5 Growth Hacks That Continuously Deliver Results

“Growth hacking” is a hot term in the marketing community and many people are denouncing the strategies.

But what is growth hacking really?

I like to define it as any strategy that helps your brand grow and reach new audiences quickly and efficiently. The term growth hacking itself might be a new one, but the strategies have been around for a while.

The lifespan of a new business, brand, or startup is short. We must grow and expand quickly if we plan on sticking around for the long term.

If you’re a new business looking to grow rapidly then you need proven tactics to back you up month after month. You need to growth hack.

Add these five growth hacking strategies to your marketing strategy and watch your audience grow by leaps and bounds.

1. Content upgrades

If you own and operate a website, there’s no debating that you must be collecting emails.

A wise bearded man on a mountaintop once said, “Emails are the gateway to sales”.

Once you get someone’s email address it allows you develop a relationship with them directly through email – the highest converting digital sales channel.

The question is, how can you collect more emails?

Content upgrades are a proven method for offering highly valuable, highly relevant content in return for an email address.

Examples of a content upgrade are:

• A downloadable checklist (with bonus item) within a list-type piece of content
• A downloadable infographic, poster, or image
• An extended ebook or a collection of popular blog posts in ebook format
• Video of behind-the-scenes highlights
• A simple PDF copy of the digital article
• Prebuilt templates for email, blog headlines, landing pages, etc.

Our content team has had tremendous success with content upgrades as a part of our email collection strategy.

Pay Flynn of SmartPassiveIncome.com uses massive value drivers like his free ebooks to collect emails and grow his audience. His strategy involves providing incredible resources that offer up massive value first, then suggest they should subscribe to his email list. Hook, line, and sinker.

Pat also regularly offers up insightful blog posts and in-depth podcasts with successful entrepreneurs – all for free. But if you’d enjoy all his most important tips condensed into one ebook, you’re free to upgrade.

Remember that the content upgrades you offer should always be of high value to your readers before trying to collect their contact information. There’s no better way to piss off your audience than failing to deliver on promises.

2. A post-writing outreach checklist

We no longer live in a “if we build it, they will come” type of internet world. To extend the life of your content you must have an outreach strategy.

This is a list of influencers, groups, websites, and content syndication tools that you reach out to and promote your content with. Outreach amplifies your content, extends its lifespan, and helps it be seen by others in your industry.

Start with some research. Find out who the big players in your industry are, what the leading websites are, and where your audience finds industry-related news.

Every time you publish a piece of content, run down your checklist to make sure the right eyes are on your work.

Some of the content outreach we do includes:

• Social media sharing, tagging, and @mentioning of influential people and brands
• Posting on websites that syndicate popular content in our niche
• Sharing in industry-related groups on Facebook and LinkedIn
• Email outreach to popular websites and influencers for guest posting

3. Scroll, entry, and exit popups

Are you using popups on your website?

If your answer is no, then you’re missing out on valuable touch points with your audience.

Popups are becoming more important these days because they command action from your visitors. Many internet users are now experiencing what marketers call “banner blindness“; becoming so accustomed to advertisements and CTAs that they don’t even notice them.

How many of you can recall the last banner ad you clicked on let alone seen? None I bet, and that’s why popups are so important.

I’m guessing that your first reaction would be to throw shade at popups because you think they’re “annoying or spammy”.

I’m here to tell you that if you refuse to use popups, then a massive amount of people are coming to your site, consuming all your free content, and then leaving. All while your passive footer, inline, or sidebar CTA is being ignored in the corner like your weird cousin at family gatherings.

There’s just no way you can rely on your visitors to hand over their email or make a purchase unless you make it super clear how they can (and why they should).

There are four types of popups you can use on your website (please don’t use all four at once):

• Entry popup – Displays right when a visitor lands on your website. Entry popups can be used to ask for an email in exchange for a discount on a visitor’s first purchase. You could also alert people of a sale or a new promotion, or direct people to a new page you’re currently promoting.
• Timed popup – Displays after a set period of time to ensure that your visitor is interested in whatever you’re offering. If they stick around for 30 seconds reading your blog then you know they’re interested and you can then present them with your offer.
• Scroll popup – Displays after a user has scrolled a set portion of the content they’ve landed on. After they’ve read half of your article on “5 Social Media Monetization Tactics” let’s say, you can present your online course on social media management for business.
• Exit popup – Displays when a user goes to close or exit your page. As their mouse moves towards the exit button in the corner, your popup will display with a “Wait! There’s more!” and you can offer a discount or special promotion to get them to stick around.

Take a page from the uber-successful menswear retailer Frank & Oak. As soon as you land on their page you’re presented with an entry popup.

If it’s your first time on the website they’ll offer you a discount on your first purchase just for creating an account with them. If you’ve been on Frank & Oak before their entry popup will display current sales or promotions so you’re aware of them before you begin to explore the site.

4. Dedicated landing pages

Why should I use dedicated landing pages?

If you want to get the maximum ROI for your marketing efforts, and I hope you do, then you need to be directing all of your paid traffic to a landing page.

Unlike the homepage of your website, a landing page has only one purpose: to convert visitors.

The homepage of your website on the other hand, offers a litany of options for your visitors: to learn more, explore, shop, discover, read, etc.

A landing page converts a far higher percentage of visitors by dropping these distractions and presenting a single focus point. This will result in a higher conversion rate for all of the traffic you’re bringing in with your marketing.

The more visitors you’re able to convert – the larger your audience grows.

The $5 freelancer for hire website Fiverr.com sends their Facebook ads for intro video production to this landing page. On the landing page they have a demo for different styles of intro videos you could have produced for your business. In just 3 clicks you could have a custom intro video made – just enter your email to get started.

5. Social media sweepstakes

As of writing this there are 1.65 billion people using Facebook, 3 million Facebook advertisers, 75 million daily Instagram users, 9,000 snaps shared on Snapchat per second, and a gazillion other ways to send our friends stupid cat videos.

Social media is more popular than ever and the train doesn’t look to be slowing down.

What does this mean for my business?

This means that to reach and grow a large audience in your industry, you must go where the people are. The strength of social media is in its ability to create engagement. And what better way is there to entice engagement than to give away something awesome to your audience?

If you can offer an irresistible prize for a social media sweepstakes, like an Instagram hashtag contest, it will attract huge numbers.

This is how you can run a successful social media contest in 5 steps:

1. Choose a prize that is highly related to your industry. Don’t offer an iPad if you’re in the finance industry. Something to tie the contest back to your business works best, like a gift card or a related tool. If you operate a fitness center for example, give away personal training sessions or a pair of sneakers – something that will get the winner and participants into your gym.
2. Establish your contest rules. How will people participate? Post using a hashtag? Submit a photo? What are the requirements to participate?
3. Create a contest page. There are two different ways to create the contest page. If you’re running your contest within Instagram then your contest page will just be an Instagram photo. Whereas if you run it off-Instagram – for example, in a Tab on your Facebook Page or website – using an Instagram Contest App.
4. Monitor the contest. Using a dedicated contest page on your website is easiest and can be accomplished with a social media contesting tool. If you are running your contest on Instagram or Twitter, have all submissions entered using a unique hashtag so you can see all the entries.
5. Announce the winner and promote them on your network. Showcase the winner and the awesome prize they won for an instant boost in credibility and brand awareness. Send a follow up email thanking everyone who entered, plug your business, and tease future contests.

That’s it! Social sweepstakes are a speedy high impact method of boosting your audience and the possibilities you can have with it are endless. The right prize and contest could be highly viral for your audience and give you the growth you’re looking for.

Putting it all together

Progressively growing and reaching an audience for your brand can be a tedious task. If you haven’t developed a plan full of proven growth strategies then you’re basically stuck without a paddle.

You need reliable strategies to get you in front of the audiences you need to reach.

Remember that growth hacks are more than trendy marketing jargon. They are proven strategies that will increase your reach and grow your target audience.

To reach our KPIs we’ve had to rely on proven growth hacking strategies more than once to save our asses.

Five of the most effective growth hacking strategies we recommend are:

1. Content upgrades

2. A post-writing outreach checklist

3. Scroll and entry popups

4. Dedicated landing pages

5. Social media sweepstakes

If you find yourself in a bind and need to increase your conversions for the month, growth hacking your audience is the way to do it.

What are some of your favorite growth hacking strategies? Share your thoughts and suggestions below!

Guest Author: Jordan Lore is a Content Marketer at Wishpond in Vancouver, BC. Wishpond makes it easy for marketers to run lead generation and marketing automation campaigns, all in one place. When he’s not writing he has a camera attached to his arm. Follow him on his budding twitter account @jordanlore6.

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10 Unforgivable Facebook Marketing Mistakes From Big Brands

Dear brands, we love you but you have been making a mess of our Facebook newsfeeds with your constant, inappropriate selling, content and updates.

Please stop!

Ever logged into Facebook to be social and interact, only to see a brand trying to sell to you right there? I cringe at the sight of misplaced advertising and selling.

A whopping 66% of brands do not have a Facebook strategy, and brands that do have a Facebook strategy do not have it documented – hence, there’s nothing to implement. Nobody goes to the grocery store without a grocery list, so don’t jump on the Facebook train without a strategy!

Here’s a whole list of Facebook marketing mistakes and sins almost every brand is committing;

1. Posting less content and inconsistently

By posting on Facebook inconsistently and inappropriately you tell your audience, “Dear customer, we are busy doing more important things, therefore, we have no time to be human and keep you updated about us”.

Organic page reach on Facebook is declining. Now more than ever, engagement should be a priority.

Solution: Create an editorial calendar for Facebook, and focus on inspiring your audience. A perfect example of a brand succeeding at this would be SaaS Company Post Planner. Their Facebook updates are consistent and their content is great. Hence, engagement is off the roof.

2. Always begging for engagement or likes

Most brands publish content that screams, “We need likes!” or they ask users to like the post and bleh bleh bleh in Dracula’s voice (like-bait post).

Well, the bitter truth is Facebook will actually bury such a post. Don’t post visuals or updates asking fans to like or comment, as this tells the world how desperate your brand is and your lack of a social media strategy.

Facebook users like myself visit to share photos, watch funny ferret or cat videos, and catch up on the latest happenings in my circle; what do you think I would do seeing a brand asking for likes? I either skip the content or come pour out my heart in your comments (you don’t want the latter).

Solution: Provide a lot of helpful content regularly, and put up “real questions” that spark engagement.

3. Not paying to play

Truth be told, brands can’t market or fully reach individual Facebook audiences without paying. So to get more eyes on your content, you must be willing to pay Facebook.

You don’t publish and pray and expect it to rain likes and comments; with great content you should get a healthy organic reach but want a larger reach? Pay to play.

Solution: Facebook admitted it several times that organic page reach is decreasing. However, using the “boost post” feature would instantly get more eyes and engagement on your brand and content.

4. Ignoring the fact that the world is mobile

Facebook statistics as at March 2016 have shown that there are over 1.65 billion monthly active Facebook users, and a whopping 1.51 billion of these are mobile users or visitors.

These numbers are too huge to ignore. Brands should optimize their Facebook pages for mobile users; having cropped out visuals or missing page components damages the user experience.

Take, for example, the visuals below: the visual on Coca-Cola’s cover was optimized for desktops only, making mobile visitors to the page believe Coca-Cola has some spiritual agenda.

Now take a look at the mobile version of the same cover

Choosing what now Coca-Cola? Have they gone spiritual?

5. Publishing the wrong type of content

You don’t plant a potato and harvest marshmallows. The same applies to content and engagement on Facebook; using irrelevant hashtags or twisting up trends can be a bad blow for business.

For example, the visual below:

Having made up Star Wars day isn’t enough, brands have to make it even more contrived and use an absurd hashtag.

Want to grow a following on Facebook or increase engagement? Posting inappropriate comments and pictures, using click bait, being all about traffic and sales would not work!

Damn, you are so greedy and we can see it! However, Facebook is cracking down on click-bait posts and will continually drown them in the newsfeed; be original and creative.

Solution: Publishing behind-the-scenes pictures of employees, pictures of products, videos or pictures of a typical day at the company or events, holidays and birthdays will increase brand perception, engagement, and page likes.

Brands should not rely on Facebook marketing to make sales. The truth is everyone hates being sold.

6. Not engaging customers in comments

Another deadly sin brands make includes not engaging fans in comments. Being social involves you interacting with fans, asking questions and responding.

Brands should be involved in the conversation in their Facebook comments, responding to feedback, lending a helping hand or increasing engagement creatively.

Solution: Engage fans in your comments, address feedback and spread the brand image.

7. Trying to sell every time

Too much of selling beats the purpose of being social. Brands should abstain from selling and focus more on user experience, building a community and providing value. That way, users remain loyal and increase their spending potential to your brand through the law of reciprocity.

Solution: Facebook is rolling out the shop store for Facebook pages, simply add your products into your shop and users can buy once they visit your page.

8. Ignoring or deleting negative feedback or comments

Handling trolls and negative feedback requires a dedicated Facebook team, patience and creativity. Brands are expected to respond to trolls and negative comments in a respectful and playful tone to keep the community mood light and friendly or it might result in disastrous PR for that brand.

Solution: Tara Hornor wrote an epic post with tips on handling Trolls and negative comments.

9. Ignoring advanced Facebook advertising

Advertising on Facebook does not end with clicking “Boost Post”. For instance, you could create a lookalike audience based on subscribers already on your mailing list, who are on Facebook, and send targeted ads to them.

The true potential of Facebook advertising cannot be quantified; brands should take specific steps in creating ads that offer great incentives while achieving business goals.

Solution: Use Facebook’s Power Editor to create ads to gain leads and advertise new products, but don’t spam your users’ newsfeed.

10. Refusing to evolve like Facebook’s algorithm

Facebook changes its algorithm randomly; the latest changes in the Facebook algorithm include bringing content to users based on previous interaction.

Brands are expected to keep up with the latest updates to ensure a consistent user experience in regards to content, cover photos, and ads.

Solution: Brands should bookmark (literally) the Facebook for pages web page to stay updated with the latest algorithm updates and implement to increase engagement and brand perception.

Sum up

Facebook marketing requires creativity, A/B testing, and constantly staying ahead of the latest changes from Facebook. For a brand to successfully reach, inspire and engage its audience, the above solutions are required.

What other sins do you see brands commit on Facebook? I would like to know in the comments section.

Guest Author: Pius Boachie is a freelance writer and social media strategist who offers ghostwriting, copywriting and blogging services. He works closely with B2C and B2B businesses providing digital marketing content that gains social media attention and increases their search engine visibility. On his blog DigitiMatic, he shares actionable marketing and branding advice for businesses.

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10 Simple Editing Hacks For DIY Bloggers

Creating content can be an ongoing challenge for startups.

Content marketing provides a platform for us to show off our expertise, but it takes a lot of time and effort to pull it off correctly.

Quality over quantity is key, but even publishing one blog post per week can be hard when there are so many other facets to running a small business.

Even if you manage to write your blog post for the week, the work doesn’t end there. The last thing you want to do is publish a blog post that has errors or doesn’t read well. Remember, your content is representative of your business!

Even though it is best practice to get another pair of eyes on your content before you hit that publish button, sometimes due to time constraints or team size, that’s just not possible. Fortunately there are some simple editing hacks that can help you eliminate, or at least minimize, errors in your content.

Don’t know where to start?

Here are some straightforward hacks to edit your own content effectively and easily.

Give it a few hours

Once you’ve finished a piece, take a break from it and do something else for a few hours. If you can sleep on it, that’s even better.

The important part here is that you get your mind off your first draft. This way you’ll be able to look at it with fresh eyes, allowing you to see errors and awkward wording that you may have missed.

Evaluate “weak” words

Read over your content with a specific eye for “weak” words. A weak word is one that is vague or overused. Take your writing up a notch by replacing these less than specific words with descriptors that improve your content, or removing them altogether.

Here are 11 “weak” words to watch out for:

○ Very

○ Really

○ Good

○ Important

○ Big

○ Small

○ Every

○ Went

○ Got

○ Things

○ Stuff

Keep in mind that it’s not necessarily bad to use these words here and there, but over-using them could devalue your content. A simple trick I use is to look for these words using the “Find” feature in Word.

Look out for passive voice

While using passive voice is not necessarily wrong, writing in passive voice often leads to weak sentence structure. A good trick here is to look out for all of the “to be” verbs like “were”, “are”, “is”, “had” or “will be”.

Is there a better way to structure the sentence that would be more interesting and engaging? Sentences written in a passive voice aren’t living up to their potential.

If you’re still unclear about passive voice, check out this example. The first sentence is written in passive voice, while the second has been rearranged and is much stronger.

1. Charles was a terrible leader, which was shown by his refusing to listen to his team.
2. A terrible leader, Charles refused to listen to his team.

Read it aloud

Take the time to read your work out loud. While this might seem like a bit of an onerous step, it’s well worth it.

Read quietly to yourself, mostly mouthing the words in a soft voice that only you can hear if you’re working around others. If a sentence sounds awkward, there’s likely a grammar or sentence structure problem. When in doubt, go with a quick rewrite.

Seek out structural opportunities

Sometimes we miss natural breaks in content or opportunities to convey ideas more clearly through bullet points, headings or paragraph breaks. When you’re combing over your writing, seek out places to improve the structure of the piece, letting your content shine through.

Editing Tools

Just because you’re editing your own content doesn’t mean that you’re actually on your own. Look for a boost from editing tools, which are especially useful if you’re feeling less than confident in your skills.

Hemingway

The Hemingway app assesses writing based on passive voice, readability, long sentences, adverbs and complex words.

Inexpensive and effective, Hemingway is more than serviceable when it comes to running a quick check for spelling and readability. The only downsides are that the app doesn’t do much for grammar problems, nor does it offer solutions to the problems that it finds.

ProWriting Aid

The truly useful thing about ProWriting Aid is that it offers you not only a checklist of actions you can take to improve your content, but it also gives you ways to fix the problems that it finds.

For the full set of features, including a detailed analysis on sentence length, plagiarism, redundancies, consistency, writing style, overused words, clichés and more, you’ll need the premium version. However the basic is still amazingly functional and works well for most blogs, marketing emails and the like.

Word Rake

If you’re interested in pulling your writing down to its most potent and readable form, then Word Rake is the ticket you’ve been looking for.

This app scrapes your Microsoft Word documents for extra bits of fluff and unnecessary phrases. It’s important to remember that this tool will not check for grammar and spelling, but then those functions can be covered well with other supports in Microsoft Word.

Another limitation is that it has to be used on a PC as it’s connected to Word. Given all of that it’s still an incredible tool.

After the Deadline

This is another holistic piece of editing software that goes above and beyond. After the Deadline flags spelling, grammar, passive voice and more, in addition to offering style suggestions as well.

You’ll get a detailed set of reasons behind the corrections that the program presents to you. The best part about that feature is that the more you use this program, the better your writing gets as you learn what you’re doing wrong and why.

Perhaps the biggest boon to After the Deadline is the sheer number of platforms that it’s available on – everything from Google Chrome to WordPress to Open Office. You can truly use this proofreading tool wherever you are.

A few points to remember

Keep in mind that editing tools are really just what they sound like – tools. While they will assuredly give you a jumpstart on the editing process, you still need to read and re-read your content in order to ensure that it’s readable to actual humans.

Unless you’re in a real emergency situation for a piece of content, don’t rush your editing process. While you might be able to get something quick and dirty out there without thoroughly editing, it’s not going to be the best that you can offer. Taking the time for a thorough edit is always worth it, particularly if you are editing your own content.

On the other side, be wary of over-editing, which can cause you to lose the flow of your writing. The goal is to execute minimal amendments that have a significant impact. It’s rarely necessary to go over a piece more than once or at the most twice before publication. Balance is key.

You are perfectly capable of editing your own content, even if it’s not how you might go about it in a perfect world. By following the steps outlined here, you can be confident that the content you’re publishing is high quality.

Guest Author: Michael Georgiou is the CMO and Co-founder at Imaginovation, a web design & mobile apps development firm in Raleigh, NC. He’s a dynamic business professional and entrepreneurial guru with proven success in creative strategy, online branding, project management, and communication projects in both the public and private sectors.

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