How Successful Marketers Think | Ep. #630

In episode #630, Eric and Neil explain how successful marketers think. Tune in to hear what you should be doing to become a more successful marketer.

TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES:

  • [00:27] Today’s Topic: How Successful Marketers Think
  • [00:35] Successful marketers are numb to failure.
  • [00:45] Most experiments are going to fail, but as long as you continue to improve by 1%/week, that will be a 50% gain over the course of a year.
  • [01:13] Consistency is key!
  • [01:20] It takes time to get things right, but you have to stay the course.
  • [01:45] Eric writes thousands of blog posts, even though he has terrible grammar. He knows it is important to follow through and be consistent.
  • [01:50] Be a T-shaped marketer.
  • [02:30] Spot trends! If you are not good at spotting trends, keep reading news sites and stay on top of things.
  • [03:25] Things change so quickly in marketing.
  • [04:45] If you are not thinking about ROI, you are not going to succeed in the marketing world.
  • [05:20] It’s important to be data-driven; the numbers do not lie.
  • [05:59] Don’t be afraid to shake up whatever industry you are in.
  • [06:12] Neil is willing to do this by taking competitors products or services, copying them, and then offering them for free.
  • [06:51] That’s all for today!
  • [06:57] Go to Singlegrain.com/Giveway for a special marketing tool giveaway!

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The post How Successful Marketers Think | Ep. #630 appeared first on Marketing School Podcast.

Full Transcript of The Episode

Speaker 1: Get ready for your daily dose of marketing strategies and tactics from entrepreneurs with the guile and experience to help you find success in any marketing capacity. You're listening to Marketing School with your instructors Neil Patel and Eric Siu.

Eric Siu: Welcome to another episode of Marketing School. I'm Eric Siu.

Neil Patel: And I'm Neil Patel.

Eric Siu: And today we are going to talk about how successful marketers think.
So, I'll kick it off. The very first thing I think about successful marketers is that they are almost numb to failure. They understand the importance of running experiments, you have to be able to run experiments, you have to understand that most experiments are going to fail, you are going to look like a dummy. But, the ones that work out make you look like a genius.
And as long as you continue to improve, let's say 1% every single week, well over the course of a year that might be a 50% gain over time. So if you can do better than that, great, good for you. But having that kind of experimentation mindset, being willing to fail, is really important in marketing and also in life.

Neil Patel: The next thing that you need to think about if you want to be successful is consistency. With marketing, especially digital, when it comes to SEO, social media, even paid advertising, it takes time to crack the nut and get things right. You have to be consistent, and you have to continually do if for long periods of time.
I didn't do well through content marketing by writing one blog post a week for years, I became successful because I wrote thousands and thousands of blog posts over the years, and I'm very consistent. Heck, it can be Christmas and you'll still see a blog post from me.

Eric Siu: And you didn't start out as a writer.

Neil Patel: I didn't start out as a writer, I have terrible grammar still. I don't care though.

Eric Siu: My turn?

Neil Patel: Yeah.

Eric Siu: My turn, all right. So the other thing I think is really important, and I think Neil and I do this fairly well, is becoming a T-Shaped marketer. So not necessarily being good at every single discipline, being an expert at CRO, SEO, all these different things, but being really good at one area. So it might be content marketing for example, but understanding email marketing, copywriting, all this other stuff across the board around marketing, so you at least know enough to be dangerous. That way you're more well rounded as a marketer.
What I find is that the ones that are really specialist, when it comes to talking about these other things, you can't really talk as much strategy or new ideas as much as you'd like to. So it's a limiting trait when you're not a T-Shaped marketer.

Neil Patel: The next one is spotting trends. If you're not good at spotting trends, continually read news sites, especially within your niche when it comes to marketing. This will help you spot trends before they come about and before they become mainstream. The reason you need to spot trends is as a marketer, things are going to evolve. We've discussed this many times on the podcast, five, ten years from now marketing won't be the same, you're going to start seeing marketing integrated with your fridge, your toaster, your coffee machine, and offline appliances.
So if you're not thinking about where the future is, you're not going to know how to adapt, and that will make you a really terrible marketer in the long run. If you want to look what's going to be popular in the next few years, voice search is climbing really fast in popularity. Every time we talk about it or we blog about it, it doesn't get too much traffic because no one wants to hear about it or read about it, but that is coming whether you like it or not, and you need to be prepared for voice search.

Eric Siu: Yeah, the other thing is I think with marketing, so much stuff changes so quickly. Neil just talked about Voice, and we have a bunch of other stuff coming down the road. Oh, what about the Blockchain in marketing? Well, what about AI for example? All this different stuff. Marketing's always changing, but also at the same time, staying present and focusing on what you're good at and doubling down, and not trying to do too many things at once.
I've fallen into that pit too many times where I try to do everything everyone's talking about. "Oh, there this new tactic here, there's this new tool here. Try this, try that." It's really easy to get overwhelmed and what happens is you end up investing all this time in different areas where you don't really get that far because you've spread yourself so thin.
So focus on what you're good at, double down on it. If you look at Neil, he's just been doing content marketing consistently for 17 years or so, and it's worked out well.

Neil Patel: Next one, ROI. I was talking with the marketer at [inaudible 00:04:13] Ad Agency, who are a digital marketing agency. He was telling me how with some of his clients he's taken them from 100,000 visitors plus in Google, to over a million a month within a year. And he's like "They didn't renew my contract. I did amazing for them, and they weren't happy."
And I asked him, how much more revenue did you make them per month? Was that campaign profitable for them? You know what he said? "Oh I don't know, I never ask them about their revenue." I'm like well do you have Goal Tracking set up in Google Analytics? He's like "No, never set it up for them."
If you're not thinking about ROI, you're not going to succeed in the marketing world. It's not just about [inaudible 00:04:53] metrics like visits, it really comes down to how many leads are you getting? How many conversions? How many sales?
So if you're not tracking that, and your efforts aren't directed to increasing the numbers that are the most important for the customer, of for the business, you're not going to succeed.

Eric Siu: Yeah, and to build on Neil's point, this is my final one for now, is being data driven. So, at the end of the day, people, actually I just had a conversation recently where we had a traction meeting, and one guy was like "What you got? I've got this ... I feel like it's like this, I feel like it's like this." But at the end of the day, look at the numbers. The numbers don't lie, you cannot argue with the numbers, they are irrefutable.
You work off the numbers, once you have enough data I'm assuming, you work off the numbers and then you can start to come out with different hypotheses, different insights, and then you can move the business forward. I'm not saying the qualitative stuff doesn't matter, certainly it does, but looking at more stuff around being quantitative, because if you can measure it you can manage is, and that can take your business forward.
But if you just keep pulling pie in the sky stuff out there where you're not sure and you've just got this gut feeling, it's not going to take you that far.
Neil, anything else?

Neil Patel: The last one I have for you is don't be afraid to shake up whatever industry you're in. As a marketer you have to be willing to do really crazy risky stuff. For example, I'm willing to take my competitors products, that make them the majority of their revenue, and crush them by giving most of it away for free.
I know that that sounds silly, especially when people look at the numbers of how much money I'm going to lose, but I really am crazy. And by doing things that others aren't willing to do, it allows me to gobble up their market share.
And if you don't have cash, like I'm using my savings for this kind of stuff, if you don't have cash, you can raise money. There's friends and family. Yes, you may not have done it before, but you can figure it out.
The point I'm trying to get is you don't have to get as crazy as I am, but don't be afraid to shake things up, because if you're not willing to go to drastic measures, or take drastic measures, you're not going to grow as fast as you want.

Eric Siu: Yeah, Neil's a crazy egg. By the way, go check out his tool Crazy Egg, it's a nice heating mapping tool. So anyway, before we go, go to singlegrain.com/giveaway, check out our marketing tools. Actually, Crazy Egg's in there. So, see you tomorrow.

Speaker 1: This session of Marketing School has come to a close. Be sure to subscribe for more daily marketing strategies and tactics to help you find the success you've always dreamed of. And don't forget to rate and review so we can continue to bring you the best daily content possible. We'll see you in class tomorrow right here on Marketing School.

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