Self Publishing

5 Hacks For Writing Blog Posts Faster

July 7, 2017 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

Writing blog posts takes time, effort and commitment.

You need to think up an engaging topic and headline, write an outline and the actual post, proofread and edit, then publish and promote your post before starting the entire process again.

But there are unconventional ways to hack the writing process and speed things up. Here are five ways to write your blog posts faster:

#1: Write On Your Smartphone

Just to clarify, I always prefer to write blog posts using a computer, but that isn’t always an option.

In fact, I’m writing this post in TJ Maxx. Why? Well, it’s not because I enjoy shopping (I find what I need and get out as quickly as possible), but today I am in the company of people who like to browse.

So instead of idly slouching against a wall, I decided to slouch against a wall and write the post you’re reading now. This way, the time I spend inside the store is actually productive.

Now I’m not saying to go shopping just so you can write blog posts. However, you can use moments of waiting as opportunities to begin, add to, or edit a post.

Certainly I could write much faster on my computer, but if I finish the post here in the store I won’t have to write again later today.

I could go on and on about this method because it’s the one I’m using now, and use often when I’m waiting, but let’s move on to the next hack.

#2: Get Your Videos Transcribed

Some people may be natural talkers but not natural writers. It takes more brain power for them to write than to talk. Just talking about your topic will help it flow out quicker and easier.

Not only that, but you can spend a few minutes dictating content that would take 30 minutes or more to write.

Talk about a time saver! And you’ve also got a YouTube video to boot. You can even turn it into a podcast episode using the MP3 file.

#3: Hire A Ghostwriter

Sometimes the fastest way to get your blog posts written is by not writing them at all! You can have one writer, or a team of ghostwriters, write your content for you.

I still haven’t hired ghostwriters for content creation, but I learned a lot about how it works after hosting the Content Marketing Success Summit.

Bascially, you can give a ghostwriter an outline of your blog post’s topic and he or she will write it up (you can also ask that they make suggestions for topic ideas).

Keep in mind it’s important that ghostwriters are familiar with your blog and writing style so they can write in a similar voice.

This ensures your content is consistent (without having to write it yourself). Why not focus more of your time on other areas of your business?

#4: Accept Guest Contributions To Your Blog

When you are first starting out, you may not have a budget for ghostwriters. To remedy this problem, you can invite people to contribute your blog.

You basically get free content. All you have to do is give credit and let the contributor link to his/her site and other essentials at the beginning or end of the blog post (whichever you prefer).

The best way to find contributors for your blog is by looking at blogs in your niche that accept contributors. Then ask the same contributors to contribute to your blog.

The people who contribute to your blog will naturally share their posts, so you’ll get more exposure for your blog.

Also, as more people contribute to your blog, other contributors will contact you and ask if they can contribute content for your blog.

In the beginning, getting contributors to your blog will involve sending many emails to bloggers. But as you get more contributors, the snowball effect will eventually kick in and new contributors will contact you with their ideas.

#5: Memorize The Keyboard

Do you know where the “q” key is on your keyboard. Did you have to look down to find it?

Looking down at the keyboard takes time. Although it may only take a second to look down and look up, that action makes you type slower and temporarily removes your focus from writing the blog post.

The seconds you spend looking down at the keyboard as you write each sentence and each blog post quickly add up to minutes and hours.

To make up that time, you must memorize the keyboard. Your WPM (words per minute) will skyrocket and you will be less susceptible to distraction.

Any moment that your fingers aren’t moving quickly on the keyboard, you are susceptible to distraction.

So now that I’ve sold you on the benefits (or, at least, I’m hoping), here’s how you master the skill.

Start by memorizing all of the key placements for a single 4-5 letter word. If you can type the word “blog” with your eyes closed, you have memorized the locations of 4 of the 26 letters on the keyboard.

If you then memorize the word “each,” you have memorized 8 of the 26 letters on the keyboard.

Now typing a word like “beach” comes second nature as you’ve memorized the placements of those letters.

This is a simple exercise that will allow you to write blog posts faster. This one method has saved me countless hours of time.

In Conclusion

I’m wrapping up this blog post in yet another store. I didn’t bother looking for a table or taking out my computer. I simply wrote all of it on my iPhone.

Since the keys are located in the same places, I had no problem effortlessly typing words by memory.

Think about how many blog posts you can write while waiting for something or someone.

Think about how much time you can save with ghostwriters and contributors.

Think of how cool it is to not write them at all!

What are your thoughts on these hacks to writing blog posts faster?

Have any hacks for us? Sound off in the comments section below.

Until next time,

-Marc

7 Secrets To Find Your Target Audience

March 25, 2017 by Marc Guberti 4 Comments

Every marketer’s mission is to find, and understand, their target audience. Once you find your audience, you’ll come in contact with people who warmly receive your message.

My target audience doesn’t consist of music lovers. You may love music, but you’re probably here to learn about digital marketing and productivity. If you want to learn how to play the guitar, this blog isn’t for you.

We all know the importance of a target audience, but how do you find YOUR target audience? That’s what this blog post is all about!

#1: Identify Your Target Audience

If you don’t know who you’re trying to reach, you’ll struggle to find your target audience. Before you do any research or write any new content, you first need to understand exactly who you are trying to reach.

Instead of thinking of your target audience as a large group of faceless people, think about one person who would be interested in hearing your message. Is this person a guy, a gal, or does it matter? My brand is for guys and gals alike, but other brands like WBENC cater more to women.

When I began to identify my target audience, I asked myself the following questions:

What are their goals?
What problems do they have?
Where do they work?
What is their age and occupation?
Where do they hang out on- and offline?
Who are their friends?
What do they do for fun?
How do they think and feel?
What leg of the journey are they in right now (beginner, intermediate, or advanced)?

Try to answer these questions as specifically as you can, you should create customer personas for each use case, or user type, relevant to your product or service.

At the most basic level, personas allow you to personalize your marketing for different segments of your audience. For example, instead of sending the same lead nurturing emails to everyone in your database, segment according to your buyer personas to tailor your messaging according to what you know about each.

Here are some practical methods for gathering that information:

Interview customers either in person or over the phone to discover what they like about your product or service.
Look through your contacts database to uncover trends about how certain leads or customers find and consume your content.
Take into consideration your sales team’s feedback on the leads they are interacting with most. What types of sales cycles does your sales team work with? What generalizations can they make about the different types of customers you serve best?

You can also use the forms on your website to capture important persona information. For example, if your personas vary based on company size, ask each lead for information about company size on your forms. You could also gather information on what forms of social media your leads use by asking a question about social media accounts.

In sum, for each persona you should identify background, demographics, identifiers such as demeanor and communication methods, goals, challenges (and how you meet them), plus real quotes and common objections.

Once you identify your buyer personas, you should try to provide free value that matches the needs and preferences of each. For example, one individual within my audience suggested that I write a blog post about finding your target audience.

This individual certainly isn’t the only person who wants to find and grow a target audience, but he or she likely represents others in my audience who have similar questions. I wrote this blog post for that individual, but by so doing so, I will reach other members of my audience at the same time.

In the beginning, you’ll do an intense amount of investigative work to understand your target audience. But once they start embracing your content, your audience will begin to grow by default.

#2: Grow A Targeted Social Media Audience

Social media is a free tool that helps content creators grow a target audience. Most social networks follow the same path to growth.

Find an influencer in your niche
Follow that person’s newest followers
Watch your own follower counts grow

If you use this tactic, day after day, you could end up with results like this:

target audience

Growing my Twitter account in this way has resulted in 100,000+ people visiting my blog every year from Twitter alone. The additional social media traffic also has a significant impact on my SEO traffic.

However, simply following others doesn’t guarantee people will follow you back. To earn a follow, you must be worthy of that follow. More importantly, you’ll never be worthy of everyone’s follow. Rather, you want to position yourself in such a way that you attract followers who are part of your target audience.

You can do this by posting valuable content to your social networks. Valuable content is defined as content that helps specific people. With this definition, each person has a different view of what value means. Fashion articles don’t provide much value to me, because I’m not very interested in fashion.

On the other hand, a productivity book would grab my attention and provide me with an immense amount of value (as long as it’s a great book). Not everyone will like your content, and that’s okay. Stay focused on your target audience and the rewards will come.

This is how you find your target audience on social media: find people of interest and make it as easy as possible for them to find you, follow you, and consume your content.

Once you start growing your target audience, you’ll want them to perform certain actions. You may want your social media followers to join your email list, for example.

Some people try to push their social media followers through their sales funnel, directly from the networks themselves, but this tactic almost always results in failure.

You shouldn’t promote your products directly on social media, at least not very often. However, social media is a brilliant indirect sales machine.

Promote your call-to-actions daily to increase sign-ups. For my Twitter strategy, I tweet one of my landing pages every hour. I even have a pinned tweet of my landing page that generates powerful social proof for my offer.

target audience

If you want your audience to perform a certain action, put that call-to-action in front of your target audience as much as possible without being annoying. You may be surprised to hear that tweeting your landing page every hour isn’t annoying if you’re generally tweeting about other things every 10 minutes.

But on Facebook, and most other social networks, you shouldn’t promote your landing page at that frequency. The best way to determine the ideal frequency for any social network is to experiment. I experimented with my tweeting frequency 10 different times before I decided on my current plan of action.

As you grow your social media audience, it will take additional time to engage in consistent interaction and to provide even more high-value content. At this stage, you may want to outsource certain tasks to lighten your social media, and overall, workload.

Outsourcing helps keep these various tasks from taking over your work day. You’ll have more time to explore new opportunities and build upon the opportunities you’re currently pursuing.

When outsourcing, just make sure you don’t over reach. The ideal approach is to grow your freelancer army gradually.

#3: Answer Questions On Quora

Quora is perhaps one of the most underrated sources of blog traffic. Not only will you increase your blog traffic, you’ll also find your target audience in a powerful way — through their questions.

Quora is a social networking site that has 160,000 monthly users who ask questions and submit answers. Back in 2015, Quora’s CEO, Adam D’Angelo had this to say about Quora’s traffic.

quora ceo post

Wouldn’t you want a slice of that pie… especially if it helps you find your target audience?

I make it a goal to answer at least three questions on Quora every day. That way, my content gets seen by more people. The case study I mentioned earlier does a good job at depicting how Quora can lead people in your target audience to your blog.

While I currently don’t get enough results worthy of a case study, it’s great to know that a good number of people are viewing my answers.

target audience

I posted most of these answers several weeks ago. Here are the initial spikes I got when the answers were recently published:

target audience

As you can see, answering questions won’t lead to immediate gratification from your stats. But if you continue answering questions, hundreds, thousands, or even millions of people will eventually view your answers on a daily basis.

Plus, they make for great starting points for future blog posts.

Getting this many views on Quora requires that you consistently answer questions from your target audience. I personally prefer to answer as many questions as possible, regardless of popularity.

Most questions on Quora have the potential to spread like wildfire. A good rule of thumb is to answer questions that have under 10 responses and little more than 10 followers. These questions have more potential to spread, and if you answer first, you’re in a position to reap most of the traffic.

On Quora, the first few answers tend get more views and traction than those that follow. But sometimes you can piggyback off a popular question with hundreds of answers and still get a lot of views.

In the beginning, I advise that you answer at least three questions each day and don’t focus on getting more views. Once you get comfortable with answering questions, then get serious about increasing your views.

If you answer a lot of questions related to a particular topic, you can set up notifications. With a preset notification, you’ll receive emails with new questions related to the topic. This way, you are often one of the first people to answer the question.

Answering questions first puts you in a position to get more views and earn more respect from the person who asked the question, and everyone else who reads your answer.

#4: Comment On Blogs In Your Niche

Some people believe that commenting on blogs in your niche to increase traffic is a futile approach. If you’re one of those people, then marketing guru Neil Patel disagrees with you. Commenting on blogs in your niche (and your guest posts) still matters. The reason is simple:

That’s where you find your target audience.

Your target audience doesn’t only read your blog. They read other people’s blogs, too. If my visitors read a post on Jeff Bullas’ Blog, and see my comment at the bottom, they are instantly reminded of another blog they can visit.

At the same time, if I get the original blogger’s attention, I am scoring points for my influencer marketing efforts. It’s easy to get an influencer’s attention simply by leaving a comment on his or her blog. For instance, if you leave a comment on this post, I will certainly respond.

When you leave a comment on someone else’s blog, make sure it provides value. To provide value in a comment, you can either add some relevant insights or ask a great follow-up question, which indicates that you took the time to read the entire post.

Your comment will attract attention from incoming visitors and possibly garner a response from the person who wrote the blog post. However, don’t use comments to promote your own content.

Linking to your blog or landing page within the comment itself is a big no-no. But you often get the chance to include a link to your website and/or landing page before you even begin typing your comment.

My advice for commenting on other blogs is to avoid commenting simply for the sake of leaving a comment. When you reach the end of a blog post, leave a comment only if you can add value to the conversation. It only takes 30-45 seconds and, more often than not, will result in more exposure.

#5: Engage In Twitter Chats Related To Your Niche

A great way to find your target audience is by engaging in Twitter chats related to your niche. Twitter chats usually take Twitter by storm and sometimes end up as trending topics… as long as there’s not a football game at the same time.

While Twitter chats are rare finds, you’ll often come across recurring Twitter chats that take place every week or month. Every time these Twitter chats occur, engage with the people who use the dedicated hashtag, and follow them. You’re bound to get many follow backs from people interested in your niche.

Right now, Tweet Reports is the best tool for finding Twitter chats. Simply subscribe to various bloggers and brands within your niche and pay attention to when they’re conducting Twitter chats.

#6: Pay Attention To Where You Spend Your Time

When you begin the journey to find your target audience, always remember that you are also part of the audience you seek. My target audience consists of people conscious of their productivity and eager to get better digital marketing results.

I’m also a part of that audience. I read blog posts related to digital marketing and have bought more productivity books than I can count. I’m not the only person in my target audience reading those blog posts and buying those books. I can reach people in my target audience simply by leaving a trail of where I go and what I do.

That’s why I encourage you leave a comment on blog posts that you read from start to finish. People who read the entire post are more attentive. They often scroll and read comments. If you don’t spend enough time consuming the content within your niche, you are stunting your growth. Expand upon your knowledge so you can provide more valuable content and give your target audience more reasons to pay attention to your brand.

#7: Partner With Influencers In Your Niche

You’ll spend countless hours in the pursuit of identifying and finding your target audience. But there’s one method to turbocharge your results. This method is to partner with influencers in your niche. Here’s how it works:

Contact an influencer in your niche with a similar audience size as your own
Agree to promote one another’s content or landing page
As your email lists grow, new subscribers benefit both sides

You can make this process easier with an affiliate program that rewards people for getting people to subscribe to your email lists. And you can take this method to an entirely new level by hosting a virtual summit. Virtual summits can do wonders for email list growth and income.

In Conclusion

You must be willing to commit countless hours of your time to spread your message in order to reach the right people. The best way to find your target audience is to understand where they hang out online and build a presence there.

That’s why I have a big presence on several social media platforms. It’s the reason why I take the time to answer questions on Quora, and leave comments at the end of every blog post I read.

This series of actions, carried out over a long period of time, will most certainly result in a goldmine of traffic that helps you prosper.

Now Here’s What I Want From You

What are your thoughts on finding a target audience? Did you find any of the insights in this post especially useful?

Have a question for me? Sound off in the comments section below. I read them all 🙂

And if you know anyone else who may benefit from this post, please be sure to pass it on.

[Tweet “7 Secrets To Find Your Target Audience.”]

And if you’re new here, join our mailing list! The form is below. You’ll get a ton of free content just like this.

-Marc

*image credit: Pixabay.com

10 Ways To Get More Video Views

March 14, 2017 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

The moment you publish your latest video, you’re hoping it gets as many views as possible. But as we all know, hoping isn’t enough. But hope built around action will create possibility and generates the results you want.

The more effort you put into video creation and marketing, the more visibility you’ll get from each video. If you’re not creating video, then you are missing out on an array of benefits. Consider:

Mobile video consumption rises 100% every year on YouTube
Including a video on your landing page can increase conversions by 80%
90% of users say that a product video helps their decision process
1/3 of all online activity is spent watching video

HubSpot compiled this information and more into a stunning infographic. Bottom line: video is engaging and has become an integral part of our culture.

If you’re not honing in on video views, here’s how to start:

#1: Tweet Your Newest Videos

While I encourage video sharing on all social networks, Twitter is always the platform I think of first. Why? Because it’s the easiest to use and grow on.

Every time you come out with a new video, share it on Twitter and your other social networks. But don’t mess up the sharing process like most people, who either share it once at the time it’s published, or forget about it for several weeks and then share it once more.

It’s actually worse to forget about the video and then tweet about it a few weeks or months after you’ve published it. Even so, if you only tweet about it once when it goes live, you’re missing out on valuable traffic.

The first 24 hours play a big role in how much visibility your videos will get later on. And regardless of your video creation tool, you’ll have more success promoting the YouTube version since YouTube is the largest platform.

Tweet about your newly published video at least four times on the day of its release. After that, you should continue promoting the video at least once every week.

Outside of Twitter, the rules are different. People won’t appreciate multiple posts about your video on Facebook, for example. The same goes for Instagram and virtually every other social network. Twitter seems to be the exception.

Regardless of which social network(s) you use to promote your latest video, you will likely generate some engagement. Furthermore, some of this engagement will evolve into potential conversations. Identify when people begin to engage, and respond to them in order to nurture the conversion.

Having conversations with people in your audience will increase your credibility and audience engagement with your content. Soon enough you’ll find that people are watching your videos whether you tweet about them or not.

You’ll no longer have to ask people to watch your videos: they’ll simply watch them on their own.

Of course, if someone engages with you in a negative way, ignore that person. Don’t try to sway them. If they are simply negative (which is different from saying they have a problem with your product), move along quickly.

You’ll also notice that every social network provides opportunities for promotion in your bio section. On Twitter, I strategically promote my landing page:

If you take your videos seriously but don’t yet have a landing page, you can simply promote your YouTube channel. As your channel gains views and subscribers, your newer videos will get seen faster, and by more people.

In addition to linking to your YouTube channel in your bio, you can also spotlight your latest video (or your channel) by pinning a tweet of that video. Pinned tweets garner more engagement and clicks than your typical tweet.

While a typical tweet’s lifespan is short, a pinned tweet is immortal (until you unpin it). Pinned tweets always show up on the top of your profile, and that results in a continuous stream of engagement.

Here’s an example of one of my own pinned tweets:

More than 400,000 people have seen this tweet, and over 6,000 people have engaged with it. The result has been thousands of new subscribers.

I give priority to my landing page, which is why you won’t see my YouTube channel featured in my pinned tweets. But if your priority is YouTube, pin a tweet promoting your channel or latest video.

Confused about how to pin a tweet? Read this guide from Social Quant.

#2: Publish Videos On Multiple Platforms

YouTube isn’t the only video giant on the web. While it does overshadow Vimeo and Facebook, there’s no reason to ignore these two platforms.

Do I hear an objection such as, “What about my time? Why not just focus on the best platform?”

Arguments against putting your video on Vimeo and Facebook are the same as not putting your Udemy course on SkillShare.

Yet I know of at least one Udemy instructor who recently shared some of his Udemy courses on SkillShare. Remember, this is the same content. No additional work is required.

I’m sure this instructor, John Shea, is very happy with his decision. Here’s his income report from January 2017:

In John’s case, the simple act of moving videos over from Udemy to SkillShare resulted in an extra $2,975.54 in just two months compared to his previous income report.

Imagine being gifted nearly $3,000 just for moving your videos from one platform to another!

John now creates SkillShare courses that are exclusive to SkillShare, but you get the point. Putting your videos on Vimeo and Facebook gives you access to thousands of extra viewers who prefer Vimeo and Facebook videos over YouTube videos.

Vimeo and Facebook are respected platforms unto themselves. And sometimes being overshadowed by YouTube is actually a good thing: if you publish the same video on Vimeo and YouTube, it will rank better (at least at first) on Vimeo than on YouTube.

The reason for this is competition. If I search for “social media marketing” on YouTube, a highly competitive niche, I get this:

Nearly 3,900,000 videos are competing for my attention. That’s a big crowd.

Now let’s look at the same search for “social media marketing” on Vimeo:

I don’t know about you, but I feel much better about competing against 21,900 videos compared to almost three million.

Yes, YouTube is far more popular than Vimeo, but Vimeo is no slouch. According to Alexa, YouTube is one of the top three websites in existence. Vimeo has a place among the top 200 websites. And if you look at the graph, you can see that Vimeo is growing!

I can write an entire blog post about why you need to publish your videos on Vimeo. As for Facebook videos, the special advantage is that Facebook prefers posts with videos and ranks them higher in the News Feed.

You’re leaving thousands of video views on the table if you limit yourself to YouTube. I usually outsource the Vimeo work because of the time it takes to upload. But if you’re not able to do that, implement the Walk Away Method.

The Walk Away Method is exactly what it sounds like. You upload your videos to YouTube, Vimeo, and Facebook. As the video uploads start to load, you simply walk away.

When I do the video uploading by myself, I always choose one day of the week to upload everything. Once I set everything to upload, I walk away. I may check the upload status once every 30 minutes, but no more. And I only check to be sure everything is still uploading.

#3: Optimize Your Video Description

The video description is perhaps the most under utilized part of video optimization. While YouTube allows users 5,000 characters to write the description, most people rush through them so they can get back to creating and uploading more videos.

But your video description gives people a reason to watch your video. A well thought-out video description that clearly conveys the video’s message will entice more people to continue watching.

You may not need a video description to get people to click on your video (although it helps for rankings), but you do need a description to keep viewers engaged.

You want to give your viewers EVERY possible reason to stick around. And your description will help viewers determine if your video is of high value or not.

Tubular Insights recommends a 200-500 word description for your videos, and these lengthy descriptions played a role in the brand’s own YouTube success.

Within your 200-500 word descriptions, you can also include links to your blog, your YouTube/Vimeo channel subscription links, your landing pages, and social media profiles.

Plus, once you write the description for one of your videos, you can just reuse it for all of your videos. If you feel overwhelmed just thinking about writing 200-500 word descriptions for your videos, hire someone to do it for you!

#4: Create A Professional Thumbnail

Regardless of which video platform you use, your thumbnail is critical. It’s the first thing people will see regarding your video. They’ll see the thumbnail even before they see the title. And if the thumbnail is good, people will also look at the title.

A professional thumbnail will increase the perceived value your video. A professional thumbnail looks good and conveys the video’s message in one picture.

It’s also a best practice to include some text within the thumbnail that lets people know what your video is about. Assume that your potential visitor will not read the title below the thumbnail.

I’ve created many thumbnails but wanted to provide two of them here. Which one looks more interesting? Which one would you click on?

You can tell which one required more effort. For the other thumbnail, I just used one of the three suggestions generated by YouTube. Those are get-by thumbnails. They aren’t professional.

So how do you create a professional thumbnail? My preferred tool of choice is Canva. It lets you preset the YouTube video thumbnail and gives you a bunch of other options.

Once you set the thumbnail, you can choose images from Canva’s library, add text, or upload custom images, all within the dashboard.

I have an interesting approach to getting these pictures of myself. Rather than take an actual picture, I record a video. Within the video, I strike several poses. Then I view it on my computer, pause it at the ideal pose, and take a screenshot.

Then I crop everything out so I’m only left with my thumbnail, upload the picture to Canva, and add a bit of text and special effects.

#5: Create A Captivating Video

Your video’s quality determines how long people stick around, and YouTube takes minutes watched very seriously when ranking your videos. The longer your video, the more minutes there are to watch.

That’s why longer videos usually perform better than shorter videos. They get a boost from the ‘minutes watched’ ranking. And that makes perfect sense. YouTube wants people to stay on the site for as long as possible.

Youtube benefits more when someone watches five percent of an hour long video (three minutes total) than if someone watches 100 percent of a one minute video. So the longer your videos keep people on YouTube, the more you’ll be rewarded for it.

Of course, a long, poorly done video doesn’t add value for anyone. That’s why it’s important to prepare. I usually create an outline for each video I create in advance. Otherwise I make a video on a topic that I can easily discuss, spontaneously (it took several years for me to reach this point).

If you find it difficult to create lengthy videos, you can combine a series of short videos into a playlist. Putting your videos into a playlist makes it easier for you to rank each individual video. If each video in your playlist is 1-2 minutes long, people won’t mind watching dozens of your videos (possibly in one sitting).

This result in more views and minutes watched for each video in the playlist and the playlist itself. Not only do your videos rank better, but so does your playlist.

If you have a new channel and want to gain traction, you can create a playlist containing some of your videos and some of the most popular YouTube videos within the same stream. Since the playlist contains popular videos, it’s easier to rank the playlist.

If you strategically position one of your videos as the first video of the playlist, your video also performs better. While it’s better to create long videos packed with value, you can also create shorter videos and bunch them together in playlists.

In the playlist scenario, rather than share individual video links on Twitter and other social networks, share a link to the playlist. You can even determine which video gets played in the playlist first. Just click on the video within the playlist that you want people to see first. When people click on the link, they are automatically brought to the video you specified.

#6: Create More Videos

The more videos you create, the more views and minutes watched you can get. I know this sounds obvious, but hear me out.

Some of your subscribers will watch your videos the moment they come out. If you come out with a new video every day instead of every week, these core fans will watch you seven times every week instead of just once per week.

The result is an increase in overall views and minutes watched. Putting your YouTube videos on Vimeo and Facebook automatically triples the number of videos you produce (repurposing & re-uploading count as creating new videos).

There are two ways to establish this habit, and both work very well. The first is to create a set number of videos every day (set a minimum, not a maximum number). By setting and accomplishing goals, you will exceed your perceived limits.

The second approach is to go all-out for 2-3 days per week. In the past, I created at least four videos a day. Now I create at least 20 videos on Tuesdays and Saturdays. I also set two more days aside to create 10 videos.

By bunching up my work in this manner, I get more videos made in a shorter period of time. I also get three days to focus on other parts of my business. I advise trying both of these approaches before you commit to one.

Regardless of which approach you commit to, you’ll also need to publish and promote your videos. I advise outsourcing more of your video business as you grow. You won’t want to spend too much time uploading videos and writing descriptions.

Your focus should be on the marketing—scheduling the social media posts, optimizing for keywords, promoting the videos to your email list, and looking for more ways to expand your reach. Of course, some of these tasks can be outsourced, too.

In his book, Decide, Jim Palmer says, “Delegate or die.” It’s true. If you don’t delegate, or as I prefer to call it, outsource, then you’ll get overwhelmed by your work and lose the joy in what you’re doing. Make the choice to hire a freelancer and gradually expand your army.

#7: Advertise Your Videos

Advertising your videos will definitely get you more video views. There’s no reason to talk about how. When anyone thinks about advertising, extra visibility is a given. The challenge is optimizing the ad for costs and ultimate exposure.

If you want to advertise your videos, then you’ll need to keep track of your cost per conversion/view and how much revenue you make from a conversion.

For instance, if you pay $0.50 per view, and in the video, you promote a $47 product, then you’ll need at least one out of every 94 viewers to buy the product you’re showcasing in your video.

There are two ways you can increase your profit. You either lower the cost per view or you increase the conversion rate.

The conversion rate percentage for one out of 94 is 1.06%. And if you double your conversion rate, it will only cost you $23.50 for each sale. Doubling your conversion rate will do FAR MORE than simply doubling the amount of income you make from advertising.

At the same time, if you bring your costs down to $0.25 per view, you’ll need at least one out of 188 viewers to buy your product to break even, or a 0.53% conversion rate.

Don’t choose to do one over the other. Pursue both options so you can maximize your profit.

#8: Make Collaborative Videos

For a collaborative video, you join forces with another YouTuber in your niche. You each do 50% of the video and 50% of the promotion.

The final result is more videos and exposure for both of your channels. In addition to making collaborative videos, you can team up with other YouTubers, or create a channel with a group of people.

For channels like Dude Perfect, everyone has a responsibility. If you love the trick shots these guys make, you’ll also be interested in what happens behind the scenes. Each person on Dude Perfect has certain responsibilities for the brand.

Each person’s effort lets Dude Perfect showcase various trick shots to millions of people. You can collaborate to any degree whether it be in video production, editing, marketing, or any other area.

#9: Team Up With Other YouTubers In Cross-Promotions

If you prefer to stay in-house with video production, there’s still a way to team up with other YouTubers. The way this method works is to find a YouTuber within your niche, then contact that YouTuber and suggest that you cross promote each other’s videos.

If you strike a deal like this with 10 YouTubers, you’ll have lots of content to share with your audience, and 10 people will be ready to promote your video the moment it goes live.

To find YouTubers to cross-promote with, search for your niche in YouTube’s search results. Then scroll through the results and contact the channels that have an audience size similar to your own.

The bigger channels don’t agree to cross promote with smaller channels since the benefits are severely one-sided. Everyone wants to know what’s in it for them, and people with a similar sized audience will see the potential.

You can follow the same approach on Vimeo by finding people and channels that publish videos within your niche.

#10: Leverage Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is more often mentioned in blog post promotion, but it applies to YouTube, too. Here’s how it works:

Mention an influencer in your video.
Contact that influencer and let him/her know about the mention.
Don’t ask them to share your video (some will anyway).

Also, don’t mention the same influencers over and over again unless you want to annoy them. If you want to mention the same influencer many times, don’t let that influencer know about every mention.

To verify your claim (and boost their ego in a sense), influencers will skim through a blog post to find their name. Then they’ll read the portion of the blog post that was dedicated to them.

You can’t skim a video in the same way you can skim a blog post. But you can offer a time stamp. By letting the influencer know where you mentioned them in your video, he or she can more readily find the reference.

Some may decide to watch your video longer to listen to your other insights. Others will share it with their audiences right away.

My biggest tip for mentioning an influencer is to make sure it’s not artificial. Plan to appropriately mention the influencer in advance. If you don’t make that plan in advance, your delivery may be awkward.

For each of your videos, identify at least three influencers who you would like to mention. Follow up by identifying when you would like to mention these influencers. Finally, do the video and contact the influencers.

In Conclusion

Video is such a critical piece of our culture, and if your business isn’t leveraging video, you’re falling behind. Heck, even the businesses that leverage video are falling behind.

Your brand is no longer impressive simply because it produces high quality videos. Quality videos have become an expectation. But it is impressive when you are willing to work harder and smarter than anyone else, and spend more time marketing your videos.

So that’s how your videos reach more people and keep viewers engaged.

Now Here’s What I Want From You

What are your thoughts on hosting a virtual summit? Which insight in this blog post did you find especially useful?

Have a question for me? Sound off in the comments section below. I read them all 🙂

And if you know anyone else who might enjoy this post, please be sure to pass it on.

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Oh, and if you’re new here, don’t forget to join the mailing list to get a ton of free content just like this. The form is below.

image credit: Pixabay

How To Write Kindle Books Without Losing Your Business

July 5, 2016 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

I write a Kindle book every month. My ability to write a Kindle book every month does not affect the rest of my business. I am still able to write blog posts, create YouTube videos, and promote my business. Why does it all seem to work out?

That’s what I will answer in this video. You’ll discover how you can write Kindle books on the side and build a Kindle Empire without sacrificing any of the parts of your business.

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4 Ways To Read Twice As Many Books

May 20, 2016 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

stack of books — Without feeling exhausted or hurting your vision.

Ever since I went back to my YouTube channel, I decided to read and review one book each week on my YouTube channel.

So far, I have reviewed books like Thrive by Arianna Huffington, Power Of Broke by Daymond John, and The Pumpkin Plan by Mike Michalowicz (The Pumpkin Plan review was a while ago so I may read the book again and create a new video of me reviewing the book).

Since I suddenly went from not reading at all to forcing myself to get through at least one book every week, I had to read these books fast. The faster I read these books, the quicker I can review them and do other things for my business.

At the same time, I don’t want to rush the books. Rush the books, and then you don’t remember the insights.

I was about to get started with a speed reading course and do some research about that. However, my brother pointed out that speed reading hurts your eyes big-time.

He read an eye yoga book and told me that the speed reading methods make your eyes function similarly to a lazy eye.

Basic summary: speed reading can hurt your vision. And since I have bad long-range vision to begin with, I don’t need that to get any worse.

So this blog post won’t contain tips about skimming through pages or when to rotate your eyes to the next line of text.

I will be discussing the methods that will help you speed read, but at the same time, not hurt your vision.

#1: Read Shorter Books

Theoretically, you could read a 100 page book twice as fast as a 200 page book. Unless it’s ancient text because that always takes forever to read.

If you read shorter books, you will get them done sooner. I like to read shorter books because they give me a lot of great information, usually cost less, and involve less of my time.

A few caveats though. If there is a particular book you want to read, but it is a lengthy book, then read it. I wasn’t going to stop myself from reading Think and Grow Rich because it’s over 200 pages long.

I have read many books that surpassed 200 pages. I don’t care how many pages Seth Godin’s books are. If it’s sitting on my desk, I am going to read it to completion.

But here’s a caveat in favor of reading shorter books. It’s easy to look at a short book and think something like this:

“This book has less than 100 pages. It must be worthless.”

Well, this blog post would barely be 10 pages if that. The fact that you are reading to this point proves this blog post has been useful in some way.

A blog post is not a book, but don’t think that a small page count indicates a bad book or that a book with a lot of pages must be the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Some short books do a good job at summarizing the same points that lengthy books explain within hundreds of extra pages.

I like to have a mixture of both types of books, but when I am reading, I almost always read the shorter books.

So how do I read the longer books?

#2: Listen To Audiobooks

I am currently experimenting with this option, but I think it has a lot of promise.

The idea behind audiobooks is that you can’t read a book all of the time, so you can listen to the audio version instead. There are certain scenarios that prevent us from reading, but audio wouldn’t be a problem.

I run every day, and if you have ever tried to run and read at the same time, you know it’s a disaster. However, what about running and listening to a book at the same time?

People listen to music all of the time while they run. Why can’t I listen to a book every once in a while?

Say what you may about the audiobook audio speed. First off, if you think the audiobook is too slow, there are ways to enhance the speed. The lowest rate I have seen so far for an audiobook is 150 WPM. I run anywhere from 1-2 hours per day.

When I try this out, I’ll hear anywhere from 9,000 to 18,000 words in each run. I can increase the amount of words I hear during each run by speeding up the audio rate.

Not all books are available as audiobooks. That is why when you create your book list, you should look to see which books on your list have audiobook versions and which ones do not before you decide on which hardcovers to buy.

I use Audible to read my audiobooks. You’ll get a free book every month just for signing up!

#3: Turn Reading Into A Daily Habit

I’m not Charles Duhigg, but I do take habits seriously. Habits will make or break you in anything that you pursue. If you want to read more books, you have to read every day.

It doesn’t matter how often you read. On some days, I manage to read for over an hour. On other days, I can barely read for more than five minutes.

However, I read every day, and each day adds more momentum to the last.

Once you turn reading books into a daily habit, it gets much easier to read the books. According to science, it takes about 66 days for something to become a habit.

That means the first 66 days are going to be the hardest, but after that, it’s all smooth sailing from there.

#4: Only Read Books That You Want To Read

This is the golden rule. Only choose to read the books that you would want to read. If you are forced to read a book that you don’t want to read, then you will find yourself slogging through it (unless the plot or content is really good).

But why take a chance when it comes to your reading (and your time). Only read the books that you know will fascinate you right from the start. Before you buy a book, you should get an idea of whether that book will be the right one for you or not.

You can do that by reading the author’s blog posts, customer reviews, and/or by reading the first few pages of the book’s free preview (assuming it’s on Amazon).

Once you decide on the book you want to read next, the final decision is deciding which format you will read the book in.

In Conclusion

Reading is important because it expands your knowledge. If you get new insights from the books that you read, then you are moving closer and closer to the dreams you wish to accomplish.

Before I put myself in a position where I could start calling myself a digital marketing expert, I read the books and blog posts written by the experts (experts are people who don’t have to tell you that they are experts for you to believe in their expertise).

Each time I read a book or blog post, I saw myself as inching closer and closer to my own digital marketing empire. Also my singing empire.

What books do you read? What are your reading habits? How do you read books quickly? Sound off in the comments section below.

5 Ways To Boost Your Kindle Book Sales

May 6, 2016 by Marc Guberti 6 Comments

kindle book sales

The goal of every self-published author is to get as many book sales as possible. They write several Kindle books and try a variety of marketing tactics to boost sales.

I have written over a dozen books and experimented with several marketing tactics. Some of the tactics worked while others were total flops. As I learned from my experiences and looked at other people’s experiences, it became more clear to me what it meant to build a Kindle Empire.

Building a Kindle Empire is the art of writing numerous Kindle books and then promoting them like crazy. You only have to publish one book to discover that the people won’t just come no matter how good your book is.

Some of the top self-published authors spend more time on the marketing side of the business than on the writing side of the business.

Some authors completely outsource the writing process so they can focus on the marketing.

Regardless of how often you write content for your books, you must spend a considerable amount of time marketing your Kindle books. In order to boost your Kindle book sales through marketing, follow these five tips.

#1: Have A Free Book Promotion

This tactic is one of the commonly discussed tactics for getting sales. The idea behind this one is that offering your book for free allows your Kindle book to rank well in the Kindle store’s free category.

Some people who read your free version may decide to leave a review. To boost the number of reviews your book gets from the free promotion, do the following:

Engage with the people who say they bought your book. Ask them what their favorite part about your book is. As the conversation develops, ask for a quick review.

Include a link at the end of the book that leads your readers to the page where they can quickly post a review for your book.

The free promotion will lead to more visibility and theoretically more sales for your Kindle book when it’s taken out of the free category.

However, the timing in which your book is taken out of the free category also plays a role in the number of sales it gets.

If you take your book out of the free category at the right timing (i.e. 3 pm eastern), you can get a lot of sales from the exposure your book has garnered from the free category.

It takes Amazon’s system a while to remove your book from the free category once you cancel the free promotion on your own. That means all of the people in the free category can buy your book.

Of course, you won’t get as many downloads, but now all of the downloads you get from here on are paid downloads.

#2: Price Your Book At $0.99 In The Beginning

The big publisher has numerous advantages over the small self-published author. However, one advantage the big publisher will never have is the price advantage.

You can easily price your books at $0.99 without worrying about losing money. A big publisher pricing any book at $0.99 per book is on the verge of big losses.

$0.99 won’t lead to a big commission per sale, but you will get sales. As you continue raking up sales, you will climb up in the book rankings.

$0.99 is also the ideal price to charge for your book after you cancel its free promotion. Customers who look in the free section will see your book at $0.99. Some people will ignore your book, but others will think, “Well, $0.99 is basically free.”

You’ll only get $0.35 for the book sale, but as you get more sales, your book will bring in consistent revenue. Once your book has a solid ranking, you then have the option to slowly inch up your book’s price to $1.99 and then the ideal $2.99 for the 70% royalty cut.

#3: Content Upgrade Autoresponders

Content upgrades are upgrades to your blog post that people get in exchange for an email address. Just as a quick example of a content upgrade, here’s what I did with my blog post, 4 Ways To Use Blab For Your Business

Blab Content Upgrade

Content Upgrades get high levels of conversion compared to most webpages. While the typical blog post with a content upgrade experiences a 20% conversion rate, some of them have a conversion rate greater than 60%.

Imagine how many extra subscribers you would get if ALL of your blog posts included content upgrades.

That’s what I’m trying to do on this blog. All of my blog posts from here on will have content upgrades, and I am adding content upgrades to some of my most popular blog posts.

You can make revenue with content upgrades by nurturing the relationship between you and your new subscribers and then promoting your product.

However, each content upgrade also gives you the opportunity to promote one of your books. In a content upgrade with a productivity theme, I can point people to my Outsourcing Domination book.

Of course, you may find yourself writing a blog post about something that you don’t have a Kindle book for.

For that, you can create a pre-order sales page for your book. All you need for the pre-order page is the cover and description.

#4: Launch Team

Who says you have to promote your book alone. Some of the most successful books are built through launch teams. I was one of the ambassadors for Daymond John’s Power Of Broke.

About 100 people were on that launch team. We got some goodies sent our way, but that was it.

Creating your own launch team doesn’t have to be an expensive effort. You can simply provide a free copy of your book to anyone who becomes a part of your launch team.

You can ask the people within your launch team to leave reviews for your book when it comes out and to tell their audiences about it.

A launch team presents you with many options, and if you want a book to do particularly well in the Kindle store, then I highly recommend utilizing a launch team of some sorts. Even if that launch team just consists of family and friends.

#5: Look At What You Currently Offer

A trap some self-published authors fall into is looking at new books to boost their sales. They focus on producing more content and optimizing new sales pages that they forget about their current books.

You can make a small tweak to one of your older Kindle books to boost its sales. You can slightly change the description, the cover, or some other element of the book. One small change can potentially lead to great results.

For your books that are seeing a lag in sales, you can do a free promotion or a discount to give that old title some life again.

It’s great to write new Kindle books and optimize those for success, but don’t forget about what you have already written.

In Conclusion

Boosting Kindle sales all comes down to effective marketing. You can write as many books as you want, but if they are not marketed properly, then you won’t get many sales.

Effective marketing allows your books to generate more sales, and as your new books generate more sales, your older books will get more sales too.

Some of your readers will be so delighted by their first experience that they’ll want to read more of your paid content.

However, it all starts with effective marketing.

What are your experiences with Kindle marketing? Have any tips for us? Sound off in the comments section below.