Enjoying The Ride
Editor’s Note: This newsletter was originally published on October 11th, 2021.
It doesn’t happen often, but this weekend was a trifecta!
- UGA defeated Auburn to go to 6-0 (4-0 in SEC play). (Note: Georgia beating Auburn should probably qualify as a “twofer” since it represents both a #DawgWin and #WDELoss!).
- The Atlanta Braves earned a split in Milwaulkee versus the Brewers coming back to Atlanta for Game 3.
- My Atlanta Falcons closed the weekend with an early-Sunday morning win in London against the New York Jets.
These all-win weekends have been a little hard to come by recently with the Falcons’ struggles under their 1st year Head Coach and General Manager. UGA has been taking care of business (#Thankful) and the Braves have over-performed during this season in general.
This brings us to the point of taking your opportunities to celebrate wins! Enjoy the good times and remember how you feel because disappointments are bound to come. (Just ask Alabama!)
Overall, here’s my two pieces of advice to stay on point through the ups & downs.
First, act as if you’ve been there! If it’s midgame or midseason, make your scores and get ready to make another. Enjoy your achievements and wins, but remember that they award trophies based on how you finish (not how you played)!
Secondly, act as if you expect to get back! When mistakes or disappointments happen, assess where you need to improve and get back to work. Remember how good “the good” felt & work that much harder to get back to it.
Thirdly, focus on Now! Nobody wins National Titles or World Series championships or Super Bowl rings in the middle of the season, but a bunch of them are lost there! Planning and dreaming about performances on “the big stage” is usually the quickest path to getting derailed from it. Get ready for the next one & #TheBigOne will take care of itself soon enough!
This quote is the primary thesis for my long-form blog post (Content Marketing for Bankruptcy Attorneys). It is more specifically targeted toward legal professionals, but it is true across most verticals.
Our historic mass-marketing practices that have been successful in eras of television and radio dominance no longer work for most businesses. Buying ads targeting the widest possible audience is just not financially feasible, but for the largest companies and brands.
- High Costs make it more expensive than ever to get your message in front of audiences.
- High Competition means that those audiences are seeing more messages than ever.
- Low Trust dilutes our effectiveness in motivating emotion or action when that audience is so predisposed to disbelieve what we tell them.
The net result is businesses spending more to be seen less by audiences less likely to believe us!
The key strategy where we need to focus is identifying and targeting the right audience!
Whereas strategies before the advent of smartphones & social media usually focused on the widest possible audience reach, today’s successful businesses spend the time and effort to directing their message toward the most likely receptive audiences and groups.
Even if you have to pay more to hyper-target your intended audience, you are likely to get better (and more cost-effective) results than generalized targeting.
Try the following:
- Identify that focused target audience and work to get their attention via a wide array of mechanisms (content, advertising, etc).
- Get their direct contact info and permission to interact/engage with them from a platform where you hold control (i.e. email, website, etc).
- Keep pushing value from your platform to build long-term relationships & community above and beyond simple purchasers & customers.
Don’t get discouraged and keep pushing value! This is truly the path to cost-effective growth for your business. As time passes, it is likely to only grow!
Anyone can start up a business. All you need is a great idea, the right systems, and the drive to see it through.
— Neil Patel (@neilpatel) October 10, 2021
For those checking out the book reviews, I reviewed E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber. You can check out my notes at this link.
Keep a lookout as I just finished One Million Followers by Brendan Kane and will be posting my notes for that one soon.
Other Links
Why Facebook and Instagram went down
There was a collective panic among users (and many marketers) this past week when Facebook & Instagram (as well as many of their ancillary products & sites) went dark for about 12 hours. By all reports, the problem was self-inflicted, but the situation highlights risk on a number of levels for the tech giant & many of its users.
- For FB, the reported issue related to an error they made in their DNS, routers, and networking. It is easy to see how a mistake like this could have a widespread impact especially recognizing the complex nature of large platforms (like FB) and their massive physical & virtual hardware topology. The more systemic risk (and the one that FB leadership has to evaluate/prevent) is how that complex topology contributed to the length of the outage because FB staff were not able to connect and fix it. Effectively, their administrative capability to manage their systems sits atop the same platform that was broken by the outage. #NichtGut
- For its user base (especially those users who build their business/marketing programs atop the Facebook platform), this outage highlighted the risk of basing mission-critical capabilities where you have no technical control! In the same way that Facebook’s error can effectively “shut you down” for hours, users can be banned from the platform losing access to the audiences with whom they interact based solely on decisions made by the platform.
Yes, Facebook lost millions due to the outage (as well as took the reputation hit from the attention it raised). However, this relatively short problem and pain should be a wake-up call for both its leadership as well as those who utilize the platform for commercial goals.
For More on the outage, you can read this writeup as well.
Common Analytics Mistakes by Marketers
Everyone is paying attention to analytics and metrics. As was suggested by a quote in a previous newsletter, “We measure the things that matter”. In this rush to “measure, many companies & businesses fail to approach it strategically and end up calculating metrics for things that simply don’t matter! Avoid some of the common mistakes highlighted in this post.
Google Search Console Updates
Google Search Console continues to be a solid tool for SEO and content marketing. It is one of the most valuable free tools to improve both. Take the time to learn how to use it and keep abreast as it continues to evolve.
At the same time, be sure to update Google Chrome as there are some nasty recent attacks targeting the browser. I’m a user of the tool as well as a number of its plugins, but with its widespread adoption comes the attention of hackers attacking it. #Beware & #BeVigilant
Navigating NFTs: For 1st-time buyers
I’ll be sharing my thoughts and experiences learning and playing in the NFT realm in the next couple of weeks. Ownership & the wider audience/marketing capabilities offered to creatives (regardless of their creative outlet) are experiencing a disruptive moment. We don’t know how the changes will eventually manifest, but like many predecessors, we can see that they will change. If it is to be successful and stable (which I expect), it will be for the benefit of the creatives; not the short-time profiteers and grifters littering its markets right now.
Increase Sales With These Tips From LinkedIn’s Top 10 Business Pages https://t.co/FDpJXt6v5e
— Social Marketing Solutions (@SocialMktgSltns) October 10, 2021
