Leveling Up Blog

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GE 107: The Simple Blueprint Gideon Shalwick Used To Grow A YouTube Channel to 36M Views & 360K Subscribers

Hi everyone, today's interview is with Gideon Shalwick, founder of Veeroll, a company that simplifies creating and targeting true view video ads on YouTube. Their software helps you not only create videos,…

GB Ep 63: Why You Should Give YouTube Advertising a Shot (It’s Profitable)

Today I'm covering key reasons you should consider YouTube advertising - particularly their advertiser-friendly cost per view model and affordable cost per acquisition. YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world with…

How To Get Started With YouTube Advertising

In the past, I said the time for Youtube advertising is now, but I didn't talk about 'how' you could get started. This post will address that. A good deal and low…

Video Marketing

The Complete Guide to YouTube SEO

This post originally appeared on Single Grain, a growth marketing agency focused on scaling customer acquisition. Most Internet marketers focus on things like blogging, SEO, AdWords or Facebook ads to drive traffic…

How to Use Snapchat for Video Marketing

This post originally appeared on Single Grain, a growth marketing agency focused on scaling customer acquisition. Snapchat may have started out as a simple app for teens (originally called "Pictaboo") in which…

Startups

The Numbers Behind Entrepreneurial Growth Worldwide [INFOGRAPHIC]

Despite the fact that the U.S. economy has been growing steadily since 2009 (as measured by gross domestic product adjusted for inflation), some studies suggest that 59% of entrepreneurs believe that it…

GB Ep 84: Where to Find Good Developers or Video Pros for Cheap

I use the word "cheap" very carefully, because you do get what you pay for. So if you want to do something complex, you're probably better off not using someone who's cheap…

GB Ep 51: What I Learned from Interviewing 70 Entrepreneurs

Today I’m going to tell you some of the things I’ve learned after interviewing 70 entrepreneurs. In the last year and a half, I’ve talked to people who have founded multi-million dollar…

GB Ep 38: What to do When You Don’t Know What You’re Doing

Hello and welcome to another edition of Growth Bites. Today we’re going to talk about how we all feel sometimes when we’re running a business: there are certain times when you feel…

Social Media

10 Ways to Get More Snapchat Friends for Your Business

This post originally appeared on Single Grain, a growth marketing agency focused on scaling customer acquisition. Snapchat, the instant-photo sharing site, connects people through the picture-based stories that unfold on their mobile…

SEO

The Best SEO Tool to Grow Your Business

People like to say, "SEO is dead. SEO isn't going anywhere. Google's market share is declining." As of today, SEO is still really relevant. It's just that a lot of people have…

Why You Should Consider Buying an Existing Website

Quick post today to show you how to outrank your competitors fast with SEO. But first and foremost, in a recent Growth Everywhere podcast I interview the cofounder of Crush Empire, Bryce Welker. He…

20 Ways to Grow Your SEO Rankings

This post originally appeared on Single Grain, a growth marketing agency focused on scaling customer acquisition. As marketers, we know that there are a million things we could be working on at…

Effective SEO Techniques that Work in 2017

This post originally appeared on Single Grain, a growth marketing agency focused on scaling customer acquisition. In today’s rapidly shifting world, SEO techniques can change on a dime—and the worst part is…

Sales

Every Marketer Should Be Using This Sales Tool

  Mixmax sits in my email inbox all day every day.   Let's say I'm writing canned messages to people. After enough people open and click through it, I can actually share…

How to Close More Deals More Often When You’re Just Starting Out

Let’s talk about how you can close more deals. First and foremost, I think most people think that prospecting, following up, doing sales calls, and closing deals can be pretty daunting, right?…

How Following Up Can Make You a Fortune

Motivational speaker John Maxwell is famous for saying "The fortune is in the follow-up." But what does that mean? Following Up Is Not Just Reminding People to Do Stuff If you are…

How We Instantly Raised Average Order Value by 10%

This is a guest post by Edwin Choi, VP of Marketing at Mobovida, a customer-driven, vertically integrated mobile accessory brand delivering fashion forward products direct to consumer. Check out our recent podcast interview with Edwin.  At…

Productivity

The Importance of that One Key Takeaway

Earlier this week I had the opportunity to teach at USC. I was teaching an entrepreneurship class and I spoke for about an hour and a half. It was good. But did…

The Importance of 1-on-1 Meetings with Your Team Members

When’s the last time you really sat down and had a one-on-one with your team members? Answer honestly, because I know that I probably should be having more of these myself. Meeting…

Why You Shouldn’t Waste Your Time on $10 per Hour Tasks

Sometimes you may find yourself doing so many things in one day that you actually lose track of what’s important and what isn’t. That’s why I use a task prioritization chart that I…

The Power of Blocking Out Your Time for Business Growth

Today, I’m going to talk about the power of blocking out your time. I feel like this is probably the third time I’ve addressed this, but it’s such an important subject that it’s…

Personal

GB Ep 78: Should You Take a Job that Seems Like a Downgrade?

Today I'm talking about what it's like to go into a bad situation professionally and take a job that seems like a downgrade, speaking from my own experience. I came from a…

GB Ep 74: How to Measure Your Life

At the end of the day, measuring your life is like measuring a marketing campaign in that you’re able to pick and choose what you measure. And while the tools we have…

GB Ep 60: My Meal Prep Delivery Experiment

When one of my friends wouldn’t stop tagging me in meal prep pictures on Instagram, I thought it was interesting and decided to try a meal prep delivery experiment. Today I’m telling…

GB Ep 35: How to Rebound from Tough Times

Hello and welcome to another episode of Growth Bites. Today we’ll talk about what you can do when the going gets tough: when revenues are down, employees are quitting, your business is…

Paid Acquisition

How Much Should You Pay Per Lead To Be Profitable? (Plus 15 Ways To Increase Lead Flows)

Something I don’t see talked about very often is how much a company should pay per lead. If you are a well-funded startup, you can afford to lose some money per acquisition as you…

Organization

GB Ep 28: Set Up the Right Criteria for Your Mastermind Group

Today we’ll talk about setting a criteria for a mastermind group. In episodes 21 & 27 we talked about the benefits of joining a mastermind group and how to structure it. Today,…

GB Ep 22: How to Develop Writer’s Guidelines for Your Blog Posts

If you're a blogger or working on your content marketing, it's important to set-up blogging guidelines and organize your content marketing. This is especially crucial if you're going to hire outside writers…

GB Ep 18: My Favorite Mac Apps Part 2

Welcome to another episode of Growth Bites. Today we’re talking more about my favorite mac apps. Catch up on yesterday's episode if you haven't already to get caught up on my first…

GB Ep 17: My Favorite Mac Apps

Welcome to another edition of Growth Bites. Today we're talking about my favorite mac apps. These are free and inexpensive apps I use to stay focused and save time. One of my…

Mobile

10 Marketing Lessons I Learned by Building a Top 100 App

This is a guest post from Nelson Wang, VP of Partnerships at Toptal, which provides vetted freelance tech talent on demand. I shut down my startup this year. It really sucked. I had…

Using Google AMP to Boost Site Speed and Mobile Optimization

This post originally appeared on Single Grain, a growth marketing agency focused on scaling customer acquisition. Business owners with slow-running and poorly-optimized websites need a serious wake-up call. Forty percent of people…

Metrics

5 Ways to Track Your Website’s Revenue with Google Analytics

This post originally appeared on Single Grain, a growth marketing agency focused on scaling customer acquisition. Consider this: every 30 seconds, online businesses make just over $1.2 million: It’s a small reminder…

The Quick & Practical Guide To Google Tag Manager (With 10 Videos!)

Analytics and tagging aren’t the sexiest topics to entrepreneurs and marketers because they want to be working on things that have the highest impact on driving the needle. But not implementing the…

GB 107: An Affordable Dashboard All Startups Can Use Effectively

I actually just created a video about dashboards, which you can see on the Growth Everywhere and Single Grain Facebook pages. I've heard about lots of different dashboard web applications, but a…

GB 105: How to Split Test Your Headlines in WordPress

Most of the time, we're always trying to think of great headlines because they're what drive traffic. Until now I haven't found a really good solution to help split test your headlines in WordPress,…

Marketing Funnels

Here’s How Targeting Cold, Warm & Hot Traffic Builds Successful Customer Relationships

This post originally appeared on Single Grain, a growth marketing agency focused on scaling customer acquisition. Visitors. Traffic. Sessions. It’s all the same, isn’t it? As long as potential customers visit your site,…

Marketing

3 Competitive Analysis Tools Every Marketer Should Use

Let’s talk about some simple ways to do competitive analysis. I'm just going to go through a couple of marketing tools I often use. Ahrefs First and foremost is Ahrefs, which I…

2017 Digital Marketing Trends You Can’t Afford To Ignore

This post originally appeared on Single Grain, a growth marketing agency focused on scaling customer acquisition. Written by guest blogger Stephanie Mialki, a content writer for Instapage. Follow her on Twitter @Stephaniemialki. The…

This Week In Growth: 5 Marketing Bullets 11/25/2016

Hey everyone, happy Friday! I hope you had a great Thanksgiving! As you recover from your heavily tryptophaned state, take a look at my five favorite marketing articles from this week. Enjoy!…

9 Marketing Mistakes You Don’t Realize You’re Making (And How to Avoid Them)

This post by Bryan Johnston originally appeared on Single Grain, a growth marketing agency focused on scaling customer acquisition. Marketing is simple, right? Anyone can do it—you just get the word out to entice people…

Management

GB 110: Book Recommendation: Warren Buffett and the Interpretation of Financial Statements

Today I’ve got another book recommendation: Warren Buffett and the Interpretation of Financial Statements. Those of you with an accounting or MBA background can probably skip over this. [00:40] This is a…

GB Ep 79: Where to Learn More About Finance & Operations

Today I'm going to list out some online and offline resources you can go to learn more about finance and operations. A lot of focus goes to product, sales and customer service.…

GB Ep 69: When You Should be Using Virtual Assistants

Virtual assistants (VAs) are people you can hire to help you with basic, repetitive tasks. They're often located overseas with lower pay rates, but finding and training a good one can save…

A Step-by-Step Checklist for Effective Employee Onboarding

Imagine this, you just got hired at a new company that you were really excite to work for. They put you through a rigorous hiring process, you faced every challenge on and,…

Leadership

Why You Should Never React Emotionally to Your Employees

Ever been in a situation where you say exactly the wrong thing before you even realize what happened? When you just react before thinking? I know I still do this a lot,…

Inspiration

Why You Should Give Gifts to Your Clients and Prospects

I want to talk about the art of gifting and what it can do for your business. You should always give gifts to your clients, and we take it a step further and…

GB Ep 50: 5 Worthwhile Books for Entrepreneurs

Today I’m going to tell you about five worthwhile books for entrepreneurs to read. These are all books that have really helped shape my career thus far, so I want to share…

GB Ep 35: How to Rebound from Tough Times

Hello and welcome to another episode of Growth Bites. Today we’ll talk about what you can do when the going gets tough: when revenues are down, employees are quitting, your business is…

GB Ep 27: How to Structure a Mastermind Meeting

Today we’re going to talk about how to organize a mastermind meeting. In episode 21 I talked about the benefits of being in a mastermind group, but setting one up is a…

Infographic

The Numbers Behind Entrepreneurial Growth Worldwide [INFOGRAPHIC]

Despite the fact that the U.S. economy has been growing steadily since 2009 (as measured by gross domestic product adjusted for inflation), some studies suggest that 59% of entrepreneurs believe that it…

Ep32: What Every Entrepreneur Must Go Through To Achieve Greatness [Infographic]

Ben Horowitz, co-founder of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and former CEO of Opsware (sold to HP for $1.6b) recently wrote a book called The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building A…

Everyday Life Lessons From Billionaires

Billionaires have a fair amount of useful advice when it comes to building a solid lifestyle. Whether it's reading voraciously like Warren Buffet or learning to diversify like David Koch, you'll find…

Improvement

How to Prioritize with the Eisenhower Matrix

You’d be surprised at the number of people who don’t know how to prioritize. There have been people I’ve worked with, people who have been entrepreneurs for many years, who are always…

The Key to Overcoming Writer’s Block (And Creator’s Block)

Have you ever had one of those days when that blank piece of paper or screen in front of you was dauntingly staring you down but you were just unable to write? That’s a…

Why Strategy Days Are Key to Taking Your Business to the Next Level

The Single Grain schedule works like this: Monday through Wednesday, we’re in the office. Thursday through Friday, we’re at home. Being in the office together offers space for good collaboration, and time at…

What to Do When Your Business Growth Hits a Wall

Ever heard the phrase, “What got you here won’t get you there?” Even if you haven’t, you probably know what it feels like. Let’s say you’ve been experiencing a string of successes,…

Hiring

Trial Week: Putting Your Candidates to the Ultimate Test

If I had to guess, I'd say that your hiring process goes something like this: you throw a job posting on Craigslist, Monster, Indeed or LinkedIn and expect people to come through.…

Using the Hiring Funnel to Hire the Right People Every Time

Whenever we’re looking to expand our team, we make sure to follow the “Hiring Funnel” model, taking several steps to ensure that we’re finding a great fit for our company. The funnel…

How to Properly Onboard New Hires so They Can Hit the Ground Running

We have two new team members joining us at Single Grain this week, so we’re going to talk about how to properly onboard new team members. How Do You Onboard a New…

How to Automate Your Recruiting and Save a Ton of Money

The thing about recruiting is that it’s usually very manual and labor intensive, and the opportunity cost (as well as the actual cost) can be very high. But on the other hand,…

Happiness

GB Ep 19: The Benefits of Connecting Others

Welcome to another episode of Growth Bites. Today we are talking about the power of connecting people. The more you give away for free, the more you receive in return. Helping bring…

Ep32: What Every Entrepreneur Must Go Through To Achieve Greatness [Infographic]

Ben Horowitz, co-founder of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and former CEO of Opsware (sold to HP for $1.6b) recently wrote a book called The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building A…

Growth Bites

GB Ep 30: 6 Marketing Extensions for Google Chrome

Welcome to another episode of Growth Bites. Today we’ll talk about six marketing extensions for Google Chrome that I like to use - but if you don’t use Chrome, there’s a good chance…

GB Ep 28: Set Up the Right Criteria for Your Mastermind Group

Today we’ll talk about setting a criteria for a mastermind group. In episodes 21 & 27 we talked about the benefits of joining a mastermind group and how to structure it. Today,…

GB Ep 27: How to Structure a Mastermind Meeting

Today we’re going to talk about how to organize a mastermind meeting. In episode 21 I talked about the benefits of being in a mastermind group, but setting one up is a…

GB Ep 25: How to Impress Your Clients

Welcome to another edition of Growth Bites. Today we’re going to talk about how you can really impress your clients. I’m going to outline five different ways to do so while making…

Growth

Why You Need to Expand Your Existing Accounts

As a marketer, you’re always looking for ways to grow. Instead of starting from scratch, it’s often easier to look at the customers you already have and figure out how you can…

When Business Growth Stalls: Persevere or Give Up?

Almost six years ago, when I was at Treehouse, I saw growth stall out at a large scale for the first time. Treehouse had 50-60 people back then, but we only had…

Content Expansion: Why I’m Writing a Book

Every morning, I write or rewrite or edit 500 words. Right now we're past the first draft and we’re in the process of reaching out for endorsement deals for the book. I'm…

Figure Out What Works and Focus On It Until You’ve Mastered It

Let’s dive into the concept of focus. When I look back on my past accomplishments, whenever I've been able to do really well, it's because I've been really focused and consistent with…

Email Marketing

How to Get More Responses From Cold Emails

This post originally appeared on Single Grain, a growth marketing agency focused on scaling customer acquisition. Research shows that the average person gets 147 e-mails a day — and most of them are…

How to Start Tailoring Your Emails with Marketing Automation

Today, I’m going to give you a little refresher (or crash course) on marketing automation and tailoring your email messages to people who behave a certain way on your website. Tag Your Visitors…

Conversions

How Following Up Can Make You a Fortune

Motivational speaker John Maxwell is famous for saying "The fortune is in the follow-up." But what does that mean? Following Up Is Not Just Reminding People to Do Stuff If you are…

How to Micro-Retarget Your Leads

  Let’s talk about micro-retargeting. You already know about retargeting: when you visit a website, you're going to get ads that follow you around the 'net. What Is Retargeting? Let's say you visit…

Here’s Why Focusing Too Much on Conversions Can Actually Hurt Your ROI

This post originally appeared on Single Grain, a growth marketing agency focused on scaling customer acquisition. Creating a lucrative and scalable revenue model can be difficult, especially if you focus on the…

The Ultimate Guide to Conversion Rate Optimization

This post originally appeared on Single Grain, a growth marketing agency focused on scaling customer acquisition. As marketers, we’re always trying to get more leads for our businesses. But the problem is…

Content Marketing

Best Way to Ideate Blog Post Content

When I first started learning how to do internet marketing, keywords were all that mattered. Google Keyword Planner and a host of other keyword research tools, like SEMrush, helped marketers see which keywords…

How We Doubled Our Traffic by Using This One Tactic

Want to know what tactic we used to double traffic to Single Grain? We updated our content. Why You Should Always Update Your Content I’ve mentioned before how Wikipedia continually updates their content…

10 Content Marketing Tools that Can Help You Increase Engagement on Twitter

This post originally appeared on Single Grain, a growth marketing agency focused on scaling customer acquisition. Twitter is the perfect place for your business to connect with customers and potential customers. Most brands use…

How to Repurpose Content (And Write Your First Book!)

I want to talk about content repurposing. Right now I'm writing a book called Leveling Up. It's about how gamers can change the world by playing the ultimate game of business. It's basically…

Case Studies

6 Cold Email Case Studies with Great Reply Rates

This post originally appeared on Single Grain, a growth marketing agency focused on scaling customer acquisition. Be sure to check out our previous post in this series: Cold Emailing: Best Outbound Sales Automation…

How We Instantly Raised Average Order Value by 10%

This is a guest post by Edwin Choi, VP of Marketing at Mobovida, a customer-driven, vertically integrated mobile accessory brand delivering fashion forward products direct to consumer. Check out our recent podcast interview with Edwin.  At…

How To Drive ROI Using Gmail Sponsored Promotions (GSP)

This is a guest post by Stevie Duffin-Lutgen, Marketing Analyst at Mobovida, a customer-driven, vertically integrated mobile accessory brand delivering fashion forward products direct to consumer. Check out our recent podcast interview with Edwin Choi, VP…

The Turkish Rug Funnel (How A Rug Store Got Me To Shell Out A Few Thousand Dollars with ZERO Initial Interest)

I’m going to tell you a story about a beautiful rug that I purchased in Istanbul, Turkey a while back. Why? Because of the entire process that eventually led up to the purchase.…

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