights in Hawaii or five nights in whatever.
Speaker 3Well, he had over 300 people step up and pay for an annual plan and advance at $1,200 apiece. He had another six 350 or so pay for six months in advance and in four days he generated almost half a million dollars. That has obviously become an ongoing process for him as well, to get people to go from monthly to annual. So that's just two examples of many on how these incentives can be used to do, you know, get people to do whatever your call to action is or whatever you would like them to do next.
Speaker 2That's awesome. So it's not just referrals, but also for lead generation, which I know. Everyone these days is always looking for tools and ways to grow their lead gen. I don't think we're ever stopped looking for ways to improve our lead generation. So that is amazing, do you? So I was wondering so with the travel incentives. So we've used it for lead gen, we've used it for referrals. Is there any other ways or any other creative ways that people have used a marketing boost?
Speaker 3Yeah, hundreds of them. But here's some quick and easy ideas that any most of us today are using. For example, zoom calls, like you and I are on today. So you you're you or your sales team you need more appointments. So that's one goal that many of us have right, we need to get more appointments on our calendar for ourselves or for our sales team. And then two, what's another big problem we have? I know we do with our company even and that's no jokes People book appointments and they don't show up on time or don't show up at all, and then your staff is waiting around like son of a gun. I had this our book for this person and they didn't show.
Speaker 3So we have found many of our business owners are using very successfully our smaller incentives, such as $100 restaurant savings card or a $100 or $200 hotel savings card, and in their sales funnel flow they might be saying hey, book a no obligation appointment to talk to one of our team members to see if it's a good fit for us to work together, and we're going to reward you with a $200 hotel savings card when you book that appointment and show up on time.
Speaker 3So now your automated reminders that you should have. If you don't have that, you need to get that, but your automated reminders of texting and emailing and getting them to show up for the appointment can be reminding them. Don't forget show up on time for our two o'clock appointment tomorrow and I'm going to reward you with a $200 hotel savings card, good at a million hotels worldwide, for your next you know getaway. And so now you're using these incentives to kill two birds with one stone book more appointments and eliminate no-shows. So if that helped you boost just a little bit more appointments and helped reduce your no-shows by X amount, that's going to do what at the end of the day? Probably put a lot more money in your bottom line, because your sales team is going to be talking to more people and you're going to have more appointments to start with. So that's just you know. Another example there of using the incentives.
Speaker 2Awesome. Well, I have learned so much and I think this is an amazing tool to add to your text. So thank you so much, Marco. Where can we find more about marketing boost and about you?
Speaker 3I'd love to ask your team, your clients or prospect I mean your listeners to go to marketingboostsolutionscom. Marketingboostsolutionscom, and on that site there's a couple of links, one to see our other software solutions, but, more importantly, marketing boost, and from that site you can get a free account with no credit card required to check us out. So you can get a limited version of marketing boost but you can join with no obligation, no risk, no credit card required. Get in and get a free account.
Speaker 2Awesome. Make sure I put that in the show notes as well. But thank you so much for coming, Marco. It's been a blast and we'll talk to you all next time.