If you are in marketing, you likely know of Ryan Deiss. Ryan is the founder and CEO of DigitalMarketer. Over the last 36 months Ryan and his team have invested over $15,000,000 on marketing tests, generated tens of millions of unique visitors, sent well over a BILLION emails, and run approximately 3,000 split and multi-variant tests. Today we talk about how to get traction for your business. In the practical and actionable portion of the interview, Ryan shares the #1 place to start that you can do this week to drive your business forward.
In this episode we’ll cover:
- How to break through the noise
- Building your credibility
- Giving value first
- Creating your traffic plan
- Modeling after other Marketers
Target Audience: Digital Marketer serves marketing professionals and marketing agencies. Specifically, the new emergent group of digitally focused marketing agencies.
Being a Thought Leader
It’s been a long journey and Ryan doesn’t believe he has ever actually “arrived” at being a “thought leader.” He is grateful to the people in his life who keep him humble and challenge him to continue evolving.
One pivotal moment that caused him to realize he has the ability to influence was when he created an event and over 200 people registered. This was a shock! That’s where Digital Marketer started to expand.
In the third consecutive year of putting on this event, they had about 1,000 people attend. He realized at that point that they must have been saying something that was resonating with people. He knew then they must be providing VALUE.
Ryan says, you’ve got to give yourself a shot to amplify your message. Don’t just assume people are just going to notice.
Ryan joined mastermind groups he couldn’t necessarily afford. He attended events he couldn’t necessarily afford. But he made it a priority to be in these spaces where he could grow. He put his best efforts in always executing good work. He feels it is what separates them from other digital marketing companies. It’s about having the goods and the amplification. You need both!
When you are trying to build a reputation, it is important to go out there and give VALUE first. People are against giving stuff away for free, but in the beginning this could be a real benefit. There is something to be said about being real. About putting in the work and getting some results for other people. Then you actually HAVE something to TALK about.
Key Principles to Breaking Through the Noise
ADVERTISE: put out one piece of amazing content and advertise around that. It could be a blog post, video, podcast episode, infographic. The medium doesn’t matter- it just needs to be something people can gain access to without having to jump through a hoop. This is what builds your audience and credibility: finding out what THEY like.
How to Advertise
Google “$10 a day traffic plan.” Do it for a week or 2. You can get a solid test effort. It’s money well invested. Facebook is a great place to execute ads.
Practical and Actionable:
When modeling other marketers, make sure you see the whole picture. Find out what they did in the BEGINNING rather than merely looking at what it currently looks like. Modeling is great but you want to make sure you are not “cheating off the stupid kid.”
