Marketing School | Digital Marketing | Online Marketing

In Episode #72 Eric and Neil discuss they type of content you should be publishing on LinkedIn. Listen as they tackle post-strategy for target audiences, the benefits of posting directly to LinkedIn, the metrics LinkedIn offers, and why you need a personal blog to supplement whatever you post on LinkedIn. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:29 – Today’s topic: What kind of content should you publish on LinkedIn? 00:45 – LinkedIn built up an organic traffic base 00:50 – Benefits of being able to publish on LinkedIn 01:12 – Posts rank on Google 01:29 – Eric syndicates his posts on LinkedIn 01:44 – The more content Neil posts on LinkedIn, the more contact requests he gets 02:02 – More contact requests results in more business inquiries 02:30 – Posting same content from your blog to LinkedIn doesn’t do as well as unique content 03:12 – Add your sites and projects to your LinkedIn profile 04:00 – Metrics on LinkedIn posts 05:06 – Writing specific, tailored content performs the best 05:57 – Google’s

In Episode #71 Eric and Neil highlight where marketing efforts are wasted. They’ll teach you the tools, techniques, and strategies to avoid that waste and minimize costs. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:28 – Today’s topic: Where are most people’s marketing efforts wasted? 00:41 – You don’t need a big marketing team 01:24 – Look for contractors 01:36 – Hiring too many full-time people can slow down the process 02:14 – Outsourced doesn’t completely mean overseas 02:49 – You have to be strategic in marketing 03:23 – Don’t over extend yourself 04:12 – Design related elements sometimes waste too much money 05:08 – Don’t dedicate everything to a specific marketing process 05:36 – Budget out how much money and time you want to spend 05:48 – Try things but don’t forget to track! 06:27 – Cyfe 06:41 – Google or Youtube: OKR 07:14 – Track your ROI thru Google Analytics 07:54 – Make sure you’re tracking the right stuff 08:46 – That’s it for today’s episode! 3 Key Points: A big marketing team is n

In Episode #70 Eric and Neil highlight how YOU can start your VERY OWN podcast! Listen as they talk about resources you’ll need to acquire before you start, the research you’ll need to conduct, the people you should follow, and the tools you can use to amplify your reach. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:28 – Today’s topic: How to start a podcast 01:05 – Pat Flynn’s guide to start a podcast 01:20 – John Lee Dumas’ posts and podcast series 01:41 – Libsyn 02:19 – People normally link out to iTunes and android 02:43 – Create a website where people can listen online 03:08 – Smart Passive Podcast Player 03:40 – Figure out your own process 04:11 – iTunes will give you an initial bump at first 04:25 – Be consistent! 04:46 – Have the right keywords in your podcast title 05:01 – Make sure your title is attractive 05:18 – In the start, it’s all about listens and reviews 05:40 – Have an intro and outro 06:02 – Do episodes in batches 06:38 – Make it easy 07:21 – Podcast Motor 08:00 – Create an appea

In Episode #69 Eric and Neil talk about churn—what it is and how entrepreneurs can reduce it. Listen as walk through the process of measuring churn, the importance of knowing what your customers love about your product or service, and what tactics you can implement to kill churn in your business. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:28 – Today’s topic: What is churn and how to reduce it? 00:35 – Churn is a metric number 00:42 – Churn = customers you are losing per month divided by all your customers 00:55 – Neil’s experience with churn 01:29 – If it sucks you’ll get high churn; if it’s great you’ll get low churn 02:14 – Churn of 2% or under is acceptable 02:38 – It’s difficult to scale a business with 5% churn 03:10 – Conduct a survey to your audience to know what’s wrong 03:35 – Neil’s tactics to reduce churn 03:50 – Yearly subscriptions 04:41 – Put invoices on the dashboard 05:11 – Find out what people love about your product 06:17 – Figure out what metrics are important to you or to the users 06:

In Episode #68, Neil and Eric talk about the exciting marketing opportunities coming up in 2017! They’ll highlight the opportunities they see, discuss their advantages versus disadvantages, and illustrate how each one of those opportunities can work for your business.  Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:28 – Today’s topic: Exciting Marketing Opportunities for 2017 00:35 – LinkedIn steps up by adding a retargeting pixel and a lot more features 01:13 – Third party authentication 01:42 – Signup is just one click away 01:45 – See your conversion rates go up 20-30% 01:52 – Hire a paid developer in Upwork to do it 02:02 – Gmail Advertising 02:46 – Creating funnels 05:13 – Orabrush’s example 05:59 – Google up marketing funnel 06:10 – Facebook Video 07:21 – Advanced email segmentation 08:32 – Sending the rights emails on the right time 08:48 – YouTube Advertising 09:00 – Add a call to action on the banner 09:39 – That’s it for today’s episode! 3 Key Points: Try new opportunities –they won

In Episode #67, Neil and Eric discuss the importance of making a marketing hire—who it should be and why. Listen as Eric and Neil enumerate the positions you’ll want to fill in first, why getting somebody smarter than you is essential, and how paying a smaller salary with bonuses makes marketers work harder. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:28 – Today’s topic: Who should your first marketing hire be? 00:50 – Hire an executive assistant 01:26 – If you understand marketing within your organization, hire someone who compliments you 02:10 – Don’t hire someone with the same skill sets as you have 02:22 – You want people who are self sufficient 02:34 – Why you should not hire a big person 03:28 – You need a person that can evolve into a growth hacker 04:00 – In interviews, ask what applicants would do differently 04:24 – Hire someone tactical 05::26 – Your job as CEO is to hire people who are smarter than you 06:06 – It’s very hard to find great marketers 06:19 – Put people through a trial period 06:57

In Episode #66, Neil and Eric sit down to discuss the fundamentals of effective keyword research. They’ll talk about what tools you should use, why your focus should be on the quality of your content than the quality of your keywords, and how heavy, thoughtful blogging can seriously amplify your website ranking. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:28 – Today’s topic: How to Do Effective Keyword Research 00:52 – Eric recommends Google Keyword Finder 01:22 – Neil uses Ahrefs 02:01 – Ahrefs shows you keywords your competitor gets traffic for and their rough rankings 03:15 – Create better content using Brian Dean’s Skyscraper Technique 03:32 – Optimize title tags 03:49 – Ahrefs added new features 03:52 – Content gap analysis 04:16 – Two free tools: Ubersuggest and Google Trends 05:15 – Don’t over analyze with keywords 05:29 – Traffic doesn’t come from just one keyword 05:55 – Neil and Eric are heavy on blogging 06:48 – Don’t just think about the keyword, think about the content you should be writ

In Episode #65, Neil and Eric discuss marketing conferences—their importance and where or not you should actually attend them. Listen as they share their experiences and tips when attending these conferences, and why the networking opportunities within the conference are a heck of a lot more important than the conference itself. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:28 – Today’s topic: Should you attend marketing conferences? 00:35 – it depends on what you want to learn 00:43 – Big vs small marketing conferences 01:04 – Neil attends marketing conferences for networking 01:58 – Eric loves conferences for the people he gets to meet 02:06 – Eric’s experience at the Traffic and Conversion Conference 02:58 – Google “How to Throw Mastermind Dinners” 03:54 – Finding the right people to extend long-term friendship to 04:00 – Neil hates conference “sessions” 04:17 – Sessions vs Blog Posts 04:33 – Don’t attend conferences for the sessions 05:30 – “When you’re talking to people, it’s not about what you’re tr

In Episode #64 Eric and Neil talk about marketing tactics for entrepreneurs just getting started. Listen as they highlight free, easy-to-implement tools, the importance of knowing your strengths, and why your initial entrepreneurial marketing efforts need to focus exclusively on one area or offer. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:28 – Today’s Topic: Marketing tactics for entrepreneurs just getting started 00:55 – Start with a blog 01:36 – Look for stuff to give away for FREE 01:40 – Use content and social media 01:49 – Know your strengths 01:58 – Organic vs Paid 02:18 – Pick tactics that will compliment your skills 02:28 – Take the concepts and test them out 03:08 – Airbnb as an example 04:01 – Driving people from Facebook 04:16 – Built relationships with people 05:07 – Focus on one area first 05:38 – Consider your website 06:14 – Make sure to cover the basics 06:18 – Start with Google Analytics 07:15 – Don’t set up yourself to fail 07:32 – Leadpages 08:17 – Look at Google tag mana

Welcome to The Marketing School Podcast—your 10-minute resource to learn, grown, and nurture your passion for online marketing! In Episode #63 Eric and Neil talk about the art of emailing your list. Listen as they talk about the frequency with which you should email your list, how you can better preserve the trust between you and your list, and why email-based sales promotions should be both tactful and scheduled.  Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:28 – Today’s Topic: How often to email your list 00:47 – Make your audience look forward to the next email 00:56 – Put value in your emails 01:11 – Email audience as long as they’re engaged 01:18 – Don’t send emails to people without engagement 02:14 – Send emails based on how often people engage 02:23 – Drip 03:07 – Tell a consistent story 03:27 – Consider what you are emailing 04:13 – Build trust with you audience before sending sales stuff 04:27 – Have a ratio between value content and sales emails 3 Key Points: Each email should make your audience lo

In Episode #62 Eric and Neil discuss their secrets for successfully recording and promoting podcasts. Listen as they share the physical tools they use, they software they rely on to produce The Marketing School, and the key concepts you need to master if you want to successfully promote your show. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:25 – Today’s Topic: The Art of Promoting and Recording Podcasts 00:35 – Microphones and recording multiple times 01:15 – Recording software 01:18 – Quicktime 01:25 – Issues Neil and Eric experienced 01:58 – ECamm 02:25 – Screenflow crashed twice 02:33 – Microphones to use 02:35 – Blue Yeti 02:40 – ATR2100 02:55 – iPhone microphone for backup 03:35 – Neil and Eric save 3 files for every recording 09:50 – Promoting a podcast 03:53 – Email blast 04:20 – Libsyn is not that accurate 04:41 – Product Hunt 05:59 – Email digest 05:29 – Shure MV88 06:30 – The BEST strategy in promoting 07:42 – The Art of Charm Podcast 08:37 – The more you can automate, the

In Episode #61 Neil and Eric talk about the differences between hiring in-house, hiring consultants and hiring agencies. Listen as they highlight the pros and cons, share what works for their own businesses, and the stunning advantages of outsourcing. Time Stamped Show Notes:  00:29 – Today’s Topic: The Pros and Cons of Hiring In-house Versus Agency Versus Consultant 00:42 – Neil never hires agencies—only specific consultants 01:08 – Eric has an agency but would not hire an agency 01:45 – Eric would go to Angel List, Indeed or Forced Hiring 02:08 – How the Forced Hiring tactic works 02:10 – Using LinkedIn 02:52 – The easy way is to just look for an agency 02:58 – Agencies do not fully understand your product 03:18 – Be mindful of relationship dynamics 03:26 – Think about why you want to hire 03:34 – In-house for managing the whole process 03:42 – Freelancer for a specific task 03:48 – Consultant for helping in strategy 04:10 – It depends on the task you want to get done 05:00 – Op

In Episode #60 Neil and Eric discuss the relationship between digital marketing agencies and their customers—specifically how agencies treat their customers, and what agencies are getting wrong. Time Stamped Show Notes:  00:28 – Today’s topic: What Do Most Digital Marketing Agencies Get Wrong? 00:36 – Neil had an agency in the past and Eric has one in the present 00:53 – Oftentimes, big agencies hand your account off to a junior person 01:09 – The results are going to be limited 01:26 – Creating an agency should be about driving results to clients 01:33 – Another mistake is not understanding the client 01:42 – The relationship won’t work out 01:45 – Neil’s experience related to this 02:10 – An understanding between an agency and client is important before running a project 02:37 – Most agencies exclusively focus on building their client rosters 02:48 – Agencies lack client profiling and they shouldn’t 03:14 – Try a foot-in-the-door type of engagement 03:48 – Agencies and clients can

In Episode #59 Neil and Eric discuss the most important things you need to do before publishing a blog post. Listen as they illustrate the seven things you can do to increase your online presence, click-through rate, and drive online traffic to your blog post.  Time Stamped Show Notes:  00:28 – Today’s topic: Seven Things You Should Do Every Time Before You Publish a Blog Post 00:36 – First thing?—A/B test the headline 00:43 – Search for WordPress A/B testing plugin 00:50 – Why this is important 01:14 – Second thing?—have a very engaging image 01:26 – Images affect your click-through rate when running an ad 01:30 – Sites like StockUnlimited gives you unlimited stock photos 01:40 – Subscribe to DesignPickle monthly subscription plan to get unlimited design 01:46 – Single Grain blog 01:56 – Third thing?– email every single website you link out to 02:06 – Sending a cold email 02:20 – An additional note to add in the email 02:27 – Fourth thing? - building a promotional aspect 02:33 – Con

In Episode #58 Neil and Eric highlight how they create a marketing budget. Listen as they illustrate the differences between short-term and long-term budgeting, the value of content for link building, and the one place you should spend at least $10K per month if you can. Time Stamped Show Notes:  00:25 – Today’s topic: How to Create a Marketing Budget 00:34 – Short-term versus long-term budget 00:48 – SEO is a front-loaded cost 01:18 – Takes a long time to get going so you spend a lot early on to get it set up 01:25 -- Social media 01:29 – Ad buys can be done on a monthly basis…it’s ROI driven 01:55 – Fan building, another front loaded cost 02:18 – If you have something that’s working, go all in on it, don’t stop arbitrarily 03:10 – When you’re starting out, you don’t have unlimited budget, so it’s important to invest where returns are greatest 04:30 – Content marketing and link building 04:40 – With CRO you need at least 10K visits per month 04:48 – Content is KEY for link building, an

In Episode #57 Neil and Eric talk brands, specifically, how many you should have if you want to be successful in your efforts. Listen as they explain why brand diversification is not only unnecessary in most cases, but how it can actually damage your business. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:25 – Today’s topic: How to Decide if You Need Separate Brands for Your Business 00:35 – If you’re creating different products and they’re not related at all, obviously you need different brands 00:45 – Having said that, you put SO much into building a site and brand, why not bring everything under one umbrella? 01:28 – Talking about QuickSprout 02:12 – The brand split wasn’t intentional 02:35 – Crazy Egg was such a different concept, it couldn’t merge with QuickSprout 03:10 – Most people create too many businesses 03:39 – Focus on your CORE business until it flat-lines 03:55 – Talking about Growth Everywhere versus Single Grain 05:05 – Just look at all the effort Neil had to put in to build NeilPatel.com 05:

In Episode #56 Neil and Eric highlight how they go about hiring the best freelancers no matter the industry. Listen as they share websites, tools, and creative strategies for finding freelancers that are truly masters of their given craft. Time Stamped Show Notes:  00:25 – Today’s topic: The Best Services for Finding Great Freelancers 00:40 – Talking designers 00:47 – Dribbble for designers 01:18 – 99designs.com a contest driven resource 01:39 – visual.ly – great for infographics 01:53 – upwork.com 02:05 – A lot of the freelancers suck, but a lot of the people offering jobs suck too 02:31 – You need to find people who’ve done EXACTLY what you’ve done 02:40 – Check out freelancer.com as well 02:50 – Toptal.com is great for engineers and developers 03:10 – The Code Pen is where Eric sourced his developer 03:14 – Don’t forget about word of mouth sourcing 04:32 – Consider searching LinkedIn—it’s not as unusual as it sounds 05:05 – angel.co Angel List means you’re plugged-in 05:52 – ProBlogg

In Episode #55 Neil and Eric discuss tried and true strategies for making the most of a website that is no longer in use. Listen as they talk 301 re-directs, domain name investments, scrappy partnerships, and more. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:25 – Today’s topic: What Should You Do with a Website that Is No Longer in Use? 00:35 – Neil usually does a 301 redirect to another digital property, or sells the domain 00:50 – Check out flippa to sell 01:09 – Rent the website as well 01:29 – Empire Flippers and FEinternational.com 01:58 – Eric just acquired another gun blog 02:10 – Used a 301 to drive that blog to his site 02:38 – 301 redirect EACH page and renew the domain for a very long time 03:10 – Redirect no less than the Top 25 pages driving traffic 03:35 – See what competitors are doing to make money 04:00 – If you drive the same amount of traffic, why aren’t you making the same amount of money? 04:20 – Finding website brokers 04:35 – Owning a premium domain name is a GREAT way to make mon

In Episode #54 Neil and Eric share their secrets for measuring the success of SEO changes you make to your website. Listen as they talk Google Search Console versus Google Analytics, and highlight how you should approach each tool. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:25 – Today’s topic: How to Know if Your SEO Changes are ACTUALLY Working? 00:34 – Checkout Google Search Console 00:58 – As long as it says you’re going up—everything is typically all good 01:05 – Look at impressions 01:49 – When you make a technical SEO change, make a note of it and check back in 20 days via Google Search Console 03:23 – One framework to use, Brian Balfour experimentation framework 04:04 – All you need is a spreadsheet 04:14 – Neil lists the columns in his spreadsheet 04:30 – Tracking against 1 EID 05:15 – Set weekly growth meetings to review changes 05:40 – Take screen shots 2 or 3 times a month to track your data, because you will lose your history in Search Console 07:00 – GrowthBot.io can sync with Slack and pre

Welcome to The Marketing School Podcast—your 10-minute resource to learn, grown, and nurture your passion for online marketing! In Episode #53 Eric and Neil discuss their favorite marketing tools that save you time. Enjoy! Time Stamped Show Notes:  00:25 – Today’s topic: Marketing Tools That Will Save You Time 00:34 – Droplr—take screenshots and videos with ease 01:23 – Ahrefs—links to all your competitors 03:14 – Drip—a fresh, effective take on email marketing automation 03:24 – LeadPages—build landing pages with ease 04:49 – HelloBar—collect email address, push out marketing message, etc. with ease 05:15 – Google Tag Manager—Add snippets to whatever pages you want, add pages at-will, etc. 06:29 – Rescue Time—Identify where you’re inefficient 07:06 – Text Expander—Save snippets so you don’t have to re-type paragraphs 08:09 – Gmail Canned Responses—a great time saver for email marketing 09:03 – ScheduleOnce – Just a great time saver in terms of booking people Leave some feedback: What should