Ryan Deiss is Founder/CEO of DigitalMarketer.com. His pioneering digital marketing strategies have been directly responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars in online sales. Russ Henneberry is Director of Editorial at DigitalMarketer.com. His team generates thousands of leads and sales per month by executing "full funnel" content strategies.

Introduction 1

About This Book 1

Foolish Assumptions 2

Icons Used in This Book 2

Beyond the Book 3

Where to Go from Here 4

Part 1: Getting Started with Digital Marketing 5

Chapter 1: Understanding the Customer Journey 7

Creating a Customer Avatar 8

What to include in your customer avatar 9

Introducing Agency Eric: A customer avatar example 10

Getting clear on goals and values 11

Finding sources of information and entertainment 12

Honing in on demographics 12

Adding challenges and pain points 13

Preparing for objections 14

Getting Clear on the Value You Provide 14

Knowing the Stages of the Customer Journey 16

Step 1: Generating awareness 16

Step 2: Driving engagement 17

Step 3: Building subscribers 18

Step 4: Increasing conversions 19

Step 5: Building excitement 20

Step 6: Making the core offer sale and more 21

Step 7: Developing brand advocates 22

Step 8: Growing brand promoters 22

Preparing Your Customer Journey Road Map 23

Chapter 2: Choosing the Right Marketing Campaign 25

Establishing Marketing Objectives 26

Defining a Digital Marketing Campaign 27

Understanding the Three Major Types of Campaigns 30

Campaigns that generate new leads and customers 30

Campaigns that monetize existing leads and customers 32

Campaigns that build engagement 33

Balancing Your Marketing Campaign Calendar 35

Choosing the Campaign You Need Now 35

Viewing Your Digital Marketing through the Campaign Lens 36

Chapter 3: Crafting Winning Offers 37

Offering Value in Advance 38

Designing an Ungated Offer 39

Designing a Gated Offer 40

Zeroing in on what matters 41

Making a specific promise 42

Giving a specific example 42

Offering a specific shortcut 43

Answering a specific question 43

Delivering a specific discount 43

Generating leads with educational content 43

Generating leads with tools 46

Filling out the gated offer checklist 47

Designing Deep-Discount Offers 50

Using physical premiums 50

Employing a book 51

Leveraging the webinar 51

Selling software 52

Splintering a service 52

Brainstorming “little victories” to offer your leads 53

Filling out the deep-discount offer checklist 53

Discovering your deep-discount offer 55

Maximizing Profit 55

Making an upsell or cross-sell offer 56

Building bundles and kits 57

Tacking on a slack adjuster 57

Recurring billing 58

Part 2: Using Content to Generate Fans, Followers, and Customers 59

Chapter 4: Pursuing Content Marketing Perfection 61

Knowing the Dynamics of Content Marketing 62

Finding Your Path to Perfect Content Marketing 63

Understanding the marketing funnel 64

Exploring the prospect’s intent 72

Providing a path to the next step 73

Segmenting your marketing with content 74

Appearing everywhere your customer expects 75

Customizing your content 76

Executing Perfect Content Marketing 76

Step 1: Choosing avatars 77

Step 2: Brainstorming content assets 77

Step 3: Choosing the vehicle and channel 78

Step 4: Planning for ascension 78

Distributing Content to Attract an Audience 78

Marketing through email 79

Capturing leads through search marketing 79

Using social media to drive traffic to your site 79

Paying for traffic 80

Chapter 5: Blogging for Business 83

Establishing a Blog Publishing Process 84

Brainstorming blog post ideas 84

Establishing content segments 87

Working with content creators 88

Editing the first draft 92

Copyediting the post 92

Applying Blog Headline Formulas 93

Tapping into self-interest 93

Piquing curiosity 93

Employing urgency and scarcity 94

Issuing a warning 94

Borrowing authority 95

Revealing the new 95

Auditing a Blog Post 95

Presents an exceptional headline 96

Includes a strong introduction 97

Offers easy-to-consume content 97

Satisfies your goal 99

Includes quality media 99

Provides a compelling close 100

Uses search engine optimization 100

Categorizes your topics 101

Completely delivers on the promise 101

Keeps professional consistency 102

Chapter 6: Taking Stock of 57 Blog Post Ideas 103

Defeating Writer’s Block 103

Writing useful content 104

Being generous 108

Entertaining the masses 111

Capitalizing on the timely 113

Showing your humanity 113

Getting promotional 115

Stirring the pot 117

Engaging the audience 118

Multiplying your blog ideas 119

Creating Stellar Content without All the Fuss 120

Curating and aggregating content 120

Reacting to popular content 122

Crowdsourcing content 124

Part 3: Generating Website Traffic 127

Chapter 7: Building High-Converting Landing Pages 129

Exploring the Types of Landing Pages 130

Creating a Lead Capture Page 132

Creating a Sales Page 132

Writing a sales letter 135

Understanding the elements of a product detail page 141

Grading a Landing Page 144

Chapter 8: Capturing Traffic with Search Marketing 147

Knowing the Three Key Players in Search Marketing 148

Understanding searchers’ needs 148

Knowing what search engines want 148

Targeting Search Queries 150

Defining a search query 151

Choosing the right queries to target 153

Satisfying searchers 155

Optimizing Your Assets for Specific Channels 157

Optimizing for Google 157

Optimizing for YouTube 160

Optimizing for Pinterest 162

Optimizing for Amazon 164

Optimizing for iTunes 165

Optimizing for review sites 166

Optimizing for search engine robots 167

Earning Links 168

Step 1: Cross-link your own content 168

Step 2: Study your competitors’ links 169

Step 3: Create generous content 169

Step 4: Create content worthy of a link 169

Step 5: Publish primary research 169

Step 6: Keep up with the news 170

Chapter 9: Leveraging the Social Web 171

The Social Success Cycle 172

Listening to the Social Web 174

Choosing a social listening tool 175

Planning to listen 176

Listening without paid tools 177

Utilizing the feedback loop 178

Handling customer service issues 180

Influencing and Building Brand Authority 182

Growing your social following 183

Bouncing followers 183

Keeping your content interesting 184

Socializing blog content 184

Networking That Moves the Needle 188

Tapping into niche media 189

Reaching niche media 189

Networking by topic 190

Creating a social media “short list” 190

Flipping the script on media outreach 191

Staying compliant with the law 192

Selling on Social Channels 192

Leading with value 192

Designing “value first” offers 192

Avoiding Social Media Mistakes 193

Knowing When to Automate 194

Chapter 10: Tapping into Paid Traffic 195

Visiting the Traffic Store 196

Understanding Traffic Temperature 196

Choosing the Right Traffic Platform 198

Introducing the Big Six traffic platforms 198

Setting up Boomerang Traffic 213

Defining ad retargeting 213

Setting cookies and pixels 214

Segmenting with content 214

Troubleshooting Paid Traffic Campaigns 215

Strengthening your offer 216

Tweaking your targeting 216

Scrutinizing your ad copy and creative 217

Checking the congruency of your campaign 218

Chapter 11: Following Up with Email Marketing 219

Understanding Marketing Emails 220

Promotional emails 220

Relational emails 221

Transactional emails 221

Sending Broadcast and Triggered Emails 222

Broadcast emails 222

Triggered emails 223

Building a Promotional Calendar 224

Cataloging your products and services 224

Creating an annual promotional plan 225

Developing a marketing plan 226

Creating a 30-day calendar 228

Creating a 90-day rolling calendar 229

Creating Email Campaigns 229

Indoctrination campaigns 230

Engagement campaigns 231

Ascension campaigns 232

Segmentation campaigns 232

Reengagement campaigns 233

Writing and Designing Effective Emails 234

Harvesting proven email copy 234

Answering four questions 235

Knowing why people buy 235

Writing effective email subject lines 236

Writing body copy 237

Cuing the Click 238

Getting More Clicks and Opens 238

Ensuring Email Deliverability 241

Monitoring your reputation 242

Proving subscriber engagement 242

Part 4: Measuring, Analyzing, and Optimizing Campaigns 245

Chapter 12: Crunching Numbers: Running a Data-Driven Business 247

Leveraging the Five Google Analytics Report Suites 248

Understanding Where Your Traffic Is Coming From 249

Tracking the Origins of Site Visitors 250

Campaign source (utm_source) 251

Campaign medium (utm_medium) 251

Campaign content (utm_content) 252

Campaign name (utm_campaign) 252

Dissecting a UTM 252

Creating UTM parameters for your URLs 253

Creating Goals to See Who’s Taking Action 253

Segmenting Your Audience with Google Analytics 256

Creating audience segments 256

Honing In on Your Audience 259

Drilling into demographics 260

Drilling into psychographics 262

Putting It All Together 266

Chapter 13: Optimizing Your Campaigns for Maximum ROI 267

Understanding Split Testing 268

Obtaining the tools you need to run split tests 268

Following the split test guidelines 270

Selecting Page Elements to Optimize 272

Considering qualitative data 273

Using qualitative tools 274

Getting Ready to Test 274

Developing an optimization hypothesis 275

Choosing the metrics to track 275

Calculating your test timeline 276

Preparing to Launch 276

Defining goals in Google Analytics 276

Checking that your page renders correctly in all browsers 277

Ensuring that you have no testing conflicts 277

Checking links 277

Keeping variation load times similar or identical 277

Calling a Test 278

Knowing How a Test Performed 278

Analyzing the Test 279

Part 5: The Part of Tens 281

Chapter 14: The Ten Most Common Digital Marketing Mistakes 283

Focusing on Eyeballs Instead of Offers 284

Failing to Talk about Your Customers (and Their Problems) 284

Asking Prospects for Too Much, Too Soon 285

Being Unwilling to Pay for Traffic 285

Being Product Centric 286

Tracking the Wrong Metrics 286

Building Assets on Other People’s Land 287

Focusing on Your Content’s Quantity Instead of Quality 287

Not Aligning Marketing Goals with Sales Goals 288

Allowing “Shiny Objects” to Distract You 288

Chapter 15: Ten Trending Digital Marketing Skills to Add to Your Resume 289

Content Marketing 290

Brand journalist 290

Managing editor 291

Content marketing manager 291

Media Buying and Traffic Acquisition 291

Search Marketing 292

Social Media Marketing 293

Community Management 294

Video Marketing and Production 295

Video production specialist 295

Video marketing manager 296

Web Design and Development 296

Front-end developer 296

Back-end developer 297

Email Marketing 297

Direct-response copywriter 298

Email marketing analyst 298

Data Analysis 298

Data analyst 299

Data engineer 299

Data scientist 299

Testing and Optimization 300

Chapter 16: Ten Essential Tools for Digital Marketing Success 301

Building a Website 301

WordPress.org 302

Shopify 302

Hosting a Website 303

WP Engine 303

Rackspace 304

Choosing Email Marketing Software 304

Maropost 304

AWeber 305

Klaviyo 305

Considering Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Software 305

Infusionsoft 306

Salesforce 306

Adding a Payment Solution 306

Stripe 307

Square 307

Using Landing Page Software 307

Instapage 308

Unbounce 308

Sourcing and Editing Images 308

Canva 309

SnagIt 309

Pixlr Express 309

Managing Social Media 309

Hootsuite Pro 310

Edgar 310

Mention 310

Measuring Your Performance: Data and Analytics 310

Google Analytics 311

Google Data Studio 311

Google Tag Manager 311

Optimizing Your Marketing 311

Visual Website Optimizer 312

TruConversion 312

Index 313

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