Marketing School | Digital Marketing | Online Marketing

In Episode #388, Eric and Neil discuss whether you should invest your time in Snapchat or in Instagram stories. Tune in to learn which social media site should take more of your time, energy and focus. Also, learn from the best as Eric and Neil explain just why Gary Vaynerchuk is winning the social media game. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: Should You Invest Your Time in Snapchat Or Instagram Stories? 00:35 – For Eric, you should invest more in Instagram stories than in Snapchat 00:44 – Less and less stories are popping out on Snapchat while Instagram is consistently growing 01:22 – Neil agrees with Eric that you’re wasting time and energy on Snapchat, because it is dying 01:36 – Instagram is a great place to engage with your audience and get more sales 01:38 – VaynerMedia by Gary Vaynerchuk is doing well on social media 01:50 – VaynerMedia has over $100M in annual revenue 02:00 – Gary is into pushing businesses to using social media 02:18 – Gary V’s Instagram stories are funny

In Episode #387, Eric and Neil discuss marketing lessons you can gain from watching classic infomercials. Tune in to discover the similarities between infomercials and regular marketing tactics. You’ll also find out how infomercials have become so effective in their niche.  Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: Marketing Lessons from Classic Infomercials 00:35 – Neil remembers an infomercial he watched from OxiClean 00:50 – Neil learns about infomercials from his friend Ryan Deiss, who is a copywriter 01:04 – Ryan learned how to write copy from his childhood experiences 01:23 – Infomercial is about timing 01:30 – Most are run at night and target females 01:44 – “If you want to do any type of marketing, you have to target the right type of people” 02:10 – Eric remembers the P90X infomercial which encourages you to work towards a great body 02:36 – Being direct and to the point is what Eric has learned from infomercials 02:48 – Eric also remembers the Shake Weight infomercial which

In Episode #386, Eric and Neil discuss how to manage your first marketing hire if you’re not a marketer yourself. Tune in to learn the right questions you need to ask a potential marketing hire and the importance of a marketer being able to plan and hit expected, weekly goals. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: How To Manage Your First Marketing Hire if You're Not a Marketer Yourself 00:44 – Neil wants to find out how a marketer plans their week—it should be planned in a way that improves the business 01:09 – Neil shares a sample plan a marketer might use 01:33 – There should be expected results and goals 01:50 – From Eric’s perspective, there’s a deadline they should hit and they should do what they set out to do 02:28 – Eric asks the questions he asks to see if you can be the best fit for his team 03:00 – Eric has a one-on-one with his developers and marketers to know if they’re hitting their goals 03:36 – Marketing School is giving away a free 1 year subscription to Crazy Egg whic

In Episode #385, Eric and Neil discuss how to monitor your backlinks in 15 minutes or less per week. Tune in to learn the advantages of checking your backlinks—such as building your network and watching for those who can negatively affect your Google search ranking. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: How to Monitor Your Backlink Profile in 15 Minutes or Less in a Week 00:34 – Neil uses Ahrefs to continuously see which sites link to him 00:43 – It’s not time intensive and he checks three to four times a week 01:18 – You monitor your backlinks because a site that consistently links to you can penalize you and screw up your search ranking 01:30 – Eric checks his backlinks to build relationships 02:03 – Eric uses Ahrefs as well and sets alerts weekly 02:35 – There are other links that can be missing that you need to watch for 02:40 – Marketing School is giving away a free 1 year subscription to Crazy Egg which is a visual analytics tool 03:28 – Go to SingleGrain.com/giveaway for multipl

In Episode #384, Eric and Neil discuss why it’s important to diversify your traffic sources. Tune in to know the key traffic sources you should be leveraging and why you shouldn’t focus on just one traffic source. You’ll also discover the top, highest ROI marketing strategy to date. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: Why It's Important To Diversify Your Traffic Sources 00:40 – Even if Neil is getting traffic from content marketing, if Google decides to ban him, it’s gone forever 00:57 – Therefore, you need to diversify your traffic sources 01:07 – There are a lot of people who have invested everything on SEO; they were clueless about what to do after an update 01:26 – You should have a good mixture of everything, like Google News traffic 01:35 – Social media channels are the best sources of traffic, not just Facebook 01:40 – Your choices are Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest and Quora 01:52 – Paid advertising drives traffic 02:03 – Create videos or audio files to get into o

In Episode #383, Eric and Neil discuss how to make users watch your full video. Tune in to learn what strategies you can employ to keep your audience engaged. You’ll find the value of a good hook and the importance of producing high quality videos—all tactics that Neil has used to ensure people stick around to the end of your video. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: How to Make Users Watch Your Full Video 00:40 – To make users stay, mention at the start of the video that you have something for them at the end of the video 00:46 – It entices people and it’s a strategy that works well 01:01 – “Have a really good hook in the intro” 01:18 – When Neil creates a video with a number of tactics, he will say that ONE of them will help the viewers immensely, so they should stick around and watch the whole video 02:05 – Eric tends to watch videos that are 5-10 minutes long 02:19 – Keep your video in high quality and make sure it’s well produced, even if it’s short 02:44 – Add some animation to

In Episode #382, Eric and Neil discuss how to determine customer lifetime value. Tune in to learn the simplest formula you can use to calculate your customer lifetime value. Eric and Neil also drop several online tools that simplify the process and will do the math for you. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: How to Determine Customer Lifetime Value 00:38 – There are multiple ways to determine customer lifetime value 00:52 – Eric shares an example of a SaaS company’s customer lifetime value 00:55 – Neil’s Crazy Egg has a churn of 10%, which is the number of customers who stopped using the product 01:08 – Average price per user ID is $30, so you divide $30 by the churn to get the lifetime value 01:40 – Technically you take the average pay per month 02:00 – Mixpanel can calculate your customer lifetime value 02:10 – RJMetrics can do it for you, too 02:21 – There’s a formula on Kissmetrics that you can copy to calculate the customer lifetime value 02:31 – Eric has tried different formu

In Episode #381, Eric and Neil discuss the difference between macro and micro-conversions. Tune in as Eric and Neil define what these conversions are and which ones deserve more of your attention and focus, what you need to track and how often, and which conversions (micro or macro) deserve an A/B test. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: The Difference Between Macro and Micro-Conversions 01:09 – Your funnel has a lot of small steps which are considered “micro” and the large step is the actual act of purchasing 01:24 – How many micro-conversions should you be tracking? 01:51 – When Neil does A/B test, he only looks at macro conversions 02:00 – “I really do focus on the bottom line which is sales and revenue” 02:19 – You want people to convert to buy, so that’s what you should be optimizing in an A/B test 02:28 – When Eric started, he used to track micro-conversions, like click through rates for example, which led to him losing his focus 02:50 – Make sure you focus on the RIGHT things

In Episode #380, Eric and Neil discuss how to ramp up content production. Tune in to learn how to maintain structure, quality and form when it comes to rapid content production. You’ll also learn how known influencers, such as Chalene Johnson and Gary Vaynerchuk, successfully repurpose their content across several media channels. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: How to Ramp Up Content Production 00:54 – Eric grows his business by creating content and building relationships 01:15 – In rapid content production, he creates batches of content 01:45 – Hiring several content writers can help you ramp up your content production, you can find writers at ProBlogger 01:55 – The key in increasing content production is setting up a guideline or rubric that outline your writing format and expectations 02:10 – Neil’s structure includes an introduction, conclusion, body in the middle broken down into subheadings with targeted keywords 02:21 – Neil gets topics from BuzzSumo 02:28 – Neil goes to A

In Episode #379, Eric and Neil discuss what link blending is and how to do it fast. Tune in to learn how to execute link blending as a part of your process for boosting your rank. You’ll learn just what it takes to be in a “good neighborhood” with others who have similar content and keywords as you. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: What Is Link Blending (and How To Do It Fast) 00:39 – Eric shares how his friendship with Neil started 00:41 – Eric was just starting when Neil wrote a post about link blending 00:45 – Since Eric didn’t understand what Neil’s post was about, Eric reached out to Neil to ask more questions about link blending 01:01 – Link blending is when someone links out to you, like a Wikipedia article for example, and ranks for the keyword you want to rank for 01:12 – Then, they will link to someone who is in the top 20 for the keyword that you want to rank for without using an anchor text for other links—Google will read that you’re in a good neighborhood 01:33 – It

In Episode #378, Eric and Neil discuss the marketing benefits of Google Tag Manager. Tune in to learn why marketers need to be using Google Tag Manager today and why you will no longer be needing to depend on your developer to get certain tasks done. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: The Marketing Benefits of Google Tag Manager 00:35 – Google Tag Manager manages your pixels, is free to use and makes your life easier 00:49 – When Eric was just starting, he had to beg developers to get something done 01:08 – With different tools nowadays like Crazy Egg and Optimizely, the marketers are now able to control the pixels without going to the developer 01:20 – With Google Tag Manager, you can easily add tags to relevant pages without being a coder 01:30 – You won’t be needing your developers to add the code when you’re using Google Tag Manager 01:50 – Most websites should be using Google Tag Manager 01:56 – Measure School focuses on Google Tag Manager and offers some tips and tricks for it

In Episode #377, Eric and Neil discuss the tried and tested methods for building local links. Tune in to learn the simple steps that will help you increase your rank on a local scale. You’ll also find out who you need to be reaching out to when it comes to asking for those links. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: Tried and Tested Ways of Building Local Links 00:41 – When it comes to local SEOs, citations are important 00:45 – A citation can be counted as a link 00:56 – You can get multiple citations from Whitespark and Moz Local 01:05 – Another way to get a citation is to reach out to the local chamber of commerce 01:13 – They also have events where you can network with people 01:41 – Reach out to people and try to add value 01:46 – Local stores take anything that can help their business 02:00 – It’s a lot easier to rank for local keywords 02:14 – Go to Ahrefs and put in your competing URLs within your region 02:26 – Reach out to those linking to them and ask for links 02

In Episode #376, Eric and Neil discuss whether it is better to create a mobile website or a mobile app. Tune in to decide whether it’s worth your time to create an app or just focus on your website being optimized for mobile. Eric and Neil discuss what they prefer and why it depends on your niche. They also emphasize that whatever route you take—mobile app or website—make sure you focus on making the BEST user experience possible. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: Is It Better to Create a Mobile Website or a Mobile App? 00:40 – Eric personally prefers creating a mobile website that is a responsive website 00:58 – Eric also has a mobile app that they built with BuildFire 01:03 – It includes their podcast 01:16 – Unless you’re providing a unique function that requires an app, having a website is just fine 01:40 – Prioritize making the best user experience when it comes to your product 01:52 – Neil created an app before but the usage isn’t very high 02:00 – Mobile optimized websites

In Episode #375, Eric and Neil discuss how to distribute your podcast. Not everyone is on YouTube or iTunes. With all the platforms that are out there for broadcasting podcasts, it’s your responsibility as a podcaster to get your content to the people. Tune in to learn where you can go to broadcast your work, the many different ways to expand your reach, and the importance of asking other bloggers, listeners, and websites that you link to share your podcast! Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: How to Distribute Your Podcast 00:34 – “A podcast is all about getting reach at the end of the day” 00:39 – Eric hosts their podcast on Libsyn 00:59 – With Libsyn, it will publish automatically on YouTube and on Soundcloud 01:15 – Not all people are on iTunes, so spread your podcast anywhere you can 01:17 – Tweet out your podcast and share it on Facebook 01:45 – Neil used to use Product Hunt’s podcasting section, but it’s been deleted 02:00 – Neil was driving thousands of views a day 02:

In Episode #374, Eric and Neil discuss whether you should be using manual bidding for your Facebook ads. People have been running ads on Facebook for years now and still rely on the automatic bidding and optimization features for their ads. Tune in to learn what Eric and Neil prefer between the two and how you can know what option is best for you. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: Should You Use Manual Bidding on Facebook Ads? 00:35 – People have been running ads on Facebook for a couple of years now 00:42 – People just rely on Facebook’s automatic bidding and automatic optimization 00:50 – As per any kind of marketing, you want to be testing all the time 00:53 – Eric has seen marketers who have switched to manual bidding 01:11 – You can set the manual bid on how much you’re willing to pay 01:36 – Every time Neil uses automatic bidding on Facebook, it is way higher than manual bidding 01:49 – Neil thinks manual bidding works better 02:00 – Neil saw a 20% increase on his automati

In Episode #373, Eric and Neil discuss how many links you really need to rank well. Tune in as Eric and Neil remind us of the TWO most important factors for SEO. They’ll also explain why The Penny Hoarder gets more traffic than Neil does and why Eric builds links for a post that is already driving traffic. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: How Many Links Do You Really Need to Rank Well? 00:39 – Two main factors in SEO are content and links 00:57 – Eric and Neil uses Ahrefs 01:01 – Ahrefs has a keyword explorer tool that will show you the difficulty and guidelines for using a certain keyword 01:23 – The Penny Hoarder is a popular blog which was in Inc 500 list 01:32 – They make 8-figures/year in revenue 01:35 – The blog has more traffic than Neil’s blog 01:40 – They get more traffic because of their content 01:43 – Neil has more backlinks and domain authority than TPH 01:52 – “It just comes down to content” 01:58 – You don’t need too many backlinks 02:02 – You need MORE conten

In Episode #372, Eric and Neil discuss whether social sharing buttons still work. Tune-in to learn whether social sharing buttons are effective in driving traffic to your site, how to use them properly if you still wish to use them, and an alternative to the buttons that is proven to work. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: Do Social Sharing Buttons Still Work? 00:39 – Sumo is a plugin for social share buttons 00:47 – Eric personally uses Buffer to share 00:58 – Neil tracked the social share button clicks 01:03 – It drives traffic once in awhile 01:22 – The only way to get traffic from social share buttons are to integrate them within the post 01:30 – Click to tweet 01:34 – Having quotes or snippets within your blog post that is easy to share drives more traffic 01:45 – Integrating the buttons within the blog post is more effective than scrolling social buttons within the blog 02:05 – The percentage of clicks is NOT high 02:25 – For Eric, social sharing buttons don’t work 02:3

In Episode #371, Eric and Neil discuss how to get started with podcast advertising. Podcast advertising is becoming more and more lucrative—especially for leading podcasters such as John Lee Dumas and Tim Ferriss. Tune in to learn how much you can earn in podcast advertising and how the process works. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: How to Get Started With Podcast Advertising 00:36 – Podcast advertising can be lucrative 01:04 – You’re looking at cost per thousand impressions for what you can make in podcast advertising 01:14 – Range is anywhere from $15 to $40 01:34 – For more hands-off solutions, you can use Midroll’s service 02:25 – The earnings are per ad placement 02:36 – John Lee Dumas does a pre-roll then a post-roll 02:42 – Pre-roll is before the podcast starts and post-roll is after the podcast 02:49 – Tim Ferriss has 2 pre-roll ads and 2 post-roll ads 02:53 – John Lee Dumas has 2-3 ads per episode 03:09 – For a thousand listeners, you can get around $50 to $100 depe

In Episode #370, Eric and Neil discuss how to determine your one key metric. When you establish a set goal or priority, then all your tasks will follow suit to achieve that goal. But what IS that one measure that you look to as a company? Tune in to know what your one key metric is and why knowing what you’re after will set you up for success. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: How to Determine Your One Key Metric 00:36 – Josh Elman coined the term "one key metric" 00:40 – When starting a business and using Twitter, your one key metric will be the number of tweets you want to hit 01:09 – First, determine how people are using your product—the core functionality of your product 01:20 – Then figure out if that one key metric is the one to go after, then work from there 01:35 – “Figure out what you’re really after and what’s going to impact that” 01:40 – If you want to increase your revenue, figure out the different sources of revenue 02:09 – Then you can have control and manage that o

In Episode #369, Eric and Neil discuss what drives more traffic, quality content or quantity content. This is an age-old debate and the answer depends on pretty obvious factors such as the size of your team and budget. Tune in to hear the route Eric and Neil chose, why they chose it, and how YOU should make the decision between quality and quantity.  Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: What Drives More Traffic: Quality Content VS Quantity 00:39 – Neil took the quality route 00:43 – Neil only publishes high quality content, but he doesn’t have a lot of it 00:59 – HubSpot’s is quite popular because they produce a LOT of content 01:28 – Eric talked to the managing editor of a website that gets 8M visits a month 01:35 – They hire bigger teams to produce larger quantities of content 01:41 – They often open on guest posts too 02:06 – From Eric’s data, it’s “more publishing, more quantity” 02:10 – Creating content around the news works very well 02:30 – Neil recommends starting out with