-

o p 2 0 g r o w t h
The t
h a c k s in t h e
h is t o r y o f
Traf f i c a n d C o p y
er)
(In no particular ord
-

Foreword
A year ago, I released a book on growth hacking which,
with no PR, paid ads, or influencers, sailed past $50,000 on
Kickstarter (and has since made closer to ($150,000).

How did it do so well?

My theory is that there were no great resources for growth

hacks at that time (things have got better in the last year)
so word-of-mouth above all else helped us win - there was
just nowhere else to find actionable, practical, techniques.

A little after the Kickstarter finished, a young punk named

Charlie Price told me we should start a Facebook group,
mixing my love of growth hacks with his love of
copywriting. We continued to create content for an under-
served market, and invite in the best growth hackers in the
world to join us.

The rest is history.

Traffic and Copy is the fastest-growing growth hacking

group on Facebook, with 23,000+ members at the time of
writing.

For this guide, we wanted to shine a light on the brilliant

growth hackers and entrepreneurs in this group (so no
posts from me or Charlie, much how we like the sounds of
our own voices, ha!)

With only the most useful growth hacks, methods, and

techniques we’ve seen that anyone can implement (so no
coding!)

What do we want you to do?

Read them.

Execute on them.

Then do your own method posts in the group and give

back!

Enjoy.

Vin Clancy & Charlie Price

Founders

Traffic & Copy

-

Table of
Contents

1. Foreword

2. 10 Growth Hacks for Every Part of Your Sales

Funnel

3. How to Go From "Idea to Profit" In 7 Days From

Now

4. How to Create a Personal brand

5. The 5 Best Productivity Hacks for

Entrepreneurs
6. Find out where your competitors’ hang out
online

7. 8 Ways to Grow Your Facebook Page from

Scratch

8. The One Trick to Making Your Product

Descriptions Convert Better

9. How to Get a Ton of Medium Followers with

Very Little Effort

10. How to Write an Amazing Pitch Deck

11. Four Ways People F*** Up When Building an App

12. How to Get Affiliates to Bring You Endless

Customers

13. 10 Steps to Being a Brilliant Copywriter

14. 4 Ways People F**K Up When Building An App

15. 21 Marketing Tips I Learned at Traffic &

Conversion Summit 2017 in San Diego That
Are Working NOW

16. How to Run a Viral Marketing Campaign and

Gather 7,000+ B2B leads

17. Where to Post Your Product/Startup to Get

Traction, Traffic, and Attention

18. How to Stop Wasting Money on Retargeting

Facebook Traffic

19. 7 Timehacks to Make Your Uber Rides Super-

Productive

20. How to Get Google to Give You Hundreds of

Emails for Free
21. How to Make Those Damn Facebook Ads Work

22. How to Make $20,000 in 15 Days from Cold

Email

23. Is That The End? Will More Happen?

-

10 Growth Hacks
for Every Part of
Your Sales Funnel
Helvijs Smoteks

We curated some high converting growth hacks from a selection of

2105 articles and divided them in easy to scroll AARRR sections - for
pirates and growth hackers

# ACQUISITION HACKS

NO1 - Use this email hunting strategy and reach the right person ~100%
of the time

1. Gather the list of companies that could be your potential customers

(& their domain names).

2. Signup to hunter.io. and start hunting the decision maker email

addresses.

3. Check on Linkedin to make sure you are reaching out to the right
person - use a personal detail.

4. Disclaimer: this is your chance to create carefully crafted marketing

campaign or sales pitch – do not spam.

NO2 - Create fun to do surveys

I constantly wonder which GOT character I would be.

1. You will need a WordPress plugin that allows creating surveys –

"Simple Survey" is one.
2. Involve celebrities and influencers – add “see who else was a Jon
Snow” feature, etc.

3. Design for mobile first (71% participants come from mobile phones),
pick a couple of acquisition hacks and market the quiz.

NO3 - Use Social Media 4-1-1 strategy

1. Every 6 posts you post on social media should look like this:

- 4 posts should be pieces of content targeting the influencers in your

fields – re-posts or tags.

- 1 post should include original, educational content that you have

created.

- The last one should be sales oriented – a discount coupon, cool deal,
pay only shipping promo, etc.

2. Use Buffer or HootSuite to post the content. Or if you can afford -

Edgar (starts at 49€ per month).

# ACTIVATION HACKS

NO4 - Re-activate your Android App users with AdWords

1. Let’s say I need a hotel in NY but my old brain forgot that I already
have a Booking.com App so I “google it”. 1st result that appears is
directly from Booking.com App, a click on it brings me straight to the
App with all the hotels in NY. Cool stuff, ha?

2. In short - if you have set up remarketing ads on AdWords this is very

similar, in addition, you have to link AdWords with Google Play and
setup event tracking @ your App.

3. For detailed explanation, google has created an easy to understand

guide, for URL ask in the comment section

- Anyone up to discuss the results of this one?

NO5 - Become trustworthy – this is a brain f**k

1. According to Reevo research,0 TO 10 REVIEWS CAN ADD 1% to your

conversion rate. So, fake it till you make it. Amazon, Yelp and Facebook
are a great source of detailed reviews. Don’t make it too positive and
admit your flaws.

2. According to Neil Patel, explainer video embedded in your website

lifts conversion by ~69% but the same video in pop-up by ~100%.

3. Your trust badges are turning people off. If they don’t know it, they
will not trust it. If you want 1 badge, Norton Secure is your best bet,
35.6% knows it. Money back guarantee badge can increase revenue by
~32.57%.

- For resources ask in the comment section.

# RETENTION HACKS

NO6 - Improve retention – if you do THIS right, you won’t need the rest

User signs up and what then? Answer these question to know:

1. Week 1 – Can you get your users to use your product more than
once?

2. Mid-term – Is there a usage pattern (why/when they use it)?

3. Long-term – How can you make your product indispensable?

Step by step approach:

1. Figure out the questions above – it will take time and a lot of tests.

2. Tweak features, create retention hooks, work on product quality. DID

IT RESURRECT USERS?

3. You must do behavioral cohort analysis and compare it with your

retention analysis.

- Analyze how your retention graph compares with the retention graph
for people who performed a certain action. Find out which cohort has
the highest retention and know which action they took. Make it part of
your onboarding.

- For detailed resources ask in the comment section.

NO7 - Improve the way you do the free trial – 30 days don’t convert
1. Nobody needs 30 days to understand that they don’t need your tool.

2. Start by breaking down your 30-day trial into days. What you expect
people to do in these 30 days so they would stick around and pay?

3. Some people learn by doing, others by watching. Onboard with a

video, walk them through with a step by step guide.

4. Give your customers 7 days of free trial with a chance to earn FREE
DAYS if they follow the onboarding guide that walks them towards the
“AHA” moment.

NO8 - Reduce your Churn with predictive analysis – THIS IS MAGIC

1. Identify predictable reasons why customers cancel and add them to

the excel sheet. FOR EXCEL SHEET - ASK.

2. Translate these predictors in the data rules. Ex.: Churn Predictor –

Didn’t understand the tool; Data rule – Last log in > 30 days ago.

- Count how many times reasons why customers cancel occurred

throughout the time.

- Count till you reach large enough population of customers who

canceled – that is at least 100, and add them to the excel sheet.

- Identify the biggest predictors of churn.

3. Prevent these predictors from happening.

- When a customer hasn’t logged in for 30 days send an email with a

tutorial of examples how the tool can be used and etc.

- The tricky part is to understand the main churn predictors and

discover the data ruleS.

# REFERRAL HACKS

NO9 - Facilitate the referral process – use multiple channels & set up
without coding

1. Create bulk invitations across multiple channels (and test what works)
– email, phone contacts, facebook, etc.
- Make people to uncheck the ones they don’t want to invite.

- Prepare the message they will send to their contacts.

- Allow customers to click only a button to invite all their contacts.

2. YesGraph is the tool to set it up – NO CODING REQUIRED.

3. Offer your main benefit your users seek free of charge or discounted
in exchange for customer's friends.

NO10 - Create a landing page with referral program – we have the code
to set it up

1. REMEMBER the amazing launch/referral campaign Harry’s had (think

Dollar Shave Club)?

2. They got 100 000 pre-signup emails.

3. NOW THE CODE IS OPENSOURCE. Everything they had to make it

happen - IS YOURS (URL in the post).

- With A basic CSS and HTML knowledge, you can create a referral
program that is a case study for many of us.

---------

Visit Market Me Good blog to see what Helvis Smoteks is up to

-

How to Go From
"Idea to Profit" In 7
Days From Now
Even if You Have NO Website, Very Little Money & No
Products

Justin Devonshire

You're gonna love this.

Got a an expertise or skill in something that you want to monetize...but

you don't know quite where to start?

Want to get up and running in no time at all? Here's my 'Expert

Authority' hack for ya:

1. Think up the RESULT you help someone get.

2. Create a series of steps / modules / principles that you would take

them through if you were teaching them. List 3- 7 overarching steps.

EXAMPLE: Do you help business get more customers? Then maybe your
3 Steps are "Get Leads, Make Sales, Retain Clients"

Getting someone in shape? Maybe you need to teach them the 4 Pillars
of Mindset, Nutrition, Exercise, and Recovery.

These are the basic principles (not tactics).

3. Next, list the 3 top bullet points to teach for EACH of the 3-7 master
principles / steps.

4. Record a 5-10 minute video for each of the bullets. So, with 5 master
steps, you'd have 15 short videos total
5. Get the videos transcribed and audio stripped. Use Rev.com for
$1/minute transcription (so total $150)

Use vid2mp3.com to strip audio out of your video files free.

You now have a video course, audio course and PDF and a BOOK written
text helping your market get from A - Z. Boom, indeed.

Sell that for $49 - 99 (or whatever price you want). Or share it inside a
subscription membership club, at a monthly rate (drip the content
weekly or monthly). Sell just 20 of those subscriptions at $50/month and
you have a $1000/month income stream (mostly automated).

That's your DIY level of service. The client buys info and implements it
on their own. So they pay less.

Next, add a consultancy service, or 'Do It Together'.

Take on consulting clients for minimum $500+/month. Your clients get a

copy of the digital info package, and then calls with you are mainly to
answer questions and guide them

Get just 4 people paying you that and you now have another
$2000/month in revenue ($3000/month total).

Now, we add a DFY Agency service.

IF you want your own agency doing this, then get 2 apprentices - have
them learn your digital course. Then find THEM DFY clients at
$1000/month.

Get just 2 DFY clients and you have $2000/month additional. Give your
team members some appropriate pay.

That's how you can go from 'Idea' to 'Recurring, time-leveraged income'

of $5000/month in 30 days.

BONUS STUFF:

Not gonna leave you hanging. I'm also gonna provide you with:
==================================

How to set up a SIMPLE sales funnel that will generate you clients on
AUTOPILOT...

...even if you have NO website right now.

==================================

Step 1:

Get Leadpages ($37/month)

Build a simple opt in page, offering a FREE video tutorial, and free email
lessons on how to achieve the result you offer. When they opt in they are
immediately taken to....

Step 2:

Build a VSL page - which is the VSL video you offered. On the video you
walk them through your process and then offer them a chance to apply
for a 1-1 consult.

Step 3:

Build a 'Thank you' page for those who applied for the one to one call.
Link them to your scheduling software (Calendly.com is good, and free).

Step 4:

Create a Follow Up sequence of 10 - 20 emails on an autoresponder.

These emails give some quick tips and then link back to your offer
again.

Emails to go out every other day. With 20 emails that gives you a 40-day
automated sales funnel to begin with

Each week, batch 1 hour to create 5 more emails and build them in. This
increases the length of your sales funnel by 10 days every week.

Use Aweber free 30-day trial for this if you want.

Step 5:
On the consultations you book in, walk them through what you do, and
now making an offer is EASY.

NO need for 'objections

Just ask them, "What level of investment would you like to make to get
this result? Low, medium or high?

Then give them the service that matches their level of desired
investment (membership / info product..... consulting..... or DFY
respectively)

Step 6:

Get traffic to the landing page you made (thats not hard to do with the
content in THIS group, right?)

Voila.

Automated sales machine, leading into an expert business, with

recurring revenue, high paying clients and your own DFY agency. In 30
days if you're a real action taker,

You're welcome.

Find Justin on Facebook here: Justin Devonshire

-

How to Create a
Personal brand
Josh Fechter

I didn't get it.

I thought creating a personal brand was a way to land better work

opportunities.

The more I worked on delivering value to establish my brand, the more I

realized how wrong I was.

A personal brand gives you freedom.

Each one of the two-hundred and fifty blog posts I've written in the last
six months has helped me gain that freedom.

Each one of the seventy interviews I hosted in the last year and a half
has helped me gain that freedom.

Each one of the fifty videos I produced in the last year has helped me
gain that freedom.

This cost me almost nothing, but hard work.

I've now gained the freedom to be myself.

Moreover, I gained the freedom of choosing opportunities that align

with who I am as a person.

For example, when you workout, you gain the freedom to confidently
participate in races and take off your shirt at pool parties.

I gained the freedom to write and produce video around who I am. In
other words, people pay me to live my life to the fullest.
Here's another benefit few realize: A personal brand is transferable.

When you change jobs or take on new life adventures, your personal
brand will remain.

Why?

It's made up of relationships. People stay in your life based off how well
they know, like, and trust you.

If you want this, it's not enough to produce a blog post/day. After the
iPhone, everyone is a content creator. You need to override the noise.

Look at Vincent Dignan. He produces and distributes a HUGE amount of

content every day.

That's how you establish a brand. Claim your voice. Publish content
unapologetically.

I try to produce 4 - 10 pieces of excellent content every day.

It's hard. You have to admit to yourself that you always need to improve,
then practice relentlessly.

And for the amount of shit Gary Vaynerchuk gets for his hustle brand, I
didn't get it until he said you need to document your life than wait for
the perfect moment.

So, that's what I did. I created content about how I'm feeling now (i.e.
this post).

The best part: This post took me thirty minutes to write. A year ago, it
would have taken me close to two hours.

Persistence.

I can't read the first three hundred blog posts I wrote. There's no
emotional pull, bad grammar, and no confidence in my voice.

But I kept going.

Now, I can crush it with content.

Now, I can give value every single day.

Again, it costs close to nothing to build a personal brand.

So, if you can gain ONE THING FROM THIS POST:

You already have the key to freedom. It's in your persistence to create
value for others in a way that makes you happy.

Stop stalling. Start producing.

Go crush it.
-

The 5 Best
Productivity
Hacks for
Entrepreneurs
Max Feller

1. Have a morning routine and stick to it

A morning routine is the first 60-minutes of your day that prepares you
emotionally, physically and mentally for the challenges of the day
ahead. Morning routines can include Meditation, Exercise & reading.

2. Tackle The Hardest Thing First

A key point is to make sure that the first task you do in the day, whether
it’s being distracted by emails or writing a big presentation, sets you up
for the day.

3. Use the 60-60-30 Technique

The 60-60-30 technique has been proven to be the most productive way
to start your day as an entrepreneur because it tackles the top 2
highest priority items on your list (written the night before preferably)

So…

50 minutes

10-minute break

50 minutes

10 minute + 30 minute break, then use the pomodoro technique (25-

mins work then 5-min break)

4. Schedule Your Distractions

Tim Ferris’s explains how he set up an auto-responder on his email

account. The auto-responder tells the emailer that he only checks his
email between 11-12PM and 4-5PM daily if he’s emailed outside of these
times.

5. Use the Two-Minute Rule

It works because it is easy to follow and trains your mind to stop

procrastinating. It also helps stop overwhelm and mental clutter.

So whenever there’s a task you see that would take 2-minutes to

complete always do it. Starting now. Seriously.

Follow Max Feller on Facebook here.

-

Find out where

your competitors’
hang out online
Alex Rangevik

Facebook Persona Hack – Get to know where your competitor's

audience hang out online.

1. Go to a competitor's FB Page & click on the profile picture.

2. Copy the number between the last dot "." and the slash "/". In this
case 8062627051.

3. Go to this URL and put the ID number after the equal sign "=":
https://www.facebook.com/pages/?frompageid=8062627951

Voila! All the FB pages liked by the same people that liked TechCrunch.
This is useful for building Personas and understanding where they hang
out on the internet.
Find Alex on Facebook here and check out his growth hacking group on
Facebook here.
-

8 Ways to Grow
Your Facebook
Page from Scratch
Dan Raaf

If you’re starting a new business or brand page, it’s gonna require a

little hustle and some money. Unless you have very cool friends with
large pages.

These strategies are designed for smaller Facebook pages.

Bear in mind, Facebook is a for-profit corporation. In fact, they are a

competitor to Google for advertising. This means they want your money.

But there are ways to keep your expenses at a minimum and have a nice
balance of organic and paid growth, reach, and engagement.

1) Inviting your friends

2) Ads

3) Share for shares

4) Content strategy

5) Boosting posts

6) Sharing to groups

7) Leveraging influencers

8) Running contests

These are all effective ways to grow your Facebook page without
shelling out a ton of cash.

1) Invite All Your Friends

This should be the first step. I just did this the other day for my personal
brand page that I finally decided to build. Maybe 200+ invites, 50
accepted.

And ask your loyal friends invite all their friends. I’m too chicken to do
this. And my friends hate me.

2) Targeted Advertising

A great way to build a specific audience on Facebook. Even though you

may not build a huge fanbase from it, you’d get the right people.

Use AdEspresso if you don’t want to figure out the technicalities of

Power Editor.

Don’t worry about requiring a large budget. I often run campaigns for $3
per day (though I hear $10 is better). And you can stop them at anytime.

3) Share for Shares

Connect with similar pages and ask to do a “share for share”. You share
their most engaging content and they share yours. Now you’re doubling
(or more) your exposure, increasing your reach and have an opportunity
for organic growth. Seriously, they work! ((especially for large pages))

4) Content

Post consistently and start curating viral content. Especially videos.

Many people frown against “stealing” other people’s videos, but just
credit the maker and make sure there is 6 seconds or less of any
copyrighted music. You should also contact them directly and ask for
permission.

For content, videos generally have the greatest overall reach…and Live
Stream is even greater. Try it out. Just do something interesting that will
appease your fans. Blowing up a pumpkin is fun for all ages.

Try to limit posting links if you can. Facebook doesn’t like you directing
people away from their platform.

*Viral content can go beyond cat videos and doesn’t need 1,000,000
reach to qualify. My definition is simply content that attracts a particular
audience that has a disproportionately higher ratio of engagement than
other posts.

5) Boosts & Inviting Likes

Don’t want to figure out Facebook Ads Manager or Power Editor? Boost
it! You can do a boost as low as $1. You can target boosts based on
interests too.

Boost for engagement, then invite everybody who likes your post but
doesn’t like your page to like your page. Just click on the “Likes” on
each post, there will be a dropdown (to be done from desktop, not
mobile). - Credit Leonard Kim for telling me about this.

If you don’t want to invite all the people, just invite the ones with the
reactions like Hearts, Laughing, Wows — because they actually put in a
little more effort to like.

And test different things. Memes are the cure to most pages with low
engagement. But not all. I manage a couple pages with humorless
audiences. Informative videos and posts work best there.

And before you hate on memes and silly videos, remember, this is
Facebook. ((RIP Harambe))

6) Groups

Join a lot of FB relative groups, share quality engaging content from

your page to the groups, sparingly. Make sure it’s appropriate for the
group and not spammy.

Good luck getting past me and Dan Rice on T&C tho...

7) Leveraging Influencers

Also really fun. Here, you connect with larger and more engaging pages
with audiences similar to your target demo and establish a relationship
for them to cross share engaging content from your page to theirs.

Or…you can look at older posts that performed very well on their page,
post it natively to yours then have them share it. BOOM! — Growth Hack

These “relationships” usually involve money or a trade, but not always.

Some people are really cool and always willing to help. Find them, and
establish value.

Reach out to pages with your target audience (indirect competitors) and
have them share your most engaging content.

8) Contests

I’ll admit. I haven’t run a contest yet. But countless experts who have
been in the business longer than me swear by it.

Suggested Reading:

Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook. If you are serious about social marketing and
content strategy, read this book. It’s a few-years-old but highlights the
importance of giving, giving, giving, then asking.

Of course, if you’re a business, you’ll want ROI from your efforts. You’ll
get ROI if you provide the right content and ask for business at the right
time. Or read DotComSecrets.

Also, I've done this for other pages but not my own. Sometimes the
cobbler's son wears no shoes.
-

The One Trick to

Making Your
Product
Descriptions
Convert Better
Hassan Uddeen

Hey guys,

Just sharing a quick tip that’ll make your product descriptions WAY
more seductive…

Ask yourself so what. (AKA the "so what test")

To every fact or feature you mention, put yourself in your customer's

shoes and just ask:

SO frikkin what? This forces you to switch boring features/facts into

tasty benefit driven copy that sells. Here’s a live example:

-Our Niche Hacks marketing course comes with 3 audio CD’s

-You also get a simple but powerful 10 point checklist

-A quick 60-page ebook on 7 killer marketing mistakes you must avoid

After asking “so what?” to each point, you can transform your copy into
this:
-You’re busy. So we’ve included 3 audio CD’s you can use to learn how
to market your business to dizzying heights while you drive around or
do simple chores.

-Sometimes you need the answer ASAP. So we’ve included a 10-point

checklist to help you quickly plug dangerous ship-sinking holes in your
marketing.

- Marketing isn’t rocket science, but you still need to know what you’re
doing. So we’ve included this short and sharp 60-page ebook to help
you hit the ground running.

You can find Hassan Udden on Facebook here.

-

How to Get a Ton

of Medium
Followers with
Very Little Effort
Jeroen Corthout

8. How to get a tonne of Medium followers with very little effort by

Jeroen Corthout

Here's a nice hack to quickly get a ton of Medium followers, without any
effort.

The short summary: if you connect your Twitter account with Medium,
Medium forces all your Twitter followers that have a Medium account to
follow you on Medium as well.

The hack: If you disconnect your Twitter account, your followers stay.
And if you can repeat this process with multiple different Twitter
accounts.

This means you can do a huge Medium followers swap with someone
you trust.

Here's the steps:

1. Both disconnect your Twitter accounts from Medium.

2. Make a temp Twitter password and share with each other.

3. Connect the Twitter account to Medium. (it's on

https://medium.com/me/settings below "Connections")
4. Wait for the synchronization. It may take 10 minutes to complete if it's
a big Twitter account. First it will start adding following, then followers.

5. Disconnect the Twitter account.

6. Sit back and enjoy your new follower community.

Bonus: it would be awesome if someone would write a script (like the

one shared here for Twitter: https://blog.markgrowth.com/how-i-grew-
from-300-to-5k-follo…) to clean up the "following" after this...

You can see an example of the result here:

https://medium.com/@salesflare/

You can find Jeroen on LinkedIn here and his company, Salesflare, here.
Salesflare is an intelligent sales CRM for startups - it's like Pipedrive fully
automated.
-

How to Write an
Amazing Pitch Deck
David Magee

Hey T+C folk - I've seen that plenty of you are interested in, thinking
about or in the process of raising some investment. I've written this post
to help you out - let me know what you think.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the course of my work I come across a lot of pitch decks, some of

which are absolutely stunning, a few only need minor tweaks but most
of which are kinda disappointing. When I say disappointing, we’re
talking in terms of meaningful content here, not the finer details of the
graphic design or font selection.

I want you all to create better pitch decks. Killer pitch decks. Decks that
knock potential investors off their feet and “stack the deck” (see what I
did there?) in your favour, positioning you better to agree terms and
take the pick of investors.

To do this, we need to take a step back, add some context and look at
investment, investors and then the deck itself.

Note 1: There is SO much more to say about how to raise investment,

how to calculate valuations, the different kinds of investor, how deals
are structured, how to find good investors etc., but we just don’t have
time to talk about that right now. Drop me a comment if you’re
interested in any of those other specifics and we’ll see what we can do.

Note 2: I’m assuming y’all have an understanding of how pitch-decks

are used.

Note 3: I’m also assuming you have a real business or an idea that’s
been validated and you’re not a total dreamer. Send me a message if
you’re not quite there yet and want to talk about validation for digital /
physical products, services or whatever.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

FIRST - INVESTMENT

This part may come across a little negative. INVESTMENT IS NOT THE BE-
ALL-AND-END-ALL all of a startup’s existence rather than, you know,
building a sustainable business.

This is the point where I remind you that investment is only a tool to help
you bring about a result, and that result ought to be accelerated growth
and a striving for profitability.

Raising a round should mean that it’s game time, the pressure is dialled
up to 12 and the bright outdoors becomes a distant memory for a while.
Somebody else has given you money. It’s not your money. Don’t let
them down.

It’s not always smart to raise VC money, and it’s not always smart to do
it right now. Raising capital clearly brings the advantages of a cash
injection, increased growth potential, an expansion of your network and
a solid source of advice, but it has downsides too.

Investors don’t necessarily share your vision for the business, for how
it’s run or who runs it. Sure, they might do at the start of the
relationship, but this is like a marriage…you’re in it for the long haul.
Just remember that when your eyes glaze over with £££ or $$$ signs.

I’m assuming you’re going to raise, and that raising is the right thing to
do for you, but don’t just assume that for yourself. Think about it.

Bootstrapping is cool. Raising investment is cool too. Just make sure

your investment approach is aligned with your business goals and
lifestyle objectives. Having done both, I’m not bashing either.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SECOND - INVESTORS

In general, if you’ve got as far as serious discussions (so…past the

pitching stage), investors are really only interested in two things;
economics and control. Economics refers to agreements on valuation,
stock, term sheets and associated aspects. Control usually refers to
decision making, veto power and board seats. Clearly much of this
varies on the maturity of your business, but when it comes to
negotiating, these will likely be the two pivot points, and much else is
either a decoy or unwittingly immaterial. Investors reading this will
probably disagree / deny, but maybe that’s all part of the game

You will also find a broad spread of investors and investment practices,
running all the way from highly engaged mentors to sharks and
amateurs to accelerators that offer tech, HR and administrative
assistance.

It’s always worth looking at a firm’s previous investments, reading

about their way of working and maybe even speaking to past recipients
of investment before you make a decision.

What I’m really trying to get across is that not all cheques for £150k are
equal.

Heading back to the original subject, in the context of your deck, this is
important for at least two reasons:

1 — The better you know the landscape, the better chance you have of
making a good decision with regard to a suitable investor.

2 — It can be helpful to change your deck slightly for different investors,

placing a focus or emphasis on areas or data that you know (from your
research) are likely to be of greater interest to them or play better into
their specific areas of expertise.

Note 4: I’m using VC as a catch-all term for angels, accelerators, seed

funds, mico-VCs, traditional VCs etc. etc. No need for a labelling or
identity crisis just yet, but make sure you’ve researched the investor
and their way of working / your suitability first. Probably not too smart to
go pitching for seed money to an investor that is only interested in
Series B onwards, right?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THIRDLY - RULES FOR YOUR DECK

A couple of notes to remember with regard to the deck itself:

1- Content is king. Don’t sweat the font and colours to the detriment of
the meat and bones. Of course, make sure your deck looks good and
get a creative / graphics person to tidy it up if needs be, but DON’T
CONFUSE THE REALLY IMPORTANT STUFF WITH THE TRIVIAL STUFF.
Powerpoint is fine, by the way.

2- Less is more. Investors may see hundreds of decks a month, so keep

yours short, visual and punchy. Please, NO LONG PARAGRAPHS, and try
to limit each slide to addressing one idea / thought / subject.

3- The exact order of your slides can vary, but remember that an
important part of creating a powerful deck is telling a story to which the
logical conclusion is you receiving an offer of investment. What’s your
story?

4- You want to take your audience on a journey and provoke an

emotional response. As you write, remember that this isn’t a boring old
FTSE 250 QA or compliance report…make them laugh, cry, open their
cheque book, call their loved ones or throw you out the door.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

FOURTH - THE DECK ITSELF

Now we’ve got that out of the way, let’s talk about the slides in the
deck. The slide order can vary, but the content needs to be broadly
consistent with the following guidelines:

1- Explain who you are and what you’re doing.

This is your opportunity to use a sentence or two to capture the interest

and imagination of your audience and explain your idea or business.
What’s your mission? In terms of presentation, this can often be paired
with your logo on the cover slide / first slide of the deck.

2- The problem.

Explain the problem that you’re going to solve, who it is a problem for
and highlight the size of the issue. If nobody else cares, then why
should an investor?

3- The solution.

How are you going to solve the problem? What makes your solution
stand out and why is your solution better than the alternatives? It’s got
to be compelling to both investor and user!

4- Your product.

Show some screenshots, renders, mock-ups or examples of your

product. The objective here is to take the concept that you have just
explained and make it real in the mind of your audience.

5- The market.

How large is the market you are seeking to address, how have you
segmented it, is it growing and what percentage are you aiming to
capture? Strive for a balance between ambition and realism. This is
often very speculative stuff, but investors want to a) see how you think,
b) test your market knowledge and c) evaluate your ability to see the big
picture.

6- The competition.

Show some understanding of the competitive landscape. Who else is

out there, what are they offering and how are you positioned in
comparison to them? Folk often like to demonstrate this via a map,
where the X and Y axis denote the two criteria that you believe to be
most important to your customers.

7- Your customers.

Oft neglected, it’s really helpful to demonstrate an understanding of

who your customers are (or at the very least who you think they are) and
why. The more specific you can be in terms of demographics and
targeting, the faster you will be in testing your assumptions AND you
may well be able to keep your customer acquisition costs lower.

8- Progress or traction.
This part is really important as it gives your investors a sense of the
potential your startup has, and goes some way towards validating the
concept. Tell your investors about the progress you’ve made so far,
ideally in terms of users / sales / revenue / milestones achieved.

9 - Business model.

This part often isn’t really thought through very well. Try answering
questions such as…How will you make money? How much will you
make, by when? What’s the revenue model? How much will it cost to
acquire a customer, and what’s their lifetime value?

10- Team.

This one is really, really important. Who’s on your team? What do they
do, what have they done and why are they the right fit? You need to
convince the prospective investor that you have the right people in
place to deliver the goods, even if that means delivering something
slightly different to what you first thought.

11- The raise.

How much money are you looking for and why? What are you going to
do with it and what will you achieve? Again, optimism without naivety.
Remember, this isn’t your money. Strive for a balance between an
ambitious assault on a market, technology or product, a willingness to
try and fail fast and a respect for somebody else’s cash.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So there you have it…pitch decks. Well done for making it this far; it’s a
long post. If your deck can answer the questions above to the
satisfaction of an investor, you’re likely in a good place.

I hope you feel better equipped to understand whether this is a good

route for you right now, and I hope you’re able to create better decks as
a result.

If you want to talk more, drop me a comment or shoot me a message.

I’m always up for a chat and answering a few questions
:)

--

You can find David on Facebook here

-

Four Ways People

F*** Up When
Building an App
Helen Statham

There are so many bad apps out there. At Fika Apps we make sure we’re
not the ones that are developing them. And I don't think TAC members
should either - you’re far too good to make these mistakes, yeah?

---

TOO F**KING COMPLICATED

You’ve downloaded an app and it has a complicated signing up

process, too many buttons to press, an epic loading time or a tutorial
that makes no sense. The result? DELETE.

First impressions are everything in apps. If it takes an excessive amount

of time for me to figure out how to use your app, you’ve lost me. I’ve
immediately deleted an app if the home screen doesn’t load quickly or
there isn’t an easy to understand action to take right away. And I’m not
the only one.

Tell me what to do. Tell me how to do it. Remind me of the problem you
solve or the reason I downloaded the app in the first place. Don’t make
me think; make your app intuitive.

---

NO F**KING PERSONALITY

Congrats. Your app has made a good first impression. But it’s boring.
Goodbye. You’ve lost me.
The biggest flaw in many apps is design clutter. But in trying to reduce
it, you can lose all personality. Your design doesn’t need to be elaborate
to capture imagination. I’m a sucker for a good font, a simple but
striking colour palette and communicating to me like I’m a human.

Oh, and no need to reinvent the wheel. If standard iconography works (a

triangle for play, a blue bird for Twitter, a trolley for checkout) just use it.
I don’t want to think, remember?

---

NO F**KING CUSTOMER SUPPORT

It’s happened to everyone. Even Facebook has it's moments.

#Facebookdown anyone?. Expect your user to have a problem with your
app at some point.

Things can go wrong quickly. And users want answers even quicker.
You need an easy way to be contacted. Through the app, social media,
emails. What does your user prefer? Cos you’ve got to be there.

And if you want to minimise sh*tloads of messages from me - yup, I’m

your nightmare - I like to know where I am in your app (EG. inbox,
outbox, sent), when an action is executed (notification for successes
AND failures), and what happens next (EG. loading wheel or navigation
arrows). At all times.

---

NO F**KING ONBOARDING

BIGGEST BUGBEAR. If I was sat next to you right now and I hadn’t
spoken for an hour, would you ignore me? No. Sure, it’d be awkward,
but you’d try and start a conversation right?

Same with apps. I’ve downloaded your app. I’ve used it a couple of
times. Now what? Are you going to forget about me? BIG mistake.

Onboarding is usually recognised as the process of explaining your app

to first-time users. And with 80% of mobile users abandoning newly
downloaded apps within the first three days of install you can
understand where it’s come from.
But it has to continue after those first few days. Is your push notification
strategy right? Maybe I’ve opted out - have you started a re-permission
campaign? Think in-app messaging, emails or even SMS marketing. Test
and refine. And offer something of value. Always.

Follow Helen on Twitter here, connect on LinkedIn here

and read her blog here.

For more on app and web development find Fika Apps here.
-

How to Get
Affiliates to Bring
You Endless
Customers
Adrian Nutiu

About 8 years ago I built a business using affiliates only. Speaking

recently with an amazing growth hacker about consulting opportunities
he asked me if I can replicate that for clients as that would be a very
valuable skill.

And so I ended up creating this Affiliates/JV/Partnerships Playbook.

Who can benefit from this?

99% of the businesses. It all boils down to who already has your
customers and how can you provide enough value to access them. The
value doesn’t always have to be money.

So let’s go over examples:

1. The most basic affiliate relationship. If you are not alone in your niche
or if it’s a competitive niche there might be review sites or simply
websites promoting your competition or related products.

The 2 most common ways are by email or on the website(as a review,

ad...).

To find the affiliates promoting related products register for their

affiliate program and:

- Search using Google for the affiliate url

- Google the product name + review

- Google product name + resources/links/tools.

- Check their backlinks profile and see which of the backlinks are from
affiliates. Tools like Ahrefs and Majestic can find these links even if they
use cloaking/redirects.

2. Simple JV’s. Find products that target the same niche as you do but
not a direct competitor. You can swap webinars or give x months free as
bonus for each other service when someone buys. I've seen it done
both ways. If one has a significant larger email list, it can help to track
and offer monetary compensation.

3. Deal sites. If your product is targeted at marketers or business in

general you can quickly grow a mailing list by doing a deal for Appsumo.
Besides the fast cash your new list can be leveraged using method 2
above.

4. Many sites list discounts as a perk to their buyers/members. If the

area is password protected this will not be seen by the public so you are
not cannibalizing existing sales channels. The same can be done with
people that register for conferences or online summits.

5. Content partnerships. This could range from guest posting on top

industry magazines, to having a printed book or ebook given for free(sell
it on its dedicated site or Amazon to increase perceived value) to 3rd
party audiences. You can mix this with #2 and reciprocate.

6. Create a course(free or paid) on the biggest problem your target

market has. If it is paid this can open the doors to a whole new world of
opportunities - see all above.

7. Influencers. Give them the product for free. You will find most will be
happy to use a version that has a “powered by“ link. Set it up as their
affiliate link. Even if they don’t want to use a powered by link people will
start wondering what tool they use. This works well for
marketing/business tools.

8. Be creative. It is very likely that someone has already aggregated your

audience and you only need a MAFIA offer(an offer they can’t refuse).
I hope you like it. Happy to connect if you want me to look over your
specific situation.

Discover how Adrian can help you hack your growth here.
-

10 Steps to Being a
Brilliant
Copywriter
Luka Zuparic

I've been following TAC for the last couple of months and the amount of
useful stuff I got out of it is just incredible. So I felt now is the time to
give something back to the community (or at least try

).

WARNING: LONG READ AHEAD

------------------------------------------------------------------------

I’ve been doing a lot of copywriting lately, and let me tell you something
- it can be deceptively difficult!

I felt the need to boost my copy skills so I’ve been doing a lot of
reading. Next you’ll find a 10 step list compiled from various best
practices, tips and general guidelines from all kinds of sources and
copy experts. All sprinkled up with some quotes and examples.

1. DEFINE PERSONA, PROBLEM AND PAIN

Effective copywriting starts by getting to know your audience, how they

talk and the situations or problem they want to change.

“Without this foundational insight your marketing activities will be

suboptimal at best.”

2. SOUND LIKE A HUMAN

Unless you’re selling robots or to robots, please don’t talk like one. We
have no problem speaking casually when talking face to face, but
whenever people sit down to write copy, they tend to go full formal.

“You. Are. Not. A. Robot. Affirmative.”

3. PEOPLE DON'T REJECT YOU BUT RATHER YOUR APPROACH

When writing, there’s often a gap between how we think we’re

perceived and how people actually perceive us. If your ad, landing page,
website or email isn’t converting as you’d like, don’t panic. Just ask
yourself “Why are my readers rejecting my approach?”. Analytical data
will help you answer this question.

“If your approach doesn’t perform - don’t worry. Tweak, improve and
retry. Nobody gets it perfect at the first try.”

4. BEST APPROACH - GAIN TRUST AND RESPECT

This can be hard to achieve as prospects will judge you within the first 8
seconds after seeing your site. In this short span people will make their
mind so consider using testimonials (for trust), and displaying logos,
credentials or awards (for respect).

“First impressions are everything. People care about what you can do to
a certain degree. But they care much more about whether they like you.”

5. AMPLIFY PROBLEM AND PUSH ASPIRATION (Often Neglected)

Magnify the potential customer's problem while appealing to an ideal

future state that he can achieve.

“Before painting a picture of paradise for a potential purchaser, you

have to lay out the consequences of not solving their problem."

6. BUILD SOLUTION STORIES

Build a compelling story to inspire the potential client. Paint a verbal

picture that clearly demonstrates how the problem can be solved.
“Mark was this frustrated business owner who was on the edge of
bankruptcy, whose family lost faith in him, and out of desperation tried
one last idea that changed his life...” will beat “One day Bob figured out
the answer” every single time.

7. TALK ABOUT THE DESTINATION, NOT THE VEHICLE

This is my favorite. Potential buyers don't want the features you're

providing. They want the benefits.

“When buying weights, people aren’t doing it because they simply love
weights but because they want the lean and healthy body they saw in
the ad."

8. OFFER

Lay out your offer that explains EXACTLY what the customer can expect
if they decide to buy.

"This explanation should only account for 20% of the offer copy. The
other 80% of it needs to clearly link back to the benefits your clients will
receive."

9. ASK THEM TO ACT NOW

Ask the potential customer to buy from you.

"You shouldn't be shy about making the request to purchase. If they’re

still with you at this point, you need to tell the customer exactly what to
do because you've already earned the right to do so."

Also, this part often contains the weakest copy.

10. CLOSE WITH AN EFFICIENT CALL-TO-ACTION

There is no “best” CTA. It all depends on what your prospects have seen
from you up to that point and what you’re offering them. However,
statistics show that offering something for free (e-book, trial…) achieves

the best conversions.

“Everyone likes free stuff! And everyone wants to work with a generous
person.”

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Luka is a digital marketing expert and marketing technology consultant.

While not helping one of the largest cybersecurity and web performance
providers where he works with clients like Lufthansa, Lamborghini,
Ferrari, Avast etc. Luka can be found posting the latest insights, tips
and tricks in his Facebook group called Future Marketing.
-

4 Ways People F**K

Up When Building
An App
Helen

There are so many bad apps out there. At Fika Apps we make sure we’re
not the ones that are developing them. And I don't think TAC members
should either - you’re far too good to make these mistakes, yeah?

TOO F**KING COMPLICATED

You’ve downloaded an app and it has a complicated signing up

process, too many buttons to press, an epic loading time or a tutorial
that makes no sense. The result? DELETE.

First impressions are everything in apps. If it takes an excessive amount

of time for me to figure out how to use your app, you’ve lost me. I’ve
immediately deleted an app if the home screen doesn’t load quickly or
there isn’t an easy to understand action to take right away. And I’m not
the only one.

Tell me what to do. Tell me how to do it. Remind me of the problem you
solve or the reason I downloaded the app in the first place. Don’t make
me think; make your app intuitive.

---

NO F**KING PERSONALITY

Congrats. Your app has made a good first impression. But it’s boring.
Goodbye. You’ve lost me.
The biggest flaw in many apps is design clutter. But in trying to reduce
it, you can lose all personality. Your design doesn’t need to be elaborate
to capture imagination. I’m a sucker for a good font, a simple but
striking colour palette and communicating to me like I’m a human.

Oh, and no need to reinvent the wheel. If standard iconography works (a

triangle for play, a blue bird for Twitter, a trolley for checkout) just use it.
I don’t want to think, remember?

---

NO F**KING CUSTOMER SUPPORT

It’s happened to everyone. Even Facebook has it's moments.

#Facebookdown anyone?. Expect your user to have a problem with your
app at some point.

Things can go wrong quickly. And users want answers even quicker.
You need an easy way to be contacted. Through the app, social media,
emails. What does your user prefer? Cos you’ve got to be there.

And if you want to minimise sh*tloads of messages from me - yup, I’m

your nightmare - I like to know where I am in your app (EG. inbox,
outbox, sent), when an action is executed (notification for successes
AND failures), and what happens next (EG. loading wheel or navigation
arrows). At all times.

---

NO F**KING ONBOARDING

BIGGEST BUGBEAR. If I was sat next to you right now and I hadn’t
spoken for an hour, would you ignore me? No. Sure, it’d be awkward,
but you’d try and start a conversation right?

Same with apps. I’ve downloaded your app. I’ve used it a couple of
times. Now what? Are you going to forget about me? BIG mistake.

Onboarding is usually recognised as the process of explaining your app

to first-time users. And with 80% of mobile users abandoning newly
downloaded apps within the first three days of install you can
understand where it’s come from.

But it has to continue after those first few days. Is your push notification
strategy right? Maybe I’ve opted out - have you started a re-permission
campaign? Think in-app messaging, emails or even SMS marketing. Test
and refine. And offer something of value. Always.

Follow Helen on Twitter here, connect on LinkedIn here

and read her blog here.

For more on app and web development find Fika Apps here.
-

21 Marketing Tips I
Learned at Traffic
& Conversion
Summit 2017 in San
Diego That Are
Working NOW
Daugvinas Liberis

1.

Arrows draw huge attention.

2. Jaguar and Rolex buyers value their time more than their money.

3. If picture is worth a thousand words, then video is worth a million

words.

4. Facebook videos sell well if done properly: grab attention, 'aducate'

about the situation and the problem, provide social proof, show your
solution and use direct response best practices to start a sale
conversation or just land that sale on site. At this very moment at SXSW
Facebook is rolling it's biggest ad campaign to push agencies to use
more video, soon there will be much more competition, you better hurry
up.

5. Reading the blog, giving email or adding to a cart is an action, a

conversation start from user side. Approach them with more content,
your solution and the next logical offer. Treat it as a relationship.

6. Use marketing automation to facilitate real interaction and sales

conversations. Track this Cost Per Conversation metric in your funnel.

7. Send emails with CTA to reply, not to buy. Very simple text works, for
example: "Are you still looking to train your marketing team?"

8. Always overstaff support team, you don't want to be late for reply
when big campaign or other event kicks in.

9. Start with smaller offer then sell the main service. For example: Spot
removal then rug cleaning then furniture replenishing.

10. Invite customers to "Join the club", people love to belong.

11. One small link in external website featuring your product might have
lower Cost Per Conversion than full blown banner. See Insider Picks.

12. Track Facebook conversions past 30 days window. "Wicked Reports"

looks on top of it.

13. Build shipping in the product price. Nobody wants to buy a cake box
for additional 30 cents.

14. Create scarcity: "10 people are looking at this product" and social
proof: "135 units sold in the last 7 days".

15. Feature clients in product page, even if that's their Instagram

accounts.

16. Increase open and click through rates of your messages by

switching from email to Facebook Messenger. That said, you can send
tons of emails to a single person and still close the deal only on 9th, just
make sure it's relevant and interesting.

17. You can even invent a national "white sugar" day to sell healthy
nutritious bars and it works.

18. If you come to your dentist and she/he asks advice on marketing,
that's a red flag. They should care about your teeth. Leave digital
marketing to professionals.
19. Right hand column ads on Facebook is the place to be again.

20. Don't pitch your marketing automation tool with "would you like our
tool to do all marketing for you?" for a person who does that for 6+
years and enjoys every single day. Props to "Infusionsoft", let's catch up
when I am going to retire.

21. You pronounce Daugvinas as Vincent. (my second name)

Daugvinas works in online advertising and is a digital marketer. He can

be found on Facebook here.
-

How to Run a Viral

Marketing
Campaign and
Gather 7,000+ B2B
leads
Jack Bill Paxton

Wanted to share some results/findings from a recent beta test for our
new viral contest tool.

Our first test results from the leaderboard contest generated:

Over 7k B2B email leads (44% open rate).

8k new social media followers.

So let me show you how we generated the above results.

Key Takeaways & Learnings:

1. If you do not have a large list or following, build relationships with

other brands/companies who offer complementary products/services.
We did this by running a SaaS bundle contest with a bunch of partners.

2. Once you have found partners for your contest get them to help you
promote it. They already have an audience that will probably be
interested in your product if you choose the right partners. We did this
by asking them to share on social and in their email newsletter. About
60% of them did!

3. The value in a leaderboard contest is that it snowballs. Start with your

friends, family and colleagues to share. Contests have an 80/20 rule like
everything else. 20% of your entrants will refer 80% of the leads. Start
small and expand up from there! See steps below.

4. Use images and video when possible. Most people hate reading or do
not have time to do it. Use images, dot points, video and anything else
you can to make the message faster and easier to understand!

5. Set an appropriate time frame and make sure you include some solid
T&C’s. Between 2-6 weeks are good contest lengths.

6. Add all your pixels (Facebook, Pinterest etc) and tracking to your
contest. Those audiences can be used to create look-a-likes and as a
remarketing funnel later!

7. Use paid media to get your contest started with some super targeted
traffic/leads. You are the average of the 10 people you spend the most
time with. You want to find that ideal customer and get them sharing
your contest!

Our Contest Campaign Broken Down By Day:

Day 1-3

Promoted the shit out of it to personal networks (friends, colleges &

family) first.

Publish a blog post announcing the launch of the contest.

Post to all of your own social channels every 2-3 days. Tag your partners
if possible to spread some love.

Posted in Facebook groups (ask the admins first, here is a post on that).

Post in other communities like Slack, inbound.org, growthhackers.com

etc.

Post within niche specific forums (Warrior Forum, Sitepoint and

Blackhatworld are a few for B2B).

Submit your contest to appropriate giveaway sites, popular one is the

sub-reddit /giveaways

Run ads to get the ball rolling, remember that the leaderboard is viral so
it has a snowball effect so you need to start strong. A few common
networks are Facebook (easiest), LinkedIn (most expensive), Reddit
(hardest), Twitter (most effective for B2B).

Day 3-5

Work with you partners, get them to share the contest on social and to
their newsletter/email list if possible. We tried to get all partners to do
this so there would be a benefit for everyone, the cross exposure was
fantastic and all partners were exposed to new potential customers.

Try and get featured on other people’s blogs and industry leading
websites (PR).
Reach out to content curators that may be interested in sharing the
contest with their audience.

Day 5-10

Send out reminder emails for entrants to keep sharing (we did halfway
point and a few days before contest ended but you could send more).

Repost to some of those communities if possible to give an update on

the contest. For example, we introduced some new partner’s half way
through. Which allowed us to resubmit and update a lot of our original
promotion channels.

Stay engaged with support and updates on the contest to people who
have entered. (Make sure to add your contact details (support email)
somewhere on your thank you page)

Follow up with partners to see if they have posted to social or send out
an email to their audience.

Day 10-20

You are nearly there, keep going.

Support and questions (a lot of this came through our website live chat
as mentioned before).

Keep posting to your own social channels.

Send out an email to everyone who has entered. Announce that they
have 1 more week to collect points to win the grand prize.

By this stage, the viral leaderboard contest should be doing most of the
work for you. You should now have enough entrants referring others to
keep those new emails and social follows rolling in!

Hopefully this helps you plan out your next viral contest. Let me know in
the comments if you have any questions!

Check out the viral growth tool Vyper. Jack can be found on Facebook
here.

12. Where to post your product/startup to get traction/traffic/attention

by Andy Rasic
-

Where to Post
Your
Product/Startup
to Get Traction,
Traffic, and
Attention
Andy Rasic

Directories are the best places to post your product/startup/app and

get feedback, early adopters, and press coverage. There are new
directories almost every day, but most of them are quickly abandoned.

Here are some known, active directories:

All Top Startups

Angelist

AppVita

Betalist

Beta Page

Breakpoint

Cool Startup Bro

CrunchBase
Designer News

f6s

Firespotting

GrowthHackers

Gust

Hacker News

Just Gone Live

Launching Next

Launch Lister

MoMB

New Startups

Netted

Product Hunt

RandomStartup

Side Projects

Startup Genome

Startup Buffer

StartupList

Startup Ranking

Startuptabs

The Startup Pitch

VBProfiles

VentureJoy
World Startup Map

Beta test tools - If you need early adopters to test

your beta product, use one of the following
services. They are all paid services but you get very
detailed feedback from the users. It can be worth it.
Centercode

Erli Bird

Prefinery

User Testing

Reddit channels - Be *careful* with reddit.

It’s an amazing tool but it has its own rules
and netiquette. Be sure to understand it
before posting your product. Here are
some generic channels. You should find
specific channels for your niche, your
platform or your market.
/r/AlphaAndBetaUsers

/r/entrepreneur

/r/imadethis

/r/sideprojects

/r/shamelessplug

/r/smallbusiness

/r/startups

Submission services - If you don’t have time to

manually submit your startup/product to all these
websites, or if you want to reach several tech blogs
in one shot, you can use one of these services and
they will do the submission for you. Some of them
can also be used to find blogger/journalist contact
info.
Pitch Pigeon

Pressfarm

Pressfriendly

Promotehour

Startuplister

Submit.co

Join Andy’s Facebook groupStartup Ruckus, here, and find more startup
goodness on his website here (https://andyrosic.com)
-

How to Stop
Wasting Money on
Retargeting
Facebook Traffic
Joseph D Lazukin

What if I told you, that you are BLEEDING money on your re-targeting
campaigns because you made this one COSTLY MISTAKE when setting
up your Facebook pixel.

This is the MOST COMMON mistake that 90% of marketers, including the
"gurus" get wrong, and it's not necessarily their fault, they just aren't
technical.

The first thing everyone does with the Facebook pixel is they put it in
the header of their website so Facebook starts tracking who clicks
through from your Facebook ads and (if you set it up properly) who hits
certain events, such as adding an item to cart, an upsell, or check out
page.

...but wait.

Did you ever look at what you were posting on your site?

Without copying the full pixel code or turning this into a full course on
the Facebook Pixel, let's take a look at the last few lines of the Facebook
Pixel copied directly from Facebook :

<noscript><img height="1" width="1" style="display:none"

src="https://www.facebook.com/tr…"
/></noscript>

Do you understand what the code above does? ...No?

Well, the Facebook pixel code between the <noscript> tags above ONLY
fires when a user visiting your website has JavaScript disabled. It is
estimated that 1.1% of the users on the web do not use JavaScript. In
the corporate sales B2B space however, that number is significantly
higher due to corporate firewalls and policies that disable JavaScript to
help prevent their employees avoid getting viruses while browsing.

( Note : If you do any B2B sales, you'll want to listen closely...)

Now 1.1% might not seem like a lot, or is it?

If your site gets over 100,000 views a month that means 1,100 of them
aren't using JavaScript. That is over 13,200 visitors a year.

So why is this a problem?

Well, do you see the "ev=PageView" part of the code above?

Yup. You guessed it.

If you FORGOT to change that when setting up your Facebook Pixel

across your website, landing page, or funnel - those 13,200 visitors
above, ARE NOT BEING TRACKED.

They could have purchased a product, gone several levels deep in your
sales funnel, but Facebook doesn't know, because your Facebook Pixel
is lumping them in with the same audience of visitors who simply
viewed your page and DID NOT BUY.

Based on Facebook's algorithm and the way you set it up those users
are "non-converters" which means the hundreds if not thousands of
customers out of those 13,200 visitors that bought your product are
NOT BEING COUNTED by your Facebook pixel to help it target people
who are buying your products!

The damage doesn't end there...

...remember what I said above about BUYERS above are getting mixed in
with your visitors? Well, if you have been retargeting visitors in order to
convert new customers, you unfortunately are ALSO targeting hundreds
to thousands of customers who have already converted and purchased
your product, funnel offer, etc.

That means every month hundreds to THOUSANDS of your marketing

dollars have been spent essentially spamming your existing customers.
While losing money is bad, it's not as bad as your customers clicking
"This Ad Isn't Relevant To Me" or "I Am Seeing This Ad Too Much", which
hurts both your relevance score and your ad reach.

So not only are you losing money on your retargeting ads... you
unfortunately are losing money across your entire ad account because
your ads are being pinged as irrelevant by your own customers, the
people who SHOULD be getting targeted, polluting Facebook's
algorithm for who it should target, while also preventing you from re-
targeting those same customers for later campaigns, weakening your
reach and increasing your CPA over time.

HOW DO I FIX IT?

THE UGLY WAY :

For those of you that are not that technical, just remove the <noscript>
code above from your Facebook Pixel code. While you WILL LOSE the
data on those 1.1% visitors not using JavaScript, it is better than
LOSING thousands in ad spend on retargeting visitors that have already
converted and lowering your ad relevance and thus reach.

THE PROPER WAY :

It depends on the platform you use, see below...

For ClickFunnel Users - REMOVE your pixel code from the Global
JavaScript section, create a NEW Facebook Pixel, and apply the new
Facebook Pixel individually to each funnel step by adding the JS / HTML
section to a page. Changing the "ev=PageView" in the <noscript> code
to the appropriate event, such as "AddToCart", "LessonViewed", etc.

For Shopify Users - Create a NEW Facebook Pixel and manually add it to
your theme by adding it to the relevant .liquid files. Since every theme is
different you I can't tell you which files, but you'll want it on the index,
products, blogs, cart and tracking/confirmation page. Again change the
"ev=PageView" in the <noscript> pixel code to reflect it appropriate
event.

For Custom Sites / SaaS's - Create a NEW Facebook Pixel and tag your
dev team this article, what they need to do is use server side code (PHP,
Ruby, Python, etc) NOT JavaScript since it's disabled and create a series
a switch() or IF() statements around the entire pixel code changing the
"ev=pageView" in the <noscript> code based on the page being viewed,
to be necessary event IE: "AddToCart", "LessonViewed", etc.

---

In closing, pay attention to even the smallest details. As you saw above,
a small error that only affects 1.1% of your visitors can cascade and
cost you THOUSANDS over time.

Thank you for reading and hope this helps you get greater results from
your social media marketing efforts! Cheers!

You can find Joseph on Facebook here. He is a 7-figure funnel and

marketing consultant and founder of Tifti, an app allowing you to post
pictures in a live story of every event you attend.
-

7 Timehacks to
Make Your Uber
Rides Super-
Productive
Diana Mae Fernandez

THINGS I DO IN MY UBER RIDES: #TimeHack

✨ Take client calls

✨ Send voice notes to hot leads

✨ Follow up on soft touch emails

✨ Snapchat & social media touches

✨ Listen to Tedx Talks or Meditations

✨ Touch up on my makeup before meetings

✨ Create content that I'm inspired by

I can drive myself around if I wanted to; but it's always been SUCH a
terrible waste of my precious time. Sitting in traffic (while I drive) and
looking at directions isn't the best use of my time or mental space.

Never have breakdowns about my global brand because I'm effectively

using every minute where possible. Juggling 3 companies where each of
them have over 20+ clients/launches/projects simultaneously isn't a
walk in the park. But I plug in so much fun time & self care in my days
that it's easy to see where I can miss in blanks dedicated to my brands.

Everyone in the world has the same 24 hours as you do. You don't get
special treatment. (sorry to burst that bubble) Get out of the limited
mindset that "there isn't enough time," & just create more space around
you.

Your Netflix can wait.

Diana Mae Fernandez is a Design Thinking Business Coach &

International KeyNote Speaker. She focuses on rapidly accelerating all
business formations from startups to enterprises. Follow all her global
behind the scenes everywhere on social media @dollsmastermind.
-

How to Get Google

to Give You
Hundreds of
Emails for Free
Amul Patel

Cold email outreach is by far the cheapest, fastest way to infect the
world OR create a marketplace/network OR influence prospects with
drip'd content OR whatever evil/humanitarian plans you have.

Using the google operator site:xxxxxx.xxx "@gmail.com"

You can ask google for emails.. only 1000 results show up though (using
simple alphabet a, b, c, d..) you can get more results.

SO lets say I want to build a stoner workout marketplace and I want to

get the word out to dispensaries.

OR I have a THC & Coffee infused gum I'm looking for distribution?

here's 21k gmails

Update : Variants are the key - not the Hack / Creative Modulation
always.
You can follow Amul on Facebook here.
-

How to Make Those

Damn Facebook
Ads Work
Ramon Arora

The gold rush of the 21st century is happening right before your eyes.

Everyone and their mother is making money with Facebook Ads.

You know that you need to figure this thing out OR risk falling behind.

And at first it seems easy....

You know… just throw up a couple ads….

Send people to a landing page...

And cash out in a matter of minutes.

Then you launch your campaign and… nothing happens.

You join the “Mark Zuckerberg Donation Club” and realize Facebook
made this thing harder than you thought.

So, feeling frustrated, you go back to reading case studies, asking

questions, and doing more research.

If this is happening to you, let me stop you right there. Take a deep
breath.

You don’t need to read any more case studies. You are already SO
MUCH CLOSER than you think.

The only things you need to work on is either *your offer* or *your
targeting*. Don’t focus on split testing more stuff, or anything else until
you do this first.

All you need to do is put the PERFECT offer in front of the PERFECT
person. It needs to blow them away.

When you hit the right offer, it will be like giving water to a thirsty
person in the desert. They’re going to take it, drink it, and be GRATEFUL
you appeared on their mirage’s newsfeed.

So how do you find an offer that works?

This is something that drove me crazy, until I narrowed it down to a few

simple steps.

Here's the process I go through to get my brain buzzing with genius

ideas. Anytime I get stuck, I open excel, do all this, write down the best
ideas, and create ads that convert really well.

1) Use Facebook’s graph search

Go to that search bar up there and write your keyword with a call to
action - i.e. “dog bracelet get it here” or “fashion top sale buy here”.
You’ll see a ton of a public posts that have been shared or promoted on
pages. Pay attention to the ones with hundreds of
likes/comments/shares.

2) Use Google’s “similar” function

Put your own website into Google. Next to your URL in the search result
(in green), click that little drop down button and click “similar”. You’re
now looking at a ton of websites that match yours pretty closely. Check
out what they are offering! Why does it work? How are they phrasing it?

3) Use the “inurl” search string

If you use landing page software like clickfunnels or leadpages, type in

google “inurl:clickfunnels.com yourkeyword” This will bring up landing
pages WITH OFFERS you can get ideas from.

4) Browse the competition’s social strategy

Building on #2, some of your competitors are killing it with social media.
Some of them have HUGE budgets, some of them don’t. What I do is go
to their Facebook page and scroll through a few months of posts. You’ll
quickly know who’s doing well and how they are doing it. TAKE NOTES!

5) Talk to your customers/clients

I can almost guarantee that your customers are being hit with offers
from your competitors daily/weekly. Assuming you’re on good terms
with your client, call them up, tell them you’re working on a new
marketing campaign and would love to get their take on it. Ask them
what types of offers they’ve seen and what REALLY appeals to them.
You could be looking at a jackpot.

6) Talk to prospective clients.

Cold email/LinkedIn message prospects asking if they have two mins to

help you out with a research project

;)

7) Read this article

After doing much of the above, I often find myself browsing this article
to get my brain buzzing further.
https://copyhackers.com/2016/06/writing-facebook-ads/

8) Look at your own sales data

See what you’ve sold in the past, how you’ve sold it, and why people
bought it. You’d be surprised by how much offer data you already own.
Did a sale/promotion convert particularly well? Do it again! Take it
online!

9) Reddit

Find your niche’s subreddit, view all-time top posts. Take a look at the
discussions and see what people are asking for. Note how they phrase
their questions and the language they use. Now turn the answer to
those questions into an offer.

10) And finally, TEST a multiple offers in your campaign!!! This is what a
lot of people do right away, but doing the steps above puts you way
ahead of the game

:)

...and there you have it!

I used to go crazy trying to make FB Ads work. Then I started doing all of
this and my ads started converting waaaay better.

This info does need to be combined with SUPERB targeting.

Follow Ramon Arora on Facebook here.

-

How to Make
$20,000 in 15 Days
from Cold Email
Aaron Krass

I just finished up a campaign for a SaaS client and brought in $20,000 in

15 days…with just a few emails to their current list of trial and potential
users.

Here’s how I did it:

- Identified the unique pain points of a narrow market. This particular

client had a few different sub-markets on their list, so I identified just
ONE of those markets and focused on it. I went into forums, searched
through Facebook groups, then had 2 recorded (then transcribed and
printed out) interviews with the client. (Other than a few texts and
putting up some blog posts that I wrote for them, this was all the time
the client spent during these 15 days.) By focusing on one specific sub-
market within the list, I could get laser focused with my emails and the
offer. Don’t be afraid to laser focus!

- Created a unique offer. The key to converting trial users to paid is to

creating and positioning the right offer. After identifying the pain points
of the market, we created an offer that provided the MOST value to that
market segment and solved their biggest pain points. It wasn’t a cheap
offer, but it was the best one. I always focus on what VALUE I can
provide.

- Set a beginning and end date for the email campaign. Nothing sells
like a time deadline, BUT you have to have a valid reason for the time
deadline and you HAVE to follow through with taking the offer down
once the deadline hits. In this case, we set a maximum number of new
users we were accepting, then at the end of the campaign we switched
to a time deadline (meaning the offer ended on a specific time and
date.)

- Live chat. I setup a live chat box on the landing page and had real time
conversations with customers. I setup an automatic message to send
after 3 minutes. The message was: “Are you wondering if this will work
for you?” I had about 10 conversations, and just by chatting with users I
closed over $5k in deals.

- I sent out 12 emails over the 15 days. The first few emails were
focusing on pain points of the market and how this offer would solve
them. The last few emails addressed objections I received from those
chat conversations. The insight I gathered from those chats will be
worth $100,000’s to the client in future marketing campaigns they run.

- I pivoted, and often. I never write all the emails at the beginning of the
campaign. As I get feedback from customers and discover new
objections, I address those in the emails. This wasn’t a “set it and forget
it” auto responder campaign, although the data we got from the
campaign can be used to help create a very effective and profitable
nurturing campaign for future users.

We decided to sell a year of service in advance, so I could spend a little

more time addressing concerns in the sales process because the ticket
price was higher. (I only got paid if we made sales, so I didn’t mind
spending the extra time.)

For a lower price point, you probably wouldn’t spend as much time with
each customer, but you can still uncover lots of objections that you can
address in the campaign with a few convos.

Best of all, we got lots of great feedback from the campaign (even from
folks who didn't end up buying) that the emails were valuable and very
helpful...

Which means that the relationship with their list improved even with the
folks that didn’t buy!

Cool, right?

The key to making that happen this is to provide actionable, valuable

insight in each email.

If you’d like to see one of the emails from the campaign, send me a
quick PM!

--

You can find Aaron on Facebook here. Join his group “Saas Growth
Hacks” here.
-

Is That The End?

Will More Happen?
Vin and Charlie

Enjoyed this?

Want to be seen in the next one?

Submit your best growth hacks, method posts, and case studies to
Traffic And Copy now - volume two coming soon.

Thanks!

Vin Clancy and Charlie Price