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Top 11 Books Every Startup Founder Should Know

marketing insider group shares the top 11 founder books every startup business owner should know

You are what you read, and if you’re dreaming of building the next Fortune 500 company, it’s time to start brushing up on founder books.

Whether you’re looking for inspiration, motivation or the key to success, a little reading can open doors to the knowledge you need to make your dreams come true – and reduce your stress levels by 68%.

With so much self-starter content out there, it’s hard to know where to start or what’s worth your time. But you know what they say – readers are leaders!

That’s why we’re sharing our top 11 recommendations, written by and featuring some of the world’s most successful startup founders and entrepreneurs.

Quick Takeaways

  • Steve Blank and Bob Dorf’s The Startup Owner’s Manual offers as a step-by-step startup ownership guide, including charts, graphs and checklists
  • Jen Sincero’s You Are A Badass At Making Money features personal anecdotes and easy-to-learn business lessons to help you master a money mindset
  • Sydney Finkelstein’s Superbosses is one of the best founder books for learning how to motivate, inspire and encourage employees
  • Learn how to maneuver and conquer various stages of growth in Katherine Catlin and Jana B. Matthews’s Leading At The Speed Of Growth

Insight from the 11 best founder books for entrepreneurs will give you the tools you need to shape your startup into a success.

11 Founder Books You Should Know

You have to read more to learn more. As a startup business owner, you’re guaranteed to benefit from the valuable business insights featured in these 11 founder books.

1. The Startup Owner’s Manual

By Steve Blank and Bob Dorf

image of Steve Blank and Bob Dorf’s The Startup Owner’s Manual book cover

Image Source: Goodreads

In Steve Blank and Bob Dorf’s The Startup Owner’s Manual, you’ll find a step-by-step guide to customer-focused startup ownership. Here, you’ll learn how to identify your audience, develop growth strategies and retain loyal customers. Fully equipped with graphs, charts and checklists, you can add The Startup Owner’s Manual to your list of must-read founder books.

2. Who

By Geoff Smart and Randy Street

image of bookcover for Who by Geoff Smart and Randy Street

Image Source: Amazon UK

Who offers a different perspective to starting and managing small businesses. Instead of focusing on what you’re selling or the problem you’re solving, expert entrepreneurs, Geoff Smart and Randy Street, recommend you shift your focus to who you’ve hired.

As one of the best selling founder books, Who shares a 4-step method to hiring the right team members, the potential to save $1.5M by avoiding classic hiring mistakes and, and valuable insight from over 60 interviews with billionaires and world renowned thought leaders.

3. You Are A Badass At Making Money

By Jen Sincero

image of bookcover for Jen Sincero’s You Are A Badass At Making Money

Image Source: Amazon

The hustle and bustle of creating and managing a new business surely draws hungry entrepreneurs to the startup lifestyle, but the potential to earn a high salary isn’t so bad either. In Jen Sincero’s You Are A Badass At Making Money, you can enjoy an easy-to-read guide on how to master the mindset of wealth.

With her personal anecdotes and digestible business lessons, you can stop being a victim of circumstance and start building an environment designed to funnel in the dough.

4. Zero To One

By Peter Thiel and Blake Masters

image of bookcover for Peter Thiel and Blake Masters’s Zero To One

Image Source: Amazon

Co-founder of PayPal and first investor of Facebook, Peter Thiel, knows a thing or two about being a successful founder. In Zero to One, Thiel and Masters share how entrepreneurs can explore the uncharted territories of business innovation.

Zero to One shares that progress can be achieved in every industry or business, regardless of how advanced technology may be. In this book, Thiel and Masters emphasize the importance of leaders learning how to think for themselves.

5. Leading At The Speed Of Growth

By Katherine Catlin and Jana B. Matthews

image of book cover for one of the best founder books

Image Source: Booktopia

If you’ve ever started a business before, you know that its often accompanied by chaos and out-of-control growth. To help navigate periods of significant growth and prepare yourself for future phases, Katherine Catlin and Jana B. Matthews share how to combat the chaos in one of the best founder books, Leading At The Speed Of Growth.

Here, you’ll learn the do’s and don’ts throughout each stage of startup growth: initial growth, rapid growth and continuous growth – not to mention, stories and insight from more than 500 famous entrepreneurs to help inspire decisions that lead to success.

6. Radical Candor

By Kim Scott

image of book cover for Kim Scott’s Radical Candor

Image Source: Amazon

Do you dream of being the best boss ever? Have you considered hiring a CEO coach? Does your startup salary stop you from hiring the help you need? If you answered yes, you’re in luck! In Kim Scott’s Radical Candor, you can gain all the wisdom you need to share valuable feedback, perfect your listening skills and give your employees the praise they deserve.

As one of the most cost efficient ways to learn how to be a better boss, Radical Candor deserves a spot in your collection of must-read founder books.

7. The Hard Thing About Hard Things

By Ben Horowitz

image of book cover for Ben Horowitz’s The Hard Thing About Hard Things

Image Source: Amazon

As one of Silicon Valley’s most experienced and respected entrepreneurs, Ben Horowitz shares some of his own story to teach readers the ins-and-outs of being a founder. In this book, you’ll gain insight on Horowitz’s experience of the founding, selling, running, managing, investing and buying of technology companies.

In The Hard Thing About Hard Things, Horowitz offers his expert advice and wisdom for working through some of the toughest challenges a founder can endure. As an avid fan of rap and hip-hop, Horowitz includes lyrics from some of his favorite songs to keep each business lesson both relatable and engaging.

8. Founders At Work

By Jessica Livingston

image of book cover for Jessica Livingston’s Founders At Work

Image Source: Amazon

Founders At Work is a compilation of stories and interviews from famous tech companies, like Craigslist and Gmail, that discuss the startup’s early days. In this book, Jessica Livingston recounts details of how these world-renowned founders built their companies, shared their ideas, won over investors and solved some of the industry’s most problematic challenges.

9. The Lean Startup

By Eric Ries

image of book cover for Eric Ries’s The Lean Startup

Image Source: Target

In Eric Ries’s The Lean Startup, he offers readers a new approach to building companies and launching products. Ries defines startup businesses as organizations committed to creating something new despite conditions of extreme uncertainty. His point of view sheds a new perspective for entrepreneurs, whether they’re seasoned professionals or first-time founders.

10. Never Too Late To Startup

By Rob Kornblum

image of book cover for Rob Kornblum’s Never Too Late To Startup

Image Source: Amazon

Contrary to popular belief, you don’t need to be young to turn your latest idea into a multi-billion dollar business. In Rob Kornblum’s Never Too Late To Startup, you’ll get the inside scoop from interviews with mid-life startup founders, and learn how other entrepreneurs turned their dreams into reality, despite their already established careers and responsibilites.

Never Too Late To Startup also serves as one of the best startup books because of its set of resources. In this founder book, you’ll find practical tools for creating a realistic timeline, business plan and fundraising pitch.

11. Superbosses

By Sydney Finkelstein

image of book cover for Sydney Finkelstein’s Superbosses

Image Source: Penguin Random House

There’s no doubt that the best startup founders need to know a thing or two about business operations, but they also need to be great leaders. While there’s countless ways for entrepreneurs to perfect their leadership skills, Sydney Finkelstein’s Superbosses is one of the best founder books to get you started.

In this book, Finkelstein shares tips on motivating, inspiring and encouraging employees to be their own leaders and create success within their own lives – and the benefits of doing so. Chock-full of research, interviews and personal experience, Superbosses is guaranteed to shape your skills into those of a notable leader.

Mean People Suck

Bonus: Our 12th pick, Mean People Suck by our founder Michael Brenner is actually a top selling book in the business psychology category on Amazon!

Having sold over ten thousand copies since it’s release in 2019, this book has inspired countless startup leaders and business professionals who don’t buy into the hype that being a manager of people means acting like a jerk.

The book includes practical tips any startup founder can use on how to grow your business with good people. And hey, it works for us!

Don’t Let Your Growth Stop At Founder Books!

When it comes to building your business, curating your own collection of founder books is one of the best ways to get started. But to really turn your startup into a success, you’ll need the guidance of business experts with first-hand experience.

At Marketing Insider Group, we have the tools and expertise you need to shape your business efforts into money-making marketing tactics. Put your knowledge from founder books to the test today by checking out our weekly blog content service, or schedule a free consultation now to learn more!

The post Top 11 Books Every Startup Founder Should Know appeared first on Marketing Insider Group.

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6 Reasons Why Your Pop-Ups Aren’t Converting (and How to Fix Them)

computer with a bunch of pop-up errors

Are pop-ups still worth your while? While they may seem outdated and annoying, they have the potential to deliver a 150% ROI!

The key is to avoid making mistakes that give Google cause to penalize your site and visitors reason to leave it. Take inventory of your current pop-up ads. If you aren’t seeing CTR of at least 10%, you’re below average.

Read on for 6 mistakes to avoid at all costs to help boost your pop-up ad success rate.

Key Takeaways: 

  • Pop-up ads aren’t dead. But they are specific! A well-done pop-up ad will deliver a conversion rate of up to 42%.
  • Keep it simple and worthwhile with to-the-point copy and irresistible offers. 
  • Visuals are everything, within the pop-up itself and its placement. 
  • Always test what works best for your audience and optimize your pop-ups frequently. 

Is Creating a Pop-Up Even Worth Your While?

First things first, what is the purpose behind creating pop-up ads? You won’t see success in pop-up conversions without understanding what you should be looking for!

Your pop-up should be a powerful, obvious and easily actionable CTA. But, as all facets of marketing, they have to be executed in a certain way to be effective.

The nature of a pop-up is interruptive, it’s even in the name! But Google has been penalizing ads deemed “intrusive” since 2017. Even though this sounds contradictory. It doesn’t have to be. One great example is exit pop-ups. They only appear when a user is about to leave your page, so they don’t ruin their experience on your website.

When done correctly and tastefully (aka not ruining your user’s experience) pop-ups can convert at a surprisingly high rate. The average conversion rate for pop-ups is 11.09%, which is already a pretty impressive number! Optimized pop-ups stand to convert as high as 42% of website visitors in some cases.

So how do you make your pop-ups some of the more successful ones? Here are some things you have to avoid like the plague when it comes to creating a pop-up ad.

6 Mistake to Avoid

1. Weak Offer

The biggest issue that ultimately impacts the success of a pop-up has to do with the offer you are presenting. Put plainly, if your offer is weak, your audience is not going to convert.

But what does a weak offer look like exactly? Here are some questions to ask that can help you decide if your offer is too weak:

  • Do you think your offer is worth what you’re asking for? Consumers are naturally wary of providing their personal information to companies and brands. Is the offer you’re presenting worth it? If all you’re promising is email updates and announcements in exchange for an opt-in, the answer is probably no. Your website visitors need to feel like they are getting access to something special that no one else will have access to unless they subscribe.
  • What are your competitors offering on their pop-ups? Have you visited the websites of your competitors recently? What kind of offers are they presenting to website visitors? How do those offers compare to yours? The answers to these questions will help you build more compelling pop-up offers for your potential customers.
  • Is your offer specific and relevant enough? Will your offer be compelling to your audience specifically? Will they feel within a few seconds of seeing your pop-up that they have to opt-in? If so, you likely have a pop-up that will convert. To make your offer specific and relevant, you have to use the right images and language. More on that later.
  • Would you offer your information in the pop-up? Put yourself in the shoes of your visitors—if you were presented with the pop-up you created, would you engage with it? If not, it might be worth revisiting.
  • Does your offer remain static over time? Are you testing multiple offers over time? Launching a/b tests on your pop-ups is one of the best ways to boost conversions and understand how to optimize the language and other components you use to try to connect with prospects on your website as a whole.

How to Fix:

To create stronger offers, try implementing the following 3 tips:

  • Tip #1: Ask your customers. In order to determine which offers would be most compelling to your website visitors, take some time to ask some of your best and most loyal customers. Send them 1-on-1 emails or get on the phone with them to discuss three options. Offer them a discount or a perk for providing you with insight.
  • Tip #2: Be specific. Make sure your language and imagery aligns well with the audience you’re trying to attract. Be specific and help your website visitors understand why they specifically should engage with the CTA you include in your pop-up.
  • Tip #3: Test often. Don’t let your pop-ups sit for too long. Always be testing different language, graphics, button color, size, placement, and offers.

And if you need some inspiration, check out the highest converting types of pop-ups:

Image Source: OptiMonk

2. Too Much Copy

Your conversions and engagement could also be low because of the amount of information you’re trying to squeeze into your pop-up. Too much information in your pop-up could be overwhelming people, especially if they are visiting your store for the first time. When you try to include too much copy in your pop-up, it can make it look too busy, too “loud”, or too forceful.

How to Fix:

To improve your pop-up copy, consider implementing the following tips:

  • Tip #1: Trim the fat. First things first, read through your pop-up copy and determine if there are any extra words that aren’t needed. Your goal is to help your store visitors understand your offer within just a few seconds. You might think that using clever or illustrative language in your pop-up will convince people to take action, but it’s actually more likely to distract. Use as little language as possible in order to attract, inform, and motivate. Let your brand voice and style shine on your product pages instead.
  • Tip #2: Get user feedback. Before ditching your pop-up strategy altogether, it’s worth getting some feedback from other people in order to determine what’s working and what’s not. Recruit your friends, family members, or colleagues in the industry and ask them to take a look at your pop-up. Give them specific questions to answer when they go to review it (ex. Do you understand the offer being presented? Is it an attractive offer? Do you understand what you’re supposed to do next? Would you actually follow-through on the action?) The answers to these questions will ultimately help you optimize your pop-up for future website visitors.
  • Tip #3: Explore better writing. If your pop-up isn’t driving people to convert in the way you expected, it might just be because your writing isn’t compelling enough. To learn how to write conversion-driven copy, explore this helpful resource.
  • Tip #4: Find other examples. If you’re not sure what your pop-up should look like or what language you should be using to motivate your website visitors, look for examples on other ecommerce websites. Most are using pop-ups in some way or another (to build their email list, to announce a new product, to share an exclusive offer, etc). If you’re looking for a place to start, spend time looking through the 40 website pop-up examples featured in this article from Printful.

3. Poor Visuals

In the ecommerce, visuals are everything. As I’ve written about before many times, you can’t drive online consumers to buy without effective visuals placed throughout your ecommerce store. Why? Because consumers are used to buying products in brick-and-mortar stores—stores that they can physically visit to see and touch the products they’re thinking about buying. In ecommerce, you can’t offer that same shopping experience, unless you’re one of the few brands that let’s customers try before they buy (the shopping experience made famous by Warby Parker).

Visuals help you bridge the gap. Well-placed, well-produced visuals can help build a brand identity, differentiate from competitors, attract your ideal customer, and sell more products. On the flip side, poor visuals can wreak havoc on your ability to get your visitors to convert.

Visuals can make or break your pop-up. A great visual can create excitement, urgency, and action. A bad visual can breed hesitation, uncertainty, and a lack of trust.

How to Fix:

To ensure that you’re using the best and most effective visuals possible in your pop-ups, follow these tips:

  • Tip #1: Understand how to take great product photos. The best thing you can do is spend time understanding how to excel at product photography.
  • Tip #2: Use photos of people using your products. Don’t just feature your product—feature people happily using your products. It’s a great way to quickly connect with visitors who are landing on your website and seeing your products for the very first time.
  • Tip #3: Keep it simple. Don’t use complex images or backgrounds in your pop-up. Focus on the product and the type of person who would benefit from using it.
  • Tip #4: Avoid using low-res photos. Avoid using low-quality or blurry photos. If you need to, hire a graphic designer or developer who can help you export and upload photos correctly.

4. Bad Placement or Timing

In order to get any sort of ROI from showing pop-ups to your ecommerce store visitors, you need to make sure that they are being displayed in the right places and at the right time. A poorly placed or poorly timed pop-up can leave the wrong first impression, prevent would-be customers from moving forward with the purchases they intended to make, or worst of all, drive visitors away from your website and store altogether.

There are a few ways you can format your pop-ups. You have to take inventory of your audience and decide which version will work best for them. Take into account the kind of content your pop-up will appear on. If it’s your homepage, a welcome mat pop-up might work best. A pop-up on your blog page should be less distracting, since your visitor came to your page to read your content, not an ad.

image of different types of pop-ups, welcome mats, banners, overlays and slide in

Image Source: HubSpot

How to Fix:

To ensure that you’re displaying pop-ups at the right time and place, follow these tips:

  • Tip #1: Delay homepage welcome pop-ups by at least 5-7 seconds. Give visitors a chance to see and familiarize themselves with your homepage for a few seconds before bombarding them with an offer.
  • Tip #2: Don’t show pop-ups too often. Use pop-up software that allows you to customize how often the same person sees your pop-ups. For example, don’t show them the same pop-up to a person each time they navigate back to your homepage during the same visit. Prevent a pop-up from displaying again to the same website visitor until a certain amount of days has passed.
  • Tip #3: Don’t show pop-ups on shopping cart or checkout pages. Reduce friction by preventing your pop-ups from showing up on pages that take customers through the buying journey. Make it as easy as possible for them to complete the process.
  • Tip #4: Don’t show pop-ups on mobile. Avoid complicating your mobile shopping experience with pop-ups. Pop-ups that cover too much website content on mobile devices can result in penalizations from Google.

5. Too Salesy

To win in ecommerce today, you can’t sell products. You have to sell experiences. Online consumers don’t want to be sold to—they want to interact with brands that will help them create experiences and memories. They want to engage with companies that can help them achieve their goals (travel more, eat better, exercise more, become more productive, etc).

If your pop-ups haven’t been converting, it might be because they are coming across as just a little bit too salesy. Because the nature of a pop-up is already inherently forceful to most people, it’s your job as an ecommerce marketer to present them with messaging that doesn’t come across as aggressive or forceful.

How to Fix:

To ensure that your pop-ups aren’t overly salesy or pushy, follow these tips:

  • Tip #1: Know your audience. Understand how your audience prefers to be communicated with. Use the language that they are used to seeing and hearing when building your pop-up and writing your copy.
  • Tip #2: Don’t use gimmicky language. Just because you see a phrase somewhere else, doesn’t mean it’s actually working. Avoid using cheesy sales language and conversion-driven words that make eyes roll.
  • Tip #3: Present a legitimate offer. This goes back to the beginning of this article—if you’re going to present a pop-up to your website visitors, you better be making a good offer. If not, you’re only going to make your visitors feel like you’re only interested in figuring out how to get their money as fast as possible. Remember: your goal is to build relationships and sell  the idea of an experience to the people who land on your website.
  • Tip #4: Make it easy to opt-out. Don’t make opting out of your pop-up a mystery for people. Make it easy for your visitors to understand how to collapse or dismiss a pop-up if they don’t want to interact with it.

6. Not Optimized Through Testing

If your pop-ups aren’t converting and you’re not taking the time to launch different variations for your website visitors to see and engage with, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity to learn about your audience and what actually compels them to take action.

How to Fix:

This one is plain and simple: use pop-up software that allows you to launch A/B tests of your pop-ups, and then actually take the time to build and launch your tests! Review results, gather insights, and make changes accordingly to drive more conversions.

Over to You

How do your pop-ups perform when compared to these mistakes? It’s never too late to make a change! The key is to always be testing different versions of your pop-ups until you find the one that works best for your audience.

If you’re thinking of starting a blog for your website and aren’t sure where to start, schedule a free consultation with us now! Check out our SEO Blog Writing Services for more information. 

The post 6 Reasons Why Your Pop-Ups Aren’t Converting (and How to Fix Them) appeared first on Marketing Insider Group.

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The Most Effective Guide to Keyword Research

guide to keyword research

It’s no secret that SEO is the key to Google rankings success. But what’s the key to a strong SEO strategy? Keyword research!

Keyword research is the foundation for your overall content strategy. It determines your topics and themes, your article titles, and ultimately the search rankings you’ll earn.

Here’s the problem: many people — even professional marketers— see keyword research as a simple process that lists focus words and phrases and dumps them as much as possible into blog articles.

But that’s not enough. In fact, lazy keyword stuffing will have a negative impact on your results.

Keyword research — when executed the right way — is a multi-step process that requires time, research, and a strategy behind it. But the ROI you’ll earn from doing it is well worth it.

In the sections that follow, I’ll walk you through the proven keyword research process we use at Marketing Insider Group, including tips and templates you can use to get started.

Quick Takeaways

  • Good keyword research is rooted in buyer intent.
  • Creating a brief document helps you clarify your preferences, target audiences, and keyword research goals.
  • It’s important to start keyword research by knowing your existing keyword rankings and researching those of your competitors.
  • Headlines are what people use to decide whether or not to click through to your content from search engine results pages (SERPs).
  • Follow best practices for blog article writing to maximize ROI on your keyword research.
  • Tracking your monthly SEO progress enables you to capitalize on opportunities and solve problems more quickly.

What is keyword research and why is it important?

Good keyword research is always rooted in buyer intent.

What does that mean? In short, your keywords need to center around what your potential customers search for when they need your solution — not what you assume is most important as a business owner or marketer.

It also needs to align with the specific stage they’re at on the buyer journey. For example: are they ready to buy right now or are they performing their first exploratory search? The keywords and content you target to these two buyer groups should differ.

The phases of the buyer journey: awareness, consideration, intent, purchase, loyalty and advocacy.

Image Source: Edwards Media Solutions

With that in mind, here’s how I define keyword research:

Keyword research is the process of identifying the words and phrases your target customers search for at each stage of the buyer journey as they seek solutions to their problems.

Key phrase there: solutions to their problems. Buyers are generally looking to solve problems — and they aren’t attached to a single solution for getting it done. Instead, they look for the brand that can best address their pain points and needs.

People most commonly read blogs to learn something new, be entertained or read about the latest news in their industry. To put it simply, people only care about reading something that applies to them.

reasons people read blogs

Image Source: HubSpot

When you perform accurate, thorough keyword research to serve as the foundation for great content, you can show customers that you understand them and demonstrate why they should choose your brand over your competitors.

How to perform keyword research that works

At Marketing Insider Group, we follow a proven 5-step process for keyword research. It starts with documenting important information about your brand’s content goals and it continues well after you start publishing by tracking monthly progress.

Let’s walk through each of the 5 steps in detail.

Create a brief

Every MIG client fills out a client brief (see part of it pictured below) that gives us a clear idea of their preferred writing style, brand voice and tone, content goals, and more. We think it’s so important that we even completed a client brief for ourselves. We update it frequently to reflect new goals and keep it fresh.

A portion of Marketing Insider Group’s client briefing document.

Image Source: Marketing Insider Group

The first step of your keyword research process — whether you’re working with an agency or doing it yourself — should be to create your brand’s brief. Believe me, this is a helpful exercise no matter how well you already know your own brand.

Here’s what to cover in your brief:

  • Writing preferences – Word count, tone, and other specifics your writers should know
  • Target audiences – Who are you writing for? Use your buyer personas to help with this.
  • Competitors – What brands do you compete with for customers and space on SERPs?
  • Content themes and pillars – Areas of focus for your keywords and topics
  • Examples – Specifics about keywords you wish you ranked for, articles you love, and publishers you read are helpful references for writers.

Once you have your brief completed, take time to reflect on it and consider how it can inform not only your keyword research but your entire content strategy.

Develop focus keywords

The second step in your keyword research process is to actually find your focus keywords. I always recommend starting this step with research on your existing keyword rankings and those of your competitors.

Find your existing keyword rankings

If you aren’t already using Google Search Console, this is a good reason to start. It’s a free service that gives you tons of insight on keyword analytics. For this step, go to Google Search Console > Search Traffic > Search Analytics to see which keywords are already earning some results for your site and establish a good starting point for keyword research.

Conduct a competitive keyword gap analysis

Next, you want to find out what your competitors rank for. Even more specifically, you want to know what they rank for that you don’t. One of your content goals should be to fill that gap.

It’s important to note here that your direct competitors may not be the same as your search competitors. You can conduct a Google “related search” to be sure your competitor list is exhaustive. It’s simple: just search for related:yourwebsite.com.

Once you’ve got your complete competitor list, use a content gap or competitor analysis tool to enter their domain and find their ranking keywords. There are lots of tools you can use to do this. I like SEMRush’s Traffic Analytics tool. It requires a paid subscription but you can try it for free.

Round out your list with a keyword generator tool

Finally, you can use SEMRush’s Keyword Magic Tool to enter general keywords you want to rank for and drill down to find related and long tail keywords, understand volume and difficulty, and filter in other ways to find the right keyword list for your business.

Here’s an overview of how the Keyword Magic Tool works:

Develop creative, engaging headlines

Why do headlines matter?

Headlines are the most make-or-break element of your blog posts. They’re what shows up on Google SERP pages, and they’re what people use to decide whether to read your content. In fact, 80% of online users never make it past your headline at all. Writing headlines that grab a user’s attention and compel them to click is crucial to driving traffic to your website.

headline importance

Image Source: Niel Patel

And great headlines? They’re rooted in your keyword research.

To recap: you’ve already written your brief, researched your audience and competitors, and developed your keyword list.

Next, you want to build out a list of 20-30 content themes and topics from your broad and related keyword list. Then it’s time to create your headlines. For MIG clients, we develop about 100 headlines at a time (enough to publish 2x per week for one year).

100 headlines?! You might be thinking that sounds daunting. Actually, it is time consuming and it takes practice. But building out your headline list now has a bunch of benefits you will enjoy later.

A pre-developed list of headlines allows you to:

  • Take a holistic view of your content list
  • Be intentional about title order and topic coverage
  • Stay on track with your publishing schedule
  • Assign articles out to writers easily and ahead of time

I recommend putting all of your 100 titles into a content calendar (at MIG we use a simple Google sheet template) where you track your headlines, keywords, and due dates. You can also centralize links to drafts and published articles all in one place.

Below is what the content calendar template we use for our clients looks like. Headlines go in the “Topic/Title” column:

Marketing Insider Group’s content calendar template.

Image Source: Marketing Insider Group

Writing headlines that stand out

One important question remains: how do you actually write great headlines?

There’s no one right answer, but research has found some trustworthy tips you can incorporate to make your headlines stand out:

  • Keep your headlines to 55 characters or less. This ensures your entire title appears on SERPs.
  • Use numbers (i.e. “10 Tips for Better X” vs. just “Tips for Better X”).
  • Use question words (What, why, how, who, where) to align with search queries.
  • Include compelling adjectives
  • Show value by telling your audience what they’ll get from reading your article.

Write well-crafted articles

Keyword research can’t accomplish rankings on its own. You need to use your keyword research results to write well-crafted, SEO-optimized articles that both deliver value to the user and catch the attention of search engine crawlers.

You can deep-dive into writing great blog posts in our 20-Step Checklist to Write the Perfect Blog Post. But I’ll share the most important highlights here. They are:

Readability

When people read a blog, they want to feel like they’re reading a blog — not a research paper. Keep your tone conversational, don’t use unnecessary jargon, and skip the fluff in your writing. In other words, get to the point!

And while this should go without saying, I’ll say it: check your grammar. Even just one mistake can turn readers off to your brand!

SEO is key

Follow the basic best practices for SEO, including keyword usage, metadata, link building, text length, use of visual supporting content, and strong calls to action.

Length

Blogs perform best when they’re between 1000-2000 words in length. Be sure your writers always aim for this range when writing your blog articles.

Use your brand voice

Always inject your brand’s voice into your blog posts. Readers want to get to know your brand, and having a personality in your writing makes your content more engaging and enjoyable to read. Include opinions, too — after all, you are establishing expertise in your industry! Don’t shy away from providing commentary on current events relevant to your audience or giving a sure opinion on an important topic.

Track your progress monthly

Last but definitely not least: track your progress. Your keyword strategy does not end with initial keyword research. When you track your progress (we do it monthly for ourselves and our clients), you can continually optimize your strategy by capitalizing on what’s working and solving problems quickly when they arise.

KPIs you definitely want to track:

  • Keyword rankings (specifically, rank changes over time)
  • Search visibility – how often your domain shows on SERPs for keywords you rank for
  • Organic traffic – how many visitors you’re getting from search results
  • Top keywords – keywords you’re ranking highest for

Over to You

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The post The Most Effective Guide to Keyword Research appeared first on Marketing Insider Group.

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The Key To Writing A Must-Read

The Key To Writing A Must-Read written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with AJ Harper

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview AJ Harper. AJ is an editor and publishing strategist who helps authors write foundational books that enable them to build readership, grow their brand and make a significant impact on the world. As ghostwriter and as developmental editor, she has worked with newbies to New York Times bestselling authors with millions of books sold. AJ is writing partner to business author, Mike Michalowicz. Together they’ve written nine books, including Profit First, The Pumpkin Plan, Fix This Next, and their latest, Get Different. She has her own book now called — Write a Must-Read: Craft a Book That Changes Lives—Including Your Own.

Key Takeaway:

How do you write a book that readers rave about? The answer to that question follows a simple, yet powerful philosophy: Reader First. When you learn how to put your reader first at every stage of book development, writing, and editing, you can create the connection and trust required to transform their lives. In this episode, AJ Harper shares her proven methods and frameworks she has used for nearly two decades to write and edit perennial bestsellers. It’s not the easy way or the fast way; it’s the effective way. The payoff for doing this important work: a must-read book, and a massive readership who serve as ambassadors for your message and your brand.

Questions I ask AJ Harper:

  • [2:04] Why is the idea that a book is like a business card and everyone needs one a silly concept?
  • [3:58] Is there a system to writing a good book?
  • [6:32] Can you unpack the concept of transformational reader sequence from your book?
  • [7:44] How do you get someone to trust you in the book that you’re writing?
  • [11:01] What role do credentials play when you don’t really have them?
  • [13:00] What makes a book transformational?
  • [14:00] How do you apply the idea of “Shitty first drafts”?
  • [16:35] Are you a fan of self-publishing or traditional publishing?
  • [18:11] What’s the route in self-publishing?
  • [19:33] The editing process for connection is probably the hardest part — how do you do that as an editor?
  • [21:23] I find that I don’t have the crispest grammar as an editor may want, so where’s the fine line with that kind of stuff while trying to remain authentic?
  • [23:18] Could you share with people how they can work with you and the course that you mentioned?

More About AJ Harper:

  • Her book — Write a Must-Read: Craft a Book That Changes Lives—Including Your Own
  • Top 3 Book Workshop
  • Her self-directed course: Test Drive Your Content — Use code DUCTTAPE to get 50% off your course

Take The Marketing Assessment:

  • Marketingassessment.co

Like this show? Click on over and give us a review on iTunes, please!



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John Jantsch (00:00): This episode of the duct tape marketing podcast is brought to you by the MarTech podcast, hosted by Ben Shapiro and brought to you by the HubSpot podcast network with episodes you can listen to in under 30 minutes, the MarTech podcast shares stories from world class marketers who use technology to generate growth and achieve business and career success all on your lunch break. And if you dig around, you might just find a show by yours. Truly. Ben’s a great host. Actually, I would tell you, check out a recent show on blending humans, AI and automation. Download the MarTech podcast wherever you get your podcast.

John Jantsch (00:51): Hello, welcome to another episode of the duct tape marketing podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is a J Harper. She’s an editor and publishing strategist who helps authors write foundational books that enable them to build readership, grow their brand and make a significant impact on the world. As a ghost writer in a developmental that’s easier said than read editor. She has worked with newbies to New York times bestselling authors with millions of books sold. AJ is a writing partner to my good friend business author. Mike MCOW ITZ together. They’ve written nine books, including many that we’ve talked about on this show. Profit first pumpkin plan, fix this next and the latest get different. She’s got her own book now called write a must read craft a book that changes lives including your own. So AJ, welcome to the show.

AJ Harper (01:42): Thank you so much for having me.

John Jantsch (01:45): So you must be a bit of a Saint to spend that much time with Mike MCZ that’s all I’m gonna say.

AJ Harper (01:51): He is like a brother to me, maybe the brother who plays pranks on you a little bit,

John Jantsch (01:56): But yeah. Yeah. One of these days off air, I’ll tell you the prank he played on me. It’s not quite ready for prime time on the show. One of the things that when we get into talking about books, you know, it seems like the last decade or so the common wisdom is every business person needs a book. It’s like an expanded business card. And I was so happy to hear you debunk that. I’d let you kind of riff on why that idea is kind of silly.

AJ Harper (02:20): Well, I mean, number one, what do we do with business cards? We toss them out. I mean, I think there’s a, the rare person who saves them, collates them response to them in the system. Right. But even our best intentions, you know, at events we lose them. We forget them. I think that the danger in saying better business card is that it immediately lowers the standards yeah. For the book. And then it’s just from there, it’s just a long stream of cutting corners that only ends in disappointment. And I define disappointment as no one’s reading it. No, one’s talking about it. Very few people are buying it.

John Jantsch (02:55): Yeah. It’s a really crappy business card. Right. You know, I think, I can’t remember who responded to this. I was asking somebody else who helps people publish books? I said, you know, what’s the number one thing, you know, or number one reason, you know, to write a book and he said, you know, kind of flippantly, but kind of serious, you know, have something to say and I think that’s probably the place to start, isn’t it?

AJ Harper (03:16): Yeah. And I, you know, the type of books I help people write are prescriptive nonfiction or personal and professional development. So I would add a piece to that, which is have someone you wanna help.

John Jantsch (03:27): Yeah. Right, right, right. Yeah. Solve, solving a problem. right.

AJ Harper (03:31): Yeah. And also caring about their reader experience. I think that’s the differentiator. We tend to focus solely on the things we wanna say, and we need to focus on the experience. We wanna give readers.

John Jantsch (03:44): Now I know a lot of people out there think, okay, I just need to sit down, lock my way, self away for, you know, a month or a week or a long weekend or something and just start writing. But you have a very systematic approach to writing a book. And I obviously we can unpack it, but let’s start there. I mean, is there a system to writing a good book

AJ Harper (04:02): There is, and it’s not, you know, it’s a system I developed as a ghost writer out of necessity because I started with no system. So I had to figure it out and piece it together over time. But yeah, the main challenge with sitting down and just writing whatever comes to mind is you’re, you know, you’re gonna end up losing most of that. You don’t have the clarity. Yeah. Anytime that someone came to me with a manuscript to review as an editor, or maybe to revamp as a ghost writer, it was usually because they didn’t have a clear idea of three things, right. Which is exactly who their reader is in terms of hearts and minds and a transformational core message and a promise they could deliver. They couldn’t really articulate it. So you have to get that clarity first, before you start writing.

John Jantsch (04:54): And you know, it’s funny, I’ve been saying this for years and I was gonna, you know, when you talk about the ideal reader and core message and promise to solve a problem, I mean, that’s exactly what we do in marketing. yeah. I mean, that’s what we should do. And I think that’s, the parallels are really there. Aren’t they? I mean, in a lot of ways, we’re trying to gain a customer that customer may be a reader, but we wanna retain that customer, get ’em through the book, you know, we want, and I love the word that you use over and over again. We wanna make a transformation in their lives and books certainly can do that. I fortunately, I’ve written a couple books that people tell me frequently that this changed their life. This changed their marketing. And I think that, you know, it was pure luck probably on my part, but I think that really is, should be the goal, you know, rather than, oh, I wanna build my business by having a book,

AJ Harper (05:36): But see, I don’t think it was luck because you just talked about how these are the things that you know, how to do in marketing anyways. So you applied those same principles. Right? So that doesn’t sound like luck to me, it sounds like craft. And I think part of the problem is I know part of the problem is that we identify a reader, but then we don’t think about the reader again. It’s like, okay, that’s step one. And writing a book, here’s my reader. Right. And then past ideation, we’re not really thinking about them anymore. Now we’re just writing the book that solves their problem, which is great. I’m not saying that’s bad. I’m just saying that we need to keep the reader on the page. Yeah. So the reason people are telling you, your books changed my life is because they actually read them and they applied the things you asked them to apply, but you can’t get people to do that. If you don’t write a book that connects with them, respects their experience and delivers on the promise,

John Jantsch (06:31): You, you have something in this book that I really love. And it’s early on in the book that you call the transformation, transformational reader sequence, I think is the full thing. I’m gonna mess that up, but you know what I’m getting at. Yeah. And I think that’s, that’s like the customer journey, you know, it’s that we do in marketing. And I really love seeing that because I think people need to think that through don’t they, so maybe take a minute or two and unpack that idea.

AJ Harper (06:55): Sure. Well, I mean the first part’s easy people buy your book because you have a problem they can solve and they will read your book because they see themselves on the page. They’ll move, you’ll move through the process as they begin to trust you. And eventually you’re getting into where they believe in, you believe in them. And so that’s why they’re actually gonna do the things that you ask them to do. And finally they believe in you and that’s when they tell everybody about it. So it’s, you have to help them, you know? Yes, you have, they have to relate to the problem you’re solving, but they need to see themselves on the first page mm-hmm and all the way through. And then they need to begin to trust you and feel that you think that they can do it. That’s a key element in Mike Macow its’ books, by the way. Yeah. And it’s all intentional.

John Jantsch (07:44): So to me, I think the hardest part, I think people can write a good book that has a lot of action steps and you know, a lot of really useful things to do. I think the hardest part that you just described there is that trust element that, that actually gets somebody to say, okay, I’m gonna do that. I don’t know if it’ll work or not for me, but I trust you. So I’m gonna try it. Mm-hmm I, to me, that’s always the hardest part. So how do you build that in?

AJ Harper (08:09): Well, you get the first part right. First, which is helping them feel seen. So no, one’s gonna trust you if they think you don’t get me, you don’t understand me. You don’t know my life. Yeah. And so that’s number one, but then it’s also being transparent, I think is one of the keys I see with my students and my clients. So often they’re afraid to show how they make the sauce. Yeah. And they’re afraid to show when they don’t know something mm-hmm or when they aren’t sure about something. Yeah. And so if they’re just honest with the reader, I also wonder if this is gonna work or I tried this five times, maybe you will have a different experience. I’m not the expert. I’m just a person who try, you know, just being open about the reality rather than trying to be more than they are. I think it’s just cuz they’re afraid of how their book will be received at the core is of every afraid author is just a feeling who’s gonna read this thing.

John Jantsch (09:08): Yeah, no, go ahead. I’m sorry.

AJ Harper (09:10): Tip. I would give about building trust is, you know, do need social proof mm-hmm so you can get that through stories, anecdotes. You can also bring in statistics if you need to. But I do think storytelling builds trust. Yeah. Especially when it’s carefully constructed to show that what you’re saying is true or that your promise can is possible, et cetera.

John Jantsch (09:32): So obviously this comes off more so in, in Mike’s audio books probably than on the written page, but he has a level of sort of self deprecating humor that I think is his one of his tools for building trust. Isn’t it?

AJ Harper (09:45): Yeah. That’s all intentional by the

John Jantsch (09:47): Way. Yeah. No, absolutely. I mean, it’s partly who he is too, but, but obviously he’s taken advantage of it.

AJ Harper (09:52): None of nothing about him is disingenuine and he’s no, absolutely 100% who he is on the page off the page. But it is the reason that we do share stories where he shows, where he screwed up, where he was a goofball where he wasn’t sure of himself is that it endears him to his audience and then they feel okay he’s it’s not just, he sees me, but he’s all, I’m one. He’s one of us.

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John Jantsch (11:01): So let’s talk a little bit about credentials. You know, a lot of things, you know, you hear people talk about, you know, I, I feel like I’m a, you know, a fake, I don’t, you know, I’ve got this idea. I’ve helped a couple people, but like, can I really write a book about it? I mean, what obviously great credentials can aid, you know, somebody’s wanting to pick up the book, support the book, but what role does credentials play when you don’t really have them?

AJ Harper (11:26): That is a great question. And I think it depends on your topic and your genre. If you are trying to write a book, that’s gonna appeal to, if you’re say writing for C-suite or you’re writing an academic you book, you have to have credentials. Yeah. And you may need a co-writer in that case, you could get somebody who has the credentials, but if you’re not, then you know, it’s as simple as number one, make sure your content works. So, you know, it’s not enough to say everybody has a story and everybody can write a book. Right, right, right. No, you need to make yes. And let’s actually see if this content lands and works for people other than you. And I think there’s simple ways to do test drives little boot camps, workshops speaking. Yeah. All sorts of things to see, I think this works, but can other people do it? And then the second piece would be just like I said earlier, being transparent and honest. So I’m not 15 steps ahead of you. I’m two steps. Yeah. But this is the view I can show you from here. And then you’re being honest. Yeah. And they know that they can take that with a grain of salt.

John Jantsch (12:33): Yeah. And that idea of doing things ahead of the writing. I think a lot of people, mistake I see people make is they write the book and then they come to me and say, how can I market this? And I’m like, well, you should have been doing that two years ago. And that idea of building community, doing workshops, doing free clinics, whatever it is, mm-hmm to where you’re getting that feedback. You’re testing stuff out. You’re seeing what works, but you’ve also, you’re also building a little bit of hunger for this product when it, when it comes out. Here’s the big question. What makes a book transformational?

AJ Harper (13:03): Well, really, it’s just as simple as delivering on the promise. That’s your chief goal as an author. So decide first you have to decide can, what is the promise that will speak to my reader? Yeah. That they want, then can I deliver on it within the pages of the book? Not someday. So this is where a lot of authors make a mistake. Well, eventually you might get this thing but it’s about, okay, I’m turning the last page. Now I’m different in some way. And it doesn’t have to be a major difference, but there need to experience a shift. So it’s asking yourself, what can I deliver? But then also on the flip side, maybe challenging yourself to say, okay, I really do wanna deliver this thing. What else could I do within the confines of the book to make that happen and thereby you up level the content. Yeah. But as, as long as your book is designed to deliver, which includes keeping the reader immersed on the page, that’s part of that. Then that makes a book transformational.

John Jantsch (14:03): So there’s a book that I suspect you have read. That is one of my favorite books. And I, you pulled a little ti tidbit out of it when you were talking about rough drafts and that’s Anne Lamont’s bird by bird.

AJ Harper (14:13): Yeah. Classic .

John Jantsch (14:16): I actually saw her about 10 years ago and like was a, you know, a reading and signing for one of her books. And I had a first edition of bird by birds and she signed it for me. So

AJ Harper (14:25): Nice.

John Jantsch (14:26): I was very happy about that. Shitty first drafts. The, it just I’ll just let you go from there. You know, what, how do you apply that idea?

AJ Harper (14:34): So that’s interesting. I do talk about in my book. So she gifted us with the shitty first draft, which frees us from thinking it has to be perfect. But what I’ve discovered in all my years of teaching authors is that actually they don’t really believe it like sounds good and it makes them excited and they try, but in the back of their mind, they think one of two things, they either think I’m gonna be the exception to the rule and my draft is gonna be less shitty.

John Jantsch (15:02): Yeah,

AJ Harper (15:02): Yeah. Yeah. So they’re frustrated with themselves and they get locked in that battle or they think surely she doesn’t mean this shitty

John Jantsch (15:14):

AJ Harper (15:14): And so, and then they get locked in that battle. And so the problem is they don’t really know the definition. Yeah. It’s almost like they can believe they can’t believe it could be as bad as their draft is and you’re a writer. So, you know? Yes. It can yes, it can. There’s that beginning spot. It’s just a mess.

John Jantsch (15:34): Yeah. I mean, I came to this probably, but you know, I write now almost like journaling. I don’t edit at all. I mean, I used to like write a sentence and go, oh, I could say this better, you know? And then you got nowhere. Right? And so now I try to see how fast almost I can write, you know, a thousand words or whatever. Then I generally put it away. And then I come back to it the next day. And it’s either really good or it’s really bad.

AJ Harper (15:56): See, you have the benefit of having written many books. And I think that part of the challenge, if you’re a new author, is that you think that the people who are successful or at least have written a lot of books, know something you don’t know or are more talented, all it really is that you’re more comfortable with the creative process. Yeah. So, you know, I’m gonna work this out in editing cuz that’s where a good idea becomes a great book editing. So, you know, and you know that it’s gonna work out eventually and you don’t know how many drafts it will be, but a new person isn’t familiar with the process. And so not only does it seem daunting, but they just don’t know what to expect.

John Jantsch (16:36): Yeah. Let me, I wanna come back to editing, but I wanna segue through self-publishing versus traditional publishing. Okay. Because that’s where I think editing really has to be discussed based on the path you go there, are you a fan of one or the other, do you think it depends.

AJ Harper (16:49): I think that the mistake we make is that we try to decide which one is better without considering our own priorities and where we are. Right. I think an author needs to decide, okay, what are my goals? What are my resources? And what is my timeline? Yeah. And then a fourth consideration would be how much control do I wanna have?

John Jantsch (17:07): Yeah. Yeah. And including after the fact.

AJ Harper (17:10): Yes, exactly. so once you’ve decided, this is what matters to me, then choose a path that fits it. And if that doesn’t work, you can always do plan B or C.

John Jantsch (17:18): Yeah. So all of my books have been traditionally published. That just was the route that I ended up going. So my role was I’d write the book, turn into manuscript. The editor who had generally acquired the book would say, this chapter needs to go over here or this big chunk doesn’t make any sense and send it back to me. Then I would rewrite that, you know, that part of it. And then maybe there would be one more round of that, but then it would go to somebody who’s just looking for crap laying here that shouldn’t be , you know, you said it this way, that way you said it this way, that way. And then finally it would go to somebody who would just find all the commas and the, you know, dangling part of simples and you know, whatever other kind of stuff they find. But how that that’s part of, I guess the benefit of going a traditional route doesn’t mean that they’re actually good at, you know, at that. But I think a lot of people think that an editor just gets the manuscript in like mates marks and you know, things and they’re done. What’s the route in self-publishing?

AJ Harper (18:14): Well, this is the challenge. So many years ago, when self-publishing became more accessible and affordable, everybody was excited and you can get more out there. There are no gatekeepers. Yay. But the problem is you can’t abandon all those traditional publishing quality standards that or quality controls that you’re talking about. Yeah. The developmental or substantive editor. That’s what you’re talking about. That first person is the person who helps you make sure the book works. And if you skip that person, then the book suffers for it. But the problem is a lot of people just don’t know, they have no idea that is an editor they need. And I don’t think that the self-publishing industry is very forthright about the fact that they need it. Yeah. Yeah. I don’t blame them. It’s the most expensive kind of editing to pay for and it takes so longest. So if you’re focused on speed and, and low cost, you’re not gonna say, Hey, you need this editor. Yeah. But you do need that editor and you can get it your own if you’re self publishing. Yeah. There are many people who do that freelance. Yep. So it’s, if there’s no reason why you can’t get that person to come in and help you.

John Jantsch (19:19): So one of the things you talk about in the editing process is editing for connection. And I think that is probably the hardest, because that requires a level of understanding what I do, what I’m trying to get across, who I’m getting it across to. How do you do that as an editor who you’re a ghostwriter? I mean, a lot of what you’re doing is extracting somebody’s mind and then putting it on the page. I mean, to me that seems like a daunting process of understanding somebody’s, you know, voice understanding somebody’s, you know, mind and then, you know, editing for that, you know, that final reader having said all that now I’m gonna really confuse you. Maybe that’s actually better done by somebody else.

AJ Harper (20:06): Maybe it’s better. What, well, I

John Jantsch (20:07): Didn’t hear the last part. Well, I guess what I was saying is, you know, my biases that we, you know, that part only I can do, right. Because I know who I’m, you know, and yet I think that’s a, an absolutely essential part. And I’m wondering if maybe that distance that an editor or a ghostwriter might have, would actually be beneficial.

AJ Harper (20:27): I don’t know. I mean, I only, I co-write with Mike still, but I don’t ghost write anymore. And haven’t for about five, six years at the time, you know, I often had an editor, right. So I’m the ghost. And then there was another editor. So I was been, but I really do believe that it’s the author, whether they’re using a ghost or not, that needs to go in and make sure that it connects to their reader. Yeah. Because they know their reader and the editor doesn’t, and this is something that comes up a lot since we’re talking about Mike in his books where the editor might say, Hey, I, you know, I don’t think you need so many stories or I don’t think you need to repeat this piece of encouragement. And Mike and I will go back and say, well, actually the reader does actually need this here because this is their, what matters to them. And this is what we hear about from readers. Yeah. And they’re, it doesn’t mean you’re always pushing back, but to have knowledge of what matters to your reader helps you in that editing process.

John Jantsch (21:23): Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I do know when I’ve had things written articles, I’ve written all my own books, but I’ve had a lot of articles written by other people that, that were going to be, you know, ghost written. And quite often the thing I find myself saying, well, I would never say it like that because I feel like my voice, my, who I am, you know, my personality wouldn’t use certain words. Wouldn’t use maybe crisp as crisp of grammar as you know, an editor might, might want, I mean, words defined on that kind of stuff. Cuz there’s some times I’ve said stuff. People are like, well that’s clumsy. I’m like, well, yeah, I’m clumsy.

AJ Harper (21:56): Well then you should write it at clumsy. I mean, you don’t want everything to be completely incorrect in terms of grammar, but it is, you need to be authentic. You need to be yourself on and off the page. And I think you’re right to say, it should sound like me. The thing about ghost writing is it’s actually a really special skill. And just because you say, I don’t need to take credit for that and I will work for hire, doesn’t actually make you a legit ghost is a ghost. Has to be able to assume the personality. Yeah. So, you know, I could write anything and you wouldn’t know if it Mike wrote it or I did. Yeah. Yeah. You would not be able to tell. Yeah. And that was one of my great skills with whomever I’ve written for people that were complete opposite of Mike . Yeah. And I still, but that was just a skill that I had learned to do as a playwright. That’s the connection is I wrote characters, so I was just really good. I just have a good ear, but you know, this is why I stopped doing it and started writing or rather coaching and teaching authors. So they could do it themselves because then at least their voice is authentic.

John Jantsch (23:00): Yeah. That’s interesting that you mentioned, I didn’t know you had playwright history because I often feel like that idea of creating personas is, is very much what you’re doing. You know, mm-hmm as the voice, you know, which is really right out of the theater, even though as a marketers have, co-oped it, that’s a great segue to tell us about your workshops. And you mentioned that you even had a course that you could share with folks as well, that they could get a little taste of working with you.

AJ Harper (23:26): Sure. Yeah. So I do teach a 14 week workshop to 15 students at a time it’s very small, twice a year. It’s called top three book workshop. And it’s basically to write that must read book that becomes a book on someone’s top three list of FAS. And I just walk people through the whole process. It’s very hands on. There’s a lot of editing happening and developmental work and publishing, but mostly it’s about creating a home for an author who actually wants to write something great versus an author who’s trying to can’t find any place to go except to maybe some sort of 90 day program. So yeah. Yeah. And that, that was important to me. So it’s a small group. I do have a standalone course. Self-directed called test drive your content. And today I’m giving you a special code for your listeners, which is duct tape to get 50% off that course. And we did actually happen to talk about test driving. So it actually walks you through what are all your benefits of test driving? Yeah. Including building demand, as you said, but also specifically, how do you do a test drive so that you can really hear if it’s working and you can process the feedback to make changes, but also how can you use that to get anecdotes, endorsements, stories, that sort of thing. So it’s seven videos that walk you through that whole process.

John Jantsch (24:46): And that’s found where,

AJ Harper (24:48): Oh, I’m sorry. That’s found@ajharper.com. AJ

John Jantsch (24:51): Harper. Okay. So we’ll have those in the show notes. See, I, I think anybody who develops a product course, whatever they ought to be doing that with people you get so much great insight I’ve over the years done things where I haven’t gotten any feedback and I put it out there and people are like, we didn’t want this. So , you know, it just really stops you from, I think having those complete disasters when you are finding out what people really need and what they resonate with. Didn’t

AJ Harper (25:14): I think it also, if you aren’t sure if you understand your reader very well. Yeah. It can also help you get to know them better through those interactions. Yeah.

John Jantsch (25:24): AJ, thanks so much for stopping by the duct tape marketing podcast. And hopefully we’ll run into you one of these days out there on the road.

AJ Harper (25:30): Thank you for having me.

John Jantsch (25:32): Hey, and one final thing before you go, you know how I talk about marketing strategy strategy before tactics? Well, sometimes it can be hard to understand where you stand in that what needs to be done with regard to creating a marketing strategy. So we created a free tool for you. It’s called the marketing strategy assessment. You can find it @ marketingassessment.co not .com .co check out our free marketing assessment and learn where you are with your strategy today. That’s just marketingassessment.co I’d love to chat with you about the results that you get.


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