Hardest Part of Online Marketing

Promotion -- it's always been my weak suit.

I can come up with ideas and churn out 10k words of content a day, but when it comes to driving traffic to that content, I've always been short on ideas.

I don't think targeting an audience has really been an issue for me, but getting that audience to
consume the content so I get feedback hasn't really been there, either. In niches I'm part of the target market in, or have been in the past, it's easy to pinpoint who I'm writing for.

In unfamiliar niches, if I had traffic going to the content, I'm positive I could tweak and adjust to what they're wanting to see.
 
Creating Content - actually writing the content pieces out.
Click to expand...

Not in the sense of actually writing it...

But in being okay with writing about things like, "how to poop", "how to drink water", "should I start eating dog food", and realizing you are literally writing to a complete and total idiots... The millions and millions of them who look up this stuff.

Then you've got the viral bullshit... "OMG! Boy confuses chocolate for dog poop and eats it!", "WTF! You won't believe these 4 ways to ride a bicycle while eating ice cream!!"

It doesn't matter what niche your in. These braindead topics have 1000000x more volume/traffic/shares/etc.
 
CCarter said:
Creating Content - actually writing the content pieces out.
Click to expand...

It's no secret to myself that creating content is something I hate. I literally have out of body experiences when it comes time to write. I end up watching myself do anything else (ie writing this post). Want the dishes done or carpets vacuumed? Ask me to write 1000 words and all that shit will be done well before the article.

This challenge is most intense when I need quality content written about a new topic for me. I haven't crossed the personal barrier of being OK to let someone else write content that I really think is important - and content that needs to be on-point.

Doing some self analyzing after reading that, I'd say its a combination of:
  • fear of handing control to others
  • fearing under performance of writers
  • lack of outsourcing experience
  • spending time writing rather than finding someone to do it for me because of self compromise.
 
Kept avoiding this thread figuring it was troll until I realized it was started by Carter. And then I knew it was.


So, I followed your steps!
(Starting with a blank, empty, fresh domain.)
  • Targeting Audience - Figuring out who your target audience is. ✔
  • Brainstorming Content - coming up with ideas that will hit home with your audience. ✔
  • Creating Content - actually writing the content pieces out. ✔
  • Implementing Content - putting the content up on the site and on-page optimizing it. ✔
  • Promoting Content - beyond SEO and simple social media, to get traction so the industry and audience is aware it exists. ✔
Okay, I sort of skipped part of this. I didn't do any "on-page optimizing."

Wrote 1 article. Copy & pasted 3 other articles so that this wasn't literally the only article on the entire site. Shared the article. Figured I would add some Amazon links. Forgot to add Google Analtics tracking code... because new site and all.. Added tracking code.

lulz-7k.jpg


Then I membered I wanted $, so I added some amazon links.

7k+ views! Looks like mah target lieks it.

Profit: $0 & -1 hour time.

Hardest Part of Online Marketing ⇒ Hardest Part of Online [Content] Marketing

Did a ctrl + f for "sale, money, profit, earn, dolla dolla billa yall, etc" and no one seems to be talking about any of those things.... I can sit here all day and come up with ideas that will hit home with an audience, write it, paste it in, and promote it.

Reminds me of one time when Carter said, "Getting traffic is the easy part."
 
Nat, you might enjoy and benefit from a journey down the Copywriting trail. Low quality traffic is what it is, there's only so much you can do besides throw display ads at them, but you should be able coax enough clicks and Amazon cookie drops to turn 7,000 sessions into money.

Even if you managed to get 10% of them to click an Amazon link (700 cookies) and 3% of them to convert on anything, that should be at least 21 items sold if they only bought 1 each. There's a lot of variables there you can tweak big time with copywriting. I'm especially a fan of the concept of micro-copy, which is what we're really talking about here. Psychological triggers that lead to a specific action that's not really a part of the big picture, but generates revenue.
 
@Ryuzaki yea, I got my first taste of high traffic + low quality in Novemeber and realized pretty quickly that wasn't the path I wanted to go down... unless I could replicate 50k+ views every single day which is definitely challenging. Tbh, just thought it would be fun to troll Carter's thread with that illustration.

I read Cashvertising at the end of the summer and absolutely loved it. 10/10 would recommend. Any recommended reading for me?

The #1 problem for me I've discovered the past few months is that its impossible to continue scaling, outsourcing, fixing bugs, editing, emailing, link building, focusing, and really start dialing in & testing psychological triggers all at once...

I just checked Amazon again, and it looks like I got 2 conversions, on $250 items lol. Trash quality copy for getting people to click a link, but there's actually something for another purpose [private] I was testing out anyway.
 
1. Targeting audience: 6/10 - I will give it a little twist from my point of view. I know who my audience is, and/or could be. The biggest challenge for me is choosing audience with good spending power that will be also the easiest to sell to long term. For example, weight loss for young moms vs supplements for seniors etc. While I have different sections for each group, I always struggle with whom should I target this time with a new piece of content, where will I achieve the best ROI overall (resources are very tight so every $ and minute must be allocated very precisely)
2. Brainstorming Content: 9/10 - No problems, I'm also on newsletter lists of all major players so content ideas are plenty.
3. Creating Content: 9/10 - Always a lot of work, but at the moment can't afford a proper writer/s that would suit my needs. Also, I can't do a quality piece of content (according to my own standards) fast. I always need at least a week to create a piece of content I will be satisfied with. For example, creation of 2500-3000 words articles takes me around 5 days. It's not that I'm writing 24/5 those articles, but I need time to get fresh brain, have a look at it, make adjustments etc. So I'm just jumping between different articles, at the moment I have 8 being in development. If there is a way to speed up this overall process that would be like gold to me :smile:
4. Implementing Content: 10/10
5. Promoting Content: 5/10 - Challenging at all times. Mental battles like when should I just drop a link and shut my mouth up (and for how long) vs when to get involved into regular discussions etc. When to act as a brand vs acting as users etc.

Nat said:
I just checked Amazon again, and it looks like I got 2 conversions, on $250 items lol. Trash quality copy for getting people to click a link, but there's actually something for another purpose [private] I was testing out anyway.
Click to expand...
Without numbers and details hard to tell anything, but maybe just by scaling this trash content up you could get better earnings? I had one Amazon aff site pushing audio/video things and it was filled with trash content, but it was working just fine. I figured that I can be producing this low quality content rather easily (and cheap) and leave it as it is, and instead focus on offpage SEO to push rankings up. That was working fine for me.
 
Hands down the hardest part of marketing is targeting customers.

Knowing exaxtly who you're gonna be targeting sets the course for pretty much everything else.
 
  • Targeting Audience
  • Brainstorming Content
  • Creating Content
  • Implementing Content
  • Promoting Content
I wanted to say that it was none of the above because what I'm having trouble with is getting sales. Then I realized that getting sales has to do with all of the above.

The hardest part for me is putting all of the above together to create sales. I can look around to see what my target market is buying, put together a piece of content (ad or blog post) catered to that audience, and promote it in the micro networks where they hang out.

All this gets me is a likes, some shares, and a few comments like "omg i'd buy this!!!", "my ____ would LOVE THIS". At the end of the day 0 sales.

I know that this isn't suppose to be easy and I need to keep applying and practicing until I get that first great campaign. That I need to slowly build my marketing intuition until this is automatic for me. This is what I struggle with.
 
Being consistent is my main weakness. I'll make some high-quality content one day, then something that reaches a small amount of traffic the next. The best way to handle this is to continue to create content every day. The ones that fail will help you make better pieces later on.

It's the hardest part of online marketing because it takes forever for one to keep their websites up with fresh content all of the time. Still, making content every day is my favorite way to handle this problem in an active manner.
 
Hardest part is other people.. VAs that go missing or have to make a hospital trip every other day. People who you try to put capital into and just disappear over night.. And a general lack of brain cells.

I know it sounds harsh, and there are a ton of awesome folks out there.. but it's the hardest part of running a business is managing other people, predominantly idiots.
 
secretagentdad said:
I think the hardest part of online marketing is staff retention.
Click to expand...

Yeah - that seems to be a constant reality of business. Recently I had a project that I outsourced to a guy that seemed to be on the ball. Had very little work to do left, then he pushed it to 48 hours later. Then "Friday". Friday comes and goes, then he comes back "I'm on vacation" - 8 weeks later, he comes back talking about he was on vacation for over a month... This was end of January. He keeps hitting me up every now and then for more work... He doesn't seem to realize why I never reply to him. Why would I waste time with someone that just randomly disappears for a whole month without warning and with a major project deadline scheduled - and missed.

It's not the first time, but it's definitely a cultural thing. It's like certain people just don't take things "seriously" yet they look at the state of their own economy and can't figure out why they aren't world leaders in any category.

--

For those people that struggle writing "daily" or even "weekly" content I have to ask you why are you concentrating on "quantity"? It feels like "more" is "more" in your scenario, but realistically if you focused on creating 2 pieces of content a month and then spent 28 days promoting each piece of content you'd get further with less.

Example, most of you know Brian Dean from Backlinko.com, I'm one of the few that knew his old Wickedfire handle and read his Enlightened Section post - Are you aware that his backlinko site only has 78 pages indexed? In 5 years he has about 53 articles written (The ‘Less Is More’ Content Strategy) - yet everyone in SEO knows him? Why?

For a long time I thought most people had a hard time brain-storming ideas, but then I started realizing most people have zero clue really on how to promote their current piece of content. That's why I wanted to see what people say to see if I still understand what's missing and what's not understood.

--
Another question cause I'm still not getting a solid answer - Why do people believe THEY have to be writers for their content? I feel like more people need to "justify the cost of their content" which equates their time to being free, instead of getting a writer that knows how to write and convey a message.
 
CCarter said:
Another question cause I'm still not getting a solid answer - Why do people believe THEY have to be writers for their content? I feel like more people need to "justify the cost of their content" which equates their time to being free, instead of getting a writer that knows how to write and convey a message.
Click to expand...

In my opinion, it has to do with an inability to transition between different levels of consciousness in business. In essence, the ability to externalize their self-perception. People see what is right in front of them, and on their "level". In those cases, it is easy to fall into self-reinforcing repetition of habits that lead to failure.

I think what would help immensely is if a person was able to shift their consciousness to that higher level (IE - Manager or Business Owner vs. Worker Bee) and then ask themselves this simple question in regards to their lower-level Worker Bee self:
As a {manager, owner, etc.}, would I FIRE this person if they continued to work like this?
Click to expand...
​
If a person could ask themselves that question, about their own self, and if they actually answered YES, more people might find themselves to be more effectively self-correcting and predisposed towards adopting behaviors that lead to success.
 
CCarter said:
For a long time I thought most people had a hard time brain-storming ideas, but then I started realizing most people have zero clue really on how to promote their current piece of content. That's why I wanted to see what people say to see if I still understand what's missing and what's not understood.
Click to expand...

This is exactly where I fail miserably.

I've no problem creating content. The problem comes when the content has just been published. What do I do then? I'm experimenting by increasing my email list and doing outreach, without too much success for now.

My problem is that if you told me that I've to get traffic to a specific post/website at this very moment, I think I wouldn't be able to do it effectively.
 
Nat said:
lulz-7k.jpg


Then I membered I wanted $, so I added some amazon links.

7k+ views! Looks like mah target lieks it.
Click to expand...

I think a lot of people missed this great post and don't appreciate what @Nat did, he did the traffic leak hours earlier to prove in this future troll post that getting traffic is the easy part. I actually had to do a double take when I realized he was posting a real-time image.

I9QVHIh.gif

Well played...
 
SSG said:
All this gets me is a likes, some shares, and a few comments like "omg i'd buy this!!!", "my ____ would LOVE THIS". At the end of the day 0 sales.
Click to expand...

Are you creating a real "need" or urgency for the product? There is a difference between sayin "i'd buy this" versus creating such a compelling reason it's makes people feel like they are losing out by NOT buying this "How can I NOT buy this???!?!"

If you can hit some primal urges than you can get them.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back