Weekly Picks

Weekly Reading Picks| Volume 21

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Bob’s Weekly Reading Picks

2019.6.2 volume 21

Content

1.10 Basic SEO Tips to Index + Rank New Content Faster – Whiteboard Friday
2.The Complete Beginner’s Guide to YouTube Marketing
3.17 Ways to Get More YouTube Views by Backlinko
4.PMA Virtual Round Table: Survival Strategies Against Amazon
5.Learn to Earn: 20 Books That Provide a Crash Course on Positioning, Sales, and Advertising
6.Vape Marketing When Google and Facebook Ads Are Off the Table
7.What to Know Before Choosing an Affiliate Program Management Agency

1.10 Basic SEO Tips to Index + Rank New Content Faster – Whiteboard Friday

Indexing

1. URL Inspection / Fetch & Render (Search Console)

2. Sitemaps! 
robots.txt file, Search Console Sitemap Report, Search Console API, Ping Google
Example:https://www.google.com/pingsitemap=https://example.com/sitemap.xml

3. Google Indexing API

Indexing & ranking

4. Links from important pages

5. Update old content
keywords + site:example.com

6. Share socially

7. Generate traffic to the URL

Ranking

8. Generate search clicks
Instead of this: https://moz.com/link-explorer
Share this: https://www.google.com/search?q=link+tool+moz

9. Target query deserves freshness

10. Leverage URL structure

2.Youtube for Popular Content: The Complete Beginner’s Guide to YouTube Marketing

Here are a few tools we use at BuzzSumo for in-house video creation and editing:

3.17 Ways to Get More YouTube Views by Backlinko

1. Use “BOGY” Thumbnails
2. Copy This Proven Video Description Template
3. Alternate Playlist Layouts
4. Boost Your Video Title CTR
5. Get More “Suggested Video” Views
6. Use The “MVC Formula” For Video Tags
7. Share Videos On Quora, Reddit and Forums
8. Rank Your Videos in Google Search
9. Optimize Videos for Comments, Likes and Subscribes
10. Improve Your Channel’s “Session Time”
11. Optimize Your End Screen for Views
12. Master YouTube SEO Fundamentals
13. Use Eye-Catching Playlist Titles
14. Feature Your Videos On Your Blog
15. Share Video Clips On Social Media
16. Upload Videos When Your Audience is On YouTube
17. “The Card Bridge” Technique
Bonus #1: Get Featured On The YouTube Homepage
Bonus #2: Double Down On What Works
Bonus #3: The Community Tab Preview

4.PMA Virtual Round Table: Survival Strategies Against Amazon

Amazon 
375 million products live on Amazon
Over 2 million marketplace sellers and this number continue to grow rapidly
About 95 million Amazon Prime subscribers
Around 10,000 US cities with access to 1 day delivery
40 Amazon prime aircrafts
52% of consumers are starting product search on Amazon and NOT Google

If a merchant sells a product on Amazon, there is no way to re-target, upsell, get stats, figure out buyer personas, etc.

Merchants 
Maintain competitive commission
Reach out and educate affiliates on why it’s better to take the relationship direct
Offer discounts
Make prices appealing
Ensure the website (desktop and mobile) navigation is easy and simple to use
Provide support to affiliates
Provide additional product details the affiliates can share with their readers
Amazon only offers a 24-hour cookie window and their average commission rate is 4%

5.Learn to Earn: 20 Books That Provide a Crash Course on Positioning, Sales, and Advertising

1). Robert Cialdini’s Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion 

2). Seth Godin’s  Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers into Friends and Friends into Customers

3). John Hall ‘s Top of Mind

4). Adam Grant’s Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World

5). Gary Vaynerchuk ‘s Crushing It!

6).Martin Lindstrom’s Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy

7).Joe Pulizzi’s book Epic Content Marketing 

8). Chip Heath and Dan Heath’s  Made to Stick.

9). Al Ries and Jack Trout’s  Positioning 

10). Dale Carnegie’s  How to Win Friends and Influence People in the Digital Age

11). Steve Krug’s  Don’t Make Me Think

12).  John Caples’s Tested Advertising Methods 

13). Jason McDonald’s The Marketing Book

14).  Gundi Gabrielle’s  Social Media Marketing When You Have No Clue!

15). David R. Bell’s Location Is (Still) Everything

16). Samantha Stone’s Unleash Possible

17). Nick Westergaard’s Get Scrappy

18). Mario Pricken’s Creative Advertising 

19). Ann Handley’s  Everybody Writes 

20). Justin Champion’s Inbound Content

More marketing books: Marketing Books Collection

6.Vape Marketing When Google and Facebook Ads Are Off the Table

Documenting the procedures
The challenge is going from two to 10 to 20 to 50, because each stage requires different structure, different aspects of the company that you have to constantly keep implementing.

When you start your company, really imagine where you want the company to be.

Marketing Channels
No Facebook ads. No Google ads, so it’s very restricted,

1.online forums like Reddit
vape specialists or vape reviewers
sent out the liquids to them to get their feedback and their review, 
wanted everything to be as organic as possible

2. Facebook groups for vaping
at first we started posting in the group, and then we ran a few contests
first approach the admin, make sure that they’re okay with it
average group is about 1,500 to 2,000 members, large one has 25,000 members
groups so geographically

How
finding groups and putting up pictures doesn’t really have much value. It’s just spam.It really only brings value from the groups if you’re an active member of the group,  so being active and contributing to discussions, contributing to questions.

3. trade shows

Changes
from a subculture to becoming more mainstream
Regulation
misinformation
ads and billboards

Story
2014 is when we officially started. We started getting the recipes, the R&D, the logo, all that stuff.
2015 is when we got the lab that we’re at right now, and from there we’ve grown to about 20 employees.
We’re in the seven digits revenue, and we’ve got four websites:
a U.K. website, a U.S. website, Canadian retail, Canadian wholesale,.
In the next few months, we’re launching vangoflavors.com, that will be just selling the actual flavor concentrates, not the e-liquid, so this is for both manufacturers of nicotine liquid, as well as CBD liquid. 

7.What to Know Before Choosing an Affiliate Program Management Agency


Agencies Without Affiliate Program Management Capabilities or Experience

• How many full-time employees are dedicated to affiliate program management within your company?
• What are their currently-employed affiliate positions?
• What are the years of direct affiliate experience for the people in those positions?
• How many clients do you provide affiliate program management for?
• What are the services included in your affiliate program management offerings?
• What is the average length of client engagements (or what is the retention rate) of your affiliate program management clients?

Misleading or False Advertising

• Are the client credentials you list on your website related to affiliate marketing/management services?
• Did you manage their program? And, if so, was this a paid engagement related to their affiliate marketing program?
• What awards/accolades has your agency received for your affiliate marketing related services?
• How were those awards determined? I.e. was it an independent assessment or committee vote?

Agencies that Manage Programs, But Manage Them Poorly

• How do you recruit, activate and optimize affiliate partners?
• How do you work with affiliate partners?
• How do you approach setting the Terms and Conditions for a program?
• How do you ensure compliance with affiliate partners and prevent
fraudulent activity?
• What’s your view on trademark bidding? Toolbar partners? Sub-affiliate networks?
• What relationships do you have with these partners?
• What case studies do you have that demonstrate your approach to protecting a company’s brand while also driving performance.

Agencies That Sell Affiliate Marketing Expertise But Outsource the Program Management to An Affiliate Network

• Does your affiliate program management account team rely on affiliate networks for strategic and operational support? If so, what is the division of labor?
• Do you work across all networks?
• What is your approach if our affiliate program is only working with a SaaS provider?

Agencies Offering “Free Service Affiliate Program Management

• How do you plan to staff this program?
• What services will you be offering during this trial? What partners will you be working with?
• Can I speak with a few other companies who have been through your free trial program?
• What is my minimum guaranteed service level?
• As an agency, how are you able to cover these costs? Are other clients overpaying?
• Will someone have eyes on the program daily? If so, who?

Small, Resource-Limited Agencies

• What percentage of our affiliate program will make up your client portfolio and/or your total revenue?
• Does your agency have a dedicated publisher development person or team?
• If we come on as a client, how many new team members will you need to hire in order to sufficiently manage our program while also maintaining a high service level for your other clients?
• What is the average length of client engagements (or what is the retention rate) of your affiliate program management clients?
• Has your company been profitable or had positive cash flow each of the past four quarters?
• Do you have a line of credit in place for your company?
• What level of liability insurance do you have in place?
• Do you have a clear process for separating your client’s commission/placement dollars from your agency’s operating capital?

Related: Affiliate Marketing Guide

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