Marketing School | Digital Marketing | Online Marketing

In episode #700, Eric and Neil discuss the blue check mark and what it means. Tune in to hear how you can become a verified user on social media. TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: [00:27] Today’s Topic: How to Get a Blue Checkmark on Social Media [00:35] The blue check mark means that you are “verified”. [01:05] On Twitter, there is a form where you can submit your name and argue why you should be verified. [01:30] It’s a way for famous people to safeguard their reps and not be easily impersonated. [01:50] To be verified on YouTube, you need more than 100,000 subscribers. [02:05] Proving that there are impersonators is another easy way to get verified. [02:25] If you are running ads on Facebook, you can talk to the ads manager about getting verified. [03:13] Don’t pay people who claim they can help you get verified. They are scammers! [03:30] A blue check mark hasn’t gotten anything for Eric or Neil, so it may not be worth it. [04:09] That’s it for today! [04:12] Go to Singlegrain.com/Giveway for a speci

In episode #699, Eric and Neil count out productivity hacks. Tune in to hear the seven things you should be doing to enhance your success. TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: [00:27] Today’s Topic: 7 Productivity Hacks For Marketers [00:32] #1: Build checklists. [00:45] Eric’s team has a blogging checklist for all the writers they employ. [01:05] Checklists help you standardize processes. [01:12] #2: Use “If, then, this, that”. [01:20] When you publish, push to social media outlets, push to email, etc. [01:45] It will save you time not to do these things manually. [01:48] #3: Use dashboards. Try Domo or Scythe. [02:02] It’s a great way to track analytics. [02:11] #4: Stick with one marketing tactic at a time. [02:25] Don’t spread yourself thin and become adept at whatever you do. [03:00] #5: Use BuzzSumo alerts. [03:12] This will keep you up to date on how you are doing versus your competitors. [03:26] #6: Use Un-enroll Me. [03:36] It will help you unsubscribe from unwanted junk mail and clear your inb

In episode #698, Eric and Neil discuss why daily blogging is unnecessary. Tune in to hear what pace at which you should be producing content. TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: [00:27] Today’s Topic: Why We Don't Blog Daily (and You Shouldn't Either) [00:36] Neil used to blog seven times per day as an experiment. [00:55] It got him a ton of traffic, but he burnt out working at that pace. [01:15] HubSpot gets a ton of traffic and posts multiple articles on a daily basis, but they are able to keep that pace. [01:40] If you want to scale up and generate more traffic, blog every single day. [01:52] If you’re in the B2B world, don’t blog every day. It’s unnecessary. [02:13] The Kleiner-Perkins Internet Trends report comes out every year. [02:35] It is a popular guide that serves a huge community. [02:50] If you want high-quality leads, don’t blog every day. Write content that shows off how smart you are and what you have to offer. [03:15] Techcrunch is no longer the end-all, be-all that it used to be. [04:05]

In episode #697, Eric and Neil discuss why they spend so much money on this podcast. Tune in to hear why giving something away for free can be a good idea. TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: [00:27] Today’s Topic: Why We Spent $46,452 on Marketing School [00:42] Eric and Neil enjoy doing this podcast. [01:15] They struggled with quality and methods at first, but eventually found their stride. [01:21] Now, they spend money on intro and outro music, editing, studio time, etc. [01:40] Ads and hosting are another expense. [02:05] Neil doesn’t like spending money if he doesn’t have to. [02:49] Eric thinks he has made at least $100,000 from producing this podcast, while Neil thinks he has made $0. [03:22] Neil does the podcast because he believes in the “rule of seven”. [03:40] The podcast is one of the seven touchpoints he uses to remain top-of-mind. [04:20] Marketing is going to get harder and harder, so having multiple touchpoints is important. [05:00] Eric and Neil could make more money monetizing the podca

In episode 696, Eric and Neil discuss why Google and Facebook aren’t your only options. Tune in to figure out where else you can market yourself. TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: [00:27] Today’s Topic: The Internet Doesn't Start and Stop With Facebook and Google [00:35] Facebook and Google are the two largest platforms out there. [01:05] There are still so many different advertising platforms you can use besides the top two. [01:20] Figure out where your audience is hanging out. [01:25] In general, you will make more money from Facebook and Google AdWords, because they scale more quickly. [01:35] However, other avenues can be nearly as successful. [01:46] The people who are doing the best right now, have teams who are reaching out to different outlets and working out custom partnerships. [02:00] These teams are cutting out the middle-man. [02:24] People are still using direct mail and it still works for certain targets. [03:13] Figure out who your audience is and how they would like to be targeted. [03:

In episode #695, Eric and Neil discuss why you should work for someone else before you start your own company. Tune in to hear why you should learn the ropes from someone else. TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: [00:27] Today’s Topic: You Shouldn't be an Entrepreneur First, You Should be an Employee [00:38] Neil hasn’t been an employee since he was 18 or 19 when he worked at Hollywood Video. [01:02] Eric found the structure about being an employee was helpful to understanding what makes a company work. [01:35] He switched jobs often, because he was chasing the next opportunity. Each time, he learned something new about what makes a successful company. [02:15] You should start out as an employee, because you need to try things out to see what you like. [02:35] Bill Ackman, successful hedge funder, thinks you shouldn’t start your own company until you’ve worked in the industry for some time. [03:15] You need to learn from others before you go out and make your own mistakes. [03:40] If you learn from other’s go

In episode #694, Eric and Neil discuss a simple hack that will up your LinkedIn views. Tune in to hear what you should be doing to increase your LinkedIn presence. TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: [00:27] Today’s Topic: One Simple Hack That'll 10X Your LinkedIn Views [00:36] Lead Quizzes founder, Jeremy Ellins, has given Eric and Neil some great advice. [00:54] Jeremy posted a video of an interview and tagged certain influencers on LinkedIn. [01:40] Tagging influencers gets their attention and will get them to comment. [01:55] The influencer has to be relevant to what you are doing. [01:58] Ultimately, the download’s on Jeremy’s podcast doubled. [02:20] Eric and Neil get request to re-post and comment on LinkedIn pages and most times, it gets their attention. [02:42] “Bro Language” does really well. [02:55] Bro language is concise, to-the-point sentences. It’s not always great prose, but it gets the job done. [03:30] Bro language is becoming overused and is getting filtered out, but as long as you don’t

In episode #693, Eric and Neil discuss the pros and cons of raising venture capital. Tune in to hear why the juice may not be worth the squeeze. TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: [00:27] Today’s Topic: Should You Raise Venture Capital [00:40] Neil still raises venture capital. [00:50] If your idea is huge and you’re trying to swing for the fences, it is hard to do without raising venture capital. [01:18] It depends on what you’re trying to do with your business. [01:40] Rand Fishkin got so diluted while running Moz, that it ended up hurting him in the long run. [01:55] He could have sold the business for a profit, but did not take advantage of this opportunity. [02:20] His VC’s dissuaded him from taking what would have been a great deal. [02:35] VC’s can often steer you away from a clear vision, because they have their own desires. [03:25] Instead of trying to take money to make life easier up front. Think about the long term consequences. [03:50] You could end up in a fundraising cycle. [04:15] Build an

In episode #692, Eric and Neil discuss how you can get wealthy people to respond to your emails. Tune in to hear how you can tempt people into business deals. TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: [00:27] Today’s Topic: How to get Rich People to Respond to Your EMails, When You're a Nobody [00:34] Loom is a tool that allows you to make screencast videos up to 10 minutes long. [00:54] Someone sent Eric a personalized Loom video that address Eric and his business. [01:11] Eric responded, but was ultimately not interested in pursuing a partnership. [01:30] The response rate is a lot higher with personalized videos. [01:45] Your best technique is to reach out to wealthy heads of companies and let them know what their business is lacking and how you could help them improve. [02:30] Neil tried this technique once with a man who owned a social networking site for older people. [02:45] Not only did Neil get a response, but he was connected to the CEO. [03:01] Eric and Neil once reached out to Zynga. [03:25] They had

In episode #691, Eric and Neil Discuss why you shouldn’t just read books all day. Tune in to hear why you need to limit the time you spend absorbing information. TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: [00:27] Today’s Topic: Why You Shouldn't Read Books [00:40] People spend so much time reading, that they end up taking little action. [00:55] If you don’t spend time implementing ideas within your business, this is problematic. [01:30] Someone wrote a post about when it’s time to learn and when it’s time to earn; it is important to delineate time for actionable ideas. [01:50] Experimentation is the ultimate teacher. [02:02] Make mistakes and learn from them. [02:15] Don’t read random books, read books that address your specific problems. [03:10] Make sure to take notes and take action on your ideas after reading. [03:35] Eric and Neil aren’t advocating ignorance, they’re saying limit your time absorbing information and spend more time enhancing your company. [04:26] That’s it for today! [04:31] Go to Singlegrain

In episode #690, Eric and Neil discuss how you can rank higher on Google without using SEO. Tune in to hear why optimizing user experience is key. TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: [00:27] Today’s Topic: How to Rank Higher on Google (Without Doing SEO) [00:58] Check out Google Rank Brain. [01:10] There are backlinks, etc. but there is an ultimate factor that tells Google a result is relevant. [01:40] When you’re looking at user experience, bounce rate, etc., that is the ultimate signal that the result is relevant. [02:07] User experience is one of the most important aspects of a website. Optimize user experience. [02:20] Try UserTesting or UsabilityHub to examine your site. [02:45] Nothing beats talking to your users and hearing what they like and don’t like. [03:00] Once you have a big enough sample size, you can improve your site and rankings based on the solid amount of feedback. [03:25] If you are also trying to optimize for load times, try using GTMetrix to see how your site fares. [03:40] Eric’s sit

In episode #689, Eric and Neil count out the essentials to building a million dollar business. Tune in to hear what steps you should take to achieve success. TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: [00:27] Today’s Topic: 7 Essentials to Building a Million Dollar Business [00:38] 1: You have to have something that people actually want. [00:54] 2: Go out there and find all the competitors and hit up their customer list; offer the same product to them for less. [01:25] When you’re starting off, you don’t have as many expenses and you can do free or low-cost work. [01:48] 3: Having a great team is the most important facet of any company. [02:00] Read the book Who? to learn how to build a great team. [02:11] 4: Get an office! [02:35] Having a physical location makes communication easy and it is helpful when building a solid team. [03:22] When Singlegrain was starting, they left an office space, but things got much easier once they all moved back into the same office space. [03:40] 5: Become a media company. [04:08

In episode #688, Eric and Neil discuss how you can out-market a multi-billion dollar company. Tune in to hear how you can beat out some of the biggest names in the game. TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: [00:27] Today’s Topic: How to Out-Market a Multi-Billion Dollar Company [00:52] Allbirds shoes have raised over $27 Million in funding. [01:18] Nike and Adidas are shaking in their boots over this company. [01:35] Eric and Neil wouldn’t worry, they would just undercut Allbirds’ pricing. [01:56] The reason Allbirds is succeeding, is because they built up a great fan community. [02:20] Your first 1000 fans are the most important. [02:30] Eric likes Allbirds because they are comfortable, cool, and cheap. He found out about them through word-of-mouth. [02:50] Eric then went on and told about 20 people about Allbirds. He’s so enthusiastic about the brand. [03:50] Allbirds started by running a bunch of Facebook ads. [04:00] Eric would crank away at podcasts, while Neil would target influencers. [04:30] Neil wo

In episode #687, Eric and Neil discuss the best hack for building thousands of backlinks. Tune in to find out the simplest way to get more site traffic. TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: [00:27] Today’s Topic: The Best Hack to Building Thousands of Backlinks Fast [00:45] Go to AHREFS and see which of your competitors is getting the most traffic. [01:15] Take your competitors top blog posts and turn them into infographics. Use 99Designs or Dribble. [01:38] Contact all the people who like the top blog posts and direct them to your infographic. [02:30] There was a HubSpot employee whose data Neil cited and used. When Neil’s infographics based on his work got more traffic, the HubSpot employee was understandably pissed. [02:53] News Jacking covers this topic of poaching/re-imagining others’ work. [03:12] Neil bought out another site that now redirects to NeilPatel.com. [03:55] Look up the skyscraper technique on Backlinko. This will help you re-imagine blog posts. [04:22] That’s all for today! [04:24] Go to

In episode #686, Eric and Neil discuss dealing with haters. Tune in to hear how you can face negativity head-on. TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: [00:27] Today’s Topic: Haters Gonna Hate- How to Deal With Negativity on Social Media [00:45] Eric and Neil have received negative or snarky comments on their YouTube channel. [01:25] The moment you think you are the best at anything, is when someone swoops in and steals your crown. [01:45] It feels like you're making progress when you have haters. [02:02] Neil did the “Who is Neil Patel?” campaign. Some of the paid models were wearing less than enough clothing. [02:30] Men and women came after Neil for his supposedly sexist campaign. [03:10] If you try to please everyone, you end up pleasing no one. [03:22] Ultimately, the campaign was successful. [03:37] If you don’t have haters, you’re doing something wrong. [03:50] Pushing boundaries will always provoke people. [04:30] Neil has released free tools that undercut his competitors, which got the industry talki

In episode #685, Eric and Neil discuss pricing. Tune in to hear how you can figure out the right price for your product or service. TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: [00:27] Today’s Topic: How Much Should Your Charge For Your Product or Service [00:40] How does one settle on pricing for a product? [00:48] Neil completely made it up. There was no logic behind his pricing. [01:35] If the market for your product is saturated, compare yourself to your competitors. [01:55] You can charge the same or more if your product is comparable. [02:20] Make sure you are price-matching or charging just under your competitor’s rates. [03:35] Price Intelligently is a great resource. [04:00] @Patio11 is a pricing nerd, who has written great posts about pricing products. [04:35] As yourself what price is too expensive and what price is so low it would make you question the quality of the product. [05:12] Crazy Egg has a partner that helps you chart out your rates. [05:50] Never take advice blindly, always run A/B tests. [0

In episode #684, Eric and Neil discuss one way you can rank without using SEO or paid ads. Tune in to hear how you can rank without all the work. TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: [00:27] Today’s Topic: How to Rank at the Top of Google Without SEO or Paid Ads [01:05] Neil doesn’t always come up with his own marketing strategies. [01:22] When Eric owned the elder care website, it wasn’t ranking. [01:50] They clicked on the top-ranking site, which was poorly curated. They bought out the site to use it to climb in the rankings. [02:45] Neil used this method to help his sites rank higher. [02:52] It’s a more affordable approach to ranking higher. [03:45] Everyone has a number at which they would agree to sell. [04:30] Buy a site that has diversified traffic, instead of just one stellar keyword ranking. [04:50] Buy a site with a good traffic portfolio. [04:53] That’s all for today! [04:57] Go to Singlegrain.com/Giveway for a special marketing tool giveaway! Leave some feedback: What should we talk about n

In episode #683, Eric and Neil discuss how you can get paid speaking gigs. Tune in to hear how to land these lucrative opportunities. TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: [00:27] Today’s Topic: How to Get Paid $10,000 For an Hour Speech [00:36] If you’ve never done public speaking, you should, because it’s the quickest and easiest way to make money. [01:00] If you don’t get paid, you can get compensated in other ways. [01:25] Figure out what you want and negotiate for that (accomodations, leads, etc.). [01:45] It took Eric 2 years to get a paid speaking gig, but it Neil 4-5. [02:00] Don't expect the get paid from day one. [02:35] Make a speaking engagements page on your website. [02:45] Make sure you get images and footage of you speaking. [03:25] Get comfortable asking about budget and audience demographics. [03:53] Create YouTube videos that show you giving a speech/webinar. It will help you generate public speaking leads. [04:35] Bryan Harris has a helpful tool that helps people find speaking engagements

In episode #682, Eric and Neil discuss GDPR. Tune in to hear how you can become GDPR compliant. TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: [00:27] Today’s Topic: How GDPR Affect Your Marketing Efforts [00:52] This is something the EU came out with two years ago. As of May 25th 2018, this is something that anyone who does business with the EU will have to put into effect. [01:50] You have to be really transparent with your data collection. [02:05] It’s all about transparency. [02:38] You also need a system in place that allows people to wipe their information from your database. [02:50] If you aren’t working with or in the EU, you don’t have to worry about GDPR. [03:33] Neil’s site has an opt-in tick box for anyone in the EU. [03:58] The penalty for violating GDPR is €20 Million or 4% of the year’s revenue. [04:38] You can’t auto-tick boxes anymore. [04:55] Eric found his conversions rates got better, even though he couldn’t auto-opt-in for people. [06:00] Neil tested his conversions and has not seen any changes b

In episode #681, Eric and Neil discuss the best way to survey your audience. Tune in to hear how and why you should survey your customers and why it is so vital to improving your business. TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: [00:27] Today’s Topic: The Best Way to Survey Your Audience [00:35] There are two types of data: quantitative and qualitative. [00:45] Google Analytics tracks quantitative. [00:56] Over 95% of your traffic (and maybe more) don’t convert. Why? [01:10] The Google numbers won’t tell you. You have to talk to your customers through phone, email, and text. [01:20] Surveying is qualitative data. When combined with quantitative, you will be able to greatly improve your business. [01:44] Eric was recently reading the blog “Wild Audience”. The site surveyed him. [02:00] The questions he answered were a way to qualify visitors and segment them into the right campaigns. [02:40] Survey Slam was recommended by “Wild Audience”. It’s a WordPress plugin that costs $97 for the developer license. [03:10]