? London, UK
MRKTRS x STM WKLY #81
HOW TO BE A SMRTR MRKTR
So what type of a marketer are you? Do you like to stay organized at all times or do you just act randomly without following any specific plan… or something in between?
Since many affiliates operate on their own, the need for deep planning isn’t really there. But as soon as a team is involved, at least some level of planning and goal setting becomes inevitable, or the whole operation might fall apart like a house of cards.
It’s all about goals in a team and how to achieve them in a fast and effective manner. Every member MUST know what their tasks and responsibilities are, plus how and when they need to be taken care of. A team is like a machine, all parts have to work in synergy.
So how do we achieve this? By setting SMART goals!
What does “SMART” stand for?
- S for Specific: Pick a specific metric you want to improve.
- M for Measurable: Set a certain increase you’re aiming for… 10% maybe?
- A for Attainable: Set realistic goals for yourself and your team. 10% increase is doable, 100% is probably not.
- R for Relevant: Focus on metrics that can actually increase your revenue. Don’t put your time and effort into something with questionable results. Running “borderline” offers with zero chance of repeat purchases? Branding is probably not gonna help you then, so don’t waste your time with it.
- T for Time-Bound: Set a time frame for every goal you want to achieve. It helps to keep you on schedule and also puts a healthy dose of pressure on your team. Stay realistic though, the goal still has to remain attainable, remember?
Here’s one example of a SMART goal:
Title: Blog Traffic Goal
Specific: Boost traffic of a blog by increasing publishing frequency from 5 to 8 times a week. There are 3 writers in the team, 2 of them will write 3 posts instead of 2 and the last one will increase from 1 article to 2.
– the goal is clearly defined, everyone knows what they should do and how much to write from now on.
Measurable: An 8% increase in traffic is the goal.
– the metric is defined, we know what to measure and what kind of an increase is expected.
Attainable: Based on past experience, when the frequency was increased from 3 to 5 times a week, the traffic went up by 5%.
– they are using past data to set a realistic goal.
Relevant: Increased traffic will increase brand awareness and result in more leads, that the sales can work with and close more deals.
– the current business model relies on web traffic to drive lead generation with the current funnel, so more traffic to the same funnel is guaranteed to result in more sales.
Time-Bound: Results will be measured at the end of the month.
– the team knows exactly how much time they have.
SMART goal summary: At the end of the month, the blog should see a traffic increase of 8%, achieved by increased publishing frequency from 5 to 8 posts per week.
This is a very simple example of setting a SMART goal but illustrates the particular steps required. There are 5 more simple goals laid out in the original article, check them out here ?
THE BLUEPRINT TO WRITING LIKE A GREAT ENTREPRENEUR
If you can’t write, you can’t raise money. Or recruit. Or sell.
It needs to be clear, compelling and concise.
Here’s VentureHack’s blueprint to writing like a great entrepreneur:
- Writing is a customer service problem: give the readers the goods quickly and effectively as possible.
- Pretend you’re sending an email: calm your mind and yield better writing.
- Sum it up in a tweet: If the tweet isn’t compelling, the rest isn’t compelling.
- Read it on your phone: You’ll see the words with fresh eyes and force you to keep it short and simple.
- Don’t write your thought process: start the piece with a conclusion and make your best case.
- Start with a summary: Make it so good they’ll want to read more.
- Writing is rewriting: spend most of your time rewriting and reorganizing
- Delete half the words: Say more with less.
- Avoid adjectives: An adjective is an admission that you don’t know the number.
- Scrutinize every word for bias: Argue the other side of every word, at least to yourself.
- Kill your darlings: Delete beautiful ideas and phrases if they don’t help to solve the problem.
- Use persuasion checklists: like CLASSR and SUCCES (read full article)
- Skim Strunk & White: “The Elements of Style”
- Break the rules once you learn the rules: First learn how to write clearly and concisely, then ignore them when necessary.
- Writing is a design problem: don’t force the reader to go back and figure out what you’re referring to.
This one’s worth a bookmark.
WEEKLY PICKS:
SPEECH – “We can generate entire spoken sentences based on an individual’s brain activity.” Scientists have worked out how to pull speech directly from the brain ? — Read more
RAISED – ManyChat is going from strength to strength. They’ve raised $18M in Series A funding ? — Read more
SEXTING – Sticking with the chatbot theme, if you need to level up your sexting game, check out Slutbot: a text-message chatbot that helps users hone their sexting skills ?️ — Read more
GOT – Game of Thrones fan? ‘Course you are. Check out this tactical analysis from the Battle of Winterfell. ⚔️ — Read more
SHOWERTHOUGHTS
“There’s a big difference between men and women when they say they finished a whole box of tissues watching that film last night.” u/Narksdog
Source: Reddit
A “Project Instagram” survey showed 54% of users buy a product in the moment or after seeing it on Instagram.
Pat yourself on the back affiliates, no doubt we’re boosting the average.
Retargeting game is strong ?
Of the 21,000 IG users surveyed across 13 countries…
- 87% said they took some kind of action after seeing product information on Instagram.
- 66% said use Instagram because they can engage directly with brands.
- 53% say they would follow a brand just for the content.
Some pretty jaw-dropping stats. Especially compared to the likes of Facebook, and on-par with Pinterest.
The majority of surveyors said they prefer authentic content compared to something that’s beautifully produced.
Ie. Don’t make it too perfect, or professional. Make sure it captures and keeps your audiences attention.
FEATURED STM THREAD:
HOW MUCH CAN YOU MAKE WITH PUSH NOTIFICATIONS? MILLIONS!!!
Yes, you really can make millions of $$$ with push notifications, it’s still possible. A recent case study posted on the STM Forum is a case in point. One of our long-running (since 2016) members “xesturgy” basically laid out his complete strategy for forum members to swallow and digest.
So what did he do? His approach was not the standard “buy traffic, push offers” strategy. Xesturgy realized the big “recurring” potential of the push format, so he decided to build his own database of push subscribers.
I’m sure you have known that once you get permission from a user, you can send them a notification with various affiliate offers until they unsubscribe. And that’s exactly what this guy did. In total, he was able to collect 31,000,000 subscribers and cashed in almost 1.5 million USD in profits. That’s pretty solid, isn’t it?
Check the thread for detailed info on what traffic source he used to collect the push permissions, what tool he managed the list plus loads more golden nuggets … it’s all in this awesome thread.
Stay tuned for the next edition of MRKTRS WKLY.
Want to offer some feedback or submit content? Email us at [email protected]