Latest / The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson / Driving Online Sales Success with Neil Patel

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Driving Online Sales Success with Neil Patel · The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson

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  3, 10, 1, 0, ignition, liftoff,
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  Ending small business failure.
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  Welcome to the Small Biz Chat podcast with a number 1 small business expert Melinda Emerson.
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  Bolinda's goal is to end small business failure, and she'll give you the information
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  you need to succeed and live the life you've dream of.
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  Now here's the small biz lady herself.
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  Melinda Everson.
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  Welcome back to small biz chat Melinda Emerson, the small biz lady.
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  America's never one small business expert, and I'm so excited to have you here for 10 years.
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  We've been helping you grow your business because our mission is to end small business
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  failure.
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  This show would not be possible.
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  We're not for our generous sponsor, Mixed Max, And if you're using Gmail, you need mixmax
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  because it's a great way to add marketing automation to your emails, you don't wanna go
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  back and forth trying to figure out a time to meet, it lets you give your availability right
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  in the email, and you can check when people open up your stuff.
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  So it is a great tool check it out.
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  Go to mixmax.com and see what they're talking about.
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  And with that, let me introduce my first guest top online marketer Neil Patel.
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  He is the co founder of crazy egg, hello bar, and kissmetrics.
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  He helps companies like Amazon, NBC, GM, HP, and Viacom grow their revenue.
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  He's a New York Times best selling author, and the Wall Street Journal calls him the top
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  influencer on the web.
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  He helps fortified companies and small business owners too.
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  That's why we have him here.
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  And listen to this, you guys.
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  His stats are amazing.
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  His marketing blog It's 3,000,000 visitors a month.
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  His marketing school podcast generates over 1,000,000 listeners a month His YouTube channel
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  has over 10,000,000 views.
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  He's got almost a million followers on Facebook and he has over 300,000 followers on Twitter
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  too, like me.
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  Alright.
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  So I am so excited to welcome Neil Patel here tonight.
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  Neil, welcome to Small Bench Chat for our 10th anniversary show.
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  Welcome.
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  Thanks for having me.
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  Yeah.
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  You know, I've been following you for a while, and I'm a big fan of your marketing school
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  podcast.
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  And I'm excited in our second segment.
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  We're gonna dig into that, but you are the online marketing guru So I wanna dive right in.
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  I wanna I wanna, you know, squeeze every little morse so I can out of you.
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  Now let's say I built a beautiful website, but it's not converting for crap.
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  Right?
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  I'm not getting traffic.
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  I'm not generating sales.
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  It can really be overwhelming for a small business owner to figure out how to tackle a
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  problem like this.
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  So if you were recommending something for them to drive traffic, increase conversions, and
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  their rank optimization, I mean, where did they go first?
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  How how do we build a plan as a small business owner to start attacking this?
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  Yeah.
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  There's a lot of free stuff that you can use as a small business owner.
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  So for example, if you already have the visitors and they're not converting, there's
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  free tools like hotjar.com, where they'll show you what people are doing that are converting
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  and what people are not doing that aren't converting.
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  You can then take that and make changes to your site so then that way you can get more
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  engagement and more sales by doing more and showing more of the stuff that people wanna
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  see.
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  Because Hartjar will show you what people did.
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  What is that tool again?
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  Cause I missed it.
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  What was that tool?
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  Hotjar, h o t j a r.
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  Hotjar.
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  Okay.
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  Alright.
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  What next?
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  I can use hotjar and figure out what's going on.
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  What next?
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  Yeah.
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  And then you can use tools like Mailchimp.
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  To collect emails and send emails.
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  It's another free tool.
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  And that's a good way to get more sales as well because the moment someone opts into your email
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  list, it's much easier to convert them into a sale.
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  So that's the 2nd free tool that I would use if you want more conversions.
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  And then if you want more traffic, there's a free marketing tool called Uber Suggest that
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  helps you get more search traffic from Google ranked higher.
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  And, again, all these tools are free.
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  Alright.
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  So what if I got a little bit of budget and I wanna go after this problem.
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  Where do I spend money first?
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  Do I spend it on SEO?
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  Do I spend it on paid ads?
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  Do I do retargeting?
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  Where do I go?
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  I typically would start with paid advertising because you can pick specifically the type of
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  people you want, the demographic, the keywords they're going after and where do you wanna end
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  up driving those people to convert them?
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  That's where I would start.
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  Okay.
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  Alright.
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  I think that's fair.
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  So when you're putting together your plan, you call that a CRO or conversion rate optimization
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  plan, right, when you're trying to figure out how to Get more conversions, get better
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  conversions, all of this when you're kinda figuring it out.
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  That's what you call it.
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  Correct.
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  Got it.
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  Right.
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  Alright.
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  Now digital marketing is changing at a rapid pace.
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  Where do you see it going in the next 2 to 5 years?
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  And how can we, as small business owners, you know, really be proactive and prepare for for
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  where digital marketing is going.
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  It's gonna be connected to the offline world.
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  Just think of it this way.
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  You got a fridge.
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  Everyone has a fridge in their home.
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  You're running out of milk.
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  Your fridge eventually is gonna tell you hey, you're running out of Altahedina milk.
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  Have you ever thought about ordering silk, almond milk?
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  It tastes very similar, and it's half the cost, and we can send it to you in the next 4 hours.
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  And these fridge companies are gonna be making money off of ads people are gonna be like,
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  yeah, promote my milk, promote my cheese, promote my bread instead of the competitors.
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  And you're gonna start seeing a lot of the places you go right now to buy ads on internet
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  also being the places you go in the future to probably buy ads in places like televisions to
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  places like your fridge, your microwave, whatever it may end up being.
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  Got it.
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  Got it.
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  Okay.
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  So everything's gonna be selling to me.
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  Everywhere I go, my refrigerator, o'clock radio.
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  Now, actually, I use Alexa in my home.
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  And what I notice is every time I ask Alexa, to go to a certain radio station.
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  The people who paid for that time get their add on before my radio station comes on.
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  So I'm already starting to see some of the stuff you're talking about where they're
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  already selling to you even through the voice voice search stuff.
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  Now what are some online marketing tips for owners that are just starting off.
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  I I'm just starting my business.
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  I got limited resources.
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  You know, other than the free tools you told us, figure out what's going on if your website
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  isn't converting.
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  What are some of the other things you think they should do?
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  Look, you you're connected with people on the social web.
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  Doesn't matter if you have 10 friends on Facebook or a 1000.
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  Whether it's Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, put out content related to you, your
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  business, whether it's videos, it could be audio, but just bust out your phone.
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  You all have them.
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  Film yourself.
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  Upload the content, and I kids, you know, you'll start getting more traffic, and a
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  portion of those people will convert into sales.
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  Is that easy deal?
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  I mean,
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  you're not gonna get as many sales as you want, but it's a great way to start, right?
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  You gotta start small and simple.
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  There, you can do a 100 different things, but why not start off with the stuff that works and
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  you can do with ease?
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  And after you're up and running and you're making a bit more money, then you can expand
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  the other stuff that takes longer and cost more money.
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  Got it.
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  Got it.
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  Alright.
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  So what are some of the stakes that people need to avoid out here if they wanna have a
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  successful online launch.
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  Yeah.
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  A few of the mistakes are, 1, when people are launching, they always create sites based off
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  of what they want.
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  You know, yeah, you may end up buying your product once, but you're not gonna buy it a 100
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  or a 1000 times.
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  So you gotta get the input of other people who are your ideal customers and see what they
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  think of your website, see what they think of your messaging, your content, your copy.
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  And then use that information to make, you know, informed decisions so that way it's
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  relevant to the people who are out there.
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  The second mistake people make is they think, oh, I got all these people coming to my site.
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  They're just gonna buy.
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  I wish the role was that easy, but, you know, when people go into stores, think of like a
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  mall, There's a lot of people who are just window shoppers or browsing.
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  They'll even try on stuff, but they don't buy.
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  And that's the reality of it.
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  You need to make sure you're collecting email addresses without the email addresses.
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  You won't do well.
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  You need to keep getting people back to your site and email is a perfect way to do And then
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  the third is once things are working, people just assume that their business is gonna keep
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  going up and they're gonna keep making money and life is great, but that's not the reality
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  of it.
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  You're gonna competition, market conditions change.
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  You need to always keep improving yourself, your product, your business, and never stop.
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  Good stuff.
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  Good stuff.
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  I cosign on all of that.
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  Now I know a lot of people you say, okay.
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  If you got a little bit of budget, invest in paid ads.
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  But a lot of people are losing their shirt on paid ads, and and and they're struggling with
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  it.
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  You know, do you have some rules of thumb for people if they're getting started with paid
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  tizing?
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  One of the rule of thumbs that I have is people should have upsells and down sells.
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  So paid ads are expensive.
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  Someone buys your product, you're probably gonna lose money on the front end.
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  You need to make sure you have upsells and down sells.
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  So When someone buys one product, pitch them another product that's related, pitch them
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  another one after that.
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  By doing that, it makes your paid ads much more profitable.
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  It allows you to keep up with the competition and continually spend more.
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  Alright.
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  Good stuff.
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  Now I know you're a real big believer in the long, Bob posts.
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  I've actually read blog posts that you've written about the long blog post.
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  Alright.
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  So now tell me, how long are we talking, Neil?
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  Are we talking 1500 words.
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  Are we talking 3000 words when you say long blog posts?
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  And by the way, you give me highs when you say that.
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  So when you say long blog posts, what are you about?
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  Typically, you want your blog supposed to be thorough enough where you're getting the point
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  across, and someone can go and take action on whatever they read.
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  If you can get your message across and make sure your content's amazing and better than the
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  competition in a hundred words or 500 words, good for you.
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  But in most cases, It's gonna be 2000 plus words.
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  I thought you were gonna go there.
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  2000 plus words.
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  Lord, that's a chapter in the book.
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  Isn't it Stephanie?
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  Gonna get to Stephanie in a minute.
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  Alright.
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  Now is the podcast really the best way to promote a business these days?
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  Podcast is one way.
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  Business or marketing right now has moved to omnichannel approach.
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  You used to be able to promote a business of one channel, there is companies who are built
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  just off the social media or email marketing or SEO or just paid ads.
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  That doesn't exist too much anymore because all these spaces are competitive.
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  Now you're gonna have to take a omnichannel approach and leverage all the major channels.
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  Doesn't mean you gotta start with all of them.
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  Just means that you're gonna end up leveraging all of them.
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  It's just a question of when.
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  Well, Neil, I'm gonna put a pin in that right there.
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  That was so helpful.
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  And here on small business chat, you know, our mission is to end small business failure, and
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  we appreciate you teaching us about some of the building blocks of online marketing.
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  But don't go away when we come back.
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  We're gonna get some inside tips on Neil's video podcast, the marketing school.
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  We'll be right back.
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  I'm Melinda Emerson.
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  Stay with us.
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  Since we implemented Mixed Max, our, open rates are 86%.
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  Our reply rates are 52%, and our RSVPES rates 41%.
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  My advice for other companies interested in Mixmax is definitely go for it.
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  It's also a really easy onboarding process.
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  It's very user friendly.
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  It's easy to get in there.
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  I wish we had started using it a lot sooner, and it's it's made my life much, much easier.
• 11:59
  Everybody.
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  Welcome back to small business chat.
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  This is our 10th anniversary show.
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  For 10 years, we have been helping you and small business failure.
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  We're back now with our guest, Neil tell online marketing guru.
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  Now he is also the co founder of crazy ag and kids metric, and now we're gonna be talking
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  about his incredibly popular podcasts and YouTube channel marketing school.
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  Now my first question for you, Neil, about marketing school is you do it every day.
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  I mean, I thought doing a weekly chat for an hour was a lot of work.
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  You do marketing school every day.
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  Can you talk to us about how you made the decision that that was how you were gonna
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  differentiate your your podcast and your your your video YouTube channel?
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  Yeah.
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  The world's a chaotic place.
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  People don't have a ton of time, so I was like, oh, why not do something that's short and sweet
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  and every single day, like, 5 minutes?
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  And that's my model.
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  Now even though it's daily, I don't really record daily.
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  I'll record for 2 hours straight and produce 15 days or, you know, 18 days, maybe 20 days worth
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  of content and podcast.
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  So it's not too bad.
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  But, yeah, I I did that, and it's worked out really well because everyone's like, wow.
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  The world's really hectic chaotic place.
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  5 minutes a day is the sweet spot when it comes to content.
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  Well and you're almost at a 1000 shows.
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  I looked the other day.
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  You guys are just just just almost at your 1000 show, which is just like mind boggling to me.
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  How do you keep the content fresh and marketing school?
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  The community, they keep giving us ideas on to talk about, and we also read a lot and just
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  keep up to date with whatever's happening in the space, and that gives us new fresh ideas
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  because marketing is consistently changing.
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  It definitely is.
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  Now I know you have a co host, Eric Sue.
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  Now do you think it's very helpful to have a co host?
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  Like, do you you feel like you needed 1, like, to play off together, or you guys just really
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  good friends?
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  I said, oh, let's start a podcast.
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  Like, how did you make the decision about, you know, 2 of you versus doing it yourself?
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  It was the second one.
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  We were just like, oh, really good friends.
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  Let's just start a podcast.
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  That's really how it happens.
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  But, yeah, it it does help because, you know, when I'm stuck and I don't have any ideas.
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  He may come up with some when he's stuck.
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  I may have some ideas Yeah.
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  I mean, a co host isn't bad.
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  It's helpful.
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  You can also do it by yourself too, and then interview other people.
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  Either one works.
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  Interesting.
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  Interesting.
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  Now on a recent podcast, you talked about knowing when it's time to quit something.
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  If you're just not gaining traction and not making money, can you elaborate a little bit on
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  actually really thought that one was fascinating.
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  Yeah.
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  Some people just keep going when they're not doing well.
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  If you're not doing well, you can't get the numbers to go on to the right, sometimes the
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  business isn't meant to keep pushing forward.
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  I'm not trying to be negative.
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  It's just the reality is it's, if that was the case, everyone as an entrepreneur would succeed
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  and there'd be no employees.
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  But, yeah, when things aren't working out and you just can't make them work no matter how
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  hard you try, just sometimes it's not meant to be, and it's time for quite a move on to
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  something else.
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  Well, I mean, I think that that's good, but that that does feel a little bit harsh.
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  Yeah.
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  Tell me something.
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  What is the best marketing advice anyone ever gave you?
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  The best marketing advice that anyone ever has given me, and this isn't a trick question.
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  They always say, who's the best marketer?
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  And it really comes down to who can spend the most money.
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  So the best marketing advice I ever got is make sure your business is really fine tuned.
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  So do you got amazing product page, reviews, pictures, everything.
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  Like, when you fine tune it, it allows you to spend more than other people.
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  That's who's gonna win at the end of the day.
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  Now that's interesting.
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  I always thought social media level the playing field, and you say it's back that you can spend
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  the most on ads.
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  Yeah.
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  Cause social media used to be where if you have a ton of followers, you would do well, but now
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  your reach is limited by their algorithms.
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  If you have a 1,000,000 fans or 10,000,000 or a 100,000, barely anyone's gonna see your
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  information sadly.
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  That is sad.
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  As much work as it took to get all those followers.
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  Anywho, I am so grateful to have the opportunity to be the small biz lady and to
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  have given you guys small business advice for the last 10 years.
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  Special thanks to tonight's guest.
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  But, you
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  know, for the past 10 years, it has been my pleasure to execute our mission to end small
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  business failure.
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  I am Melinda Emerson.
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  I am the small business lady.
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  And until next time, remember this.
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  You never lose in business.
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  Either you win or you learn.
• 16:37
  God bless everybody.
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  Good night.
• 16:41
  Thank you for listening to the Small Biz Chat podcast with Melinda Emerson.
• 16:46
  For more resources and small business success strategies, visit succeed as your own boss.com.
• 16:53
  Subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen to podcast and join us next Wednesday.