Julians Hints, Tips and Hacks

Hints, Tips and Hacks that Julian finds helpful in life, marketing and business.

Great resource for Keap / Infusionsoft users to learn marketing from Neil Patel

by

If you are looking to take your marketing to the next level and become an advanced Keap / Infusionsoft marketer then I suggest you subscribe to Neil Patels podcast – Marketing School.

Each episode is about 10 minutes, but it is gold. This is stuff you will not learn from any book or attending any course. Neil Patel knows his stuff.

Listening to podcasts has been a big lesson I have learnt in the last year. With a podcast like Neil Patels I am able to fill all those free minutes that are usually wasted in the day – waiting for a train, picking the kids up from school. All this minutes previously wasted really add up when you utilise them to the full to take your marketing to the next level.

neil patel Here is the link to Neil Patels podcastΒ http://neilpatel.com/podcast/

You can also search for “Neil Patel Marketing School” in the podcast app on your smartphone.

 

 

 

And Neil Patel also uses Keap / Infusionsoft….

Neil Patel uses Keap / Infusionsoft

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Image byΒ Pieter S Verasdonck on Twitter)

 

Cheers

 

Julian

 

 

 

 

Get rid of your flat bed scanner

by

This year I have been on a quest to make my consulting business fully portable.

Almost everything now is in the cloud.

Marketing automation – Keap / Infusionsoft
Accounting – Xero
Email, word processing, spreadsheets – Google Apps for business.

I have done away with the desktop PC and switched to a laptop. But nothing is stored on the laptop – all my key data is in the cloud on Google Drive. So the laptop is just a window into my virtual office – if the laptop gets broken, lost or stolen it is not the end of the world as it can be easily and cheaply replaced and causes me the minimum of disturbance.

So I can work from my laptop or any other PC connected to the internet. But there are two things that could be minor irritations. Say I received a document that I need to scan or a document I need to print.

Now on the printing, I have yet to figure out how to do that without a printer. So I am stuck with having to find a local solution for that if/ when the need arrises to print as document.

But on the scanner.Β I have a flatbed scanner on my desk but since I upgraded to Windows 10 it does not work, as it is so old it does not have a Windows 10 driver. So that has become useless. I was thinking of purchasing a replacement. Until last weekend the solution popped up on a promoted video on LinkedIn – of course – an iPhone app to turn your phones camera into a scanner. A quick search on the app store reveals I do not even need a paid for app – as there are free ones.

After testing I am really pleased now that I did not go out and buy another physical scanner when my phone can do the job anyway.

So that is another move towards making my office fully portable.

 

Julian

 

 

Oversubscribed by Daniel Priestley ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

by

oversubscribed book cover

I had to read Oversubscribed after my brother said that it contained many of the ideas and principles that I follow.

And he was right. This book resonated very strongly with me – it makes perfect sense.

Rather than think of the market forces of supply and demand being fixed, the paradigm shift occurs when you see how the factors governing demand can be changed by you, for your benefit.

Another paradigm shift is to think about getting new clients in batches rather than one at a time.

On page 159 Daniel says – “From now on you’re also in the IT business” – and that is so true. If you do not have systems in place (like Keap / Infusionsoft) to automate your marketing and business processes then you are in big trouble. So many businesses do not realise what technology can do for them or how the costs have come down.

What this book has done is given me context for the things that I have been doing and have given me success already. Now I have more structure and insight into how it all fits together, rather than just doing things off the cuff because they feel the right things to do.

Oversubscribed is one book I look forward to reading again and will be a book I recommend to my clients.

Link Amazon to buy Oversubscribed book (please note this is not an affiliate link)

Guerrilla Marketing and Keap / Infusionsoft

by

guerrilla marketing and infusionsoftI have just been reading the book ‘Guerrilla Marketing and Joint Ventures‘ by Jay Conrad Levinson and Sohail Khan and it got me thinking about Guerrilla Marketing and Keap / Infusionsoft.

This is a very good book and I would recommend it, but I feel it is lacking in one area

In the book on page 62 they list 200 Guerrilla Marketing Weapons which can get your product or service noticed by potential customers. On the list at number 43 they have ‘List building (email/ direct mail)’ and at 55 they have ‘Auto-responders’

But what about Marketing Automation?

You see it is all very well using all 200 Guerrilla Marketing weapons to generate customer interest – but if you are unable to first capture that interest and then nurture that interest to a point where the prospect is ready to buy – then you are leaving so much money on the table. So in the book, they do mention briefly about building a list and using autoresponders but when you start to consider the power of automating your marketing then surely that must be a key weapon that underpins all the other weapons they refer too.

Having used Keap / Infusionsoft, the leading marketing automation software for small and medium-sized businesses for the past 5 years I have used many of the 200 weapons the book quotes and used Keap / Infusionsoft to support the guerrilla marketing activity for many clients.

If you are interested to learn how guerrilla marketing and Keap / Infusionsoft can grow your business then I would be delighted to speak with you. Feel free to schedule a Discovery call.

S

Google Analytics – why so ignored?

by

One thing that always amazes me is that clients never take the time to understand the statistics that Google Analytics hands them on a plate – and all for free!

I do not recall in all my time consulting having a client that really used Google Analytics to the full. Sure, when they first set up the website or blog they or the webmaster will have installed Google Analytics. Google Analytics then proceeds to gather all this valuable information in the background that no one every looks at. And no doubt there are gems of wisdom contained in amongst the statistics that would enable the business owner or marketing team to think about, tweak or revolutionise their marketing and could quite literally transform the business.

I think the problem is that when you first open Google Analytics the screen is full of stats and this can be most daunting to non ‘geeks’. I have seen this for myself once when I set up Google Analytics for a clients so that they could see the website stats for the first time, being a bit of a geek I was excited as I explored visitor activity on the site and was able to gain an understanding of how people were using the site. At the same time I could see my clients eyes had glazed over and he had lost interest and no doubt he was thinking why I was using his paid time to look at stats – that is until a month later he needed a piece of key information and then he was straight on the phone asking me to find the answer -which I was able to do in just a couple of minutes – because I had set up Google Analytics correctly – and had spent enough time to understand the basics of how his site was set up.

Often the gold is hidden in the stats. It’s not glamours trawling through stats and using Google Analytics reports to find out what is working, and what is not so that you can optimise your site. But blimey when you get it right it brings in the results – increased sales, reduced advertising costs and a host of other key metrics can be positively influenced -once you understand the stats.

So how do you get started with Google Analytics. First ensure you have the Google Analytics tracking code installed correctly. Then just focus on the simple stuff until you begin to feel confident with the interface. For instance start by tracking the counts for your daily visitors -investigate where they are geographically, what sources led them to your site, what pages they visited. As you start to familiarise yourself with the layout and see the power of knowing the numbers you will find yourself starting to ask questions and exploring the data more fully. Then as marketing issues arise you will begin to use Analytics as a source of information and insight – rather than blindly trying the latest fashionable marketing trick and hoping it works you can measure, benchmark and improve. Keep and improve the marketing that works and discard quickly the marketing that does not work and loses money.

But you must be very careful – it can be addictive, checking the stats much to regularly to see if the latest email campaign or Adwords campaign is having the desired effect on visitors can become time consuming and earn you the informal job title as the ‘resident geek’.

Here is an interesting article that I found that may spark of you interest in Google Analytics.

http://sideincomeblogging.com/analytics-for-your-blog-audience-overview/

Cheers

Julian

Neat trick if you use Notepad in Windows often

by

Hi

If you use Notepad in Windows often then you may find this tip useful.

Paste the link below into your browser. It opens up a browser that functions like Notepad and you can write and paste text in it, then save it to your favourites tool bar for easy access. This cuts down the need for opening an extra application when you already have a browser open.

Paste the code below into browser to create a window you can type text into.

data:text/html, <html contenteditable>

Julian

A really neat sales online promotion idea based on a National Lottery syndicate. And only costs Β£1 to run!

by

Hi

promotional leafletI just had this really neat sales promotion arrive via a door drop at my house.

The idea is based on the National lottery held here in the UK each week where some lucky punter can win Β£20M or so.

Anyhow, when the recipient registers their details they become part of a syndicate and if the syndicate numbers ( 4, 26, 30, 32, 34 and 49) come up then everyone is entitled to a share.

So this promotion costs just Β£1 a week to operate and has a mass appeal to get people signed up.

What a great idea and has plenty of potential on-line e.g. with your own site, Facebook, Twitter etc etc

 

Download PDF.

 

 

You can use Flicker to source free images for commercial use.

by

I just learnt this great tip today.

You can use Flickr as a source of free images. Just be sure to give the copyright owner the correct credit for their work.

Simply use the advanced search on Flickr, at the bottom of the page you will see a section called Creative Commons. Just tick this option to search for images you can use for free – as I mentioned, just check the level of credit you have to give the image owner before publishing.

 

flickr_free_images