Email Marketing, SEO, and Imposter Syndrome
Last week, we recorded three new episodes for Hustle & Flowchart.
As I ease myself back into writing consistently, I figured a good way to get into the habit is to share some of my takeaways from recent conversations we’re having.
I know that I’ll find this valuable because it gives me an opportunity to analyze each conversation and pull out my takeaways from them. I get to think critically about the vital few pieces of information that made the biggest impact on me.
I think it should be interesting to others because, most of the time, I’ll be sharing notes around discussions months before these discussions are released.
My takeaways today are going to be from episodes that won’t be released until Mid-December. So this can be a bit of a sneak peek at what’s in the pipeline as well as some insights into the things that are currently fascinating us.
Hopefully you find these little “aha moments” of mine valuable!
Before I get into it, if you want to get these blog posts email directly to your inbox when I write them, you can subscribe below. This is not the same list as the Hustle & Flowchart list. This will solely be notifications of new blog posts:
Gert Mellak on SEO
Gert is the founder of SEOLeverage, an SEO agency that works closely with some of the largest online brands.
Our episode with Gert was very tactical and had a lot of actionable takeaways and quick wins for listeners that are interested in boosting their SEO.
However, there was one strategy that really stood out to me where I feel we could do really well in our own business.
Gert had this philosophy of creating “Silo Pages.” These Silo Pages are essentially a single page that curates all of your content on a specific topic.
For example, we’re currently building an affiliate marketing silo page. It’s a work-in-progress but it will list all of the content that we have on our website about affiliate marketing with a link back to the content.
Each piece of content that discusses affiliate marketing will also have a link back to this silo page. We’ll also link to this page from any blog post that uses the text “affiliate marketing.”
Now it’s unlikely that this silo page is going to rank for us for the keyword “affiliate marketing”. However, this page should do a pretty decent job at sending a signal to Google that all of the pages linked from this silo page are about affiliate marketing.
We’re basically leaving breadcrumbs for Google to follow so that Google can better understand what each piece of content on our site is about.
This should help us rank for more of the long tail keywords around affiliate marketing.
As podcasters, this is an amazing little strategy because most of our content is not rich in text. Most of our content is in the form of audio. Leaving these little breadcrumbs for Google should work wonders for our website and help Google to better rank the content on it.
Here’s an example of a Silo Page that we’re working on (and will continue to work on as we add more content around the topic).
Tune into the full episode with Gert Mellak here
Dean Graziosi on Imposter Syndrome
Dean was an awesome conversation. He was one of the rare podcasts where we didn’t actually know him before getting on the call to interview him.
Those episodes can always be a little bit nerve-wracking because we don’t know their personality or which topics might be off limits.
Typically our interview is not our first discussion with the guest.
Regardless, Dean was an amazing guest and couldn’t have been more of a professional with his interview.
The point in the interview where I had my biggest “aha moment” was when I asked Dean about his thoughts on “Imposter Syndrome” and how those who are struggling could get past it.
His response was perfect.
Dean said that imposter syndrome was B.S.
He went on to say “look back at yourself and what you were doing at age 22” (that was 16-years ago for me, for anyone wondering).
“Would the 22-year-old self wish he had the knowledge that you have now?”
Of course Joe and I nodded enthusiastically to that question…
“Well,” he went on… “If 22-year-old you would have loved to know what you know now, don’t you think there are other people out there that would love to know what you know now too?”
THAT was a major “slap me in the face” duh moment.
The knowledge that I picked up over the last 15+ years would have been insanely valuable if I could go back and teach it to my 22-year-old self.
Of course there are others out there, right now, that are similar to me at 22, wishing they could find someone to teach them what we now know…
That thought of looking back at where I came from will likely forever stop my thoughts as soon as that imposter starts to creep back in.
This episode will be released on December 15th, 2020. Make sure you’re subscribed to the show on your favorite podcast app to get notified when they come out.
George Bryant on Email Marketing
This was actually round 2 with George.
We brought him on about 6-months ago and, after our interview, we actually got to know him real well, even spending some time masterminding some new ideas at his house.
We recently surveyed our email list and asked what everyone’s favorite episode was. Of all of our guests, George was picked as most people’s favorite episode. Of course we had to bring him back!
In our first interview, we got a look at his business from a 30,000-foot view. We got an understanding of his overall philosophies, mindset, and systems that got him where he is today.
This time around, we wanted to get way more granular. We wanted to dive deeper into the thing that, we believe, he’s the best in the world at… Email Marketing.
Now, this episode is a masterclass in email marketing. George said many times during the episode that he’s never taught any of this to people who haven’t paid him thousands of dollars to learn it.
Needless to say, there were a TON of actionable takeaways from this one.
However, I want to zoom in on just one… And it’s definitely the thing that gave us the largest perspective shift on how we’re currently doing things…
When you’re building your email list, most people will offer a free “lead magnet” or some sort of giveaway in exchange for opting-in to their list.
Once someone opts-in to get the free thing, most marketers send one email that delivers what they opted-in for. Beyond that, they’ll start promoting other offers and sharing things via email that aren’t super related to what someone just opted-in for.
What George recommends doing is, once someone opts-in for your lead magnet, deliver multiple days of emails around just that lead magnet…
For example…
Day 1 - Here’s your lead magnet and how to use it.
Day 2 - Here’s some additional thing that you can accomplish with this lead magnet.
Day 3 - Here’s a case study of someone who used that same lead magnet to give you more ideas.
Day 4 - Shoot us a reply and let us know how it’s going with the thing you opted-in for… We’d love to hear how it’s going…
Etc…
The idea is that, if you spend the first few days making sure that your leads are actually using and seeing results from your lead magnet, they will associate you as someone who helps them get results.
Once people believe that you are on their side and will work with them until they get the desired result, they are much more likely to open and engage with future emails.
George gets an average of an 87% open rate by following this philosophy.
Don’t just deliver that lead magnet! Stick with your new lead until they get the desired result and they’ll love you forever once they see that your lead magnet and your emails got them where they were trying to go.
This episode will be released on December 17th, 2020. Make sure you’re subscribed to the show on your favorite podcast app to get notified when they come out.
Final Thoughts
I hope anyone reading this got some value out of the insights that I pulled from our recent interviews.
At this point, I’m just trying to get myself in the habit of writing consistently (once a week minimum to start).
Recapping and sharing recent lessons seems like a good use of this blog for now but, ideally, I’ll share more of my original thoughts once I get into a groove with this.
I’ve got notes on books I’ve read, podcasts I’ve listened to, courses I’ve purchased, tools I’ve used, and much much more. I’m also excited to share what I’m learning in the realms of health, fitness, knowledge management, productivity, networking, and much much more.
I might not have my writing muscle fully developed again yet but it’ll come back to me. Make sure you’re subscribed to this list (this isn’t the same as the Hustle & Flowchart list). Whenever I write a new piece of content, you’ll automatically get an email with the article!
Looking forward to sharing more in the future!