When Marketing Can Go Wrong: Taco Bell Adds Quality Meats To Its Creative Roster, How We Are Going To Test Using AI On Our Marketing Qualified Leads

In Episode #220, Eric and Neil discuss where marketing is going in 2017. YouTube videos, personal branding, and building an online community are the popular trends in marketing today. Tune in and get a glimpse of each of these streams and who’s doing it right. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: Where Marketing Is Going in 2017 00:35 – There’s more video content in marketing 00:48 – YouTube just released their live streaming feature for mobile phones 01:00 – Going live on Facebook is also happening 01:24 – Companies aren’t hiring CMOs anymore 01:40 – “Marketing has a new mindset” 01:52 – You can leverage so many assets within a company 02:02 – Dropbox has grown by inviting friends and getting more storage space 02:23 – Online marketing ads are getting saturated and are rising 02:48 – Growth hacking is starting to become mainstream 03:13 – Build a community 03:29 – It is indispensable and takes time 03:45 – Casey Neistat’s company was bought by CNN because of Casey’s following of millions on YouTube 04:10 – Pat Flynn also has a good community around him 04:14 – Marketing automation is becoming prevalent 04:30 – Use tools such as Infusionsoft or Drip 04:45 – Personal branding 04:54 – It is easier and cheaper to acquire companies for a business through personal branding 05:58 – Neil’s goal is to take his personal branding to 3x this year 06:18 – “You really can’t sell a personal brand” 07:12 – A company that relies on personal branding is more difficult to sell 07:50 – Ryan Deiss’ personal brand DigitalMarketer 08:50 – Take a look at what Native Commerce is doing 09:01 – Look at data signs 09:38 – That’s it for today’s episode! 3 Key Points: Video content is dominating the marketing space, in 2017. A community can help your branding stick to people. Personal branding has its pros and cons – be sure to build and use it wisely. 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/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

8 Mars 201713min

In Episode #219, Eric and Neil discuss how much you should spend on marketing when you’re first starting out. Tune in to find out the importance of establishing that budget before you begin and why you need to stick with what works. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: How Much to Spend on Marketing When You’re First Starting 00:54 – Come up with a budget you’re comfortable with when it comes to experimentation 01:20 – “Marketing should be a cash flow positive endeavor” 01:27 – It all comes down to experimentation when you’re starting off 01:59 – Keep doing the experiments until something works and pays off 02:05 – Stop experimenting when you’ve found a channel that’s working 02:17 – Some companies have a 3-year LTV 02:33 – “Experiment until you have a channel that works, then scale up and stop the experimentation once the channel caps” 03:01 – Sean Ellis’ blog post on setting growth experiments 03:09 – Brian Balfour’s blog post 03:22 – Do experiments consistently and track it 03:38 – Set the budget at the beginning 03:52 – You are setting a budget which is a percentage of your growth—you can scale it over time 04:34 – Look at your experiment and company as a whole; what is going to benefit in the long run? 05:05 – That’s it for today’s episode! 3 Key Points: Create a budget, at the start, that you’re comfortable spending on experimentation. Marketing should be a cash flow positive endeavor. Do experiments consistently and be sure to track it. 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/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

7 Mars 20178min

In Episode #218, Eric and Neil discuss how to run weekly growth meetings. Weekly growth meetings can drive results for your business and how to do it effectively. Tune in to find out key strategies that can help guide your meeting and direct you to the best ideas as well as the importance of finding mentors to provide that outside perspective.  Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: How to Run Weekly Growth Meetings 00:41 – Weekly growth meetings drive results for your business 00:48 – Eric is running 2-3 tests weekly and have people who will be responsible for each test 00:55 – Use Google spreadsheet or Trello to track your progress 01:06 – Use Growth Hacker’s experiment tool that has a leaderboard 01:19 – Incentivize people to come up with great ideas 01:50 – Each idea is ranked on a scale of 1-10 02:08 – Have a hypothesis and make people constantly think about things 02:49 – Neil setups teams with different people 02:58 – “Every person in an organization has an idea and experienced in different communication channels” 03:22 – Each will put their ideas in a basket and the best ones will be picked 03:49 – The key to growth meetings is weekly reiteration 04:00 – Weekly growth meeting is still possible with a one-man team 04:19 – Do A/B test or outbound campaigns 04:40 – Neil discusses marketing strategies with his friend, Michael Howard 05:52 – Read up from other entrepreneurs and get someone as a mentor 05:44 – Join a group 05:54 – Eric has a monthly meetup in Los Angeles 06:01 – The questions that you should be asking yourself when you are running a test 06:50 – Do it as a routine 06:59 – Always check in with those who are uncooperative and are not participating 07:13 – It’s about efficiency in meetings 07:24 – Celebrate your big wins 07:46 – Read up Brian Balfour’s essay on running growth meetings and Growth Hacker’s growth study on how to run High Temporal Testing 08:01 – That’s it for today’s episode! 3 Key Points: Weekly growth meetings, when run right, are where you can get your best growth ideas. Do a test as a part of your routine and address the questions that you have prior to starting that test. Efficiency is the key to every meeting; make sure to address those who aren’t necessarily cooperating. 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/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

6 Mars 201711min

In Episode #217, Eric and Neil discuss how to measure your branding efforts. Tune in to find out the importance of assessing your branding efforts, how to adjust to increase that engagement, and just how much effort and time it takes to make your brand stick to the people. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: How to Measure Your Branding Efforts 00:40 – First, look at your reach and how far your content is going 01:08 – Eric shares how they were able to increase their reach in a post 01:30 – Google now lets you look at the region to check how you are doing in that specific region 02:17 – Check your engagement rate 02:20 – Are your efforts resonating with people? 02:43 – Avanash Kaushik’s Applause Rate Blog Post 03:05 – Branding is about long-term and longevity 03:15 – “Keep pushing hard” 03:30 – Engage on a daily basis 03:48 – Respond as soon as you can 03:58 – Look at your likes, shares and comments 04:52 – Branding is when people keep talking about you 05:00 – Neil shares about someone who is doing a branding campaign through remarketing 05:15 – Marketing’s rule of 7 05:30 – When people keep on seeing the same post over and over again, they are more likely to convert 05:56 – Nike and McDonalds have been using the same type of message for years 06:49 – Look at your unsolicited response rate 07:05 – “Keep adding value to people and it will come back to you over time” 07:16 – That’s it for today’s episode! 3 Key Points: Checking your reach can help you improve and adjust your marketing efforts. Branding is about long-term and longevity – keep your engagement active and make your product and message resonate with people. Keep adding value to people and it will come back to you over time. 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/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

5 Mars 201710min

In Episode #216, Eric and Neil discuss the 7-point SEO checklist. Add these pointers to your checklist of things to look for in order to amplify your website’s SEO and boost your Google ranking. Find out the importance of mobile usability as well as page load speed to optimize your user experience. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: 7-Point SEO Checklist 00:43 – First is to use Screaming Frog Spider and OnPage to crawl your site 01:11 – Go through your pages in your sites and find duplicates 01:20 – Pages with the same topics should be combined 01:52 – You’re sending Google conflicting data 02:02 – Make sure to implement accelerated mobile pages 02:13 – It is a better experience for users 02:22 – Fourth, update your most popular content 02:45 – Fifth is mobile usability 02:49 – Run Google, mobile-friendly tests on your site to make sure your site is running well 03:04 – Sixth, check your bounce rate 03:15 – Make sure that it is decreasing 03:24 – As it decreases, your mobile ranking will climb 03:30 – Seventh is page load speed 03:33 – GTmetrix can analyze your speed performance 03:53 – That’s it for today’s episode! 3 Key Points: Merge pages with the same topics; then, you won’t be sending Google conflicting data. Make sure your website is optimized for mobile – more people are using smartphones than computers on a daily basis. Redirect traffic from the pages with lesser views to the more popular pages. 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/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

4 Mars 20177min

In Episode #215, Eric and Neil discuss their favorite marketing books. They give you a quick synopsis of the value offered by each book and how these principles can help your marketing strategy. Whether you’re starting out or are an experienced marketer, there’s always more you can learn to up your marketing game. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: Our Favorite Marketing Books 00:35 – Breakthrough Advertising 00:45 – Talks about people’s desires 01:09 – Explains the concepts of good copywriting 01:25 – Don’t Make Me Think 01:28 – This book includes design concepts 01:44 – Most marketers think having a good design equates to greater conversion rates 01:57 – Influence 02:01 – Discusses how you influence people to do something, like buying a product 02:07 – Concept of price anchoring: anchoring a price so high that when a customer comes in, you drop the price for them significantly that they can’t walk away from the purchase 03:06 – The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing 03:12 – It has the 22 rules that you should always follow in regards to marketing 03:31 – DotCom Secrets 03:36 – Talks about the concept of funnels 03:46 – The funnels are the future 04:01 – The Copywriter’s Handbook 04:03 – A step-by-step guide of writing copy that sells 04:17 – It has the principles of copywriting outlined clearly 04:21 – Check David Ogilvy, the “father of advertising” 04:31 – He has shared his experiences through his books 04:47 – The Boron Letters 04:52 – Gary Halbert is one of the best copywriters 04:56 – The book is written for his son 05:19 – Seth Godin, the master marketer 05:21 – Check his blog 05:30 – Some of his books are Purple Cow and Linchpin 05:40 – That’s it for today’s episode! 3 Key Points: Regardless of your experience, there is still much to learn regarding marketing. Conversion matters—both design and content are factors that affect your conversion. Learn from the best in the field and what they’ve written to get that leg up. 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/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

3 Mars 20179min

In Episode #214, Eric and Neil discuss how you can efficiently manage your marketing projects. Tune in to learn a few project management tools that you can use today. Find out also how marketing experiments and campaigns are worth the effort and the importance of having the whole team on board. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: How to Efficiently Manage Your Marketing Projects 00:35 – Eric uses growth hacker experiments and combines them with Google sheets 00:50 – Run 3 experiments in a week and have 2 new ideas added into the Growth Hackers Project weekly 01:01 – Growth Hackers Project is a tool for running projects 01:09 – Someone should assess how the company is doing using these experiments 01:34 – Just continue experimenting over time 01:45 – Managing your marketing is more about cutting back what you’re doing 02:04 – Neil doesn’t do a lot of marketing 02:11 – Do one or two things at a time, once you get it right, add more 02:17 – Don’t keep adding more to your plate just because 02:33 – The key to managing your marketing is do less, but do it well 02:45 – Two people worth mentioning that are doing these experiments well: Brian Balfour of HubSpot and CoElevate 03:02 – Sean Ellis, the founder of GrowthHackers 03:20 – If you don’t have a process to follow, everything will fall apart easily 03:29 – Move and respond quickly 03:45 – Experimenting is a team effort and requires team work 03:54 – Make sure you’re annotating on your Google analytics when you are running the projects 04:15 – When you’re running a campaign or project, create a list 04:41 – Go after the things that are more difficult to achieve, then move to the easiest 04:49 – Prioritize those in your list with the highest potential of return 05:02 – That’s it for today’s episode! 3 Key Points: Continually brainstorm ideas to better your experiments—vote on the best idea that can significantly impact the success of your growth experiment. The key to management is not doing everything at once, but doing a few things and doing them well. Experiments and projects are a team effort; make sure everyone knows their role and is on track. 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/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

2 Mars 20178min

In Episode #213, Eric and Neil discuss whether or not black hat SEO still works. Black hat SEO refers to any practice that you use to boost your website’s ranking in a way that violates the search engine’s terms of service. Tune in to find out if black hat SEO still works and the advantages and disadvantages of using this practice. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: Does Black Hat SEO Still Work? 00:35 – PBN is also considered black hat SEO 00:41 – Black hat SEO still works 00:45 – Black hat SEO isn’t really for business or marketing 01:07 – Neil used to do black hat SEO 01:27 – “It never did last” 01:37 – Black hat SEO can give you short term income, but not recommended for a client’s website 01:55 – The only good thing about black hat SEO is that it can help you be more creative and adapt its concept to white hat SEO 02:13 – It is not worth the time and energy 02:41 – The link wheel tactic of black hat SEO described 03:26 – Build your own blog network the legitimate way 03:47 – If you’re just starting, you can try black hat SEO with your own website 03:55 – Eric did it before for a game review website 04:20 – The website was earning for some time, but then it got flagged and Eric lost his money 04:36 – Watch out for your website when you’re about to get filtered by Google 05:07 – Do not use black hat SEO if you want to play the good game 05:15 – That’s it for today’s episode! 3 Key Points: Black hat SEO still works, but it is definitely not for business or marketing. Black hat SEO is only good for a short period of time. Do not use black hat SEO if you want to play the good game. 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/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

1 Mars 20178min