To kick-off the start of 2017, we reached out to our network of marketers to ask them one question:
“What Will Be Your Favourite Marketing Tactic Going Into 2017?”
I think you guys and gals will find plenty of useful habits that will leave you saying “hmm…”
Here we go!
1) Chris Lee @rankxl
A niche site AdSense expert and founder of RankXL.
“In 2017, my marketing efforts will mainly be focused on long-term content marketing. I plan to spend a lot more money hiring others to create awesome content for my niche sites.
And I don't mean generic 1000 word articles. I mean targeting the biggest keywords, and really creating stuff that is 10x better than what's out there.
It's a long-term strategy, but it's the one that will increase the value of my sites the most 12 months from now.”
2) Bill Sebald @billsebald
Speaker, professor, songwriter, blogger and owner of GreenlaneSEO.
“My favorite tactic for 2017 is the same as previous years. Content development leaning on thoroughly mined (big) data to produce the most compelling, attractive, and provoking pieces possible. The growing volumes of different sets of personalized data makes the effort even more lucrative. The more data we can mine, the better we can achieve on a marketing front.”
3) Johnny FD @johnnyfdk
Host of the 'Travel Like a Boss' podcast, Digital Nomad, author of 'Life Changes Quick', and owner of JohnnyFD.com.
“My favorite marketing tactic for 2017 is going to simply be, create content that is needed in the world, instead of creating what's already hot or being talked about by others. The reason why my blog got so popular was simply because I started talking about what it's like living, traveling and building online in places like Chiang Mai, Thailand before anyone else. I used that same content to launch the Travel Like a Boss podcast which doubled my organic traffic and helped me reach an additional 40,000 people a month. All of that combined has helped me earn $325,785.19 in profit from my various online businesses in 2016
This year in 2017 I'm going to do double down on creating content that I think people want and need, regardless if others are talking about it already. If you're always chasing what others are doing, you're always going to be left behind in the dust. Don't be afraid to run ahead of the pact and lead the race.”
4) Stuart Walker
Top affiliate and email marketer, plus founder of NicheHacks.
“We are going to be focusing a lot on upgrading existing content. We have tested it on a couple of older posts that were ranking well and getting a lot of traffic with amazing results, which I will share below.
Here's the deal:
We updated one post we originally created way back in 2014. It was this one: http://nichehacks.com/profitable-niches-for-affiliate-marketing/
It's still quite basic yet and can be improved a lot more. But we've simply expanded on it and added in more value as it was pretty basic despite being so popular.
Nothing that was too much work just a few sentences and bullet points here and there. And the results were incredible...
There was an increase of 4,469 extra visitors on last month or a percentage increase of 81.48%.
2,665 of those visitors came from Google alone.
672 came direct / from email (we sent it back out to our email lists)
441 from social media (we shared again on social media)
356 from referral traffic (we're not even sure where that came from)
And that's not all:
We also had 256 new social shares on the post take us over 900 shares.
And 12 new comments.
And counting, it's rising all the time still.
We will be looking to expand this to a lot of older content as it's fairly easy to do yet the results are big.
And also...
We're seeing good results with PushNotifications as they are underused so far by most marketers,
We're getting up to 22% click through rate which is 2-5X more than what our emails get.
In the past 4 months they've sent over 17,000 visitors back to the site on near autopilot.
So a lot of focus on upgrading older content, push notifications will be a big part of the strategy, email as always, FB retargeting as always, and we plan to hire someone to do outreach to pick up links and shares.”
5) Marcus Miller @marcusbowlerhat
SEO & Digital Marketing Strategist. Founder of BowlerHat.
“It's so very hard to pick one specific tactic. The right strategy or tactic very much depends on the customer, the marketplace and the current situation and objectives. What works for one business may fall flat for another. With that caveat out the way I would likely suggest paid search and/or paid social. The demographic targeting options in both of these platforms allow for pin point acquisition of leads and customers. Content marketing, organic social and SEO are all hugely valuable but the entire digital landscape is moving ever more towards paid for commercial interactions and unless you have a handle on how to wield these paid platforms you will struggle in 2017 as we see the organic become tougher all around for commercial topics.”
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6) Thomas Smale @ThomasSmale
Founder of FE International. He helps sell online businesses, a speaker, and columnist at Entrepreneur.com
“Relationship building via outreach. Too many people do outreach in a lazy way: they email the target site/person and just ask for a link immediately. There is no emphasis on building a relationship or helping the person you reach out to. Reverse this and focus on building a relationship first: the links and other mentions will come!”
7) Jon Haver @paystudentdebt
While earning a handsome living building online business on the side, this engineer recently took the step to full time entrepreneurship and is the founder of AuthorityWebsiteIncome.
“My favourite marketing tactic for 2017 is using advanced tools to reverse engineer your competition and beat them. Finding a competitor, using SEMRush to determine the pages/keywords that are bringing them the most traffic and then using MarketMuse to identify the easiest pages to create better content then and getting it created systematically is a great strategy.
At ContentRefined.com we have been able to see that taking keyword research a step further can yield some predictable results! By identifying the low competition page 1 results for both the backlink metrics like keyword tools provide AND ALSO for pages where the content on page 1 does not score very well for given keyword will continue to be important in 2017. Page 1 competition will evolve from a pure analysis on link metrics to include an analysis on the quality of the content you need to displace.”
8) Pavlos Giorkas @PavlosGiorkas
Internet Entrepreneur, Blogger, Marketing Enthusiast, Founder of ClixSenseSuccess.
“My favourite Marketing Tactic for 2017 is Facebook Ads. I really love using this particular tactic, mainly because of its targeting abilities and its friendly user interface. Both these features allow me to get a good return on investment. Also, I believe that sticking to an advertising method and continuously testing variables, allows you to learn how things work better than by trying to learn many advertising methods at the same time.”
9) James Norquay @connections8
SEO & Content Marketing Consulting Director from Sydney, Australia. He works with big brands, funded startups, and B2B’s to drive huge growth online. He is the founder of ProsperityMedia.
“Our top marketing channel for 2017 will be focused on long tail SEO traffic. Also will be deeply involved in paid media to drive leads from buying as space on relevant sites, buying space on email lists and buying ads on Facebook.”
10) Nick Loper @nloper
Supreme Side-Hustler at Side Hustle Nation. Marketer, skier, author, business nerd, and podcaster.
“For me, the growth channel I'm most excited about is podcasting. I don't know if I'd call it a marketing tactic, though I suppose if you peel back all the layers, that's really what it is. Over the last 3.5 years, hosting The Side Hustle Show podcast has gone from a little side project experiment to really a life-changing production. It's incredible the reach one person can have with a little $60 mic in their living room!”
11) Jon Dykstra @FatStacksBlog
Former attorney turned full-time entrepreneur and founder of FATStacksBlog.
“My favorite marketing tactic going into 2017 is focusing on publishing the best content possible. This means publishing less frequently as in the past and focusing on quality that will generate a higher RPM. I will work on increasing traffic to fewer URLs while simultaneously increasing RPM for each URL.”
12) Nick Eubanks @nick_eubanks
A serial entrepreneur that loves to build (and sell) digital businesses. He is a digital strategiest of NickEubanks.
“I love non-outreach links, i.e. links that come in organically all by themselves... this continues to happen on a few of the articles on my personal blog, racking up over 2,000 shares several times on many of my posts including one on content marketing fails, how to sell a blog, and designing a content map. The strategy these posts all share is they are process-driven, with actionable steps, backed up by ample 3rd party data. This continues to be a winning marketing tactic that I will continue to run with.”
13) Matthew Capala @SearchDecoder
Founder of Search Decoder and author of "SEO Like I'm 5"
“Experiment with and grow live video storytelling content.
Social media platforms, such as Facebook and YouTube, openly admit that they favor live video content over other content forms. If you want to get on top of Facebook and YouTube feed to tap into their huge user base, you need to invest in live video content in 2017.
For example, more than 1 billion people use YouTube on a regular basis. Facebook got into the live video game in a big way in when it launched Facebook Live in 2015. Facebook users are reported to spend 3x longer watching video which is Live compared to video which is no longer Live. Lastly, Facebook video content performs on average 135% better than photo content. If you are looking to grow your digital marketing visibility in 2017, double down on live video.”
14) Jignesh @jigneshgohel
Google AdWords Certified Professional, digital marketing consultant, amateur photographer, and founder of Olbuz.
“As we have seen mobile users are increasing at large extant YoY, the traffic from mobile devices are also increasing. For 2017, I would focus more on mobile user experience and personalized data. As far as content marketing is concern, video is going to play very important role this year and one should focus on creating video content to educate their target audiences to convert them into customers.”
15) Brian Lang @sbizideasblog
A small business owner since 2002, he runs a popular blog that provides valuable business tips and strategies at SmallBusinessIdeasBlog.
“It's hard to pick just one marketing tactic because it depends on the audience you are trying to target and what you are trying to achieve. But generally, I really like influencer marketing. Collaborating with influencers for mutual benefit and growth is one of the most effective ways to grow quickly. I also think that Facebook advertising and marketing will continue to do well in 2017.”
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16) Bill Burniece @HighAffiliates
The CEO and authority at HighPayingAffiliatePrograms.com
It continues to be list building and email marketing. Your private email list is one of the only elements of online marketing that you have 100% control over. If you provide valuable information to your list on a regular basis, along with offers, it allows you to literally make money on-demand.
17) Greg Elfrink @GregElfrink
World traveller and Content Manager for Empire Flippers.
“My favorite marketing tactic is using triggers in our content. This means when someone interacts in a certain way or a number of times with specific pieces of our content, we will send out a dynamic response to them. It could be them looking at a listing on our marketplace a couple times but they may never had made a deposit. So we use the trigger to set up when they view that listing a certain amount of times to automatically email them the seller interview for that specific listing. We are still just experimenting with this, but so far we have seen awesome open rates and the tactic looks like it will be very promising for us.”
18) Nate Shivar @nshivar
An SEO and Web Analytics expert, plus founder of ShivarWeb.
“Not to be cliche, but my favorite tactic will be simply executing on obvious fundamentals. The fundamentals like consistent promotion where your audience lives, creating content that your market wants to see, and providing a useful experience will be at a premium as other marketers chase the tactic of the day.”
19) Erik Emanuelli @ErikEmanuelli
Blogger, traveller, extreme sports lover, certified skydiver, freelance writer, social media addict, and runs NoPassiveIncome.
“Social media will be always my favorite marketing technique, as I love to engage with users via my profiles.
I think it's also an interesting way to build new connections with people of my niche. Twitter is the channel that gives me the most results.
A simple tip most marketers forget. Pin a special tweet on top of your Twitter profile, with a call to action. Mine has been seen by more than 80,000 users, so far!”
20) Joe Williams @zenoptimise
Founder and SEO trainer for Zen Optimise.
“My number one tactic is to get back to basics and focus on your customers and what his or her needs are. For example, when it comes to Google, they announced that RankBrain is the third most important ranking factor.
RankBrain is artificial intelligence sub-algorithm that focuses on the user intent of a keyword and providing the best possible result, rather than the best keyword optimized result. This means that we should focus on providing solutions to what the user and potential customer wants, rather than to just sell to them. This sounds straightforward (and for the most part it is) but I think 2017 will be the year where SEOs and marketers in general, learn that by valuing their customers needs first, and by providing solution-focused content, it’s also the best way to grow as a business, particularly for the medium to long term.”
We hope you enjoyed this expert roundup and we're able to take away some actionable items to introduce the new year with. Our last expert roundup on advanced link building strategies was some time ago so it was nice to get another one done. These are a lot of work for both us and the participants so we hope you took something away today.
HPD would like to thank all the participants for sharing their insight and we hope to see them again in the near future!
In the mean time, if you are building an Amazon affiliate site for 2017 - let us help you with our Done-for-You Niche Sites.
Cheers and good luck implementing these favourite marketing tips!
The post “What’s Your Favorite Marketing Tactic?” We asked 20 Successful Online Entrepreneurs! appeared first on Human Proof Designs.