Marketing School - Digital Marketing and Online Marketing Tips

In Episode #296, Eric and Neil discuss the marketing tactics you should do regardless of ROI. Tune in to learn why Neil’s biggest tactic is to focus his energy on everything to do with branding and how helping others and fostering an attitude of goodwill is building for long-term relationships AND success. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: What Marketing Tactics You Should Do Regardless of ROI 00:36 – The biggest tactic that Neil loves is doing anything with branding 00:44 – Everyone in marketing thinks about ROI, but you don’t need an ROI for everything 01:20 – Branding is what causes your company and business to be on top of people’s minds 01:25 – “Having a big brand is amazing and you have to strive to have that” 01:47 – People are always giving unsolicited advice 02:07 – When Eric receives comments, he knows that he is on the right track 02:29 – “Just stick with things when you know that you’re on the right track” 02:37 – Neil likes helping people 02:46 – “I believe it creates goodwill” 02:49 – Neil doesn’t want to make money out of it and just wants to help people 03:21 – This year, Eric started with his monthly dinner and happy hour and he hasn’t gotten any ROI; he also doesn’t care 03:34 – Eric’s ROI is being able to connect people together 03:56 – When you do things without thinking about ROI, it is for long term and the results are better 04:22 – Marketing School is giving away a free subscription to FunnelDash which helps you track the lifetime ROI of your Facebook campaigns 04:42 – Subscribe, rate and review Marketing School 04:46 – Text MARKETINGSCHOOL to 33444 05:06 – That’s it for today’s episode! 3 Key Points: When go far and beyond the call in helping people, it will create loyalty which will eventually convert people into customers. It’s not always about ROI—sometimes it’s good to just help others and create that sense of connection and goodwill. Branding is what makes people want to buy and it’s a long term process. Leave some feedback: What should we talk about next? Please let us know in the comments below. Did you enjoy this episode? If so, please leave a short review. Connect with us: NeilPatel.com Quick Sprout Growth Everywhere Single Grain Twitter @neilpatel Twitter @ericosiu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In Episode #295, Eric and Neil discuss how to do B2B marketing on Instagram. Tune in to know how Instagram can help you close deals and how to use it well for B2B marketing. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: How to Do B2B Marketing on Instagram 00:35 – Instagram is continuing to grow 00:51 – DMing people on Instagram is one of the options you can do for B2B 00:55 – If you want to work with influencers, celebrities, or entrepreneurs, find their profiles and just DM them 01:06 – Eric has a friend who just started shooting videos and DMed people that he wanted to make a shoot for and he got deals from it 01:21 – If you have an Instagram that shows a good example of your work, it will work out well 01:38 – Neil tested different marketing strategies in Instagram and he learned that they don’t work well with B2B directly 01:46 – Indirectly, it’s great for brand building and connecting with people 02:00 – The problem with B2B is most buyers are desktop buyers 02:53 – In marketing, if someone uses your brand or company 7x, they are much more likely to convert 03:05 – Being on different channels will help you close different deals 03:39 – You can also use page shouts in Instagram for B2B marketing 03:50 – You can search for hashtags in your area and reach out to people with a huge following and engagement 04:11 – Check if they’re doing paid shouts where they can post about you and link you for an affordable price 04:43 – If you have a company, you can get your team in Instagram to post relevant stuff about your company 05:10– Marketing School is giving away a free subscription of FunnelDash which helps you track the lifetime ROI of your Facebook campaigns 05:30 – Subscribe, rate and review Marketing School 05:33 – Text MARKETINGSCHOOL to 33444 05:53 – That’s it for today’s episode! 3 Key Points: Instagram is HOT—take advantage of the number of people that are using Instagram for your marketing. If people see you more, they are more likely to buy from you. Find the influencers in your space and reach out to them for paid shoutouts—this is way cheaper than paid ads. Leave some feedback: What should we talk about next? Please let us know in the comments below. Did you enjoy this episode? If so, please leave a short review. Connect with us: NeilPatel.com Quick Sprout Growth Everywhere Single Grain Twitter @neilpatel Twitter @ericosiu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In Episode #294, Eric and Neil discuss the 7 question to ask yourself before investing in content marketing. Tune in to learn why these questions are necessary for you to answer in deciding whether or not content marketing is right for you. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: 7 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Investing in Content Marketing 00:36 – Question 1: what are your goals? Are you trying to get more traffic or are you trying to get more leads? What is informed branding? What are you trying to do, specifically, that will shape your campaign? 00:46 – If you don’t have goals, you can’t manage what you’re doing 01:01 – The action that you take will depend on your goal 01:16 – Second is, how long are you going to make an investment? 01:22 – “If you’re not willing to make the investment for a year without seeing an ROI, content marketing isn’t for you” 01:17 – Content marketing is a long-term play 01:39 – Third is, who is your target audience? 01:51 – Figure out your target audience first then figure out the personas you’re trying to create 02:07 – Fourth is, can you produce 3 pieces of blog content a week? 02:12 – If you can’t, then it is not right for you 02:24 – Producing 3 articles a week should be done in over a year 02:27 – You can hire people from Problogger if you have the budget 02:39 – Fifth is, what do you want to share and why you do want to share? 02:56 – When producing content, think about why sharing it will help you accomplish your objectives? 03:29 – People tend to produce content just for the sake of it which is a BIG mistake 03:44 – Sixth is, is one of your competitors already doing content marketing and is successful at it? Is there someone you want to model after? 03:52 – Typically, what works for your competition will work for you, too 04:00 – If there are people in your space who are doing content marketing, use BuzzSumo and Ahrefs to figure out what drives them traffic and copy them 04:13 – Last is, what can you do differently? 04:20 – Podcasts are getting popular and most marketing people are still doing blog posts 04:51 – Search for Blue Ocean Strategy and apply the concepts for doing content marketing 05:14 – Marketing School is giving away a free subscription to FunnelDash which helps you track the lifetime ROI of your Facebook campaigns 05:27 – Subscribe, rate and review Marketing School 05:31 – Text MARKETINGSCHOOL to 33444 05:53 – That’s it for today’s episode! 3 Key Points: Establish clear and concise goals—this will guide your actions. Producing valuable content thrice a week is essential for the success of content marketing. Look around your space and see how people are doing it—if it works for them, it might work for you, too. Leave some feedback: What should we talk about next? Please let us know in the comments below. Did you enjoy this episode? If so, please leave a short review. Connect with us: NeilPatel.com Quick Sprout Growth Everywhere Single Grain Twitter @neilpatel Twitter @ericosiu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In Episode #293, Eric and Neil discuss how to improve your net promoter score. Do you know the level of satisfaction of your current customers? If not, you need to get on this and start listening to your feedback. Tune in to learn the importance of understanding and maintaining your net promoter score and why having a score of 9-10 can be extremely beneficial for you and your business. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: How to Improve Your Net Promoter Score 00:35 – A net promoter score expresses how much people like your company or brand 00:47 – One of the basic questions to assess this: how likely are you to recommend us to somebody else or another customer? 01:13 – The goal of 60 means you’re doing a great job 01:20 – Eric recommends Google's net promoter score 01:23 – It has a scale of 1-10 01:39 – To improve your net promoter score, you have to look at the feedback, first 01:48 – Ask if there’s anything else they would like to add 02:10 – Eric had a detractor in the past who told them the account manager needed more supervision and they were right 02:42 – Eric fixed the problem and took the feedback seriously 03:00 – Qualaroo, Wootric and Promoter help you track your net promoter score 03:19 – Most people in marketing think about how they can bring in new customers rather than taking care of their existing customers 03:40 – Majority of the big companies take care of their customers and their customers love them 03:51 – The higher your net promoter score is, the faster you will grow 03:57 – When you get feedback, that’s when you want to continue with reiteration and keep running your promoter score to see if you can improve it 04:13 – When Eric gets a 9 or 10, that’s when he know he can jump into an opportunity 04:29 – You can ask for referrals and it’s a great opportunity for upsells, too 05:00 – It is easier to retain and maintain current accounts, than to create the new ones 04:18 – Marketing School is giving away a free 1 year annual subscription of Funnel Dash which helps you hone in your Facebook ads campaigns and track the lifetime ROI of your ad campaigns 05:38 – Subscribe, rate and review Marketing School 05:42 – Text MARKETINGSCHOOL to 33444 06:29– That’s it for today’s episode! 3 Key Points: Make it a point to look at your feedback and fix any problems that are brought up. A net promoter score of 9-10 gives you more opportunities, such as asking for referrals or upsells. Taking care of your existing clients will be more beneficial for your business growth in the long run. Leave some feedback: What should we talk about next? Please let us know in the comments below. Did you enjoy this episode? If so, please leave a short review. Connect with us: NeilPatel.com Quick Sprout Growth Everywhere Single Grain Twitter @neilpatel Twitter @ericosiu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In Episode #292, Eric and Neil discuss how to generate leads through LinkedIn. Tune in to learn what LinkedIn lead gen ads are and how it compares to Facebook lead gen ads. You’ll also learn how Neil boosted his website traffic to a thousand plus visitors a day through LinkedIn. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: How to Generate Leads Through LinkedIn 00:33 – The LinkedIn lead gen ads are similar to the Facebook lead ads 00:43 – It makes things a lot easier and faster 00:48 – It works well for Eric and they’ll probably scale it up 00:52 – Eric has spent around $700 on it and has acquired 4-5 leads 01:08 – Jump on to LinkedIn lead gen ads now 01:18 – LinkedIn has autofill where you can have LinkedIn forms on your website 01:37 – Use it so you will have more data of your customers 01:42 – It drastically increases your conversions and it is just a simple button you add on your form fields 02:14 – LinkedIn took away a retargeting pixel, but it is now back with better features 02:40 – You can segment people who visited different pages in your website 02:55 – Neil’s team members post twice a day in LinkedIn 02:59 – It skyrocketed their traffic 03:12 – It generates qualified traffic that generates into leads 03:21 – They add clicks so that you can continue reading other blog posts 03:32 – Eric recommends using Dux-Soup 03:50 – It helps you visit different profiles and collect those profiles—drop those profiles into Hunter and start a reach process 04:10 – You can also LinkedIn leads for recruitment or partnership 04:28 – LinkedIn allows you to have 30K friends 04:54 – A couple of years ago, Eric was on Fiverr and there were people selling friend lists from LinkedIn and Eric actually bought them 05:22 – Marketing School is giving away a free 1 year annual subscription of Design Pickle, a design service 05:43 – Subscribe, rate and review Marketing School 05:47 – Text MARKETINGSCHOOL to 33444 06:08– That’s it for today’s episode! 3 Key Points: Take advantage of LinkedIn lead gen ads now, while they’re still not that popular. LinkedIn can significantly increase your website traffic; leverage it. LinkedIn can help you in your recruitment and in generating more sales leads. Leave some feedback: What should we talk about next? Please let us know in the comments below. Did you enjoy this episode? If so, please leave a short review. Connect with us: NeilPatel.com Quick Sprout Growth Everywhere Single Grain Twitter @neilpatel Twitter @ericosiu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In Episode #291, Eric and Neil discuss 7 techniques for keeping users engaged in 2000+ word blog posts. You don’t want your blog post to read like a lecture—your readers will drop like flies. Instead, in you employ even just a few of these techniques, you’re bound to increase that engagement and keep your audience scrolling down... Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: 7 Techniques For Keeping Users Engaged in 2000+ Word Blog Posts 00:43 – First technique is to make sure that your post is written in a conversational tone 00:50 – Consider your post like you’re giving a lecture and you don’t want your readers to get bored 01:03 – Use words like “you” and “I” within your blog post 01:10 – Second is to use bucket brigades; Eric learned this from Brian Dean 01:19 – It is basically breaking up more paragraphs, instead of having walls and walls of text 01:43 – Third is sub-headings 01:45 – Think of your blog post as a book 01:48 – Adding a sub-heading makes it more scalable and it’s on top of bucket brigades 02:02 – Fourth is having great, engaging images to accentuate your content 02:15 – Fifth is the user pattern of a blog reader 02:17 – They first go to your page, then to your headline, click on your blog post, and then they scroll all the way down to the bottom to figure out if they’re going to scroll back up to the top 02:27 – End each of your blog posts with a conclusion that summarizes what the blog post is about 02:43 – Sixth is to not forget to publish if it actually makes sense 02:51 – If you can add videos, infographics and a podcast to add value, you’re going to have a good engagement overall 03:05 – “Take the time and be deliberate about what you’re doing” 03:11 – Last but not the least, end your blog post with a question 03:17 – The people who read the question will likely respond with a blog comment 03:38 – Marketing School is giving away a free 1 year annual subscription of Design Pickle, a design service that allows you to make unlimited design 04:00 – Subscribe, rate and review Marketing School 04:10 – Text MARKETINGSCHOOL to 33444 04:25– That’s it for today’s episode! 3 Key Points: Writing in a conversational tone makes your blog post friendlier easier to engage in for the reader. Bucket brigades make your content POP instead of seeing walls and walls of text. Readers are more likely to leave a comment if you end your blog post with a question. Leave some feedback: What should we talk about next? Please let us know in the comments below. Did you enjoy this episode? If so, please leave a short review. Connect with us: NeilPatel.com Quick Sprout Growth Everywhere Single Grain Twitter @neilpatel Twitter @ericosiu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In Episode #290, Eric and Neil discuss how to delegate marketing tasks. Tune in to learn the key things you, as a leader, need to recognize before passing off a task to someone on your team. Can they create a replicable process for that task? Will they be able to find a solution on their own or will they be needing help? Find out how important delegation is—not just for marketing—but for every type and aspect of business and how to do it effectively. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: How to Delegate Marketing Tasks 00:43 – Delegation is not just for marketing. In any business, you’ll have to learn how to delegate 00:50 – Eric recommends reading Getting Things Done by David Allen and The Checklist Manifesto 01:00 – These books will help you decide what to delegate 01:09 – Eric has his own checklist in Evernote of the things that he needs to do 01:14 – As you get bigger, there are tasks, like booking travel and scheduling, that can be assigned to someone else who can do it for you 01:20 – You can free up your time to do things that are more worthy of your time 01:28 – Learning to prioritize first will help you delegate better 01:35 – The 2 types of people that you can delegate things to—first, there are the self-sufficient ones who can do things their own 01:41 – Second, the ones that need training and are not that good at figuring things out on their own 01:50 – What Neil does is he figures out what kind of a person someone is 01:53 – When Neil gets to the ones that can do things their own, he gives them instructions and asks them to make a replicable process so other people will know how to do the task 02:04 – If the person isn’t creative and cannot figure out steps on their own, Neil or someone from the team will teach that person 02:43 – Even if the person doesn’t do it the way you want, you can give him a few rounds of critique; then, he’ll start to do it the way you like 03:04 – People somehow cringe on the topic of having a process 03:25 – If you want to take your business to another level, you have to create a culture of documentation or creating screencast so you can easily hand it to another person   03:34 – Training people repeatedly consumes time 03:42 – When Eric hires new marketing staff, they’re subscribed in an entrepreneur campaign 04:01 – After they’ve gone through it automatically, they’ll understand and move faster 04:30 – What’s empowering for Eric, is that, as a leader you tell them exactly what you want them to do and let them do it 04:45 – Having a good hiring process makes it more about the team and not just about you 04:53 – Just make sure when you’re delegating a task, you always create a process 05:00 – The biggest mistake that people make is that they don’t try things out for themselves and don’t know how difficult things are 05:20 – A process should always be tweaked 05:45 – Marketing School is giving away a free 1 year annual subscription of Design Pickle, a design service where you can request unlimited design each month 05:58 – Subscribe, rate and review Marketing School 06:00 – Text MARKETINGSCHOOL to 33444 06:25– That’s it for today’s episode! 3 Key Points: Delegation is important in every business—there’s no way around it, especially if your company continues to grow. Having a process in place makes it easier for the team and new hires to adapt to your workflow and what you need as a leader. When you delegate a task to someone else, ask them to create a replicable process and make sure you’ve done the task first so you know what to expect. Leave some feedback: What should we talk about next? Please let us know in the comments below. Did you enjoy this episode? If so, please leave a short review. Connect with us: NeilPatel.com Quick Sprout Growth Everywhere Single Grain Twitter @neilpatel Twitter @ericosiu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In Episode #289, Eric and Neil discuss how to use dropped domains to enhance your SEO. Tune in to learn how to maximize those dropped domains and why it is better to use an established website rather than dropped domains if you have the cash to spend. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: How to Use Dropped Domains to Enhance Your SEO 00:48 – Dropped domains are abandoned or expired domains 01:07 – Eric has been buying domains that have worked well and has a good number on Ahrefs 01:12 – What Eric does is he takes the site, takes the top pages and redirects it over to his money site 01:22 – The site that Eric bought has keywords that they’re targeting, at the moment 01:30 – Neil also learned something from this 01:48 – If you already have a popular site, you will not gain from this doing this technique—it’s not for you 01:57 – The technique that Eric uses works, but the dropped domain must relate to what you are doing 02:05 – You can use Internet Archive to see what the site used to be 02:11 – You don’t want to have a dog website then get redirected to a marketing website 02:36 – You can buy dropped domains from GoDaddy 02:45 – You can go to GoDaddy.com and they have the list of auctioned domains 02:51 – You have to filter through the list to see the sites that have the most bids, offers, traffic and then take the site to Ahrefs to see if it is relevant to yours 03:13 – Go to Wayback Machine to see what the website used to be in the past 03:53 – There are website brokers like FE International and Flippa if you’re willing to buy a more established site 04:11 – Doing this with a more established website is way better than using dropped domains 04:15 – Most people buy dropped domains and put a website on there or they take the domain to redirect traffic to their site 04:36 – If you think of the black hat SEO that works, why not just do it in a white hat way? 05:11 – Marketing School is giving away a free 1 year subscription to Design Pickle, a design service where Eric gets unlimited designs for blog and ad images 05:33 – Subscribe, rate and review Marketing School 05:30 – Text MARKETINGSCHOOL to 33444 06:03 – That’s it for today’s episode! 3 Key Points: Choose a dropped domain that is relevant to your site. Don’t just buy a well performing website – make sure that it targets your market, is consistent and has the keywords that you’re needing. You can use black hat SEO in a white hat way. Leave some feedback: What should we talk about next? Please let us know in the comments below. Did you enjoy this episode? If so, please leave a short review. Connect with us: NeilPatel.com Quick Sprout Growth Everywhere Single Grain Twitter @neilpatel Twitter @ericosiu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In Episode #288, Eric and Neil discuss simple methods for calculating ROI on SEO. Tune in to learn the formula Eric and Neil use to project an estimated ROI and why some agencies won’t provide this information to their clients. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: Simple Methods for Calculating ROI on SEO 00:38 – Some agencies are not telling their clients the exact ROI that they’re going to get 00:48 – It is indeed difficult to quantify 00:55 – What you can do first is look at the keyword volume 01:00 – Look at how you’re currently ranking and your click-through rate 01:04 – The formula is you take your traffic, you take your click-through rate, then you’ll have your estimated traffic 01:12 – You have to look at your conversion rate on your website 01:18 – If you’re an ecommerce website, look at the average order value of a product or the specific keyword you’re trying to rank for 01:26 – You now have your baseline metric, then you have to project it 01:32 – If you move something from position 10 to position 2, your click-through rate might go from 2% to 20% 01:39 – Then you can map out the estimated revenue or return 02:02 – Once you have the formula, go to SEMrush or Ahrefs 02:16 – Look at all the traffic sources that your competitor is getting traffic from 02:22 – Look at your competitors volume and compare it to your Ahrefs or SEMrush volume 02:27 – Neil goes to Ahrefs; it says he has 100K visitors and his competitors have 200K 02:36 – Ahrefs’ numbers are from Google Analytics 03:15 – Let Eric and Neil know if the formula works for you 03:32 – Most agencies fail to quantify projected ROI 03:52 – Marketing School is giving away a free 1 year subscription to Design Pickle, an awesome design service that Eric has been using 04:27 – Subscribe, rate and review Marketing School 04:31 – Text MARKETINGSCHOOL to 33444 04:41 – If you have other services that you want to give away and Eric and Neil like them, just send them a message 04:50 – That’s it for today’s episode! 3 Key Points: It is quite hard to quantify the ROI, but there is a way. Your clients need to know their ROI—this will inform them of whether or not it’s worth it to invest in SEO. A projected, estimated ROI is better than not having any idea or information at all. Leave some feedback: What should we talk about next? Please let us know in the comments below. Did you enjoy this episode? If so, please leave a short review. Connect with us: NeilPatel.com Quick Sprout Growth Everywhere Single Grain Twitter @neilpatel Twitter @ericosiu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In Episode #287, Eric and Neil discuss where you should focus your marketing efforts first. Tune in to learn why you need to market on your strengths, first and foremost, and the value of focusing on one task BEFORE moving or adding another. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: Where Should You Focus Your Marketing Efforts First? 00:35 – Focus your marketing efforts on what you’re the BEST at, first 00:46 – If you’re not sure what your specialty is, try different marketing tactics 01:03 – If you have a specific skillset, use that first 01:10 – This will surely drive the best result 01:22 – Neil does paid ads, but he focuses on content marketing and SEO because that is what he and his company is good at 01:39 – Neil doesn’t consider himself as one of the best advertisers 01:42 – “I focus on what I know because that’s what tends to produce great results” 02:24 – The word Warren Buffett and Bill Gates believe makes them successful is “focus” 02:33 – Focus on one thing first, do it right and move to the next thing 02:37 – Same goes for business and marketing, focus on one thing first 02:44 – Get that one service or product right for business and get that one marketing channel right for marketing 02:49 – Don’t try to do two things at once 03:17 – If you’re a new marketer going into a new company, take a look at their numbers and look at what’s working for them 03:23 – Treehouse focuses on YouTube ads 03:42 – Neil still remembers how Eric was crushing it with Treehouse 04:04 – YouTube ads are not Neil’s core competency, and so he wasn’t as successful as Eric was 04:18 – Marketing School is giving away a free 1 year annual subscription to Mixmax, a sales and marketing tool 04:33 – Subscribe, rate and review Marketing School 04:37 – Text MARKETINGSCHOOL to 33444 04:59 – That’s it for today’s episode! 3 Key Points: If you focus on what you’re good at, this will drive the best results. Don’t do a couple of things at the same time—focus your energy on one thing, master it, then move on to the next. If you’re a new marketer going into a new company—look at their numbers and find what’s working for them and what isn’t. Leave some feedback: What should we talk about next? Please let us know in the comments below. Did you enjoy this episode? If so, please leave a short review. Connect with us: NeilPatel.com Quick Sprout Growth Everywhere Single Grain Twitter @neilpatel Twitter @ericosiu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.