Marketing School | Digital Marketing | Online Marketing

In Episode #321, Eric and Neil discuss what Google My Business is. Tune in to learn how you can leverage Google local listings and how it can BOOST your sales and search ranking. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: What Is Google My Business (and How You Can Leverage It)? 00:34 – Google My Business allows to create a free business listing on Google 00:41 – You can claim your business and verify it 00:57 – Neil claimed his address and verified himself through Google My Business 01:30 – The thing with Google My Business is that you can have multiple spots if you have multiple locations 01:55 – You need to get the reviews going, too 02:09 – You need to be descriptive and explain what you do 02:30 – There are annual guides and you’ll turn up better on Google searches 02:43 – Your SEO and links still matter 02:56 – Locksmith just claimed a bunch of listings and their sales went up 03:32 – Eric has claimed a few listings for himself 04:00 – Just don’t abuse it 04:09 – You can also check y

In Episode #320, Eric and Neil discuss whether should you send gifts to your customers. Tune in to learn gift ideas for your clients, the benefits of being generous, and the importance of showing appreciation to your clients! Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: Should You Send Gifts to Your Customers? 00:34 – Neil is a big believer of sending gifts regardless of whether it is a high-paying or not 00:42 – It creates a ton of loyalty 00:48 – You can give your high-paying customer something more personalized 01:10 – Add a personal note to the gift 01:30 – For lower-paying customers, you can send them “Thank You” postcards 01:58 – For sending postcards, you can use Letter Friend 02:18 – Gemnote sends premium gifts to companies 02:26 – Giftology is a book that is packaged in a leather bag 03:12 – The lifetime value of customers in the consulting world is high 03:19 – Eric wants to give memorable gifts 03:26 – The most memorable gift Eric has received from a company is a battery pack

In Episode #319, Eric and Neil discuss what ringless voicemails are and how you can leverage them. Tune in to learn the benefits of sending personalized ringless voicemails to your customers and how it can help you get a higher open rate. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: What Are Ringless Voicemails (and How You Can Leverage Them)? 00:40 – Ringless voicemail is dropping a voicemail into someone’s phone without their phone ringing 00:50 – Eric and Neil don’t pick up much of their phone calls 01:23 – You can use ringless voicemail when someone opts into your email list 01:34 – You drop the voicemail after the opt-in 01:56 – It is more personalized and the open rate is higher 02:11 – Eric has used Stratics Network and Slybroadcast for ringless voicemail 02:50 – A possible problem is when your voicemail sounds like an automated recording 03:23 – People will know if they’re automated, so they won’t respond and may just ignore them 03:33 – Personalized messages are more likely to work

In Episode #318, Eric and Neil discuss what SMS marketing is. Tune in to learn how you can optimize your SMS campaigns and increase those open rates! Eric and Neil also discuss what NOT to do when it comes to SMS. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: What Is SMS Marketing (and How You Can Leverage It) 00:42 – SMS stands for Short Method Service 01:07 – If someone opts in to your email list and you’re able to get his number, send them a message 01:12 – Open rates for text messages are higher 01:47 – Neil uses SMS for reminders with their marketing campaigns 02:15 – Neil sends SMS reminders for his webinars 02:56 – Events should have people asking for attendees’ phone numbers 03:38 – When you’re closing a deal, send them a SMS and give them a little value 04:11 – When you have leads coming to your site or from WordPress, the details can push them through Zapier then Twilio 04:40 – You can do immediate action depending on the lead’s budget 05:24 – Call Loop can help you send SMS

In Episode #308, Eric and Neil discuss if chatbots are really worth it. Since chatbots are still in its early days, the effectiveness and profitability of the tool is very much debatable. Eric and Neil discuss the tests that they’ve run and lay out the benefits as well as the weaknesses they’ve encountered. At the end of the day, the incredible open and click through rates from using chatbots is something that CANNOT be ignored. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:30 – Today’s topic: Are Chatbots Really Worth It? 00:41 – Eric was moderating a panel with a guy from Hubspot and Wordstream 00:53 – Eric’s open rates was about 80%, his friend was at 94% 01:07 – A broadcast through email can get you 20-30% open rate, with 5% click rate 01:14 – With chatbots 80-94%, at 50% click rates 01:40 – Neil says it’s about opportunity costs 02:21 – Neil was doing a test the other day and found that the opt-in rate was still quite low 02:38 – Open rates are great, but opt-in rate needs to be increased somehow—this may get

In Episode #317, Eric and Neil discuss the 7 things to consider before you start accepting guest blogs. Tune in to learn how you can carefully evaluate your potential guest bloggers so that your website maintains its quality and consistency. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: 7 Things to Consider Before You Start Accepting Guest Blogs 00:35 – First is to make sure that you’re ready to deal with spam 00:41 – There are people who will try to sell links on your website, which will get you penalized by Google 00:48 – Be sure that whatever you’re accepting, people aren’t shoving in irrelevant links 01:00 – Second is to ask for 3 links to their most impressive articles 01:11 – It will give you a quick idea of their writing style 01:24 – You still want to add value 01:42 – Make sure that the people are authoritative 01:49 – Authoritative people won’t pass junk 02:05 – Make sure the content quality stays high 02:10 – Fourth is to ask why they want to do it 02:40 – Fifth is when acc

In Episode #316, Eric and Neil discuss the 7 tools to help you promote evergreen content. Tune in to learn which tools you can use to leverage your evergreen content to achieve that better ranking in Google and promote your best stuff!  Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: 7 Tools to Help You Promote Evergreen Content 00:34 – First, Meet Edgar allows you to schedule posts on different social media sites 00:49 – Clean it up for things that are no longer relevant or for concepts that no longer apply 01:01 – Second is Ahrefs 01:03 – Type in the competitor URL that has similar posts, see who are linking out to your competitor and reach out to them 01:12 – It’s easy to do and provides great results, but is time intensive 01:35 – BuzzSumo can help you find posts and links that have a lot of social shares 01:55 – Build out a prospect list and reach out to people who shared them 02:12 – Fourth is Google Search Console 02:23 – For the posts that are gaining much traffic, look at the key

In Episode #315, Eric and Neil discuss the 7 fundamentals that every content promotion plan should include. Tune in to learn the checklists that you need for your content promotion plan and the importance of keeping your “unicorns” up to date! Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: 7 Fundamentals That Every Content Promotion Plan Should Include 00:36 – First is to have a checklist where you document everything you need as well as your standard operating procedure 01:04 – Second is to create a list of people you are going to hit up in your space 01:08 – Every promotion has an outreach 01:13 – You want to keep a list so you will know who responded and promoted 01:17 – You want to hit up the same exact person 5x a week 01:29 – You could also determine who to hit up for a specific type of post 01:33 – You don’t want to burn the relationship 01:40 – Have an inventory of the tools that you have 01:42 – Use LastPass to organize everything 01:58 – Eric uses Meet Edgar and Buffer for promotion

In Episode #314, Eric and Neil discuss 3 simple ways to save money on SEO using PPC. Tune in to learn the importance of knowing the right keywords to use in SEO so you won’t end up wasting money or time. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: 3 Simple Ways to Save Money on SEO Using PPC 00:38 – Everyone looks at pay-per-click as an expense but it’s not a bad expense 00:49 – From an SEO perspective, it takes a long time 01:00 – The first way to save money is to target the right keywords 01:05 – You can use Google Keyword Planner, UberSuggest or Keyword.io 01:11 – “Volume isn’t everything if people don’t purchase from those keywords—no matter how many visitors you get, it’s useless” 01:19 – With PPC, you can test out words and phrases and when you see conversion, start targeting from organic search perspective 01:35 – If you want to scale, use AdWords Editor to move things faster 02:00 – If you have a brand keyword, a competitor can start to categorize you as the brand owner 02:48 – Foc

In Episode #313, Eric and Neil discuss how to do SEO for small businesses with less than $1000 a month. Tune in to learn how you can still do SEO effectively—even with a small budget—and why you shouldn’t believe everything that Google tells you. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: How to Do SEO for Small Businesses With Less Than $1000 a Month 00:35 – You can’t focus on everything 00:40 – Try to have your site on WordPress so you can have Yoast and not worry too much about on-page SEO 00:48 – Neil sticks to content creation and building links around the content 00:55 – Neil uses Ahrefs 01:01 – Put in your competitor’s URL and click on the top pages that will show you the pages your competitor gets the most traffic 01:29 – Look at that page and try to create a better version on your website 01:38 – Find the people that are linked out to the page and reach out to them 02:00 – Reaching out works, but it’s a long-term play 02:08 – Keep it simple 02:34 – “Don’t believe everything that

In Episode #312, Eric and Neil discuss how to create an experimental culture in your marketing department. Tune in to find out how Eric and Neil do experiments with their respective teams and how it boosted engagement and a sense of value and pride for team members to be a part of the experimentation. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: How to Create an Experimental Culture in Your Marketing Department 00:38 – Twitter was running .2 tests per week when they were still struggling 01:02 – After that, their usual growth skyrocketed 01:12 – Jeff Bezos of Amazon also brought tons of experiments that helped them boost quickly 01:17 – Driving experiments for the company or marketing department is really important 01:26 – Treat your experiment as a product 01:37 – Eric runs experiment meetings with his company, Single Grain 01:49 – Every week, someone is required to bring in new ideas 02:33 – You can use Trello to write in your experiments 02:43 – There should be a well-thought idea and

In Episode #311, Eric and Neil discuss the marketing tasks they do daily. Tune in to know what Eric and Neil do every day and how these habits contribute to their success. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: The Marketing Tasks Eric and Neil Do Every Day 00:36 – The big thing that Neil does is post on social media 00:49 – Neil also responds to comments from Social Web and Social Profiles 00:59 – Neil looks into Google Console to track posts that are declining in views and clicks 01:07 – He will then update those posts and content and they will go back to where they were 01:27 – Eric is trying to work on the business more 01:44 – Eric is working on creating content 01:58 – Eric also checks his Google Console and track his posts’ ranking 02:33 – You do NOT have to do exactly what Eric and Neil are doing 02:35 – Eric also has a lot of one-on-one time with the team to see where he can help 02:48 – Eric checks the interns campaigns and coaches them if needed 03:09 – Neil reads marketin

In Episode #310, Eric and Neil discuss how to rank in Google image search. Tune in to learn how Google can recognize your images more easily and how to adjust for Google’s limitations to BOOST your ranking. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: How to Rank in Google Image Search 00:40 – If you are in consumer-based industry, you can generate a lot of traction from Google image search 01:00 – Image filing should be restricted to what you’re trying to rank for 01:06 – If it’s a car, use all tags to describe to Google what your image is about 01:57 – You can also use a long description which is similar to all tags, but longer 02:31 – If you’re always ranked over time, make sure you’re surrounded with text as Google uses text to figure out what the image is about 02:40 – In the next couple of years, Google’s AI might be able to identify which is which 03:06 – That’s it for today’s episode! 3 Key Points: How well you rank on Google image searches will depend on the industry. Google will

In Episode #309, Eric and Neil discuss how to get tons of views on your LinkedIn updates. Tune in to know the number of views Eric and Neil received on their first LinkedIn update and why you should leverage LinkedIn NOW. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: How to Get Tons of Views on Your LinkedIn Updates 00:38 – You can now write longer-form LinkedIn content now 00:55 – Eric has around 6K connections in LinkedIn and when he wrote about longer-form LinkedIn updates, he got a thousand views in just 10 minutes 01:10 – There were also 2nd degree views in LinkedIn 01:23 – A simple text update can get you tons of views 01:34 – Neil has also tested LinkedIn updates 01:44 – He got 232K views, 280 likes and 151 comments on his first update 01:57 – Neil learned that the more generic your update, the better off you are 02:28 – It comes down to how many views your content is getting by the right type of people that can potentially generate income—so be specific 02:48 – One guy reached out

In Episode #307, Eric and Neil discuss where you can hire great developers. Tune in to learn how you can find great developers at a much cheaper rate WITHOUT compromising on value and efficiency. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: Where Can You Hire Great Developers? 00:42 – Eric and Neil both tried Toptal which is not a bad place, but quite expensive 00:51 – The best company for Neil is Crossover which is based in Texas 00:58 – Their team of great developers are usually overseas 01:02 – The labor is cheaper and they’re well educated 01:08 – They have the software to know which is the best of the best 01:30 – They offer 30 days of free development 01:55 – It is quite cheap 02:09 – Eric currently has 2 developers 02:14 – One is based in Singapore and the other one is in Lithuania 02:26 – The developers are well-versed and get things done 02:56 – Eric found them in CodePen’s job board 03:20 – Eric has used Crew and Andela 03:40 – Andela hires developers from other countries s

In Episode #306, Eric and Neil discuss where you can hire great designers. Tune in to hear an exhaustive list of where you can find fantastic designers and view their work. Or, if you are designer and are just needing some inspiration, Eric and Neil will tell you where to go.  Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: Where Can You Hire Great Designers? 00:32 – Eric uses Dribbble and looks at people’s portfolios 00:42 – You can easily search for what you’re looking for, like an infographic 00:50 – Look for the aesthetic that you like 01:08 – You can also reach out to people who have designed for your competition 01:12– You can use LinkedIn to find this 01:36 – Neil uses 99designs where designers compete for a job 01:53 – Behance is also a platform where designers’ portfolios are available to view 02:02 – Visually is a good place for infographics 02:13 – Some designers post their designs on Pinterest 02:26 – Go to Product Hunt and type “landing pages”, then find a design that you can

In Episode #305, Eric and Neil discuss why you should clean your email list. Tune in to learn what tools you can use to help you manage your email lists and the benefits of making this a TOP priority—including saving you money! Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: Why You Should Clean Your Email List 00:40 – Neil’s email is a mess and uses everything from Infusionsoft to Maropost to Mailgun 01:02 – They’re trying to figure which one will work well 01:19 – “If you don’t clear your list, your deliverability goes through the shitter” 01:24 – No one will get your emails 01:56 – Neil would clean the list, look at the most active subscribers and start sending emails to them 02:05 – Neil uses ConvertKit combined with Infusionsoft as their main mail service solution 02:30 – If you don’t clean your list up and you have a lot of inactive subscribers, you will be paying more 02:53 – Cleaning your email list is also saving you money 03:01 – Have a workflow using Drip or Infusionsoft 03:05 –

In Episode #304, Eric and Neil discuss where you can hire great writers. Tune in to learn how you can easily find great writers in your space and why hiring a full-time writer may work as a disadvantage to you.  Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: Where Can You Hire Great Writers? 00:46 – Eric and Neil both use Problogger religiously for finding their writers 01:05 – It’s cheap to put a job posting and there’s a lot of great people you can meet there 01:12 – Neil checks his competitors’ blogs and reaches out to some of the writers 01:22 – They usually accept any writing gig 01:30 – Don’t hire full-time writers because the ROI isn’t there 01:37 – People get burned out, so find someone who will write for you just a couple of times a week 01:51 – Find the most popular writers in your space based on comments and social shares 01:56 – Social shares mean they’re driving traffic and comments mean they’re engaging the audience 02:07 – If you’re doing audio and video podcast, go to Rev

In Episode #303, Eric and Neil discuss the type of content marketing you should create when you’re starting off. Tune in to learn why Eric would still start with blog posting even if people are saying that it is dying and why you should start with what YOU are good at. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: What Type of Content Should You Create When You're Starting Off? 00:38 – First, create blog-based content 00:40 – It is the easiest type of content to create 01:00 – In content marketing, there’s no right form of content to start first 01:10 – If your skills are in audio or video, then start off with those and do what you’re best at 01:24 – If everything is going to one direction, try the other way 01:47 – Think of it as the Blue Ocean Strategy 01:58 – Gary V isn’t good at blog posts, but he’s good on camera 02:18 – If you have created video content in the past and are good at it, then go in that direction 02:30 – If Eric would start now, he would start with blog posting 02:53 – J

In Episode #302, Eric and Neil discuss what should you do if the wrong page ranks for a target keyword. Tune in to learn what Eric is currently testing and how Neil managed to redirect his traffic from the wrong page to the RIGHT one. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: What Should You Do if the Wrong Page Ranks for a Target Keyword? 00:40 – Eric has a blog post right now that ranks for online marketing companies or internet marketing companies 01:02 – Eric’s agency is top 10 for the keyword other websites are ranking for 01:18 – Eric and other SEOs that he has talked to suggested redirecting that page to what converts people 01:33 – Eric is currently testing having a ranking table with different agencies 02:11 – Eric is still trying several different things at the moment 02:21 – Neil suggests making internal links between your pages 02:25 – Google usually sorts things out and it’s just a question of time 02:31 – For the page that isn’t ranking but you want to rank, compare the keywo