Austin, TX: Today, DigitalMarketer, the leader in building digital marketing certification courses for agency and small business owners, is launching Academy. Academy is the central place to access all of the education materials DigitalMarketer offers. It includes hundreds of resources like certifications, playbooks, short and long form workshops, jump start packs and other valuable resources for marketing.

In the newly launched Academy platform, marketing professionals and small business owners will find Learning Paths. Learning Paths are carefully created outlines, similar to a school curriculum, that show new and experienced marketers which courses to take and in which order to meet specific educational objectives.

For example, to become a top email marketing professional, individuals will start with the Digital Marketing Mastery Certification, followed by Email Marketing Mastery, Copywriting Mastery, and Analytics and Data Mastery. These easy to follow Learning Paths provide a direct outline for how to meet any marketing education goals.

Marketers and business owners who follow the email marketing Learning Path can also delve deeper into specific types of email marketing. Academy also houses workshops like “Automate Your Business Growth with Email Follow-up” or “How to Create a Newsletter That Actually Provides Value.” As marketing development progresses, new digital marketers can share their results publicly with certificates of completion that can be displayed on platforms like LinkedIn.

“We’re very excited to welcome new and seasoned marketers to the DigitalMarketer community and we await the chance to celebrate their results,” says Mark de Grasse, President of DigitalMarketer.

About DigitalMarketer: DigitalMarketer is an Austin-based educational organization for digital marketing professionals, marketing agency owners, and small business owners. It’s a place where ambitious business people can learn how to market like a pro, connect with industry experts, and get the strategies and tools to grow and scale their businesses to new heights.

The post DigitalMarketer Launches Academy: Leading Marketing eLearning Company Creates Learning Paths appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

The Ad Grid is the method DigitalMarketer uses to increase our ad success rate 20 times over.
It’s how we plan, test, and measure paid traffic campaigns. It’s the way we organize and systemize our traffic strategy.

The Ad Grid takes the guess work out of creating an ad campaign.
It looks like this:

But, the Ad Grid is much more than a spreadsheet… the real power is the process that goes along with the grid.
Systemizing a strategic process is tough. Systemizing the creation of an entire traffic campaign is nearly impossible. But, after 3 years, we’ve developed a 7-step system we’ll share with you today.
At DigitalMarketer, we follow this 7-Step Plan no matter the product or the traffic platform because it works.
The Ad Grid is applicable to ANY business OR traffic platform.
Today, you’ll get all our inside details on the Ad Grid including, but not limited to…

• How we stopped creating “one-hit wonder” campaigns across ad platforms…
• How to achieve scale and move prospects through the customer journey…
• How we create high converting campaigns…
• How to systemize your traffic strategy – whether that means outsourcing, or having an internal traffic team…
• How to create a congruent market to message match…

Even better — we’re showing you a real campaign we launched at DigitalMarketer using this exact 7-step strategy. You’ll get the Avatars, the Hooks, the copy — everything.
Let’s first talk about the trap you’re susceptible to falling into if you’re not utilizing the Ad Grid. It’s one we’ve fallen into plenty, and one we want you to avoid. It’s…

The Dreaded One-Hit Wonder Campaign

One-hit wonder campaigns come about when marketers just make ads.
But there’s a problem with just making ads. It leaves you open to creating “one-off” ad campaigns without a system or a plan.
The one-hit wonder, if you will.
One-hit wonder campaigns usually target one or 2 different audiences, may test a few different images or copy variations, and that’s pretty much it…
…the person on the other side of the computer expects to launch this type of traffic campaign and BAM… sales and leads will start pouring in.
But, most of the time they don’t. And, if they do… the campaign is only successful for a few days or weeks.

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Then, said person complains… “FACEBOOK ADS DON’T WORK,” or “XYZ TRAFFIC PLATFORM DOESN’T SCALE.”
What they don’t realize is that they’re creating one-hit wonder campaigns. They’re only giving themselves 1 or 2 chances to sell their offer.
Well, what if those 1 or 2 copy variations still don’t resonate with the audience? What if those 1 or 2 targeting groups aren’t actually people who are interested in what you’re talking about?
The campaign will fail.
Most people quit after this happens. But, you shouldn’t.
You should use the Ad Grid, and give yourself a foundation for success… and 20+ different chances at success, not just one.
One-off campaigns are bad because:

• They don’t reflect the customer journey and repel prospects because the ad is being run down their throats.
• They only work for a short amount of time and have low quality scores.
• They aren’t scalable.
• They don’t put a specific message in front of a specific audience because the marketer didn’t think about segmentation or message match.

Let’s take a look at these mistakes, so you can be sure that you don’t make them:

One-off campaigns don’t reflect the customer journey.

You want to build a relationship with your customer like you would in person.
You’re looking to make friends.
Does it make sense to immediately ask someone you’re hoping to become friends with for money?
No.
But that’s exactly what some marketers are doing with their ads. They’re putting an ad in front of their target audience and saying, “Hi, nice to meet you! Buy this product! You’ll love it!”
But why should someone buy? They don’t know your brand from Adam.
Like all relationships in life, the brand needs to give value first. And that goes beyond the customer getting ABC product or DEF service.

One-off ads usually have low relevance/quality scores.

That means the audience isn’t resonating with the ads. The ad is repelling prospects, they’re not taking the action that you optimized your campaign for, or worse – they’re marking it as spam.
Why does this happen? Because you’re not speaking to the right audience, you don’t have market to message match in your ad copy, or you’re trying to sell to someone before they’re ready.
The next time the audience sees an ad from you, they’ll probably cringe and think, “Those guys.”

One-off ads aren’t scalable.

In the past, we found ourselves launching campaigns that broke the rules I outlined above. These campaigns weren’t scalable.
Not that there was anything wrong with these Facebook ads, they were successful in terms of ROI.
But, there were only a few ad variations within them. And they didn’t always work…
We found 80% of these ads failed, especially on Facebook. That’s the nature of traffic. Sometimes you swing and miss.
If you’re only setting one or 2 ads, and you’re only testing one or 2 audiences, you’re essentially putting all of our eggs in one basket.
And, we realized that’s what we were doing. We weren’t giving ourselves the ability to scale campaigns in the way we needed to grow our business. We were limiting ourselves.

One-off ad campaigns typically don’t have market to message match.

That means the ad is TOO BROAD.
Ads that don’t have market to message match are essentially talking to a large group of people and offering them a one-size-fits-all package/solution.
For the ad to be successful, it needs to have a specific offer that speaks to a specific group of people.
So how do you keep from making these mistakes? You deploy the Ad Grid.

The Ad Grid Process

The Ad Grid will help create a honed in marketing strategy, so you can stop wasting time and money.
It’s important to keep in mind that you’re going to create an Ad Grid for every offer you roll out.
When you create an Ad Grid, focus on the “offer” that’s the entry point for the funnel.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the funnel, ask yourself:

• Is the customer AWARE there’s a problem? Are they AWARE of you, and the solution you offer to the problem?
• Are they EVALUATING if they should fix their problem, or just leave it be? Is the customer EVALUATING you and your competitors? Are they EVALUATING what product or service to buy?
• Has the customer CONVERTED and bought from you? How do you get them to CONVERT again and more frequently?

Knowing where your customer enters the funnel will give you a better understanding of how to target them. Should you target them with a blog post? A Lead Magnet? A low-dollar offer?
The example that we’ll use for this particular post is a recent Lead Magnet we created here at DigitalMarketer called the 10-Minute Social Media Audit.

This audit allows you to assess the performance of your social media strategy or the strategy of your competitors. It gives you an actual “grade” and reveals opportunities for improvements where you could generate more followers, traffic, and/or make more money from your social efforts.

The Ad Grid Steps

Let’s get right into the steps so you can start putting this to work in your traffic campaigns!
Make sure to download the PDF version of this infographic for easy reference and even more resources.

The Ad Grid Step 1: Identify Your Avatars (Specific to the Offer)

You’ll start by creating an Avatar.
An Avatar is a profile of a person who would be interested in your message. The Avatar is a target audience.
Keep in mind when you’re filling out your Ad Grid, the Avatars aren’t necessarily the same Avatars you’ve set for your business as a whole. Your Business Avatars are going to be much broader than the Avatars that would be interested in this particular offer.
You need to create a SPECIFIC Avatar for each ad offer. You do this through research.
(To get more specific on who you’re targeting in your business, check out our worksheet for creating your Customer Avatar.)
Identify Avatars for the specific offer you’re running traffic to by doing intensive research on Amazon, Google, forums, etc. to figure out WHO these people are and what their pain points may be (the problem(s) they’re looking to solve).
Identify your Avatars, and place them across the top of the Ad Grid on the X Axis.

(Don’t force yourself to add 4 Avatars just because I have 4 in this example, just ensure that you have 2+ identified, or you lose the power of the Grid.)
Think about who would be interested in this particular offer? What different groups of people can you speak to? How are they different?
For example, with the 10-Minute Social Media Audit, we chose:

• Social Media Managers: this is the person actually DOING the work. They are probably an employee/work for a company.
• The Boss: This is the person that manages the social media manager. This person could be anyone from the CEO of a smaller company, a digital marketing manager, VP of Marketing, Editorial Director, etc.
• Agency Owner: This person owns/runs an agency that does social media work for clients.
• Solopreneur: This person is a one (wo)man team. They are probably doing all of the marketing on their own, including the social media strategy and implementation.

Step 2: Identify the Hooks

The Hook is the “marketing message.” The WHY that makes people want to take you up on your offer.
If your offer is missing a Hook, you’re going to have a hard time getting people to take you up on whatever you’re asking them to do.
You need to explain the benefits – the value – of your offer, in order to “sell” it.
So how do you come up with a Hook that conveys value?
Here are the 6 different ways we think about Hooks…

Have

If the customer takes this offer, what will they HAVE that they didn’t before? Think of it as Before and After.
(RELATED: How to Create and Market a Killer Offer)

Feel

How will the customer FEEL once they take your offer? Will they FEEL smarter or more confident, will they be pain free and FEEL better?

Average Day

How will your offer improve their AVERAGE DAY? What mundane task does your offer improve? How does your offer save them time or energy on a day-to-day basis?

Status

How does the customer’s STATUS change once they’ve consumed your offer? How are you helping elevating their status?

Proof/Results

This one is the most common.
Use reports or case studies to demonstrate PROOF or RESULTS that the customer could experience with your offer. This can create SOCIAL PROOF.
For example, part of your ad copy could include, “Join the thousands of people who have already benefited!” Or, explain actual results that have occurred because of your offer.

Speed & Automation

With SPEED, you speak to the QUICKNESS of the offer — how will this thing speed up a part of their life or AUTOMATE a task? For example, this razor will save 10 minutes of your day.
Get started, and see what Hook(s) work best to promote your offer. You can combine Hooks, as well.
If you don’t already have ideas in mind for why your offer is “sexy” it may be time to revisit the offer in general.
Place your Hooks on the Y Axis of the Grid.

For example, with the 10-Minute Social Media Audit, we chose:
The 10-Minute Hook
This is a broader Hook, and in the past this probably would have been the ONLY Hook we would’ve used to promote this offer.
This Hook speaks to speed and results:
Take 10 minutes to audit your Social Media Strategy and as a result get more followers, drive more traffic, and increase engagement.
The “Get A Grade” Hook
Most people like to self-analyze.
Most people like to take quizzes/tests to see where they stand. We were conditioned to respond to grades in school. The fact that the 10 Minute Social Media Audit gives you a “grade” is a Hook all in its own.
Create a Report Hook
This Lead Magnet isn’t just an audit.
It’s a document that you could use as a report to track social media progress over time. It can be used as an internal document.
Grade Your Competition Hook
Most people like to spy on their competition.
This Hook is all about grading your competition, too, and seeing where your social media strategy stacks up against theirs.
Know Your Goals Hook 
This Hook is about aligning your social media strategy with your overall business goals.
Are you using a social strategy that actually has an effect on your business? Is your social strategy in line with the goals you’ve set as a company?
As you can see, there’s a fair bit of “marketing” that goes into creating your Hooks.
You have to sit down and really think… what is ATTRACTIVE about your offer? What are different ways I can “sell” this offer?
Most of your Hooks are going to flop — and that’s fine! Testing multiple Hooks gives you room for error… you never know what people are actually going to respond to until you test it.

Step 3: Write Your Copy

This is where the magic starts to happen.
At this stage, you’ll create copy that has a congruent market to message match.
How?
Write specific ad copy for each block on the Grid. This will force you to write copy that corresponds to BOTH the Avatar and the Hook.
This will help you create powerful, segmented ads that will speak to a particular Avatar using a particular Hook instead of writing a broad ad that will miss.
Depending on the traffic platform, the length and type of copy will vary.
Think about why a particular Hook would appeal to a particular Avatar?
For example, with the “Get a Grade” Hook… the Social Media Manager would care about getting a grade because they want to self-assess, and maybe they want to take their “good” grade to their boss in order to get a raise.
But why would the boss care about the “Get a Grade” Hook? They want a way to assess their Social Media Manager… a way to show progress (or lack thereof), a way to measure their success.
Writing this amount of copy is time consuming, but it will give you the assets you need to run a full fledged campaign.
Below you’ll see Facebook ad copy that we wrote for this offer:

(You can expand this image in a new window for better viewing here.)

(You can expand this image in a new window for better viewing here.)

 Step 4: Avatar Research

If you put your campaign in front of the wrong audience, it will fail.
That’s why research is key.
Your Avatar research will become the targeting you use on the ad platform.
What’s important in Step 4 is doing research for each Avatar separately. You’re researching WHERE this particular Avatar would be hanging out on the traffic platform you’ve selected.

If your ad was about social media and you targeted anyone and everyone that’s interested in social media, your ad would be too broad. It wouldn’t be as effective as targeting each Avatar separately.
A marketer needs to look at their Avatars not as a group but as an individual Avatar. Look at them as very separate and different people, because they are.
When researching Avatars, answer these questions…

• What do they read?
• Who inspires them?
• What motivates them?
• What are their pain points?
• What interests them (books, magazines, blogs, movies, music, food, drinks, restaurants, hobbies, etc.)?
• What events do they attend?

…and so on.
This Avatar research will become the targeting that you use when you set up your campaigns. If you’re using Facebook, these would be the interests you target; on Twitter the handles you target, etc.
(RELATED: [DOWNLOAD] The Complete Guide to Facebook Ad Targeting)
So, take time to research each Avatar and create lists of possible targeting options. You can place these at the bottom of each column of your grid:

Step 5: Create or Outsource Ad Creatives

Your ad creatives are…

• videos
• pictures
• graphics, etc.

….for your campaign.
The creative you use for each ad will depend on the traffic platform your ad runs on: Video for YouTube, Pictures for Pinterest, etc.
What’s important about the creative is that it depicts your Hook – your marketing message.
You’re going to want to make a creative for EACH Hook.
It’s not about using bright, flashy images anymore… you want to use images that portray the message you’re sending to the audience.
This is a perfect example of a creative that does just that…

We have a process behind coming up with each image…
Each Hook will have keywords or phrases that relate to it.
In Google, do a search query for keywords within your Hook.
You’ll see the top images that are associated with that query, which will give you inspiration for your creative.
Here are the winning ad creatives for each Hook in the 10-Minute Social Audit Campaign:

The “Get A Grade” Hook (to Social Media Managers)

The “Create A Report” Hook (to the Boss)

The “Grade Your Competition” Hook (to the Agency Owner)

The “Know Your Goals” Hook (to the Solopreneur) 

Step 6: Compile Your Results
Once you’ve completed your research on your Avatars and Hooks, written your copy and produced your creatives, it’s time to launch your campaign.
After about 5-7 days of running your campaign, start analyzing your results.
Then use the Ad Grid to measure the success of the campaign.
Determine what your success metric for your campaign will be:

• ROI
• Cost Per Acquisition
• Cost Per Lead
• Cost Per Click

This will depend on your business.
(RELATED: Episode 40: 4 Facebook Metrics Critical to Your Success)
Once you know what metric you’ll use, apply it to the Ad Grid. It will give you a visual — you’ll see what’s working for the entire campaign in one glance. This will help you scale.
Here’s what we use at DigitalMarketer to track the performance of our grids:

Step 7: Scale

The best part… it’s time to scale!
You could just beef up a successful campaign’s budget on that particular platform and call it a day…
Or you could go beyond and further your success.
Use the Ad Grid to help you scale.
The Ad Grid shows you which Hooks and Avatars are winners. Scale out to the winners — the Avatars responding to your campaign, the Hooks converting, and the intersections between the 2.
You can see the insights and the data. You can see how to Scale.
Look at what Avatars your campaign worked best for — what Hook(s) they responded to. You can take that information, and apply it across the Web.
What are other platforms does that Avatar “hang out” on?
If you first ran an ad set on Facebook and saw the success you’re looking for, apply the ad to other traffic platforms – like Twitter or email – that are relevant to that Avatar.
Reach out to the Avatar on different platforms with the Hook they responded to.
You’ll also know which Hook(s) failed, so you won’t make the same mistake twice on other platforms – for example, you won’t use failed Hooks for your email list.
The Ad Grid will help you scale in 2 ways:

• Scaling past “doing more with what you have.” After seeing successful results on a platform, your first instinct may be to increase the budget of the ad, which is obvious for scale. But, the Ad Grid allows for true scale… taking your successful message and applying it to as many applicable platforms as possible… Taking high converting ads and creating new ad sets within Facebook to target more interests where this Avatar would be hanging out on the platform – this is Horizontal Scale.
• Scaling out to a traffic/media team. Following the steps of the Ad Grid gives you a process — a methodology to how you, or you and your team, can approach ad campaigns. The Ad Grid helps to break up the process of creating a campaign, and it will help define the steps and who is responsible for what. Imagine outsourcing steps 3-7 or breaking it out for certain members of your team.

Putting it All Together

The Ad Grid takes you from creating one ad that targets a broad audience to creating 20 SPECIFIC ads (if you use the 4 Avatars and 4 Hooks model).
You’re giving yourself more chances to hit a home run by creating a fully fleshed out targeting campaign that is more likely to increase your success rate 20 times over.
You also know where to scale beyond just throwing more money at a particular campaign on a particular platform — creating less trial and error and more results.

The post The Ad Grid: How to Build Traffic Campaigns that Convert Higher and Scale Faster appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

Welcome to the 8th annual installment of DigitalMarketer’s 101 Best Email Subject Lines!

Within this post, I’ve got 101 PROVEN, swipeable email subject lines that are yours for the taking. And if you’re one of our email subscribers, there’s at least a 20% chance that you played a role in determining what made the list. If that applies to you, please prepare for a little déjà vu.

Though you’re currently reading one of the most aptly titled blog posts of all time, you’ll find more here than just subject lines. I’m going to break down the 8 components of every good subject line AND you’ll get an analysis of our top 10 performing subject lines of 2020.
That way, when you’re finished with this post, you can:

1. Start deconstructing and reproducing the elements of YOUR best-performing subject lines…

…or…2.  Completely steal ours, if you haven’t already.

(NOTE: Looking for the subject lines from previous years? We’ve collected all 700+ top-performing email subject lines since 2013—and all the amazing analysis that comes with them—into The Ultimate Email Subject Line Swipe File! Create your FREE DM Insider account here to get instant access!)

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If you’re new to the post (or email marketing in general), take a minute to familiarize yourself with the fundamentals of email subject lines.

These are 8 different components I found again and again in our top-performing email subject lines…

1. Self-Interest

These are your bread and butter subject lines—you should be using them most frequently.

They are usually direct and speak to a specific benefit your audience will gain by opening the email.

Self-interest subject lines also help pre-qualify openers by giving them a clue about your email’s body content.

2. Curiosity

If self-interest subject lines work because they communicate a direct benefit, curiosity-based ones succeed for the exact opposite reason.

They pique the interest of subscribers without giving away too much information, leading to higher opens.

Be careful though, because curiosity-based subject lines can get old fast and are the most likely to miss their mark.

3. Offer

Do you like free stuff? Do you like to buy things when they’re on sale?

So does your email list.

When you are giving something away or selling something your subscribers would be interested in, directly stating that in your subject line is a great way to convince them to open the email and learn more.

4. Urgency/Scarcity

This is the most powerful type of subject line you have at your disposal.

Subject lines that communicate urgency and scarcity tell readers they must act now.

But too many of these can lead to list exhaustion, so use sparingly and, of course, only when there is truly a deadline, limited quantity, or limited availability.

5. Humanity

Don’t forget to remind your list about the person or people behind your products.

Sometimes you need to thank your subscribers, tell them a story about yourself, or make a human appeal for their attention.

6. News

Keeping your audience informed about new developments in your field builds authority and keeps your open rates high.

These subject lines often work well when combined with a curiosity element.

7. Social Proof

A fundamental characteristic of humans is that we look to the behavior of others when making decisions.

You can leverage this in your email subject lines by mentioning individual’s success stories, familiar names, or highlighting how many people are already using a product or service.

8. Story

Telling a story, or at least teasing the beginning of one in your subject line is a unique way to highlight benefit and get the open rate you’re looking for.

As for our best subject lines of the year… here they are.

The 10 Best Email Subject Lines of 2020

10. How to keep up with digital marketing…
CONTENT: T&C Early Bird Discount
OPEN RATE: 15.80%
ANALYSIS: We’ve seen that the use of “How to” in subject lines establishes authority, and draws readers in. Your subscribers want to learn something they fear they might not know yet, but believe may be helpful to them. In this instance, digital marketing is something that seems like it changes every day. Keeping up with the changes in the industry can be pretty daunting, so content that shows you how to keep up is incredibly valuable and attention-grabbing.

9. Why my first business failed
CONTENT: Tony Robbins Event Follow-Up
OPEN RATE: 15.92%
ANALYSIS: While maintaining flavors of curiosity, I got declarative with this one. Seeing as how the bulk of our email list identifies as a “marketer” in one form or another, and Content is something that virtually all marketers need nowadays… I knew that if I took one of THE keystone levers of the industry and used the well-known Bill Gates idiom, “Content is King,” as a departure statement that would separate us as an authority on the subject, I’d both deliver valuable information to our subscribers and get a few opens.

8. Something BIG is coming
CONTENT: April Accelerator Flash Sale
OPEN RATE: 16.08%
ANALYSIS: We all love a good teaser. In this subject line, the tease is on full display. You want to grab the reader’s attention, AND get them interested in following your message at the same time. Just make sure the body copy in your message pays off too—you don’t want to be the boy or girl who cried wolf or you’ll lose trust from your readers (and future opens).

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7. Holy crap… 21,601?!?!
CONTENT: Lab Open Access
OPEN RATE: 17.35%
ANALYSIS: There’s a couple of wins in this subject line. Namely, profanity is like salt: using just the right amount can be a great thing, but too much will ruin the experience. And while we’re not necessarily advocating for  “profanity” all the time, we will use a dash of it when we need to get our point across.

You’ll also score points with your reader by using a number in your subject lines, which is proven to increase open rates—bonus points if it’s a very specific number. And finally, like #8, the curiosity factor is strong in this one. 

6. 3 Rules for Marketing During a Crisis
CONTENT: Newsletter for March 21, 2020
OPEN RATE: 19.9%
ANALYSIS: Let’s face it. This year sucked. Millions of businesses were left trying to navigate the global pandemic crisis, and the marketing industry was no exception. It makes sense that guiding principles were popular fodder for subject lines. Our big takeaway on this one is to make sure you “read the room.” Note that this subject line was used in March, when the pandemic was newly on peoples’ minds and more likely to get clicked on. There have been ebbs and flows to when audiences felt like discussing crises this year, and this was the right time to talk about it. It might not have worked so well in the summertime.

5. 80% off gone in 3…2…1…
CONTENT: Content Marketing Mastery Sale
OPEN RATE: 22.54%
ANALYSIS: Scarcity is one of Cialdini’s principles of persuasion, and in my opinion, it’s the best. There’s no better way to stir someone to action than telling them they’ll miss out on something great if they don’t. (NOTE: This mail is a “closer” mail, the last in a week-long promotion meant to catch folks who missed earlier mails. Closers don’t typically get many clicks, but in this case the use of this simple square emoji gave it a boost because it looks like the content didn’t load. In fact, it grabs inbox attention more than the use of an actual emoji—just be sure NOT to lean on this tactic too much. Like crying wolf, it loses efficacy.)

4. BYE?
CONTENT: T&C 2020 Close
OPEN RATE: 25.12%
ANALYSIS: The ultimate goal of a subject line is to get the recipient to open the email, and sometimes less is more. With a simple, 3-letter question this subject line is able to stand out in the inbox among other generic, longer subject lines.

3. Get Certified in Content Marketing for $195?
CONTENT: Content Marketing Mastery Sale
OPEN RATE: 25.27%
ANALYSIS: That question mark is no accident. The Content Marketing Mastery certification course is one of our most popular, and it’s always a big draw for our subscribers when we put it on sale. At 61% off the normal price of $495, a lot of people were interested in this promotion. To warm audiences, a discount of that size begs the question: “Why now?” They know they want it. They’re looking for a reason to get it, it’s why they clicked. Cold audiences click to do the comparison. Hence the question in the subject line mark feeding both needs.

2. CLOSING down in 3…2…1…?
CONTENT: 1-Minute Facebook Video Ad Playbook
OPEN RATE: 28.08%
ANALYSIS: Again, scarcity is a powerful motivator here. The 1-Minute Facebook Video Ad Playbook is one of our most popular playbooks EVER, but when we say we’re closing a sale down, we mean it.

1. FINAL Chance for free access!
CONTENT: Lab Open Access
OPEN RATE: 34.53%
ANALYSIS: Combine scarcity, the use of a powerful emoji, and the promise of free access to one of our core products, and you have a recipe for the highest open rate we saw in all of 2020.

Now that you know what made the top 10 the most opened, here are the other 91 top-of-the-line email subject lines that round us out to an even 101.

91 More Email Subject Lines to Swipe

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• 95% of product launches fail, says Harvard (here’s why)
• We found “hidden pots of cash” in your business
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• Too many good ideas? STOP.

Aaaand…

THAT. IS. IT.

If you’re tired of reading “NAME” and seeing “[BRACKETS WITH WORDS IN ALL CAPS],” it’s for a good reason:

GET CERTIFIED. Discover the proven plan for effortless, automated email marketing. Click Here

Last year, those were [REALLY POPULAR FOR US, NAME].

In fact, out of our 101 best email subject lines of 2020, 23 used the [CAPS BRACKET] and 15 used the first name field.

Another cool find?

While our average subject line was 6 words, our TOP 3 of 2020 were all less than 5 words.

REMEMBER: AGAIN: Brevity is the soul of wit and pattern interrupts WORK.

My thoughts?

There will never be a “golden subject line formula.”

And that’s GOOD news, because formulas lead to stagnation. And stagnation leads to your subject lines (and as a result, your email marketing strategy) being white noise.

For all I know, last year’s [CAPS BRACKETS] and sub-5-word email subject lines could be this year’s “all emoji” or “5 en-dashes and an ampersand” subject lines (whatever that is).

That being said, I won’t chalk it up to “who knows,” because there are CERTAINLY guidelines and best practices to follow.

And if you can combine said best practices, a little creativity, the power of split-testing, and the application of the scientific method…

…you’ve got yourself a pretty solid formula for consistently pumping out winning subject lines.

Huh. Maybe some formulas do work.

Food for thought.

Anyway, if the contents of this post can act as a staple for the best practices and creativity portion of my little spiel up ^ there, it’ll’ve done its job.

Now get to work.

(NOTE: Want to see what subject lines made the list last year? What about the year before? You can get the last 7 YEARS of top-ranking email subject lines—that’s more than 700 subject lines—in The Ultimate Email Subject Line Swipe File. Sign up for a FREE DM Insider account here to get instant access!)

The post 101 Best Email Subject Lines appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

You’ve finally found it…

The “treasure map” to building an unstoppable business.

We call it the Customer Value Optimization process.

(RELATED: Conversion Funnel Mastery)

If you’re not familiar with how we do things here at DigitalMarketer, this is the first article you should read. It teaches you the foundational principles of digital marketing.

And even if you’re a salty DM veteran, you might still want to reread this from time to time as a refresher. It’s that important.

What you’re about to get in this post is a 10,000-foot view of how the marketing process works when it’s done right.

This is vital to understand because all marketers and entrepreneurs are at various levels of STUCK. There’s so much to learn—and the marketing space is changing so rapidly—that no one can keep up with every little shift in the market.

But when you understand the big-picture view…

When you can see how all the different pieces are meant to work together…

You’ll know how to create a SYSTEM that works to efficiently and repeatedly attract new prospects, convert them into customers, and get the maximum profit out of them.

Sound like something you’d like to have? Then let’s get right to it.

The System

This is the system Starbucks and McDonald’s used to corner the coffee and hamburger markets. It’s the same system Amazon uses to dominate ecommerce. It’s how Best Buy, Beachbody (selling workouts like P90X), and Sports Illustrated have become household names.

It works for small, medium, and enterprise-level businesses. It works for mom-and-pop shops and billion-dollar retailers. It works whether you sell traditional products, digital products, or services.

This system works because it exploits each and every aspect of the irrefutable law of business growth put forth by legendary marketer Jay Abraham. He teaches that there are only 3 ways to grow a business:

1. Increase the number of customers
2. Increase the average transaction value per customer
3. Increase the number of transactions per customer

If you think about it, this makes perfect sense.

And the system you’re about to learn—we call it Customer Value Optimization or CVO—leverages all 3 business growth methods. That’s what makes it so powerful.

So read this page carefully. Read it multiple times, and commit it to memory.

This is the stuff the world’s best marketers and entrepreneurs know and use daily—but it isn’t taught in any business school.

Learn the Steps to Customer Value Optimization

This handy flowchart outlines the CVO system: Download a PDF version of the chart here

Print this PDF and tack it to the wall next to your work station. If you intend to execute this plan, you’ll need to reference it often.

This is your big-picture treasure map to building an unstoppable business. Anytime you’re learning a new tactic—whether it’s Facebook marketing, Google Analytics, search engine optimization (SEO), and so on—you’ll want to check in to see which part of the Customer Value Optimization process that tactic fits into.

Otherwise, you’re liable to end up wasting your time and money.

Take this as a WARNING: There is little profit in understanding, for example, Pinterest advertising or email marketing in and of itself. Because individual tactics like that represent just one piece of the whole.

But there is an ENORMOUS profit in understanding how to apply these traffic strategies within the context of the CVO process.

Here is a flowchart of the entire Customer Value Optimization system:

When you break it down, there are 7 steps to Customer Value Optimization:

1. Determine Product/Market Fit
2. Choose a Traffic Source
3. Offer a Lead Magnet
4. Offer a Tripwire
5. Offer a Core Product
6. Offer a Profit Maximizer
7. Create the Return Path

Lean into this article and pay close attention—we’re about to reveal the EXACT process we use to sell products and services in multiple niche markets and mainstream verticals including…

• Finance and Investing
• Men’s Clothing
• Home Improvement
• Survival and Preparedness
• Beauty

… just to name a few.

Let’s begin with…

Step 1: Determine Product/Market Fit

We begin the Customer Value Optimization process by getting clear on the most important person in your business: your customer.

At its core, business is pretty simple.

We get paid to move these customers from an undesirable “Before” state to a desirable “After” state.

In the “Before” state, the customer is discontent in some way. They might be in pain, bored, frightened, or unhappy for any number of reasons.

In the “After” state, life is better. They are free of pain, entertained, or unafraid of what previously plagued them.

People don’t buy products or services…

They buy transformations.

AKA outcomes.

AKA a more desirable “After” state.

This means that a good OFFER will deliver the “After” state the person wants…

And good MARKETING will articulate that transformation from “Before” to “After.”

The flip side is also true: when a new business fails, it’s often because it FAILED to either…

• Offer a desired “After” state (the offer was no good)
• Articulate the movement from “Before” to “After” (the marketing was no good)

Needless to say, getting clear on the desired outcome your offer delivers is fundamental to the success of your business.

Here’s how to get that clarity…

The 10-Question “Before & After” Grid

Before you create or market another offer, ask yourself these 10 questions:

• What does your prospect HAVE in the “Before” state? What does your prospect HAVE in the “After” state?
• How does your prospect FEEL in the “Before” state? How does your prospect FEEL in the “After” state?
• What is an AVERAGE DAY like for your prospect in the “Before” state? What is an AVERAGE DAY like for your prospect in the “After” state?
• What is your prospect’s STATUS in the “Before” state? What is your prospect’s STATUS in the “After” state?
• What is an EVIL that is plaguing the prospect in the “Before” state? How does your prospect conquer it and bring more GOOD to the world in the “After” state?

Just put your answers in a simple table like this:

(RELATED: Perpetual Traffic Episode 116: Ryan Deiss Breaks Down the “Before & After” Strategy of Chatbooks’ Viral Video)

Here’s an example, using our own company DigitalMarketer. How do we help our customers achieve a positive transformation in their lives?

For this example, we’re going to use our “Marketing Executives” avatar. So these people are in charge of a marketing department—usually the CMO, the VP of Marketing, or the Director of Marketing.

We know from experience that people in these positions run into a lot of problems. A lot of undesirable “Before” states. So, we’ve created training programs that can help solve those problems and deliver the “After” states these people really want.

How do we do it? By transforming the marketing executive…

• From HAVING a disorganized team… to having a team that’s a well-oiled machine
• From FEELING frustrated, overwhelmed, and scared of losing their job… to feeling confident and in control
• From having an AVERAGE DAY in which they have to “coach up” under-performing team members… to an average day in which they’re free to focus on big-picture strategy because they can trust their other team members to take care of the details correctly
• From a STATUS of being disrespected and behind the times… to a status of being respected, up-to-date, and even up for a promotion
• From the EVIL of being a victim of an old-school university model that doesn’t prepare graduates for the realities of marketing today… to the GOOD of helping to train the marketing leaders of the future

Average marketers only articulate what a customer will HAVE if they purchase their product or service.

Great marketers speak to the transformations around how the customer will FEEL, how their AVERAGE DAY will change, how their STATUS will elevate, and how they will solve an EVIL in the world (making them a real-life hero).

With this simple 10-question “Before & After” Grid, any half-decent copywriter will be able to create a marketing message that will have an impact.

The marketing copy writes itself now that you are clear on the “Before” and “After”…

• “Turn your disorganized team into a well-oiled machine that’s ready to kick some serious marketing butt.”
• “Tired of having to ‘coach up’ your team day after day? With DigitalMarketer HQ, you’ll be free to step back and focus on big-picture strategy.”
• “Just imagine feeling confident and respected in meetings, knowing that your next promotion is coming soon.”

Do you see how this copy clearly articulates how the product will move a marketing executive from a “Before” state of stress and frustration to an “After” state of confidence and success?

It’s powerful stuff.

Make sure to complete the Before & After Grid for ALL of your customer avatars, because each customer segment will go through a different transformation.

Understanding how you will transform your prospect from a “Before” state to a desired “After” state also impacts…

How much you can charge

What is the distance between the “Before” and desired “After” state?

That distance is called VALUE.

A stick of gum is inexpensive, in part, because it covers a very short distance—from “bad taste in your mouth” to “good taste in your mouth.”

By comparison, a car covers a much greater distance: from “stuck at home” or possibly “forced to take a crowded bus to work” to being “free to travel wherever you want in privacy and comfort.” The car provides much more value, and accordingly, it’s also a lot more expensive.

Do you want to charge more for your products and services?

If so, the solution is simple: create more distance between the “Before” and desired “After” state by either:

• Creating a better product or service (better offer)
• Articulating the movement from “Before” to “After” differently or more clearly (better marketing)

When rolling out a new offer, starting a new company, or moving into a new market—make sure to get clear on your “Before” and “After” states. And as I said, make sure to do it for EACH of your customer avatars.

(RELATED: Learn more about what a customer avatar is—and how to create your own—HERE!)

If you’re not able to clearly articulate how you can take your prospect from the “Before” state to a desired “After” state… you may have an issue with Product/Market Fit.

Product/Market Fit may be the single most important part of the entire Customer Value Optimization system. Simply, because every other part of the process is dependent upon having a group of willing and able buyers.

Once you have that group of buyers, the next step is to find a way to bring those people to your website. Which brings us to Step 2: Choose a traffic source.

Step 2: Choose a Traffic Source

Now that you’ve achieved Product/Market fit, your next step is to figure out how to reach that market and get them to your website.

This is where paid traffic comes into play.

I’ve often said that in this day & age, NOBODY has a traffic problem.

You might have a business model problem, an offer problem, or a measurement problem.

But traffic is NOT your problem.

Want to know why?

You can always buy more traffic.

Google, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and LinkedIn… these platforms are all essentially traffic stores. And they would love to send you more clicks (for the right CPC or CPM, of course).

When you look at it that way, the question of traffic comes down to cost. And to generate traffic profitably, you simply need to understand 2 things:

1. How to measure what traffic is worth
2. How to extract maximum immediate value from that traffic

For example, pretend that you got $10 in profit every time a visitor came to your website. Would you be able to get traffic to the site?

Heck yes, you would!

You could pay up to $10 per visitor and still break even.

In fact, you’ll be able to pay MORE than $10 to get a visitor to that page when you truly understand the whole Customer Value Optimization system—because you’ll be able to extract even more profit from those visitors later on.

This is why CVO is so powerful. Because it allows you to earn more profit per visitor…which means you can spend more money per visitor.

I’ve often said:

“He who can spend the most money to acquire a new customer… wins.”

And Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO of Amazon.com, once said something similar (in a tongue-in-cheek warning to his competitors):

“Your margin is my opportunity.”

Amazon.com sells on the thinnest of margins, knowing that acquiring new customers, selling them more products, and selling to them more frequently is how you become unstoppable (there’s Jay Abraham’s law of business growth again).

Now THAT is a killer traffic strategy—one that sets you up for long-term profits and steady growth.

And this is also why tactics and “marketing hacks” are worthless if you don’t understand the CVO process.

You can learn about blogging, Facebook ads, or email marketing until you’re blue in the face…but unless you know how to set up a system that wrings maximum profit from that traffic, you’ll continue to be frustrated.

That’s because the goal of traffic generation—no matter which traffic source you choose—isn’t to generate an immediate profit—it’s to drive prospects into the CVO Funnel.

So whatever you do, don’t hop around from one traffic source to the next, looking for some kind of “magic pill” that will instantly make your business profitable.

Instead, become a master of a single, steady traffic source. Stay focused on that traffic source and, once mastered, add a second and third traffic source.

These traffic sources include…

• Email marketing
• Social advertising (Facebook/Twitter/YouTube ads, etc.)
• Display advertising
• Content marketing
• Organic social media
• SEO

And so on.

You won’t make a huge profit right away, but that’s not the point. The profits will come later IF you use the CVO system.

And the next step of that system is to…

Step 3: Offer a Lead Magnet

The next 2 sections (Offer a Lead Magnet and Offer a Tripwire) show you how to grow your business through the first of Jay Abraham’s methods: increase the number of customers.

First, let’s talk about Lead Magnets.

A Lead Magnet is an irresistible bribe that gives a specific chunk of value to a prospect in exchange for their contact information.

Make no mistake, although no money changes hands, this is a transaction. It is often the very first transaction you will have with a prospect.

In order for your Lead Magnet to be effective, you need to provide tremendous value with it.

The Lead Magnet is usually offered on a web page called a landing page or squeeze page that is optimized to convert even cold traffic into leads.

Your landing page doesn’t need to be fancy to be effective. Here’s a high-performing Lead Magnet landing page from Digital Marketer…

The purpose of your Lead Magnet is to generate leads so you can continue to follow up with them. Because your Lead Magnet is the very top of the CVO Funnel, increasing your opt-ins here will pay dividends throughout the rest of the system.

But not all Lead Magnets are created equal. The best Lead Magnet squeeze pages will convert north of 50% of visitors into leads.

How do you achieve such a high conversion rate?

The key is to make sure your Lead Magnet is specific.

Specificity: The Key to Getting More Leads

What irresistible bribe could you offer in exchange for a prospect’s contact information?

The good news is that you DO NOT need to create something lengthy or complex. In fact, we’ve found that the more laser-focused your Lead Magnet is…the better it will convert.

This, for example, is NOT a good Lead Magnet:

There is no offer in this Lead Magnet, much less a specific one.

But this Lead Magnet isn’t much better. There is an offer, but it isn’t specific…

The offer of a nondescript “freebie” is not going to move people to action. They want to solve a problem. They want an outcome.

(Hint: Any opt-in form or squeeze page that begins with “Subscribe to our newsletter” is probably NOT a good Lead Magnet. Just sayin’.)

Contrast the prior two Lead Magnets with the specific problem that is addressed in this Lead Magnet…

This ad gives a very specific promise to “take your blog posts from ‘Meh’ to Magnificent—FAST.”

It’s a specific promise that appeals to exactly what our customer avatar is looking for.

Now, because of the nature of our company, we tend to offer a lot of online resources—PDFs, videos, that sort of thing.

But your Lead Magnet could be all sorts of things. If you’re a SaaS company like Sprout Social, your Lead Magnet might be a free trial:

Ecommerce companies can offer free shipping or even a discount on your first purchase like Williams Sonoma does here:

No matter what industry you’re in, the take-home message is the same:

Make sure your Lead Magnet solves a specific problem for a specific segment of the market.

Do that, and you’ll generate more high-quality leads… some of whom will then go on to take the next step in the Customer Value Optimization system.

Step 4: Offer a Tripwire

Now you have a Lead Magnet that is generating opt-ins and helping to build your email list. But your Lead Magnet isn’t generating customers, only prospects.

The next step in the CVO process is to turn those leads into customers. To do that, you need a Tripwire.

A Tripwire offer is an irresistible offer that exists for one reason and one reason only:

To convert prospects into buyers.

Typically, a tripwire is a super low-ticket offer (usually between $1 and $20), although this can depend on your market. In markets selling high-ticket products and services, a tripwire offer of $500 might be considered a low-ticket purchase.

The goal of the Tripwire is to fundamentally change the relationship from prospect to customer. The conversion of a prospect to a customer, even for $1, is magical.

The key is to make a Tripwire Offer that your leads are unable to resist.

The most common way to make the Tripwire irresistible is by selling it at cost and, in some cases, at a loss to you.

That’s correct—you are not trying to make a living from selling Tripwire Offers. You are trying to acquire buyers because there is nothing more valuable than a list of buyers.

When you understand the rest of the Customer Value Optimization process, you will understand that the Tripwire Offer is the single most powerful addition you can make to your business—even though you make no direct profit from it.

A classic example of a Tripwire Offer comes from Columbia Records…

Columbia House took over the music market by making an absolutely irresistible offer (13 records or tapes for $1) because they understood that acquiring a list of buyers is the name of the game.

Types of Tripwire Offers

Physical products can make fantastic Tripwire offers…

and so do physical books…

Service-based businesses will often give a steep discount on services to get new customers in the door—like dentists who offer low-cost exams or teeth whitening sessions:

Or gyms offering a low introductory price on fitness classes…

Heck, Groupon is FULL of Tripwire offers. It’s a great place for local businesses (like salons) to attract new customers with deeply discounted offers:

Even GoDaddy, the domain registration and website hosting service, offers a low-priced domain to acquire new customers…

Tripwires are all around us.

It’s the ridiculous flat-screen TV deal at Best Buy. It’s the rock-bottom price of a Kindle Fire. It’s every service offered for a measly $5 on Fiverr.

The strategy behind the Tripwire is simple:

Convert the maximum number of Lead Magnet leads into paying customers, even at the expense of your profit margin, with the understanding that acquiring a paying customer will deliver profit through the next 3 steps:

• Core Offer
• Profit Maximizer
• Return Path

OK, now that you understand how to increase the number of customers, let’s talk about increasing the average transaction value per customer by selling your Core Product.

Step 5: Offer a Core Product

Now that you have a bunch of customers who have purchased a low-dollar item with you, the next step in the Customer Value Optimization process is to sell these people a higher-priced product.

We call that your Core Offer.

You most likely already have a Core Offer. It’s your flagship product or products.

The mistake that many businesses make is trying to sell their Core Offer to cold prospects. This almost never works, because your Core Offer is too expensive. It’s too big of a commitment for someone who’s making their first purchase with you.

That’s why we follow the CVO process to turn cold prospects into warm prospects and warm prospects into customers. Because those customers will be much more receptive to your Core Offer.

Often, simply adding a Lead Magnet and a Tripwire is enough to explode your Core Offer sales.

As long as you over-deliver and provide immense value with your Lead Magnet and Tripwire, your customers will be highly interested in purchasing your Core Offer.

And here’s something to keep in mind:

In some cases, sales from the Core Offer will make you profitable. But it doesn’t have to. If you follow through on the CVO process, you could take everything you make from the Core Offer and reinvest it to acquire more customers.

Again, this is how you become unstoppable. You build a system in which you can spend more to acquire a customer than your competitors. That means you’ll be able to acquire more customers and generate more profit in the long run through future transactions.

Compare that strategy to what most companies do—which is try to make a living from selling their Core Offer.

But you? You don’t need to make a dime from your Core Offer.

Remember, as Jeff Bezos says, your competitor’s margin is an opportunity. It is your opportunity to, for example, spend more on traffic acquisition, conversion rate optimization, or increase the value of your offers.

It might stun you to find out that many of the most successful businesses in the world make no profit until they reach the next 2 stages, Profit Maximizers and Return Path.

Here’s where things get very interesting…

Step 6: Offer a Profit Maximizer

The second of Jay Abraham’s business growth methods is to increase the average transaction value per customer.

That’s what the Profit Maximizer is for.

Most businesses don’t have Tripwire Offers and they don’t have Profit Maximizers. They live and die selling cold prospects on their Core Offer.

This is why they struggle… but you won’t.

Would it shock you to find out that McDonald’s makes almost no money on the hamburger? The hamburger is the Core Offer, but it’s the French fry and soda Profit Maximizers that built the Golden Arches.

This type of Profit Maximizer is called an immediate upsell…

Best Buy sells laptops and plasma TVs (Core Offers) on wafer-thin margins you can’t resist. They make up for it on warranties, installation, and Geek Squad support (Profit Maximizers).

Amazon makes a Cross-Sell Profit Maximizer offer when they show you, “People who bought this product, also bought that product” to increase the Average Basket Value (also known as maximizing profit).

But Amazon also makes a Bundle Profit Maximizer offer with their “Frequently Bought Together” offer…

And Premium Subscriptions (recurring billing) like membership websites and other continuity offers make fantastic Profit Maximizer offers…

Hint: Any offer made after the initial sale is a Profit Maximizer.

They’re called Profit Maximizers because the revenue you get from these sales will be much more profitable than your Tripwire or Core Offer sales.

Remember: the single biggest expense most companies will incur is the cost of acquiring a new customer (which is the job of the Tripwire Offer).

Everything that happens after that increases the customer’s immediate and lifetime value.

So take some time to think about what you could be offering as an upsell or cross-sell. What could you bundle with your Core Offer? How can you incorporate a subscription or membership site into your business model?

Find your Profit Maximizer, and you begin to become unstoppable.

But there is one more way to grow…

Step 7: Create the Return Path

The last way to grow a business is to increase the number of transactions per customer.

Enter the Return Path.

The goal of the Return Path is to have frequent, strategic communication with your buyers and prospects that cause them to buy again and again.

Because you have received their contact information through the Lead Magnet, you can continue marketing online to them.

You can offer new Lead Magnets, Tripwires, Core Offers, and Profit Maximizers because you have permission to market to them or bring them back to the Tripwire, Core Offer, or Profit Maximizer that they didn’t buy the first time around.

The Return Path is anything that brings the customer or prospect back more frequently, including…

• Email marketing
• Exit offers
• Organic social media (like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn)
• Loyalty programs
• Content marketing
• Outbound sales calling
• Ad retargeting (More on ad retargeting here)

And that, my friends, is the system we have used (and continue to use) to grow DigitalMarketer and multiple other businesses in multiple industries.

It’s worked for single-member businesses and giant corporations like McDonald’s and Starbucks.

It works because it takes all the jigsaw pieces of digital marketing and fits them together in a way that fits.

And if you begin applying it the way I’ve just explained, it will help you (too!) to grow and scale your business.

The post Customer Value Optimization: How to Build an Unstoppable Business appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

It’s a huge mistake.

And yet, I see it happen all the time.

A marketer or business owner gets so focused on WHAT they’re selling that they forget to think about WHO they’re selling it to.

This is the kiss of death for a marketing campaign, and sometimes even an entire business.

You could have the greatest product on earth, but if you’re trying to sell it to the wrong person—you’re never going to hit your sales numbers.

That’s why understanding your customer avatar (AKA buyer persona) is so important.

That’s also why we created the Customer Avatar Worksheet (that you can download for FREE), to help you document everything about your customer avatar.

Before you can sell anything effectively, you need to understand…

• WHO your ideal customer is
• WHERE they’re hanging out online
• WHAT their challenges are

But how do you actually do all that?

Don’t worry—I’ll dig into the details later on in this post. First, I want to make sure you understand why customer avatars are so important, and why I refer to them as the “Swiss army knife” of marketing.

The Swiss Army Knife of Marketing

Digital marketing is composed of a lot of different disciplines.

There’s content marketing, email marketing, paid traffic, product creation, social media, copywriting, analytics… the list goes on.

Each of those disciplines has its own unique set of skills to master.

But knowing how to identify your customer avatar is one of the few skills that applies to every marketing discipline. That’s what makes it the Swiss army knife—you can use it in every single marketing discipline.

For example…

• Content Marketing: Knowing your avatar helps you decide what blog posts, videos, podcasts, Lead Magnets, etc. you should create to attract more leads and customers
• Paid Traffic: Knowing your avatar helps you discover which ad platforms you should buy traffic from—and what targeting options you should use
• Product Creation: Knowing your avatar will help you create a product that your customer NEEDS
• Copywriting: Knowing your avatar helps you describe your offers in a way that speaks to your avatar’s problems and compels them to want to buy
• Email Marketing: Knowing your avatar helps you get more open rates and better conversion rates on your emails…and can even be used to segment specific email marketing campaigns to different avatars

Any part of the marketing and sales process that “touches” the customer (which is pretty much EVERYTHING) will improve when you get clear on your customer avatar.

Get the Digital Marketing Blueprint…

With a Customer Value Journey that strategically builds a relationship with new prospects and converts them into loyal, repeat customers. Click here

When you get clear on the characteristics of the person who is going to buy your products and services, it’s a lot easier to find and present them with a message that moves them to action.

Let’s look at one of our customer avatars as an example.

Customer Avatar Example: Meet Agency Eric

One of our products here at DigitalMarketer is our Certification Classes. These trainings include exams, certificates, and badges—plus, we also give you third-party credibility you can put on your website, on LinkedIn, on a resume, and so on.

So who would make a good customer for this product? We defined 4 distinct buyer personas:

• The Marketing Freelancer: Interested in trainings and certifications to distinguish herself from competing freelancers
• The Marketing Agency Owner: Interested in trainings and certifications to sharpen the marketing skills of her employees, so her agency can provide more/better services to clients
• The Employee: Interested in trainings and certifications to distinguish himself at work or to secure a new job or promotion within his existing company
• The Business Owner: Interested in trainings and certifications to sharpen her own marketing skills and the skills of her internal marketing team members

As a result, 4 new “Customer Avatars” were born. Here’s one of them, “The Marketing Agency Owner”—we call him Agency Eric.

Let’s walk through this Customer Avatar Worksheet, step by step.

Customer Avatars: What to Include

There are 5 major components to a customer avatar:

• Goals and Values
• Sources of Information
• Demographic Information
• Challenges and Pain Points
• Objections and Roles

In some cases, you’ll need to survey and actually talk with your existing customers to figure out who your customer avatar is and what they need from you.

In other cases, you’ll already be intimately familiar with the characteristics of your ideal customer.

In any case, move forward.

Don’t wait for surveys or interviews to be conducted to create your first draft of an avatar.

Make assumptions where you have no data or feedback, and put it on your shortlist of to-dos to complete your research when you can.

In the meantime, you’ll benefit from having an avatar already built—even if you have to go back and verify a few of the assumptions you made.

Now, let’s look at each section of the Customer Avatar Worksheet.

Goals and Values

The best way to get started is to think about the goals and values that are important to your ideal customer.

Here’s what we came up with for Agency Eric:

Make a note of the goals and values that are relevant to the products and services you offer. You’ll use this information to help guide…

• Product creation
• Copywriting
• Content marketing
• Email marketing

For example, we know Agency Eric is interested in “increasing the capabilities of his team.”

We could draft an email to this avatar promoting our Content Marketing certification with the subject line:

Let us train your team in content marketing

That should get Agency Eric’s attention.

Sources of Information

This section of the Customer Avatar Worksheet is critical to determining the “where” of your customer avatar.

• Where do they hang out (both online and in person)?
• What materials do they read?
• What gurus do they follow?

This information can help you determine the best places to advertise online to your avatar.

To fill this section out, use the “but no one else would” trick. You’ll complete sentences like these:

• My ideal customer would read [BOOK], but no one else would.
• My ideal customer would subscribe to [MAGAZINE], but no one else would.
• My ideal customer would attend [CONFERENCE], but no one else would.

Getting the picture?

The idea is to find the niche books, magazines, blogs, conferences, gurus, etc. that ONLY your ideal customer would be attracted to.

For example, if you are in the golf products market—you wouldn’t want to assign Tiger Woods as a guru. Tiger is someone golfers are familiar with… however, so is everyone else.

Instead, choose a more niche golfer like Rory McElroy. The average non-golfer won’t know who he is—but your customer avatar will.

When buying traffic from ad platforms like Facebook, you’ll often be able to better target your audience by focusing on these niche interests—while excluding less-than-ideal prospects.

Demographic Information

Applying demographic information can really help bring your customer avatar to life.

Of course, this section includes all the usual facts—like the person’s age, gender, marital status, income, job title, and so on.

We find that filling in a “Quote” field is one of our favorite parts of this section. Giving your avatar a quote can be particularly helpful to get inside the head of your customer.

Don’t forget to download your Customer Avatar Worksheet for FREE.

This section can also be useful when choosing targeting options in ad platforms, like Facebook. In our case, we might want to narrow our targeting to include people with a college degree or people who earn at least $150,000/year.

Demographics can also help when you’re writing content, emails, or sales copy. Try this: pretend your avatar is sitting across the table from you. Write the words that you would say to them in a normal conversation.

You’ll find that demographic information like age, gender, and location will give your persona a look and feel that helps you talk to them more persuasively.

Challenges and Pain Points

Next, think about the problems, challenges, and pain points in your customer avatar’s life.

This information can help you in several ways.

For one thing, it can help spur ideas for new products or services that can help solve your avatar’s problems.

It can also help you write copy and ad creative that speaks to their pain points, compelling them to take action.

For example, when selling certifications to Agency Eric, we want to hit on pain points such as…

Are you tired of losing proposals simply because you don’t offer content marketing to your clients? Certify your team with DigitalMarketer’s Content Marketing Mastery Course and Certification to help retain your clients while charging higher prices.

Or…

Do you feel like your agency is constantly struggling to keep up with the rapidly evolving digital marketing scene? Sign up for DigitalMarketer HQ to automate the training process and keep your team up-to-date on the latest marketing strategies.

Copy like this will get a response from Agency Eric because it talks directly about the challenges he’s facing in his business.

Objections and Role in the Purchase Process

Finally, think about the reasons why your customer avatar might choose NOT to buy your product or service. These are called “objections” and they must be addressed in your marketing.

For example, if we know Agency Eric is concerned with the amount of time his team members will be “out of pocket” to receive the certification, we might send an email with a subject line like…

Content Marketing Certified (in one business day)

The phrase “in one business day” helps to overcome his objection, by reassuring Agency Eric that his team will only need one day to finish the certification.

You’ll also need to determine your avatar’s role in the purchasing process.

• Are they the primary decision maker?
• Are they a decision influencer?

If your avatar is NOT the primary decision maker, you’ll need to come up with a strategy to appeal to whoever that person is.

Understanding your ideal customer’s decision-making process is paramount to the success of your marketing and sales campaigns.

Build Multiple Avatars

Start by building a single avatar—but don’t stop there. Your business almost certainly has more than one ideal buyer.

Once you get the hang of it, you’ll start churning out multiple avatars representing the different segments of your market.

Any lucrative market segment with a distinct set of goals, information sources, pain points, etc. is deserving of a customer avatar.

Don’t forget to download your Customer Avatar Worksheet for FREE.

The post The Customer Avatar Worksheet: Finally, Get Clear on WHO You Are Selling To! appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

Once iTunes approves your podcast, you have 8 weeks to make an impression in the New and Noteworthy section—the coveted spot on the iTunes Store directory that allows you to be highly visible and gain the recognition of millions of users for 8 weeks.

You need to get it right the first time… because the clock is ticking!

We launched our first podcast, Perpetual Traffic, on July 28, 2015. To our surprise, within 8 hours we were Number 1 in the Business Category on iTunes!

We also hit iTunes’ New and Noteworthy within a week.

We achieved these rankings following a simple and consistent 4-step strategy.

And that’s what we’re sharing today—the EXACT 4-step strategy you can use to launch ANY podcast in ANY market.

We’re also sharing the big mistake we made with our podcast distribution schedule (this was a big breakthrough for us), so you can avoid making it, too!

We’ll start with…

Step 1: Define Your Podcast’s Concept and Style

Successful podcasts have a consistent concept and style.

You need to plan and decide WHAT your overall podcast will be about before you launch, or you run the risk of having a sloppy show.

It’s important to decide what will be unique about your podcast. Think about why someone should listen, why they should care. Also, keep your business’ culture in mind—your podcast needs to align with your business.

A podcast that’s going to hit the top of the charts and stay there needs to be entertaining while providing valuable content on a specific topic that people want to listen to.

You have several options to choose from when it comes to what “style” your podcast will follow. These are some of the examples we considered when planning Perpetual Traffic. Think about which would be the best fit to reach your audience:

Interview Style Podcast

This is the most common style of podcasting.

The host(s) conducts an interview in each episode of the podcast.

For example, in each episode of I’ll Drink to That!, host Levi Dalton interviews a wine expert and names the episode after that particular interviewee.

Location Based Podcast

Here the podcast centers on the location it is recorded in.

For instance, The MeatEater is about hunting and outdoor activities and is recorded on the road from locations around the US Every episode is about a different location and the experience that follows.

Storytelling Podcast

Can you guess what flow this podcast follows?

This type of podcast tells a story.

The first episode of the podcast is the beginning of the story, the last episode is the conclusion of the story, and each episode builds off the last and moves the story forward.

There’s a good chance you’re familiar with one of the more popular storytelling podcasts—Serial. As the first podcast to hit 5 million downloads on iTunes (and that was in April 2015!), Serial is a prime example of this.

Teaching Podcast

Each episode of a Teaching Podcast instructs its listeners on a particular topic.

For instance, in Coffee Break Spanish, the show gives listeners a Spanish lesson in the time it takes to drink a cup of coffee.

A Mix: Teaching/Interview/Case Studies

This style is a cross between…

• Teaching listeners
• Interviewing experts
• Examining case studies

A great example of this is the Barbell Shrugged podcast, which focuses on conversations about fitness, training, and has interviews with athletes.

This podcast served as inspiration for Perpetual Traffic.

Moral of the story… pick a style that works for you and stick to it.

OK, you know what your theme is—now it’s time to get busy recording your first episodes!

Step 2: Record 3 “Pillar Episodes” (AKA… the Foundation of Your Podcast)

It’s important to keep in mind that the first 3 episodes of your podcast will serve as the legs of your podcast and be its first impression. We call these episodes “Pillar Episodes.”

Pillar Episodes…

• …are great to reference back to in future episodes. Use your first 3 episodes to build the foundation of your podcast. Reference back to your first 3 episodes often by mentioning them during the podcast and linking to them in your show notes page—which lists all of the episodes and provides links to the resources mentioned in a particular episode. We reference our show notes throughout an episode, so we can send traffic back to the site and pixel high-quality leads.
• …keep you from repeating yourself. Pillar episodes improve the flow of your show dramatically. Instead of repeatedly explaining a fundamental concept, you’ll simply reference a pillar episode. Like, “We explain this in more detail on Episode X. Go back and give that a listen.”
• …are good for your rankings because you’re constantly referring back to previous episodes, so listeners will have a reason to go back and download past episodes. iTunes loves to see that people aren’t just listening and downloading the latest and greatest episode, but are consuming multiple episodes. This will help you maintain consistent downloads (more on the importance of consistent downloads in a minute).

When you launch your podcast, launch with 3 episodes (or more) because it serves as a hook for your audience and gives you the opportunity to create a solid first impression.

You’ll also have 3 episodes for newcomers to download vs one—3x the downloads!

But how do you come up with 3 pillar episodes?

Look to your blog, YouTube channel, or other mediums where you’re creating content.

What are your most popular topics—the foundational posts that really interest people? Content that has resonated with your audience can be repurposed and serve as your podcast’s pillar posts.

For example, before “How to Launch a Podcast” became a DigitalMarketer blog post, it was a Perpetual Traffic episode, and before that, it was a presentation at 2016’s Traffic & Conversion Summit.

People were responding to this topic—so, it was repurposed.

But if you don’t know the best content or the most popular content for you, go to:

• Buzzsumo
• Google AdWords

These two tools will tell you…

• What’s the most popular content
• What people are searching for the most
• Can serve as inspiration for podcast episodes

For instance, this is what a search for “content marketing” looks like on Buzzsumo…

Based on the Buzzsumo example, perhaps the first few episodes of your podcast about content marketing could explain the tools every content marketer needs.

Step 3: Launch You Podcast with a Contest

When you first launch, you want to create as much momentum and buzz as possible. A contest can help with that and help you rank.

For your podcast to rank, you want people to… 

• Go to your podcast
• Download your first three episodes (Pillar Episodes)
• Subscribe
• Leave a review

This shows iTunes that this podcast is great, which will help you move up in the charts.

You want positive reviews…

So you can be here…

…so, make sure the content is outstanding.

A contest can help you get the downloads, subscribers, and ratings you need.

Launching with a contest helped us hit Number One in the Business Category. It’s what got us to New and Noteworthy and helped us stay there for 8 weeks.

When you use a contest, make sure the prize is specific to your market. You want the gift to really appeal to your audience.

Your contest prize shouldn’t be something that appeals to the masses because you’re not aiming to attract everybody. You’re working on gathering people who will actually find value from your podcast.

For instance, if your podcast is about fishing, you wouldn’t want to give away a laptop or a tablet. A more specific and appealing prize to your audience would be a fishing rod or tactical gear.

Also, if you don’t have your podcast audience built prior to your launch, giving away a prize that’s really relevant to your prospective listeners will make them more likely to engage.

When launching your podcast…

• Call on your community and market to help you launch this podcast—make them aware of the podcast and ask them to share it
• Ask your friends to share the podcast and its contest
• Ask big media properties in your market to share the podcast contest
• Partner with people in your market that already have an existing audience, and ask them to share your podcast

Here’s a look at the contest we ran when launching Perpetual Traffic. Our contest prize was a ticket to our annual Traffic & Conversion Summit…

Over the course of the contest, which ran 2 weeks, we:

• Called on our current audience and community for support. We told them we were starting a podcast and asked for their help in getting it to rank.
• Asked people to subscribe and leave a review of Perpetual Traffic. After completing those steps, they could enter the contest.
• Sent emails. We sent 3 over the span of 2 weeks. Here’s an example of one…

• Distributed the contest to owned media (like our Facebook page). Here’s how we announced the launch of the contest and Perpetual Traffic on DigitalMarketer’s Facebook page…

• Ran Facebook ads to cold traffic (people who have never heard of you before) like this…

And that takes us to our final step…

Step 4: Continue to Generate Buzz

You can only be in New and Noteworthy for 8 weeks; so, what do you do after the initial 8 weeks?

To continue creating buzz and generating downloads, you need to create a distribution schedule.

When we first launched Perpetual Traffic, we published episodes on Tuesdays, and we distributed that episode via ads, email, and social media that same day.

So, that was our distribution schedule: all on the same Tuesday.

And that’s where we made a mistake. We were getting big peaks in our downloads on Tuesday, and then downloads would fall off drastically the rest of the week.

Peaks and valleys in your downloads won’t help you rise in the ranks on iTunes. To iTunes, consistent downloads are proof of a quality podcast, and that’s what you need to aim for in order to rank and continue to generate buzz: consistency.

You don’t want your downloads to spike, like the image on the left (what we were doing initially). You want a more gradual amount of downloads, like on the right.

We realized we were using the wrong distribution approach, so we diversified our distribution schedule.

Now…

• A new episode goes live on Tuesday
• On Wednesday we create a Facebook post announcing the latest episode and boost the post for 3 days. Here’s an example of one of these boosted posts for Episode 84…

• We email our list on Thursday to tell our subscribers about the new episode
• Then, throughout the week we consistently distribute the new episode AND redistribute old episodes using social media, paid ads, and email banners

Before you launch your podcast, plan your diversified distribution schedule.

What does your distribution schedule look like throughout the week to ensure you’re getting consistent downloads? It’s all about being really consistent in your distribution, while also diversifying your distribution.

(NOTE: It’s also important to be consistent with the day your episode goes live, so you train your listeners when to expect a new episode.)

Other Podcasting Tips

Here are a few other ways to keep subscribers and download numbers high after you launch:

• Mini-Series Podcasts: Create episodes that have more than one part: a Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. These are extremely powerful episodes because they essentially leave people hanging. It makes people want to come back to know the end result. That’s a big reason Serial is such a successful podcast.
• Guests or Guest Hosts: Invite guests on to your show that will draw an audience and interest your audience. Also, the guest is likely to share the podcast with his/her audience. For instance, in Episode 44, we invited Amy Porterfield on to our show to discuss how she launches products. After the episode went live, Amy shared this on her Facebook page…

• Reference: Again, continue to refer to past episodes, which will keep downloads on older episodes high, so you remain consistent in iTunes. Throughout each episode of Perpetual Traffic, we reference past episodes that flesh out a topic more than the current episode does. And, we reference the Show Notes to send traffic to the site and pixel quality leads.
• Breadcrumb Future Episodes: Include a little teaser or mention of what can be expected in a future episode. This gives the listener something to look forward to—a reason to not only anticipate your podcast in the future but to also come back.

When you start a podcast, don’t feel like you have to cookie cutter a podcast that is experiencing success. Take bits and pieces from popular podcasts that feel most natural to you and is best for your business.

Valuable content and consistency are the keys to a successful podcast… so, get out there and start podcasting!!

The post How to Launch a Podcast, Drive it to the Top of the Charts, AND Keep it There in Just 4 Steps appeared first on DigitalMarketer.