Marketing Experts Reveal Top Strategies To

Robert
[00:00:06]
Hey eCommerce marketing podcast list. Now I wanted to let you know that we have created 16 eCommerce marketing videos for you. You can download these free videos by visiting eCommerce marketing podcast.com forward slash videos are by texting the word videos to plus 1 4 8 0 4 1 8 1 4 11. This step by step video marketing tutorials will teach you how to drive more traffic to your eCommerce website. How to get more back links to your eCommerce website and how to optimize your website to get more paid customers. Get the videos right now by visiting eCommerce marketing podcast.com/videos or by texting videos to plus 1 4 8 0 4 1 8 1 4 1 1. Welcome to the eCommerce marketing podcast. Today’s guest is Nick Lopez, and we are going to be talking about content marketing and Nick is actually a podcaster and he runs the side hustle show. Welcome to the podcast, Nick, how how’s it going?

Nick
[00:01:15]
Going? Well, Robert, thanks so much for having me. We occasionally talk about eCommerce on the side. Hustle show is a great way to start a business on the side, but we could dive into the content stuff too.

Robert
[00:01:25]
Okay. So talking about the side hustle show, if you can just give us some background about the show and also tell us more about yourself.

Nick
[00:01:36]
Sure. It’s all, it’s all about the part-time business ideas that, you know, people can start with limited hours and a lot of times limited capital to, to get something. So I actually just recorded a show with a, a guy who’s like a drop shipping expert. He’s got this whole portfolio of eCommerce stores, but it doesn’t hold any inventory. Like he’s set up these different drop ship relationships with all these suppliers. I thought that was a really a really interesting way to go. We’ve talked to other people, you know, the Amazon FBA business is really hot right now. So of course talked to lots of people about that, but been running the show three years, 180 episodes deep, and really, you know, have a blast doing it. Cuz I, I learned so much from the guests as well. Just like, oh my gosh, I’m that sounds cool. I wanna try that. And it’s, it’s been a ton of fun. My original side hustle was in footwear. I was, it ran a footwear comparison shopping site. And so that was kind of on the shoulders of e-commerce. I didn’t actually have a checkout cart on the site, but you know, worked with a lot of these different retailers on, you know, conversion rates and how can we drive more sales and how can we get different exclusive coupon offers and stuff like that.

Robert
[00:02:41]
Okay. So just from starting with that as a side household that led you to the side household show with all your side projects, you have had experience doing content marketing.

Nick
[00:02:53]
Yeah. That’s been kind of the main driver of, of the past couple sites that I’ve, that I’ve done. The shoe business was more like database driven and really relied on paid traffic like AdWords traffic, and it kind of neglected the neglected, the blog over there for, for too long. But yeah, the, the podcast I would consider content marketing the blog over at side hustle nation definitely would consider that. And it’s, I was actually just writing a post on it before this call, you know, the, the myth is that content marketing is free and done. Right. It doesn’t cost a lot. It costs a lot of time like to create something that’s like really, really cool and, and shareable.

Robert
[00:03:31]
Okay. And you also have experience with AdWords. If you were to compare the two between content marketing and AdWords, which one do you think has brought you more traffic and sales

Nick
[00:03:44]
Right now? They’re probably about even, but the, the AdWord stuff like is I don’t do it anymore. So the, the content stuff will, will definitely overpas it. Soon the, the paper click stuff is, you know, it’s that quick hit, you know, you can immediately see if your page is gonna convert. You can immediately see if this is gonna be a profitable campaign. Whereas on the content side is a more long term strategy where it’s like, okay, I’m gonna put this out into the world and I’m gonna attract the audience that I want to eventually serve. And you know, a percentage of those people are gonna sign up to my email list. A percentage of those people are going to eventually buy my product. So it’s like a much longer term thing casting a, a much wider net than, you know, with the shoes specifically. It was like very long tail keywords that I was targeting. It was like, you know, if you want this specific model of, you know, Nike shocks green, you know, women’s or whatever. And you know, those that was very high converting traffic.

Robert
[00:04:37]
Okay. Right before we get into, you know, content marketing in general, I just had this question hit me right now and I want to run it by you and just see what your response is going to be in the last 12 months. What’s the worst content marketing failure that you’ve had,

Nick
[00:04:54]
The content marketing failures there. That can be the frustrating part of it. Cause you don’t really know, like what’s gonna resonate with, with people before you publish it. So I had a post this spring, it ran around tax time and I was like really, really proud of it. It was called, you know, here’s the most important number you won’t find on your tax return. And it was all about like personal profitability, like, you know, your uncle, Sam doesn’t care, you know, they, they wanna know how much you make. They don’t give a crap about how much you actually capped at the end of the year after all your expenses. And I was like, that’s, that’s the number that really, really counts. Like how profitable were you as an individual? Something we think about all the time as business is not necessarily everything about that on a personal level for, on an employee level. And you know, so I was really proud of this post and, you know, had all these different examples about like saving rates and you know, all this nonsense. And I don’t know, it, it did not have the viral reaction that I had hoped it would have like trying to time it right around, you know, tax day on April 15th and stuff. But that’s one of the challenges of it. It’s like, you know, putting a body of work out there and you’re gonna have some, some hits and you’re gonna have some misses for sure.

Robert
[00:05:51]
Yeah. And that’s after you did, like, you got your friends and some influencers to share it in like social media, you did like some guest posts got some links pointing back to it. And even after all of that, you still don’t get the goal you are going after.

Nick
[00:06:08]
Yeah. I just never, never really caught on like I like I wanted to do.

Robert
[00:06:12]
Okay. I follow. So what should businesses do to find like the right content strategy and not fall or get into that situation that you just described right now? Like how can they look at their business? Look at their audience, look at their customers and think, okay. I think they found the right content strategy for them. How can I make sure that I get like good hits? And it’s just not a bunch of misses

Nick
[00:06:41]
The, the way I’ve heard this explained, it actually comes from Dan Norris who wrote a book called content machine or something like that. And he says, you you’re creating content for the community, you know, not necessarily about your business. And, and I see companies making this mistake and I see people doing this like on Twitter all the time where every tweet is just like, buy my thing, buy my thing, buy my thing. And it’s like, that’s not really very effective, but instead it’s like, okay, who do I want to buy my thing in? What might they be interested in? Like couple e-commerce examples that, that come to mind. Number one, do you know Travis? Marani he runs or he’s co-host of like the build my online store podcast.

Robert
[00:07:20]
Yeah. I’m familiar with yes, yes.

Nick
[00:07:22]
Yeah. So Travis, you know, one of his businesses aside from the podcast is, is a store that sells dance clothing. And so their target customer aside from individuals are like dance studios themselves. Like, Hey, we can go, you know, B2B, if we can make, you know, bulk orders and, and sell it to the studios rather than individuals, like, that’s easier for us and more profitable too. So, you know, one tactic that he used a couple tactics actually I thought were really smart. Number one was interviewing like the owners of dance studios say, calling these people up, Hey, we recognize you have this really successful dance studio. We’d love to interview you for our podcast or, or for our blog actually. And it was like, you know, very flattering for these dance studio owners, cause no one ever contacted them for an interview before. And it was a very subtle way, them getting their brand in front of these dance studio owners who are like also their target customers.

Nick
[00:08:09]
They may never even heard of them before. And of course they’re gonna share it with all of their moms and you know, everybody else who’s, you know, going to the studio cause like, Hey, these guys just featured me on their blog. So that was one thing he did was really smart. The other thing that he did was really smart, was creating a list of like, here are the top 50 or a hundred dance studios in, in the country. And of course everyone who made the list, you know, shared it with their Facebook audience, shared it with their friends and you know, was like, oh, we’re we’re number 39. And like, there’s this whole debate started over like, well, you know who, you know what this person should be ranked higher. And so we ended up getting a lot of attention from that another example, I actually just met this person at podcast movement a weeks ago. And she has a business, a store that sells like DIY wedding, like place cards and, and invitations or something. And one thing that she started doing is she hosts the DIY wedding podcast and every show could be sponsored, you know, by her store in a sense it’s like, you know, she’s providing, you know, useful content for her target audience and brides to be who are planning their dream wedding. And oh, by the way, like I have this store on the side. So I thought that was a pretty smart way to go about it too.

Robert
[00:09:13]
So really when it comes down to it, as far as finding the right content strategy is forget about your business, forget about selling and forget about yourself and really focus on your customers and the audience and what they really need and just provide that to them without selling. And just by doing that, you should still be able to get your brand in front of them.

Nick
[00:09:38]
Yeah, I think so. I think that is kind of the, I mean, I wouldn’t stop doing any, you know, direct advertising or anything, but I think this is kind of an interesting channel to, to pursue as well. Especially if you’re on a lower budget, then, you know, if, if the budget doesn’t allow dumping a bunch of money into AdWords or something like that then, or, or the product listing ads is really hot for eCommerce, but you know, it’s a, it’s another avenue of discovery, right?

Robert
[01:10:03]
And what are some numbers that businesses should be looking at to try and measure their content effectiveness?

Nick
[01:10:11]
The number, I guess the most important metric that I track is email subscribers. And if you have, you know, a store and you’re trying to sell products, like product sales is ultimately the number that you care about. So it doesn’t really matter. You know, how many eyeballs came to this thing? It’s like, how many people stuck around? Am I gonna be able to talk to them again in the form of an email or in the form of like, do they buy something and now I can retarget them on, on the retargeting side. So that would be an example, like if you did get a post that you generated a bunch of traffic, make sure you have your, your Facebook, you know, pixel firing or your, your AdWords, like pixel Reing. So you can retarget those people. Like, Hey, you know, they were interested in this content. Maybe they didn’t buy today, but now I can get in front of them again, you know, while they’re out while they’re out surfing the, the internet.

Robert
[01:10:56]
Okay. But you brought up emails. So should the eventual goal for the content marketing, I guess it varie from, from business to business, but should it be collecting the emails or should they be, you mentioned emails, you mentioned retargeting from Facebook or AdWord. So do they have to decide that as part of their content strategy or would you just suggest that somebody collects the email?

Nick
[01:11:23]
So if you’re driving somebody to a blog post, obviously having the remarketing pixel on that page would be, would be really valuable to, to be able to, you know, get in front of that customer. Again, what’s been effective for me has been like doing content specific, like bonus offers to get people, to sign up for an email list. So instead of like one sitewide thing like here, you know, here are the five things you need to know to have a perfect, you know, DIY wedding or something. I don’t know what, what, what her example would be, but you know, would be an example. So the, you know, one post I’ve had that did really well recently was like, here are, you know, here are 200 different ways to make extra money outside your day job. He was like, this is my perfect, perfect content for the audience that I wanna serve.

Nick
[01:12:07]
People who wanna make money outside of their day job. Like, that’s like what, that’s what, they’re all, that’s what they’re all after. And the opt-in offer on that page was just a PDF of that post. Like, Hey, this post is 7,000 words long. It’s kind of a lot to read in one sitting, if you want to download it for later, you can here. And you know, several hundred people have, have opted to do that. And so there’s, there are different ways to do that. Like I’ve seen people do checklists and action guides and a bunch of different options you could do. I’m trying to, you know,

Robert
[01:12:38]
It sounds

Nick
[01:12:39]
Yeah. On, on e-commerce, especially, that’s like, oh, you know, get 10% off your first order when you sign up for our newsletter, that’s, that’s a pretty popular one. Or, you know, we’ll, we’ll send you your first coupon within the next 10 minutes, you know, keep, keep, keep reading, but Hey, you know, if you wanna save money, sign up here.

Robert
[01:12:54]
So I like that you call yours bonus offers because I’ve seen different names out there. I’ve seen Optim bris, I’ve seen lead magnets, and now I had you bonus offer. So which one do you like? It’s just so funny. Everybody has their own name for it.

Nick
[01:13:10]
Yes. The content upgrade the, the weed magnet. Yeah. The subscribe bribe.

Robert
[01:13:17]
I, I mean, but the bottom line is when you do offer this and have those as part of your content, it does work and it does, you know, you, you do collect emails.

Nick
[01:13:27]
Yeah. So I was reviewing a site yesterday that was a store selling furniture. And, you know, as soon as you load the page, there was a popup that said, you know, join our mailing list. And my feedback to them was like, that’s not, that’s not a very compelling offer. Like I don’t, I don’t wanna join anybody’s mailing list just for the sake of joining mailing list, but it’s like, what’s, you know, what’s in it for me. And so, you know, you could tweak that to be, like you said, Hey, get 10% off your first order. It could be like, you know, be the first to hear about, you know, new styles when they come out. Just something, something to say like, okay, there’s gonna be some value at the end of this rather than just a barrage of, of pitches.

Robert
[01:14:02]
Yeah, I agree. But it’s also good to see that as far as that business and, and, you know, just being in business, you do have a lot of stress and you are trying to, you know, you’re trying different strategies and sometimes people do get overwhelmed, but at least with you do see, even though some businesses might have an offer like that, you still appreciate the fact that they’re making the effort or they’re on the right path. And like for you, it’s good that you, you provided them that feedback telling them, Hey, okay, this is good that you’re doing this. Maybe you need to do it like this. I can understand as, as a business, how you might end up, you know, you might hear this strategies good, but maybe you don’t have the time, or maybe you don’t have the staff to perfect it or just to invest the time that requires in seeing that channel all the way.

Nick
[01:14:55]
Right. Well, you’re, you’re putting out this podcast, that’s content marketing. Have you, have you found that an effective channel for your, your business?

Robert
[01:15:01]
Yes. With the podcast, it is mainly it for me, it’s, it’s helped build relationships. It’s, it’s helping build relationships and do online network networking with some influencers. So, you know, like how I have you on here and just, just from this, we can just slowly build our relationship. And that’s, that’s the main thing that the main benefit I’ve gotten from the podcast, we do collect emails from it, but my main goal with the podcast, and I always have this note when I’m recording the podcast is I always say, this is for the listeners. That’s my goal. I want to make sure the listeners are getting value out of it. I’m not necessarily being motivated by just, you know, trying to think about our business, et cetera. I want listeners to get value out of it. And I always remind myself that because one thing that I do have, or like I might think of it in myself as a negative thing is the fact that I do have an accent. And I’m always thinking, you know, a listeners like struggling with this, but I always have to remind myself it’s for the listeners. And I just want to provide value

Nick
[01:16:11]
For them. Yeah. That’s what, that’s what it’s all about. I think, you know, putting the, you know, trying to serve that community first, and I think that you’re, you’re doing a good job of that.

Robert
[01:16:19]
So let’s go back to the content marketing. What if a business for, you know, they find the right content strategy and they know what metrics to look at. And when they look at the numbers, they’re like, Hey man, what’s up, what’s happening? How come my content isn’t working? What do I need to improve it? So do you have a case or maybe a strategy or a tip, you can give businesses that are trying to improve their content marketing because it’s not he or it’s not becoming as viral. Just like the example you provided with your own content, for the taxes.

Nick
[01:16:53]
Well, the common, I mean the common advice is, you know, see, see what else is out there and then create something that’s 10 times better or, you know, really aim to create the best resource for, you know, whatever problem you’re trying to solve. And that’s probably pretty cliche, but I think it’s, I think it’s true because, you know, that’s the kind of stuff that gets noticed. And we do go into the, the marketing portion of it, you know, where you’re doing kind of your email outreach to say, Hey, I, I wrote this thing. I think you’d like it, like, you have something that you’re really proud to share versus some of the, and I’ve been guilty of writing these posts too. They’re like, ah, you know, it’s, they’re kind of self-serving or they’re just, you know, a 500 word piece about, you know, you know, it wasn’t, it wasn’t anything remarkable, right? It’s like kind of the, the Seth Golden’s purple cow thing. It’s like, you know, to stand out, you gotta do something that’s, that’s outstanding.

Robert
[01:17:45]
I, I see that. I agree. And lastly, what are some tools that people should be using for content marketing

Nick
[01:17:54]
Tools, tools to WordPress? That’s pretty much the, the primary tool. I actually know WordPress and then the podcast. So I have my, you know, podcasting mic here that was 50 bucks on Amazon. The other tools, like as far as like social media stuff, I’ve found Pinterest in the last eight or nine months to be really, really effective. And the secret sauce there was joining or requesting to join, because you kind of have to message the, the moderator, the owner of these groups, but requesting to join these different group boards that are related to your niche and then pinning your content to those board. That has kind of the, the interesting effect of like, it doesn’t matter how many followers you have on per, like, I had fewer than a hundred followers when I started this. And you know, all of a sudden, you know, if this group board has 5,000 followers and you pin your content there, all of a sudden you got that in front of 5,000 people, and didn’t matter that you only had a hundred followers. So that’s been working really, really well. I can actually did a whole episode and whole kind of recap on that. So I’m happy to send the link over there. If you wanna link that one up in, in the show notes.

Robert
[01:18:56]
Definitely any final thoughts on content marketing

Nick
[01:19:00]
Have fun with it, like it’s really, really time consuming to do it. Well. So one, one thing that I kind of have had to get over is feeling the pressure to come out with something like every Monday, you gotta have this new post every Monday, it’s gotta be amazing. It’s like, you know, just why don’t you slow down, create something that’s really, really good. And doesn’t matter, you know, when you, you, when you publish that. And of course, you know, if you could do that consistently awesome, but you know, don’t, don’t create more noise on, on the internet, you know, for the sake of creating more noise, if that makes sense.

Robert
[01:19:36]
And if listeners wanted to reach you, what’s the best, what’s the best place to reach you.

Nick
[01:19:42]
I’m just over at side hustle, nation.com. If you are looking for some part-time business ideas, stop on by, we’d love to have you.

Robert
[01:19:50]
Okay. And at the end of my podcast, always ask this question. What’s the one thing an e-commerce business can do right now to help the business grow or get traffic or get sales. Just one thing that they can do right now as they’re listening to this. So as soon as they’re done with the podcast, other than go to the side house to show, check on the side house to show, what’s the one thing you’d recommend,

Nick
[02:20:12]
I would focus on building your email list. And so that’s been, that’s been the biggest driver for me and, you know, so the content drives traffic back to the site and the traffic to the site drives signups to the email list and the email list drive sales.

Robert
[02:20:26]
Okay, Nick, thanks for being on the podcast. I, I really appreciate you coming on and just sharing some of the content marketing experience and look forward to having your own soon

Nick
[02:20:37]
You be, man. Thanks for having me. Okay.

Robert
[02:20:39]
Thank you for listening to the eCommerce marketing podcast. Join the eCommerce marketing podcast, Facebook group to learn, connect, collaborate, and grow with other eCommerce marketers@ecommercemarketingpodcastdotcomslashfbwww.ecommercemarketingpodcast.com slash FB. Subscribe to us on iTunes by searching for eCommerce marketing podcast, and please leave our rating and a review. Thank you for listening to you next time.