Miles High Productions

I created an ultimate guide a few years ago that received over 400,000 visits.

The original idea wasn’t mine.

But I quickly made it popular by publishing a stream of guides that all received over 361,494 visitors each.

Getting a ton of new visitors is only the first goal, though.

These guides also rack up tons of social shares.

My Definitive Guide to Growth Hacking has been shared over 3,600 times across different networks according to Buzzsumo.

And they get a bunch of high-quality backlinks, too. Forbes and Fortune were just two of the places that link to it.

All of this leads to a ton of new visitors discovering my content for the first time.

And then a good percentage of those becoming new leads and customers.

Not bad for a single piece of content, right?

The best news of all is that anyone can create them.

They take a lot of work, time, and effort.

But otherwise, you can create one right now in almost any industry imaginable.

Here’s an ultimate guide to creating ultimate guides that will skyrocket traffic, shares, leads, and customers.

Start by finding topics that are already trending

My original “Guide to Online Marketing for Beginners” only received 68,319 visitors.

That’s less than 25% of the views my “Guide to Growth Hacking” received over 414,209 visitors.

What happened?

Why did one get so much attention, while the other received barely any?

There are a few reasons that I’ll share in this article.

However, one of the biggest problems was that “online marketing” has already been beaten to death.

Think about it.

You can’t go anywhere online without reading a “guide to online marketing.”

The topic has been around ages. It’s nothing new.

So trying to add something new is hard.

And getting people excited to share, write about, or promote it is equally challenging.

They’ve already seen almost everything there is about that topic.

“Growth hacking” has become a hot topic in recent years by comparison.

The concept and term didn’t even exist until recently.

That hints at the first tip.

There’s not a whole lot anyone can do if the public doesn’t care about your topic.

There has to be external demand for what you’re talking about.

So you have to find topics that are already trending.

Check out the Google Trends graph that led me to write a guide about growth hacking:

It’s blowing up!

Now compare that to “online marketing.” It’s a completely saturated topic.

Attention spiked a few years ago and has only dropped off since then.

Here’s another perfect example.

Check out the interest in  “influencer marketing” over the past two years.

That’s no coincidence!

Social sites like Instagram have skyrocketed over the past few years, too.

All kinds of new niches opened up for regular people to reach celebrity status.

Creating partnerships with celebrities used to only be possible for giant brands with plenty of dough.

But now every single company, big or small, has the power to work with influencers.

Topics don’t just trend randomly.

New technology comes out, and things evolve.

Gaps open up in the marketplace.

It’s kind of like poker.

You need to look for those time-sensitive opportunities.

When a strong hand comes along, and you get a few people biting, you need to raise the stakes and go all-in.

Capitalizing on trending topics doesn’t just get you more readers.

It will also help you land high-quality backlinks without link building.

People are much more likely to write new stories and share amazing content on a trending topic over others that have already been beaten to death.

Why you should prioritize quality over quantity

I’ve created blog posts from 3,000 words on up to over 10,000 words.

I’ve created guides that range from 20,000 to ones that rival book length at 50,000.

What’s the ideal length?

What length resulted in the best results?

Length actually had no bearing on results.

Each of these resources needs to be long enough. You need to go over at least 3,000 words for a blog post to see the best bang for your buck.

But then you hit a point of diminishing returns.

5,000 words might not be better than 3,000 words when you’re just comparing word count alone.

Similarly, a giant 45,000-word guide might not outperform a 20,000 word one at the end of the day.

Instead, the priority should be on quality at that point.

There’s another hidden benefit to cutting it short.

First, you can get it done faster.

Think about the time it takes to create something that’s 45,000 words vs. 20,000.

Not only is it more work for a writer, but the designer also has twice the work now.

Second, it will cost less.

Writers and designers charge by the time it takes for them to create something. Twice the work translates into twice the cost!

Here’s why the cost you pay ends up being so important.

Design can make or break your success.

Visually stunning content will always outperform dreadful design in my experience.

The content that gets extra design attention always gets the most social shares.

But that means you’re going to be forking over thousands of dollars for each of these in-depth guides.

That’s why you should focus on quality, not just quantity.

You need to have the budget to put behind this massive campaign. Otherwise, you risk having it fall flat.

Dribbble is one of my favorite sites to find awesome designers. You can go on and view their past work before ever asking for a quote.

That way you can check out their style before committing to anything.

Keep in mind that Dribbble designers tend to be among the best. So they won’t be cheap.

I’ve spent up to $20k on just a single design, for example.

If you need a more budget-friendly option, sites like Fiverr and Upwork will each have a ton of options.

Just be careful. The quality of designers on these sites can vary wildly.

Here’s a trick I’d recommend before plunging into a massive project with one.

Hire a few designers for a small project. Use the same exact project, too.

That way you can see real samples from each one and compare them against each other.

Starting with a small project, like even a single page, keeps the initial cost low.

You can repeat this process over and over until you find the one who can handle your bigger vision.

The design isn’t the only expense you’re going to incur, though.

Throwing up a massive image file on a page won’t land you new search traffic.

Think about it like this.

You’ve done all the extra work to find awesome long-tail keywords that will bring in the perfect visitors.

You’ve optimized the basic meta tags on the page before pushing it live.

However, there’s one thing you forget about.

Google can’t read image files!

So you can’t just drop a giant JPG file onto your site.

You’re going to have to also work together with a developer now to build out the page into interactive content.

There will need to be HTML so that search engines can index the entire guide you’re creating.

See how this escalates?

You’re going to have to pay an awesome designer. You’re going to have to pay an awesome developer.

And we haven’t even touched on the most important piece yet.

You still need someone to write the entire thing, first!

How to find good writers that won’t break the bank

ClearVoice recently ran a study.

They wanted to see how good, good writers really are.

Here’s what I mean.

Writing can be subjective.

There are a few basic principles to gauge quality. But otherwise, the style can vary tremendously.

Not to mention, someone might be a “good writer” on one topic or style and completely bomb on another.

What you pay these writers can also be all over the map.

The difference between one writer and another could mean twice the price for your new ultimate guide.

That’s where ClearVoice’s study comes into play.

They went out and hired a few different freelance writers.

These ranged from Beginner to Pro, and even Expert status.

ClearVoice then hired professional editors to ‘score’ the quality of their work. They looked at a number of criteria, including grammar, readability, story structure, and ability to follow direction.

What was the result?

Our findings confirm that freelance travel writers who claim to be experts – with a rate of $1.00 per word – showed significantly higher quality.

They even released an excellent infographic that summarizes their findings. For example, the lower quality writers had significantly more errors than the better ones.

In other words, paying more gets you better writers.

That shouldn’t be very surprising by now, should it?

Job boards are among the first place to start looking for quality writers.

Placing an ad on the Problogger job board should bring in hundreds of applicants within a few days.

The results you’ll find here tend to write on several different industries.

Otherwise, each industry will have their own specific job boards, too.

For example, the Inbound.org job board can help you find people with a deeper marketing background.

Placing an ad on both of these people will create a flood of new people.

How are you possibly going to sort through them all?

Being able to write an awesome Ultimate Guide requires two things.

First, they need to understand your subject or topic.

Start by looking for samples that show they already understand your industry’s terminology.

Second, they need to be able to write conversationally.

Here’s what I mean.

These posts are going to be long. You need to keep a reader’s attention to finish it.

Look for writers that already understand how to write for the web.

That means their sentences should be short. The tone should be simple, too.

It should sound like you’re talking about something with a friend.

Another tactic to find better writers is to go read the top media properties in your space.

Look around at the bylines and see who’s writing you already admire.

You can even take a glance at their social signals and reading stats to see if other people like them as much as much as you do.

However, don’t just rush straight into a new big project.

It’s common to work with new writers on a single test project. That way you can see if they’re going to be a good fit or not.

Start by scaling the project back to a single page. Have them prepare an outline first, to see if they’re on the right track before plowing forward.

The key is to see if they can meet your criteria and deliver on a deadline.

Otherwise, a massive project like an ultimate guide will completely overwhelm them.

Loop in your industry contacts and influencers

Writing everything from scratch is both time-consuming and expensive.

Bringing in your industry contacts or even other influencers can help solve both of those challenges.

For example, you can send a few simple emails out to round up quotes from other experts.

If you’re reaching out to a big list, put together your questions in a Google Form and send out the link.

Why work hard when you can work smart? 😉

Working with expert influencers like this can provide a number of benefits.

You get to cut down on the original content creation you’re responsible for. They’ll be able to supply words for you.

Expert quotes will then also add credibility to your content.

It will back up the points you’re trying to make. And you can ‘piggyback’ off of their brand name.

That’s not even the best part, though.

These influencers should already have their own built in audiences. They’re ‘brand names’ in your industry for a reason.

Including them from the very beginning gives you a built-in promotion strategy.

Now you won’t have to guess or cross your fingers when you hit the “Publish” button.

All you have to do is reach out to those included.

Send them a tweet or email when it’s about to go out, with a link for where to find it.

Then sit back and watch the results start to pour in.

All of the content I’ve done with experts will typically bring in three times more Twitter traffic.

Not because of me or anything I’ve done special. It’s all due to the other people you’re including.

You’ll then be able to leverage the high profile of these people.

Getting responses to cold emails isn’t easy.

But I’ve found that having a few industry names to sprinkle in can help double response rates.

So if you typically only get 1-2% of your emails opened, it might get you up to the 5% or even 10% range.

The more people included, the more buy-in you can get, the greater the ripple effect when it goes live.

Don’t neglect to format for mobile and PDF

Long ultimate guides will end up being book-length.

They become awesome resources for people to reference in the future.

That means a lot of your readers are going to want to print them out!

I know. This surprised me initially, too.

I didn’t even expect people would want a PDF version. But then I had over 300 emails asking me for it when my first ultimate guide went live!

To make things simple, I use Uberflip as it is an affordable piece of software that ensures that your PDFs will work on mobile and tablet devices such as Kindle or iPad.

I guess it makes sense when you think about it.

More people read stuff from the internet on their phones than on desktop computers.

These massive guides are going to rank extremely well.

People are going to discover them on their mobile device, first, while casually browsing around.

The last thing you want is to force these people to bounce because you don’t have a mobile-friendly format.

I love using Uberflip for this because it instantly does all the work for you.

Just upload the file, and it will make sure your content looks beautiful on any device your readers are using.

Conclusion

I always thought the ultimate guide would be a good idea.

But I never expected how much it would deliver.

They pull in hundreds of thousands of visits.

People love sharing them almost as much as reading them.

That means they also get tons of high-quality backlinks.

If you do it right, your ultimate guides will be ranking for competitive keywords in no time.

Just make sure that you’re investing in quality over quantity.

You might even need a team of people to pull it off. Good designers, developers, and writers aren’t cheap.

So focus on creating the best possible resource you can.

The results should show up ASAP if your topic is already trending.

What’s your favorite ultimate guide example?

The post The Ultimate Guide to Creating Content that Generate 361,494 Visitors appeared first on Neil Patel.

Given that Google changes its search algorithm 500-600 times each year, it’s not surprising marketers get confused sometimes.

Speculations about the latest SEO trends run rampant and are a breeding ground for many myths.

For this reason, it’s sometimes difficult to tell fact from fiction.

Of course, the Internet provides the perfect framework for misinformation to spread at an alarming rate.

As a result, many marketers waste their energy and resources implementing useless tactics that don’t get any results.

Or worse, some implement harmful techniques that get them penalized.

It’s a bad deal either way.

In this post, I’d like to address some particular SEO trends I see many marketers fall for that are really nothing but a waste of time.

Here we go.

Keyword density is a huge ranking factor

Remember the days when jam-packing content with a targeted keyword phrase would send it soaring to the top of the SERPs?

Kind of like this monstrosity:

It made for some lackluster content and provided very minimal (if any) real value to readers.

Thankfully, those days are long gone.

Panda put an end to that back in 2011.

Since then, any SEO marketer in their right mind made sure they weren’t doing any keyword stuffing.

But here’s the thing.

It left a lot of questions regarding proper keyword density.

Obviously, keyword stuffing is a bad idea. That’s a given.

But many SEO marketers still seem to think that keyword density is a huge ranking factor.

They end up putting a lot of time and effort into getting it just right.

Just hit that perfect keyword density, and you’re good to go.

But this isn’t the case.

While it is true that keyword density is a ranking factor, it’s by no means as important as it once was.

There’s no reason to stress about it.

It’s something that you should be conscious of, but it shouldn’t command all your attention.

In other words, there’s no need to drive yourself crazy trying to reach the optimal keyword density.

This line from Backlinko summarizes it perfectly:

You have to use exact match keywords

There’s another keyword-related myth I would like to put to rest.

And that’s the idea that you should use only exact match keywords.

Let me reference the red apples example one more time:

Beyond the annoying keyword stuffing taking place here, take a look at how every use of the keyword is an exact match.

It sounds ridiculous and unnatural!

That’s not how humans talk.

If it’s unnatural, it’s not adding quality.

And if it’s not adding quality, it’s not contributing to the user experience.

The bottom line is you should use exact match keywords only when it makes sense and sounds natural.

If it makes your content sound clunky, you’ll want to ditch it or use a variation of the keyword.

The concept of always using exact match keywords is extremely antiquated and dates back to when keyword stuffing was acceptable.

But neither has a place in current SEO best practices.

Pop-ups are an automatic deal breaker

In January 2017, Google launched an update known as the “Intrusive Interstitial Penalty.”

Here’s a snippet from the Google Webmaster Blog regarding this update:

The primary purpose was to provide a better experience for mobile users, ensuring their browsing doesn’t get disrupted by ungodly pop-ups like these:

This created an uproar in the SEO community with people being deathly afraid to use any type of pop-up on their sites.

And it’s easy to see why.

Why would you want to risk it?

It was an update for which Google gave a warning several months in advance, which in and of itself is pretty rare.

I even wrote an article in late 2016 called “What Are Interstitials, and Are They Hurting Your SEO?” to give my readers advanced warning.

At the time, it seemed like a very legitimate concern.

But now that some time has passed and the dust has settled, it appears it’s not that big of a deal after all.

Most experts agree:

And I can’t even begin to tell you the number of pop-ups I still get hit with whenever I’m exploring the web or doing research.

In fact, I’m a little disappointed because I hate being disrupted by mindless pop-ups when I’m in the zone and trying to find important information.

Apparently, having pop-ups on your site isn’t the kiss of death.

But if you do decide to use them, be responsible about it.

Don’t go out of your way to interrupt the user experience, and try to make pop-ups as seamless as possible.

It’s all about inbound links

We all know links are super important.

I’ll be the first to say a great looking link profile is a thing of beauty.

But it seems too many marketers are too fixated on just inbound links and forget about outbound links.

Of course, you want authoritative and relevant sites to link to you!

But don’t ignore outbound links:

I mentioned in a post on NeilPatel.com that “outbound links or links that point to external web pages from your own site can actually impact your blog authority. Make sure the pages your links point to are relevant, useful and have good standing with Google.”

And there are plenty of experts who agree.

In fact, Backlinko listed outbound link quality as #31 of Google’s 200 ranking factors.

That’s fairly high.

But isn’t it a disadvantage when people exploring your site are directed to an external site?

Wouldn’t it adversely affect your bounce rate and average time spent on your site, not to mention your conversions?

Well, as we all know, Google’s top priority is an awesome user experience and great content.

If you include super helpful outbound links that expand on a topic, you’ll be rewarded.

What I’m trying to say here is all links are important.

Instead of focusing solely on acquiring inbound links, you should link out to awesome resources as well.

Make it a habit.

Note: make your outbound links open in a separate tab. This increases the chance that readers will return to your site, and I find it creates an overall better user experience.

Jamming your site with affiliate links is no big deal

Ah…affiliate links.

What website owner/blogger wouldn’t want to cash in on them?

It’s one of the most efficient ways to get a nice payday with minimal energy expended.

Don’t get me wrong, I like affiliate marketing. I really do.

In fact, a lot of people completely crush it with affiliate marketing.

Just take a look at what Pat Flynn of Smart Passive Income made in a single month:

This isn’t to say that making over 80 grand in a month is the norm.

But it does go to show the potential affiliate marketing has.

So, of course, some people will go overboard and stuff their content with affiliate links, assuming it’s no big deal.

And this might have been the case a year ago.

But if you’re familiar with the Google “Fred” update that took place in March 2017, you know going crazy with affiliate links is tempting fate.

Barry Schwartz of Search Engine Land took the time to analyze roughly 100 sites affected by the update, and here’s what he found:

I would say experiencing a 50-90% drop in traffic is cause for concern, and you should proceed with caution for the foreseeable future.

This isn’t to say including a few affiliate links here and there will kill your traffic, but it’s definitely something to be aware of.

Having an abundance of affiliate links signals to Google that making affiliate sales is the main purpose of your content, which could negatively affect your rankings.

Conclusion

I’ll be honest.

SEO can be maddening at times.

There are always some kind of adjustments being made to Google’s algorithm.

Some are major; some are minor. But this constant tweaking often leads to speculation.

This speculation leads to rumors, and rumors lead to persistent myths.

That’s why I thought I would clear the air about some of the most pervasive SEO trends that are actually quite useless.

I hope that putting things into perspective for you will help you focus on what really matters and help you avoid investing your time and energy into tactics that won’t bring any results.

It should also reduce your odds of incurring any ugly penalties.

In your opinion, what’s the biggest SEO myth that marketers continually fall for?

The internet has transformed business marketing. No matter what you do, the internet is likely to be at the heart of your marketing strategy. Travis Beauchesne will demonstrate to you a couple of ideas that you can apply to empower lead following from the internet Marketing.

The vast majority of new companies fail over the long haul.

I’m not trying to bum you out or anything.

But you need to know what you’re up against.

One study says the failure rate is around 50% after five years but can reach as high as 75%, too.

Again: Don’t be discouraged. I’ve had my own million dollar mistake.

The important point is to learn from your missteps so that you can figure out what went wrong and never repeat them again.

In this article, I’ll share my experiences from successfully growing multiple million-dollar companies so that you can learn from my previous mistakes without repeating them.

We’re going to talk a lot about successfully getting your name into the marketplace because most new companies simply don’t do enough to break through obscurity.

But first, you need to make sure you’re entering the right marketplace for your business. Here’s why.

1. Get your positioning right first, then worry about distribution

Many companies fail before they even get off the ground.

Here’s what I mean.

People in software always talk about “solving their own problems” when they create something new.

But you don’t pay yourself. Your customers do!

In other words, solving your own problems is fine. But until you start solving the problems of other people, you’ll never make enough money to last.

That means you go out into the marketplace to see if the same problems or pain points resonate with what you’re thinking.

For example, I used to watch The Daily Show all the time with Jon Stewart. Now I don’t any longer.

It turns out, I’m not alone. Nearly 40% of Jon’s previous audience demographic has stopped watching, too.

It’s not that the new host is bad. He’s just different. And he wasn’t the right fit for this old, existing audience.

So before we can even talk about using strategies and tactics to scale your business, you need to make sure you’re in the right market first.

You have to be ready and primed for growth before it’s going to happen. Here’s one way to figure that out.

The first trick is to look for ‘echo chambers’ online that already have big, engaged communities. For example, just start by looking for popular blogs (because these are going to be your promotion partners later).

I just picked a random idea off the top of my head to try this out.

I literally Googled “Gluten free blog” half a second ago and here’s what popped up.

There are two awesome things to note here already. The first is the market size: 15,800,000 results!

And these are just blogs with content creators. So think about how many people are reading these sites.

The next thing is that BeyondCeliac.org is already helping to feature the biggest gluten-free bloggers.

That means there’s a big market here, there’s an ‘infrastructure’ of leading organizations supporting it, and you already have a list of new potential promotion partners.

Now you know there’s already a market for what you have. The next trick is to figure out how you’re going to make your product or service stand out in this crowded space.

Marty Neumeier wrote a book called Zag: The Number One Strategy for High-Performance Brands in which he talks about “creating a category of one.”

Basically, the idea is to ask yourself a few key questions to make sure that you’re not going to be competing against a ton of other people with the same basic commodity (otherwise your risk of failure skyrockets).

So ask yourself:

Is the value of your product or service easy to understand (and implement for the end user)?

How are you going to change features, pricing, and other factors to be the only person who takes your unique spin on this problem?

And are you supported by a trend where the market’s growing? (See that ‘echo chamber’ above.)

The Lean Canvas is one of the best ways to help figure this out.

In the early days, your ideal solution or product would evolve over time. You might think it’s going to be one thing, but it might change as you get real feedback from customers (who pay the bills).

And that’s OK.

For example, Cirque Du Soleil has become one of the biggest entertainment acts in the world over the last decade.

You can’t walk into a Las Vegas hotel without seeing one of their shows.

But when they started, they had to iterate a little to find the right formula. They obviously knew there was a huge market for live shows and a circus-like experience.

However, their innovation came in recognizing what was broken about the traditional circus and how they could change the rules of the game for themselves.

So they didn’t even bother with animals, for example, while at the same time, they added new elements like a show theme and a more refined venue.

The result was some weird cross between a circus and theater, but it worked.

There’s never a single moment that says you’ve figured it all out.

Instead, it’s a constant process during which you tweak your strategy based on feedback to continue moving in the right direction.

That helps you avoid making the same mistakes that often sink companies. They’re too stubborn to change or evolve over time, but you won’t fall into that trap.

Once you’re on the right path, you can start thinking about going for growth.

2. Start ‘piggybacking’ on other people’s platform

Moving too slowly is usually what kills new companies.

Nobody knows who you are, which means they don’t trust you yet, and they definitely aren’t searching for you by name.

So the best strategy in the early days was to simply piggyback on other people’s platforms.

Here’s what I mean.

Airbnb also started as a nobody. However, they embraced that and instead looked for places where their customers already were.

Back in those days, people still used Craigslist to find people in cities where they wanted to travel (or to offer up their own couch).

So Airbnb started by going after the people who were listing properties on Craigslist first.

They did that through a set of simple tools that would easily allow these people to also cross-post their property listings on Airbnb’s platform.

This worked well, but they still needed more. The only way to get the young company off the ground was to put their foot on the gas pedal to get more listings.

So what they did was both clever and borderline shady.

Airbnb created scrapped Craigslist contact information and then sent out mass emails to people, like this one:

The good news is that you don’t always have to do something spammy or technical to get the same results.

For example, Unbounce was a brand new company only a few years ago. They were also self-funded, so they didn’t necessarily have the same resources that some software companies have to ‘make a big splash’ when they launched.

Instead, they had to create their own news.

Co-founder Oli Gardner spent countless hours creating The Noob Guide to Online Marketing.

It contains a 15-million-pixel infographic that shows 60 different tasks in detail, along with a six-month course to help you figure out how to put all of that information into practice.

That’s pretty impressive, right?!

With something this big, your first natural inclination would be to put it on your own site so that you can receive all of the benefits.

However, that’s not what Unbounce did.

Instead, the company posted the entire thing on the Moz blog for free.

The reason was simple.

Unbounce needed attention and customers. Moz had those things.

So it was a match made in heaven.

You can replicate this same strategy almost anywhere you look.

For example, software companies will also help each other run cross-promotions or partnerships when there’s an overlap in their users.

Treehouse teaches people to code. Many of those people will freelance at some point. So Freshbooks is a perfect fit.

These can be ‘back-scratching’ relationships where no other value is traded hands. Or you could incentivize the bigger partner by giving them a cut of all the revenue that you generate through the partnership.

You can even form these same types of partnerships or platform plays and take things offline.

3. Piggyback on other people’s news, too

Almost everyone made fun of the new GAP logo when it was originally announced.

Seriously, everyone hated it:

Scrappy startup 99designs saw an opportunity and quickly took advantage.

99designs helps people crowdsource new logo designs. That way, you can get tons of different direction options as well as feedback to avoid making the same mistake as the Gap.

So it was a perfect fit!

The company created a competition on its own platform to basically help Gap design a better logo.

The competition raised a ton of awareness because they were piggybacking on something that was already in the news.

All they did was capitalize on a trending topic that led to them getting written up in tons of different places (all positive) based on some other big brand’s miscalculation.

4. Attend, organize, and volunteer at events

People like doing business in person.

It’s infinitely easier to gain someone’s trust and have a fruitful discussion around your ever-evolving positioning.

In the early days, the founders from Hakka Labs would attend local meetups to find out more about what the engineering community was interested in.

The discussions were excellent, but there was never any record of them afterward. In other words, the information and insight exchanged vanished after the event was over.

So they started recording the talks and making the audio available for users on their website.

The file would be shared with the organizers, who would then happily help share the information with all the group members.

You can then scale this approach by inviting more people to attend more events and repeat as necessary.

This approach proved so successful that they eventually expanded into hosting their own meetups. Before long, they’d built an entire conference for the same communities they were reaching.

This early traction then helped them pick up a $500k angel (after bootstrapping this entire time).

It’s the same basic platform piggybacking strategy, but you take it offline and meet people in person.

This type of strategy also helps you stick out, too.

Think about it: Everyone is sending out cold emails to get noticed.

But those are terrible! The response rate is abysmal, so why waste your effort?

Instead, do something different, like meeting people at events or sending new prospects something in the mail to get noticed.

It takes more effort, but it also helps you actually stand out and get noticed.

5. Turn early customers into word-of-mouth referrals

Did you ever have a Hotmail account?

I know I did. Almost everyone did!

That’s because Hotmail came out with the first completely free email service decades ago.

Each email you sent, however, contained a simple text link that encouraged the recipient of your email to get his or her own free account with Hotmail.

This strategy was incredibly simple, but it helped the company gain millions of users in no time.

Now, can you think of another more recent company who did something similar?

Dropbox!

This simple little trick was single-handedly responsible for driving Dropbox’s early growth (way more than PR, SEO, or advertising did).

The best news is that there are pre-built options to help you add this same feature for almost any kind of business.

For example, ReferralCandy works with e-commerce companies to do something similar.

Every time someone helps bring in a new customer, they’ll get rewarded with a new little bonus.

I love this simple tactic because it doesn’t cost you anything.

The only time you ‘pay’ is when someone spends more money with you first.

That helps you avoid spending a ton of cash on advertising or other channels instead of reinvesting it back into hiring people, purchasing more products, and other growth-oriented expenses.

And that helps you avoid negative cash flow. Now business wants to find itself in that position.

6. Find an influencer (or become one yourself) to help increase your brand’s visibility

Influencers also have the big, pre-built audiences you need access to.

What they don’t always have, however, is money.

So tons of influencer marketplaces, like Tribe, have been popping up to help connect brands and influencers in an easy, DIY, mutually-beneficial relationship.

For example, you can go on many of these platforms and simply list your products or describe your initial campaign idea.

Then you’ll either search for the influencer or get matched with those who have a perfect audience fit.

A few hundred bucks can help you instantly get access to hundreds of thousands of followers (leading to more traffic, leads, customers, and more).

The co-founders behind Luxy Hair had the same end goal, but it simply decided to pick up a video camera and start rolling instead.

Over the course of five years (and tons of video segments), it has been able to rack up over three million subscribers.

A simple B2B example is either guest posting or even conducting a webinar for a larger brand’s audience.

For example, Kissmetrics hosts new webinars every month. So it’s constantly on the lookout for new experts who can step up and deliver excellent content.

Sure, it might require some time to prepare the content.

But otherwise, you get new brand awareness, traffic back to your own site, and new potential leads or customers.

The extra side benefit is that this also gives you credibility. Kissmetrics, in this case, is an established brand in the marketplace.

People have come to know and trust it.

So you’re also going to get the benefit of the doubt by associating your brand with theirs.

In the early days, you’re constantly short on cash. So putting out some effort and elbow grease to get attention is one of the easiest possible alternatives.

The trick with all of these strategies, though, is that you’re not asking these people for help.

Instead, you’re helping them first.

Give each of these big brands, partners, or platforms what they want or need. And you’ll get what you need, too.

Conclusion

Your success is going to come from other people in the early days.

Nobody knows who you are, why you exist, or why they would ever want what you have.

So the very first thing you need to do, before promotion, is to actually figure out what people want!

That sounds trite and simplistic, but it saves a lot of headaches and hassles down the road.

You need to make sure there’s a viable market out there before you launch your business because, down the road, many of those same people will also be your springboard to success.

You’re going to need to piggyback off of their platforms to ‘borrow’ some of the same attention they already have.

There’s no shortage of techniques to try here. But the important thing is that you figure out how to help your potential partners first.

Then they’ll be much more inclined to give you access to their eyeballs, which might result in your first few customers.

What’s your favorite example of a strategy that a big company used to become successful?

The post 6 Marketing Strategies to Make Your Startup a Raging Success appeared first on Neil Patel.

A few months ago, I began debating ‘cutting the cord’ with cable and going with a streaming television service.

I travel a lot, and to be honest, it doesn’t make sense to keep paying for a service I don’t use.

There are several options — Apple TV, Amazon Fire Stick, Roku, and Chromecast, among others.

I like doing research, so I dug in. Yes, this is fun for me.

Many of the product reviews contradicted one another. As you can see, there were more than 33 million search results. Talk about information overload.

So, what did I do instead? I started reading reviews on Amazon and asking my friends and family.

Fire Stick is affordable at $39.99 and offers access to Netflix, Hulu, HBO NOW, YouTube, Amazon Video. There are some negative reviews:

I remembered that a close friend had raved about his Apple TV, so I asked him about it.

I found out that it’s compatible with my computer, watch, and phone. It has an app for Hulu, and an app for Amazon is in development.

Based on the recommendations of people I know and trust, I bought the Apple TV.

This exact scenario plays out for millions of purchase decisions every day.

Consumers expect marketers to focus on the positive, so they turn to the people they trust. With the rise of social media, the circle of people we trust now includes our favorite industry experts, celebrities, and athletes.

This is influencer marketing.

You’ve likely heard the term thrown around a lot the last few years. It generates mental images of YouTube stars promoting energy drinks and Instagram stars raving about weight loss supplements.

Kardashians, anyone?

It’s hot, it’s popular, and all the cool brands are doing it.

But will it work for your brand, and more importantly, how do you do it effectively?

That is what I want to talk about today. But first, let’s start at the beginning.

What is influencer marketing?

Influencer marketing is the process by which brands leverage well-known figures who have influence over their target markets to promote their brands.

This doesn’t mean you need to be able to afford to pay Michael Jordan to promote your new athletic wear line.

In fact, many of the most successful influencer marketers are not extremely famous.

Take, for example, Murad and Nataly Osmann. There is a good chance you recognize the style of their photos:

One simple photograph of Nataly leading her boyfriend by the hand has morphed into a massive online following — and a branding empire.

According to Adweek, “They’re working with top marketers like Macy’s and Napa Valley Beringer Vineyards to create compelling ads, and they’re launching a platform to match brands with bloggers.

The #Followmeto project has also morphed into TV and book deals. The couple hosts a 20-minute travel TV show on Channel One Russia that takes viewers behind the scenes of their online photos.”

Sometimes, the best influencers aren’t people at all. Toast, a well-known dog, uses her Internet fame to promote a variety of brands, including coffee, bottled water, and even thigh chafing sticks.

Instagram isn’t the only place you can find influencers.

Lance Stewart, a well-known influencer, has more than 9 million followers on Facebook alone:

He is also active on Snapchat, Instagram, and Twitter.

Finding influencers isn’t about finding the most famous person.

Instead, it’s about finding a person your audience trusts and leveraging that influence to promote your brand.

Influencer Analysis defines an influencer as a normal person who maintains connections with media outlets and other public entities and who uses those connections to help brands promote their products and services.

More simply, an influencer is a person who may or may not use your products and who has your target audience’s attention. They have spent time building a relationship with a specific demographic.

Influencer marketing seeks to leverage that relationship to promote your brand in an authentic way.

Personal anecdotes aside, does influencer marketing really work?

Absolutely.

According to a report by TapInfluence and Influitive, 92% of consumers turn to people they know for referrals above any other source.

And this isn’t limited to close friends and family, either.

Bright Local reports that 88% of people trust online reviews written by other consumers as much as they trust recommendations from personal contacts.

Consumers actually trust absolute strangers more than they trust advertising directly from brands.

This is the power of influencer marketing.

So how do you get started? First, you need to outline your goals.

Outline the goals of your influencer campaign

I’ve discovered that influencer marketing works well for brands that don’t have much of a following.

You’re leveraging someone else’s platform for your own gain.

However, before you create the content, before you find an influencer, and before you do anything else, you need to outline the goals of your influencer campaign.

Why?

It’s simple: Every decision you make is informed by your goal.

The platform you choose, the influencer you partner with, the type of content they create — all of these factors come into play after you lay out your goal.

Let’s work from an example to make this easier to illustrate.

Say you’re working with a client in the gaming industry — specifically in the smartphone app gaming industry.

Mobile gaming is a pretty competitive industry. iTunes offers 18 categories of games and hundreds of popular puzzle games.

The company has been in business for five years and has a solid portfolio of games of medium success, including one highly popular game that was downloaded 25 million times.

They have a new puzzle game coming out, and they want to leverage influencer marketing to get tons of downloads and create buzz around the new launch. Ideally, this buzz would extend to their brand and give their entire game portfolio a good boost.

How can you help them get the most out of influencer marketing?

First, let’s outline the goal.

The goal should have three parts – the influencer’s demographic data, what the influencer will help you do, and how the influencer will help you do it.

“This campaign will partner with a young, highly connected influencer with access to the tech-savvy millennial group. Ideally, they will be into technology and use an iPhone because downloads from the Apple Store exceed those on Android.

Through this campaign, we will exceed the download numbers of our last game by 45% in the first 30 days.

The campaign will include at least 1 video of 30+ seconds to showcase how the game is played, and two or three other social posts on Instagram and Snapchat where our demographic is most active.”

This goal is detailed. It includes specific numbers and platforms. There is a chance that some of these factors will shift.

For example, you might find out that YouTube is a more effective platform for your video game company to use for influencer marketing. Your influencer might share that videos of 60+ seconds get more engagement.

Changing the details of your goal is fine, but the outline should serve as a starting point for all the other decisions.

This template will help you outline your goal:

Influencer marketing campaign goal plan

Who is the influencer?

Name:

Age range:

Popular on what platforms?

Campaign end goal:

Number of posts:

Which platform:

Special considerations:

Now that you have your goal outlined, it’s time to move on to finding your influencer.

How to find effective influencers for your brand

Choosing the right influencer is vital to the success of a killer influencer marketing campaign, but it is far from easy.

Ryan Schneider, the chief brand manager of InsomniacGames, says, “[A] lot of leg work goes into finding the right influencer…If I were a PR person, and I was trying to find the right reporter at The Wall Street Journal, I could do that … probably within one Google search or two mouse clicks. Targeting the right influencers can be a lot more complex.”

According to Tap Influence, there are four main ways in which you can find influencers: searching manually, using databases, tapping networks, or exploring marketplaces.

Manual searching: This method requires conducting individual searches, scanning web pages for information, and then adding the information to a spreadsheet. It’s extremely time consuming and not very effective.

Start by creating a spreadsheet in Google Docs or Excel, then create a column for each piece of information you want to pull about each individual influencer.

Column names will likely include:

Name

Industry of influence, including the specific niche (for example, if a gaming influencer’s audience is mostly female, or under the age of 16)

Total followers (combination of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat, or the top platforms your audience uses)

Facebook link

Instagram link

Twitter link

Snapchat link

Pros

Cons

Email/contact info

Special notes: Do you already have a relationship with them, or do they regularly post about topics closely related to your brand? Add any other information you want to include here.

Next, search Google and relevant social platforms for keywords, mentions of your brand, and related hashtags.

You will find lots of information to sort through. For the mobile gaming client, I switched to Google Images to look specifically for social posts:

This article by Izea seems promising:

In a highly competitive industry like mobile gaming, these high-tier influencers are who I would choose to ensure the highest reach possible.

I would look through all 25 and add influencers who seem like a good fit to my spreadsheet.

The next step is to search on the most popular platform for our target audience. In this case, I head to YouTube.

The most effective strategy is to look at videos with the highest engagement, either from my brand or my competitors’, and then look at who shared or engaged with those posts.

From there, I would be able to find the top influencers.

I am using a fictitious example, so I can’t search for our brand.

Since we are in mobile gaming, I am going to search for Two Dots, a popular puzzle game. Based on a quick search of the brand name, I see two possible influencers:

The top video is old, and ghostlyintl mostly shares videos of songs from independent artists.

This won’t be a good fit for our gaming site.

The second video is from the actual brand Dots. It’s also not a good fit.

The third, edgepot, might represent a good fit. The video is a walkthrough of the Two Dots game, edgepot’s channel is active, and the channel has more than 100,000 followers. Looks promising!

I  would add them to the spreadsheet and keep going.

Keep in mind, all this research garnered me just one possible influencer to target.

Manual research is extremely labor intensive. However, for smaller brands looking for very niche influencers, this is likely the best choice.

Databases: These are tools that will do the site-scraping for you by pulling publicly available data. These can be good places to start, but vetting each influencer can prove time-consuming. Basically, instead of manually doing the searches, databases do the heavy lifting. They’re less time-intensive than manually searching and cheaper than other options.

Examples include Little Bird and Inpowered.

Inpowered has a list of clients it has worked with in the past, including case studies:

For our mobile gaming company, this doesn’t seem to be a good fit. A more traditional brand might find this database useful.

Networks: This method of connecting with influencers sits in between databases and marketplaces. A network has built relationships with influencers, but you have to go through their profiles to reach out.

Networks tend to focus on specific genres, such as Dad bloggers, lifestyle influencers, or food enthusiasts. Examples of popular influencer networks include Hello Society, Activate, and Fitfluential.

After a little research, I come across a good fit for our mobile gaming company: MatchMade.

They make it super simple to search for exactly the type of influencer I want, including allowing me to sort my options based on reach, location, subscribers, and engagement.

Another benefit of networks is that they often offer more tracking and analytics. Matchmade offers a full dashboard:

There are a lot of pros to choosing a network — you are able to select exactly the type of influencer you want based on many different factors. Tracking is included, making it easy to see if you are reaching your goals.

However, this also tends to be the most expensive option.

Marketplaces: A marketplace offers the best features of a database by pulling in real-time information, but it allows you to avoid middle man. Marketplaces tend to offer less tracking, but they are also more affordable.

Examples of market places include Tribe, HYPR, and Brand Snob. Much like dating sites, marketplaces allow you to look at hundreds of profiles of different influencers.

Here is an example of an influencer profile on Tribe:

I can easily see her reach and an example of her work. This is much easier than sorting through thousands of Google search results.

Choosing the best method for finding an influencer that fits your needs can be complicated. Ultimately, you are looking for a partner, and just like any partnership, you need to take your time and consider all the options.

The final decision is likely going to be based on what resource you want to spend — time or money.

Getting the most out of your influencer campaign

You have outlined your goals, chosen an influencer, and started to build a relationship with them.

Now it is time to create your actual campaign. Here are tips for getting the most out of your killer influencer marketing campaign.

First, be authentic. The reason traditional ads aren’t as effective today is that people crave authentic connections.

Even though you are paying for the influencer to talk about your brand, you must keep authenticity in mind to be effective.

Jay Baer of Convince and Convert says it best: “If an influencer doesn’t fit a brand’s ethos, the authenticity factor is going to plummet.” Choosing the right influencer is the first step toward maintaining authenticity.”

Second, choose the platform you use carefully.

Pay attention not only to where your audience is most active but also what type of content performs best on each platform.

Take, for example, this video created by Harry’s Razors:

On Facebook, the video got three thousand views.

On Instagram, Harry’s chose to post a screenshot of the same video:

Even though Instagram supports video, they tend to perform better on Facebook.

According to Murray Newlands,“Different platforms are used to reach different audiences and demographics, and the same goes for what product or service you’re marketing: beautiful photos of your product belong on Instagram, while eye-catching videos will perform better on Facebook.”

Take the time to build a real relationship with the influencer. This gives you and the influencer a chance to see if you are a good fit and increases authenticity.

Angela Stringfellow of CODA Concepts says, “Start slowly by following them on social media, sharing their content, commenting on their blogs and engaging them in relevant conversations whenever possible. Establishing a relationship of mutual trust is the key to successfully engaging your market’s thought leaders as brand advocates.”

Empower your influencer through information and access to your brand, but don’t take creative control. Ideally, you’ve chosen an influencer who is already engaged with your brand.

If not, make sure they truly understand your brand’s voice and what you stand for.

Invite them to your offices, offer tickets to your events, and share interesting stories about your brand and the people you help.

But remember, they are popular with your target audience for a reason. To keep the interaction authentic, you need to relinquish creative control.

Conclusion

Influencer marketing might seem like just another buzzword born of a generation obsessed with smartphones. However, the practice is nothing new.

Put simply, people trust people more than they trust brands. Influencer marketing allows you to leverage that trust to create goodwill towards your brand.

The steps I outlined above will help you find the best influencer and get the most out of your partnership.

Have you implemented an influencer marketing campaign? What were your results?

The post How to Launch a Killer Influencer Marketing Campaign appeared first on Neil Patel.