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It's been 3 years since the old CCarterly Weeklys went live. It was a good run and it was needed in a different time. Looking at the landscape 3 years later I noticed something. Nothing has changed and everything has changed. It's the same-old-same-old but just remixed with new characters and different techniques.
This time around though, as we've matured and grown wiser - hopefully most of you haven't spent the last 3 years wasting time with a dying art and have started transitioning to longer-term profits - if you can't read in-between the lines, well...
Anyway, this time around I want to focus on long-term profits and creating new thought patterns that will help you conquer your field of interest.
Welcome to the CCarter Weekly Reboot.
1st item on the docket - Intercom: Peek inside Intercom’s Multi-million Dollar SaaS Growth Strategy
Anyone looking for unique growth strategies that can be remixed and transferred over to your own project check out that article. (Tip #5 is probably my favorite).
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2nd item on the docket - Heddle Marketing: Hero Conference 2017
Happened a little over a month ago, it's a quick summary of some of the best take aways. I'm looking for more background and might even attend one of the conferences to see Amy Harrison's presentation on "The Customer Disconnect". There is a quick summary there but definitely worth investigating for anyone trying to connect with an audience - regardless of the medium.
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3rd item on the docket - Neil Patel: Triple Your Email Opt-in Rate by Using This 6-Step Lead Magnet Creation Process
Wow, I hate Neil's site - tons of pop ups, interstitual, and yet even more pop-ups - anyways, this is a post from 2015 that I've been going back and forth with for a while. It highlights some ways to think out-side the box on doing your market research and getting more engagement for your userbase (Permission Based Marketing).
Wait... you do have a userbase right? Right? I would hate for you to be spending a ton of time creating websites, driving traffic, and not collecting a userbase where you can instantly get thousands of visitors to your site by sending out a news letter...
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4th item: Data Science of the Facebook World
This is the craziest data you will see and NEED to understand your audience - not just your facebook audience but your total audience. Quick Screenshot:
^^ In this you'll notice that as people get older the tend to talk more about "politics" and less about "fashion" for example. You can see this in your own life and through your facebook timeline of your friends and family.
You can also see that women talk more about health and family+friends, and relationships, where as men talk more about politics, sports, video games, and technology. What's critical is you can see the different topics by ages. This is a great generalization when starting out in your journey to understanding and creating a customer profile - if your topics fall in the datasets provided you can understand your audience just a bit better.
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5th item How Trump Won: The Data That Turned the World Upside Down
"Psychologist Michal Kosinski developed a method to analyze people in minute detail based on their Facebook activity. Did a similar tool help propel Donald Trump to victory? Two reporters from Zurich-based Das Magazine went data-gathering."
[..]
"Just how precisely the American population was being targeted by Trump's digital troops at that moment was not visible, because they attacked less on mainstream TV and more with personalized messages on social media or digital TV. And while the Clinton team thought it was in the lead, based on demographic projections, Bloomberg journalist Sasha Issenberg was surprised to note on a visit to San Antonio—where Trump's digital campaign was based—that a "second headquarters" was being created. The embedded Cambridge Analytica team, apparently only a dozen people, received $100,000 from Trump in July, $250,000 in August, and $5 million in September. According to Nix, the company earned over $15 million overall. (The company is incorporated in the US, where laws regarding the release of personal data are more lax than in European Union countries. Whereas European privacy laws require a person to "opt in" to a release of data, those in the US permit data to be released unless a user "opts out.")"
[..]
"Just how precisely the American population was being targeted by Trump's digital troops at that moment was not visible, because they attacked less on mainstream TV and more with personalized messages on social media or digital TV. And while the Clinton team thought it was in the lead, based on demographic projections, Bloomberg journalist Sasha Issenberg was surprised to note on a visit to San Antonio—where Trump's digital campaign was based—that a "second headquarters" was being created. The embedded Cambridge Analytica team, apparently only a dozen people, received $100,000 from Trump in July, $250,000 in August, and $5 million in September. According to Nix, the company earned over $15 million overall. (The company is incorporated in the US, where laws regarding the release of personal data are more lax than in European Union countries. Whereas European privacy laws require a person to "opt in" to a release of data, those in the US permit data to be released unless a user "opts out.")"
^^ Look at the minute details of that data...
Two words - "Cambridge Analytica" - this is the future of data. One example: Trump was able to target Haitians in Miami on Facebook and remind them of what the Clintons did in Haiti. Just like the previous administration before him when Obama used the internet to create a massive grass-roots movement like no one had ever seen before, Trump came in with even MORE minute details and targeted users at a level like never before. Think about it, it was 8 years since Obama took over, 8 years on the internet is a lifetime. Now ask yourself what technologies will we see emerge in the next 8 years - and will YOU as a marketer be at the forefront - or are you still going to be trying to buy PBN links for your MFA site?
There are billions actually trillions of dollars at stake as the whole internet is moving constantly forward and some of you are getting left behind trying to start a fire in the rain with wet fire wood.
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5th item Upside Down Funnel: Why I hate funnels.
This. Is. PERFECT.
The funnel should have ALWAYS been upside down - that's why successful companies with great customer service continue to win. Let the audience spread the word for you and you'll reap the rewards for years!
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Final Note: While the rest of the world is trying to decipher what covfefe means - something that will be irrelevant in a week - notice how they get distracted so easily, as a marketer you have to stay on course and focused when you play this game. This is a topic I'll be returning to in greater length in the future.
This is your website:
This is your website with 1 traffic source - probably SEO:
This is your website with 2-4 traffic sources (think SEO, email marketing, social media):
This is your website with multiple traffic sources:
This is your website after testing new traffic sources, optimizing old traffic sources, and constantly pushing the envelope in your industry:
Any questions?
Remember, this is the internet, everything is a traffic source.
Time to get to work.
- CCarter (http://www.twitter.com/MakoCCarter)
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