Marketing School | Digital Marketing | Online Marketing

In episode #992 , we discuss whether AMP still helps with SEO. Tune in to hear what we think about this Google service. We have committed to throwing a FREE Marketing School Live Event in Los Angeles, once Marketing School reaches 1M downloads in a 30 day period. Take action: Rate, review, subscribe, and SHARE. Check the progress here! TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: [00:27] Today’s Topic:  Does AMP Still Help With SEO? [00:42] AMP stands for Accelerated Mobile Pages. [00:55] AMP helps speed up your page loads on mobile devices. [01:25] Google is caching, which is why it loads so quickly. [01:45] It strips a lot of stuff away to increase speed, so you lose out on a lot of conversions. [02:12] AMP helps somewhat in SEO. [02:22] In the United States, AMP doesn’t help with traffic. [02:45] In places like Brazil, the traffic increases. [03:05] If you are targeting less developed regions, AMP will still help you with SEO. [03:28] However, we can’t give a definitive answer. [04:05] By building on top of Go

In episode #991, we discuss how often you should scrub your email list. Tune in to hear how often you need to purge the rolls! We have committed to throwing a FREE Marketing School Live Event in Los Angeles, once Marketing School reaches 1M downloads in a 30 day period. Take action: Rate, review, subscribe, and SHARE. Check the progress here! TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: [00:27] Today’s Topic: How Often Should You Scrub Your Email List [00:40] Everyone believes you need a huge email list. [00:45] If people don’t open your emails, there is no point to having them on the list. [01:05] Opens and clicks are the best way to gauge who is interested in your content, products, or services. [01:33] Eric purges his email list about once per month. [01:45] His team has a workflow that sends people through a re-engagement campaign. If they don’t open that email, they will be purged. [01:58] Mailchimp doesn’t like you scrub your rolls. [02:10] ConvertKit offers scrubbing automation. [02:30] Neil’s list gets scru

In episode #990, we discuss the best podcast analytics tool for 2019. Tune in to hear which tool we think is best. We have committed to throwing a FREE Marketing School Live Event in Los Angeles, once Marketing School reaches 1M downloads in a 30 day period. Take action: Rate, review, subscribe, and SHARE. Check the progress here! TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: [00:27] Today’s Topic: The Best Podcast Analytics Tool for 2019 [00:38] Analytics are pretty sucky right now. [00:45] Libsyn gives you episode stats, but it’s not that accurate. [01:10] It can give you a sense of what kind of content people like. [01:28] Chartable is a podcast analytics tool that works. [01:50] It creates charts for you to understand where you’re popular and with whom. [02:55] The Apple analytics tool isn’t that in-depth. [03:10] It’s better than nothing. [03:25] Chartable will help you compare yourself to your competition. [03:45] It’s the best tool for 2019. [03:55] That’s it for today! [04:01] We hit our goal of 1 Million

In episode #989, we discuss where content marketing is heading. Tune in to hear what we think are the most important facets of content marketing. We have committed to throwing a FREE Marketing School Live Event in Los Angeles, once Marketing School reaches 1M downloads in a 30 day period. Take action: Rate, review, subscribe, and SHARE. Check the progress here! TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: [00:27] Today’s Topic: Where Content Marketing Is Heading in 2019 & Beyond [00:45] As of a year ago, Neil starting writing blog posts again. [01:10] People used to post content just on their website. [01:25] People will now start to post in multiple locations. [02:05] You can’t just rely on social media channels, you have to take an omni-channel approach. [02:25] Referrals are a great way to do link-building. [03:25] Translations of your content helps build traffic. [03:40] Infographics will boost your visibility. [04:05] There are so many countries you can target, so translations will help you expand your reach.

In episode #988, we discuss when you should quit. Tune in to hear when and why you should give up on your business. We have committed to throwing a FREE Marketing School Live Event in Los Angeles, once Marketing School reaches 1M downloads in a 30 day period. Take action: Rate, review, subscribe, and SHARE. Check the progress here! TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: [00:27] Today’s Topic: When you should quit! [00:35] Many putting suck at quitting. [00:54] Whatever doesn’t help Neil’s core business, he doesn’t focus on it. [01:15] If you aren’t getting any traction, don’t drag it out. [02:00] Set “go” and “no go” dates. [02:38] When Eric got his start with the senior living business, he and his partners eventually started working on other things. [03:07] They mutually agreed to shut down their joint venture. [03:51] If you are not passionate about your venture, shut it down, because you naturally won’t invest time and money into it. [05:10] People who make money, don’t jump around. [05:25] Find the one t

In episode #987, we discuss how to hire offshore workers. Tune in to hear how you can get good results from talent from other countries. We have committed to throwing a FREE Marketing School Live Event in Los Angeles, once Marketing School reaches 1M downloads in a 30 day period. Take action: Rate, review, subscribe, and SHARE. Check the progress here! TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: [00:27] Today’s Topic: How to Hire Offshore Marketing Talent [00:40] Offshore means anyone in another country. [01:10] Make sure to define the responsibilities right away. [01:45] Know who you are looking for/what you need, then you can hire. [02:30] Neil has found when he wasn’t specific enough, the work wasn’t high quality, because it wasn’t what he needed. [03:02] Make sure to read each person’s reviews (if they have any). [03:35] Eric likes to use Upwork, OnlineJobs.PH, FreeeUp. [04:00] Set up a way to determine if applicants can follow very simple directions. [05:08] Neil also recommends looking for workers on ProBlog

In episode #986, we discuss how to price your product or service appropriately. Tune in to hear if you can charge more for your product or service. We have committed to throwing a FREE Marketing School Live Event in Los Angeles, once Marketing School reaches 1M downloads in a 30 day period. Take action: Rate, review, subscribe, and SHARE. Check the progress here! TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: [00:27] Today’s Topic: Pricing Secrets For Your Product or Service [00:55] Pricing is a great way to increase revenue. [01:10] If your product isn’t good, increasing pricing will not help you. [01:40] ProfitWell has a lot of free content on this subject. [01:50] Win Without Pitching is a good book on this matter, as well. [02:30] Eric’s office is coaching people on growing their businesses. [02:52] As long as you are providing high value, you can charge a high price. [03:30] When thinking about pricing, consider how to demonstrate that you will offer value for the price. [04:35] Hubspot went from paid to freemiu

In episode #985, we discuss whether it is worth it to hire a PR firm. Tune in to hear if a PR firm would be helpful to your business. We have committed to throwing a FREE Marketing School Live Event in Los Angeles, once Marketing School reaches 1M downloads in a 30 day period. Take action: Rate, review, subscribe, and SHARE. Check the progress here! TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: [00:27] Today’s Topic: Is Hiring a PR Firm Worth It? [00:45] PR Firms will help you get more coverage. [01:15] Some charge a retainer, which is a lot of money per month. [02:45] Paying as you go is a better model. [03:10] PR firms on retainer aren’t always the most productive or proactive. [03:30] You need something that is a good story. If you don’t have a good story, even the best PR firm won’t help you. [04:00] Don’t expect a ton of conversions or sales to come from even the best of PR campaigns. [04:20] PR is good for building brand trust. [05:00] For the vast majority of people, hiring a PR firm won’t be worth it. [05:2

In episode #984, we count down 7 tools for a successful content marketing campaign. Tune in to hear which 7 tools we like best. We have committed to throwing a FREE Marketing School Live Event in Los Angeles, once Marketing School reaches 1M downloads in a 30 day period. Take action: Rate, review, subscribe, and SHARE. Check the progress here! TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: [00:27] Today’s Topic: 7 Tools For Running A Successful Content Marketing Campaign [00:36] 1: Ubersuggest. [00:45] Free to use and great for researching keywords. [00:57] 2: Mailchimp. [01:05] Email blasts will always work. [01:57] 3: MobileMonkey. [02:10] Use this to blast via Facebook Messenger. [02:30] 4: BuzzSumo. [02:38] Great for seeing what your competitors are doing. [03:18] 5: SocialBlade. [03:30] Helpful to see social sharing information. [03:40] 6: VidIQ. [03:45] Helps with keyword and video optimization. [04:25] 7: Clickflow. [04:27] Eric’s SEO A/B testing software. [05:45] That’s it for today! [06:34]  We

In episode #983, we discuss when or if you should take profits from your company. Tune in to hear when you should plan for this. We have committed to throwing a FREE Marketing School Live Event in Los Angeles, once Marketing School reaches 1M downloads in a 30 day period. Take action: Rate, review, subscribe, and SHARE. Check the progress here! TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: [00:27] Today’s Topic: When Should You Take Profits In Your Company? [01:02] Neil started a company when he was 16 and didn’t start taking profits until he was 20/21. [01:21] He thinks he was foolish for waiting so long. [01:35] If you need the money, take what you need to survive. [02:24] It’s also wise to reinvest your profits. [02:50] Things can go wrong, so putting profits aside for emergencies is smart. [03:35] Know your living expenses, so you can determine what you need. [04:05] Maybe you want to travel or live a good life; if that is important, take the profits. [04:41] Some companies don’t do dividends, because they are r

In episode #982, we discuss how you can combat your declining social media traffic. Tune in to hear what you can do to fight the decline. We have committed to throwing a FREE Marketing School Live Event in Los Angeles, once Marketing School reaches 1M downloads in a 30 day period. Take action: Rate, review, subscribe, and SHARE. Check the progress here! TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: [00:27] Today’s Topic: How to Combat Your Declining Social Media Traffic [00:50] Even traffic on Neil’s LinkedIn video posts has declined. [01:15] Now, Neil is seeing his reach decline to less than 20,000. [01:40] Instagram Live is new, so they are boosting those posts. [02:05] Eric thinks you should try the omni-channel approach to avoid the decline. [02:25] Neil agrees that you need to leverage the newest channels to boost your reach. [02:45] You need to scrub those who don’t engage from your email lists. [03:10] Spend money on paid ads in order to target the right people. [04:20] Social media is a numbers game. [04:30

In episode #981, we discuss how to grow your SEO traffic consistently. Tune in to hear what you should focus on for long-term success. We have committed to throwing a FREE Marketing School Live Event in Los Angeles, once Marketing School reaches 1M downloads in a 30 day period. Take action: Rate, review, subscribe, and SHARE. Check the progress here! TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: [00:27] Today’s Topic: How to Grow Your SEO Traffic Consistently [00:45] With SEO, traffic is always up and down. [00:53] Neil ignores algorithms. [01:10] When trying to get more traffic, Neil focuses on user experience. [02:30] Backlinks are helpful, but not the be-all, end-all. [02:45] For desktop and mobile, Single Grain is a fast site, which is key to customer experience. [03:53] If you are counting on algorithms, you are playing for the short-term. If you are planning for the long-term, don’t concern yourself with dips in traffic. [04:45] Remember to update years-old content. [05:36] Put the user first and consider the

In episode #980, we discuss whether you should ignore SEO. Tune in to hear if you should ignore SEO when building a business. We have committed to throwing a FREE Marketing School Live Event in Los Angeles, once Marketing School reaches 1M downloads in a 30 day period. Take action: Rate, review, subscribe, and SHARE. Check the progress here! TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: [00:27] Today’s Topic: When You Should Ignore SEO [00:54] Maybe you shouldn’t do SEO in the beginning if you have investors. [01:15] Paid ads may work faster and better in the beginning. [01:55] If you don’t know which keywords to use, you won’t get results right away. [02:55] Once you know the right keywords and how to convert organically, that’s when you can focus on SEO. [03:20] It takes a long time to get rolling with SEO. [04:20] If you cut corners and decide you want to pay for cheap links, you will handicap yourself. [04:50] SEO has gotten tougher for newcomers. [05:05] Consider your long and short-term goals before diving int

In episode #979, we discuss whether it pays to give out freemium services. Tune in to hear whether you should offer freemium plans to your customers. We have committed to throwing a FREE Marketing School Live Event in Los Angeles, once Marketing School reaches 1M downloads in a 30 day period. Take action: Rate, review, subscribe, and SHARE. Check the progress here! TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: [00:27] Today’s Topic: Should You Go Freemium? [00:47] Freemium isn’t just SaaS, it works in so many different fields and categories. [01:04] Freemium is a service that is free with basic functions, but if you want more functionality, you need to pay. [01:43] Ora Brush is a free tongue cleaner, but they also sell other oral health accessories. [02:06] Some people will even give away free book chapters to encourage the purchase of the full book. [02:30] Hubspot’s CRM is free. [03:14] Profitwell is a services business that is free. [04:00] If you want 100 paying customers, you will need 2000 freemium users. [04:3

In episode #978, we discuss whether you should focus on one or multiple keywords in your blog posts. Tune in to hear how we approach blogging and keyword rankings. We have committed to throwing a FREE Marketing School Live Event in Los Angeles, once Marketing School reaches 1M downloads in a 30 day period. Take action: Rate, review, subscribe, and SHARE. Check the progress here! TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: [00:27] Today’s Topic: Should a Blog Post Focus on One Keyword or Multiple Keywords for SEO? [00:35] One of our live viewers, Dinesh, recommended this topic. [00:55] NSFW sites usually rank for the most keywords. [01:05] Focus on one keyword first. [01:15] Once you rank for one, try to then build in other keywords. [01:35] Neil thinks you can do multiple keywords at a time. [01:45] Neil writes, doesn’t worry about keywords, and checks for which keywords the post naturally ranks. [02:00] Once he sees what his keywords are, he adjusts the post to fit more closely around those keywords. [02:06] SEO

In episode #977, we discuss if podcast advertising actually works. Tune in to here if this method of marketing is a good idea. We have committed to throwing a FREE Marketing School Live Event in Los Angeles, once Marketing School reaches 1M downloads in a 30 day period. Take action: Rate, review, subscribe, and SHARE. Check the progress here! TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: [00:27] Today’s Topic: Does Podcast Advertising Actually Work? [00:35] MeUndies advertises on podcasts. They make $75 Million a year. [00:48] They spent a third of their marketing budget on podcast advertising. [01:10] Eric thinks this is “stupid”. [01:40] Once you start advertising overly consistently, the message becomes lost on people. [02:15] People reach out wanting to advertise with us all the time. [02:40] It is estimated that Joe Rogan makes a killing with the ads on his podcast. [03:05] Knowing the audience is key. [03:15] It has to be the right product for the right people. [03:20] That’s it for today! [03:29] We hit our

In episode #976, we discuss how often you should be blogging. Tune in to hear how often we blog. We have committed to throwing a FREE Marketing School Live Event in Los Angeles, once Marketing School reaches 1M downloads in a 30 day period. Take action: Rate, review, subscribe, and SHARE. Check the progress here! TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: [00:27] Today’s Topic: What is the Ideal Amount of Blog Posts to Write Each Week? [00:35] Eric writes 3-6 posts per week. [01:22] Neil only writes 1 post per week. [01:52] Eric wants to reach 500,000 unique visits per week, which is why he is heavily pushing content. [02:25] Neil feels like the blogosphere is too competitive, so he likes to write on lengthy, meaty post per week. [02:51] Take the opposite approach of your competitors’ posts. [03:22] Eric’s USC professor friend wrote a blog post about unintended consequences. [04:00] Start off slow and steady. [04:10] That’s it for today! [04:13] We hit our goal of 1 Million downloads! So, we will be throwing a fr

In episode #975, we discuss what to do when you are overwhelmed by all the new marketing tactics. Tune in to hear what you can do to decrease the pressure you are putting on yourself. We have committed to throwing a FREE Marketing School Live Event in Los Angeles, once Marketing School reaches 1M downloads in a 30 day period. Take action: Rate, review, subscribe, and SHARE. Check the progress here! TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: [00:27] Today’s Topic: If You are Overwhelmed by All the New Marketing Tactics, do this Instead [00:38] Instead, focus on one channel. [00:58] If you are overwhelmed, just double down on what you are already doing. [01:25] Even though Neil is doing a bunch of different things, he still focuses on blogging. [01:42] Eric likes creating video content and he’s good at it. [02:40] Eric gets 1350 new subscribers per month and 64,000 views. [03:08] Just figure out what is right for you. [03:15] Neil is flyout out to SXSW and will be talking about SEO for text-based content. [04:05] If

In episode #974, we discuss why you shouldn’t publicly share income information. Tune in to hear the dangers of being so forthcoming. We have committed to throwing a FREE Marketing School Live Event in Los Angeles, once Marketing School reaches 1M downloads in a 30 day period. Take action: Rate, review, subscribe, and SHARE. Check the progress here! TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: [00:27] Today’s Topic: Why You Shouldn’t Share Income Information [00:53] When things are going well for you and you share the details of your income, people will begin copying your methods. [01:05] You only invite competition and resentment. [01:25] Once, Eric referred a customer onto someone else. [01:38] He then got sued because the customer felt the other company wasn’t helpful and wanted Eric to pay back the amount of the money he felt he wasted. [02:10] Sharing income reports puts a target on your back. [03:05] You can share your income at the beginning, but once you start making more, scale back the sharing. [03:07] That

In episode #973, we discuss what the ROI of a live event is. Tune in to hear what you can expect to get out of throwing a live event. We have committed to throwing a FREE Marketing School Live Event in Los Angeles, once Marketing School reaches 1M downloads in a 30 day period. Take action: Rate, review, subscribe, and SHARE. Check the progress here! TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: [00:27] Today’s Topic: What’s the ROI of a Live Event? [00:45] We’re throwing a live event in June. [00:55] It costs roughly $20-30 a head to do an event the right way. [01:25] Since we’re not charging for the event, we aren’t making money. [01:40] People say if you charge, 40-50% of attendees will not show up. [01:50] People will pay and then no-show. [02:57] Sponsors are how you can make a profit. [03:50] Either ticket sales or sponsors will cover your costs. [04:15] Our goal isn’t to make money. [05:02] Clarion is an events company that goes around buying up conferences. [06:08] That’s it for today! [06:12] We hit our g