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Enjoy this week's articles!
How to have an overnight success in 10 short years via Josh Pigford / Baremetrics
I discovered the genius of Josh Pigford through his podcast (Founder's Journey) recently and have really enjoyed digging through the Baremetrics blog archives. It's just loaded with good information for founders and marketers. This post is a perfect example.
Nearly every day I get emails and tweets from people asking how to come up with a new business, how to validate business ideas or how to find paying customers. But they’re going about it wrong. They’re overthinking it.
If you want to be an entrepreneur, the key is not to think, it’s to do.
10 Business Writing Tips Learned from the Trenches via Greg Ciotti
Greg Ciotti has mastered the art of "human-to-human" communication. He's adept at avoiding all the things that make marketing and content suck - vague generalizations, long-windedness, big words and robot-speak.
His writing feels like a personal conversation. And that's why the Help Scout blog reached 2 million people last year.
Brevity. Soul. Wit. Few things drag down writing more than spreading good ideas over too many words.
How I Caught Copyblogger Sneaking into My Inbox via Scott Vann / DFWSEM
This is a super smart article on Copyblogger's clever strategy into the inbox. Basically, they create LinkedIn groups that automate emails to members. And those emails include Copyblogger's branding, content and calls to action.
Since LinkedIn is most likely tied to your primary email account, not some junk account set up to catch all those emails you subscribed to but didn’t really want to read, Copyblogger is regularly getting to the top of your inbox and they never once hit the send button on their email list.
Marketing Without Marketing via Jason Fried / Inc
A reminder that everything you do is actually marketing, explained by Jason Fried.
If you take care of your existing customers, they will take care of your new customers.
“No Marketing” Isn’t as Impressive as You Think via Ben Yoskovitz
The title of this post might lead you to believe that it's in direct opposition to Jason Fried's take on marketing. That's not the case, however, as Ben Yoskovitz simply makes the point that expecting growth without marketing is a serious mistake.
Don’t sit around and wait for people to come to you. Don’t marvel at the smattering of site visitors that sign up for your product. And don’t tell investors that your traction is “without any marketing” because that just means it’s not repeatable and scalable.
Non-marketing though of the week
One of the challenges of marketing is lifestyle (i.e. our heavy reliance on computers to get work done). Sure, you can sometimes use the phone and in-person meet-ups, but the bulk of our work is done tied to a glowing screen.
I recently read Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail. In it, the author chronicles her 1,100-mile, solo hike through California and Oregon. It helped me realize that I don't spend nearly enough time outside
Just a few days later, I came across this article on Outside that reported "nature walks were associated with significantly less depression in addition to mitigating the negative effects of stressful life events and perceived stress."
Point taken.
Have a great weekend and see you next Thursday!
Cheers,
Jimmy