Welcome to this week’s edition of the Social Media Marketing Talk Show, a news show for marketers who want to stay on the leading edge of social media. On this week’s Social Media Marketing Talk Show, we explore new ways to monetize, promote, and protect your brand’s YouTube channel with special guest, Luria Petrucci. Tune […]
Over the summer, AWeber announced that it was the first small business email service provider to support the new AMP for Email technology! Now, we’re excited to share the latest evolution in how we’re making it powerfully-simple for you to use AMP for Email inside AWeber.
AMP stands for Accelerated Mobile Pages. When paired with AWeber, the powerful technology has the ability to completely transform how you connect with your prospects and customers via email.
With AWeber and AMP for Email, your subscribers won’t have to leave the inbox or head to their browser to visit a web page. Instead, they can RSVP to an event, sign up for a newsletter, leave a product review, answer a survey, or view a live package shipping update — all inside your email!
Big news! AWeber has now added one of the most popular AMP for Email features — an image carousel — to our drag-and-drop email editor. The AWeber Image Carousel, powered by AMP for Email, is an interactive element that rotates through multiple slides of images. You can include photos, GIFs, blog posts, or products. As an AWeber customer, all you need to do is click the Carousel element in the tool box and drag it into your email. Then, add up to 6 images.
Previously, if you wanted to include multiple images, you had to stack them one on top of the other, taking up valuable space in your email. The AWeber Image Carousel is compact, interactive, and beautiful. Watch the video below to see how easy it is to use the Carousel inside AWeber.
AMP for Email turns static emails into interactive and dynamic content. By removing layers of friction and allowing people to directly engage with content faster, you’ll reduce the number of steps your audience has to take to respond to an offer or promotion, and ultimately drive more business.
That’s why AWeber is continuously evolving how powerfully-simple it is for you to send AMP for Email-powered messages inside our platform. We want you to see success faster than ever before.
The AWeber Image Carousel, powered by AMP for Email, is just the start. Through AWeber’s API, you can also create other powerfully-engaging interactive and dynamic content using AMP for Email components. (See how we’ve been experimenting with other AMP elements inside AWeber’s own weekly newsletter, FWD: Thinking.) If you send these AMP components through AWeber, they will display in Gmail, Outlook, and Mail.ru messages TODAY!
As a consumer — and a marketer — one of my favorite brands to watch is Taco Bell. In the last five years or so, Taco Bell has begun making strides in its brand messaging.
The brand has reinvented itself on social media, introducing a new, bold personality. With its food, packaging, marketing campaigns, events, philanthropic efforts, and interior design, Taco Bell reinvented itself into a full on lifestyle brand.
Doing this — telling a compelling brand story through messaging — isn’t easy.
Marketers need to have an entire brand identity to communicate what their business does, what it’s about, and why it’s different. Oh, and it needs to resonate with people and strengthen your company’s values and reputation.
That’s why marketers need to craft brand messaging that their audience can relate to.
Below, let’s review brand messaging — what it is and a framework to get started.
So, how do you get started crafting brand messaging that your target audience will love?
You need to know two things like the back of your hand: your target audience and unique value proposition.
Then, you can begin to write out a brand identity that’ll help your company make all its marketing decisions. Would a brand that cares about “X” do this? Would a brand that’s motivated by “Y” sell this?
Your brand identity will inform your company’s behavior because it’ll tell you why your brand matters, what it stands for, and why it’s different from other brands.
A brand identity that your audience relates to and has a personality — or talks to your audience like a friend — is how you’ll continue to remain relevant to your consumers and create loyal customers.
Brand Message Framework
With a full understanding of brand messaging and creating a brand identity, you might be wondering, “Now what? How do I get started?”
And it’s a fair question. That’s why we’ve created a brand message framework that you can use to begin crafting a brand message or identity.
1. Figure out who you are.
To get started, your brand message needs to answer these questions:
How do you differentiate from your competitors?
What is your unique value proposition?
What kind of messaging will resonate with your target audience?
Who is your target audience? What do they care about?
Does your brand message tell a story?
What are your company’s goals? (No one is perfect and your target audience can’t relate to a seemingly perfect brand).
What are your company’s values?
While you’re answering these questions and beginning to map out who your brand identity is and what your brand messaging will look like, remember that your brand message answers the question, why? Why does your audience care?
2. Know your audience.
Now that you have a better idea of what you offer and who you are, you need to understand who your audience is. If you haven’t already, create buyer personas that represent who your customers are and their goals. This will help you find alignment between your brand and your consumers.
3. Start a document that explains your brand message.
After you’ve answered the questions above and written out your personas, begin compiling this information in a document that explains what your brand message is, your unique value proposition, and key themes that are core to your brand identity.
Then, start to figure out how your brand identity relates to your buyer persona. What are the patterns and what do they have in common? This is how you’ll make decisions on brand messaging. You’ll see what your audience cares about that align with your values and can derive messaging opportunities.
4. Brainstorm messaging opportunities.
With a clear document that represents who you are and who your audience is, you can then begin to look for messaging opportunities. How can you relate your current campaigns to your brand message? How can you use content to convey your values?
Once you have an idea, you can create a tagline that communicates who you are and your unique value proposition.
At this point, you should have created a brand message and identity that’ll inform your messaging. Now, we wanted to review a few tips for creating messaging that stays true to your brand:
Stay focused on the brand positioning: With all the content you write, ask yourself, “Is this true to our values?”
Relate to your audience: When you create content, use your buyer personas and brand messaging document to ensure that you’re talking about something that’s relevant to your audience.
Don’t be perfect: Similarly to the point above, people aren’t perfect and brands shouldn’t be either. Don’t over promise and communicate that you’re perfect, because you aren’t and it’ll come off disingenuous.
Communicate your message everywhere: In everything you write and all your marketing decisions, think about your brand message. Whether you’re writing copy for your website, creating slogans for packaging, or marketing an event, your copy needs to communicate your brand message.
Be simple: Keep it simple. If your brand’s personality or overall values are confusing or hard to discern, people won’t relate to you. The last thing you want to do is create a brand message that your audience is confused by.
Brand Message Examples
1. Taco Bell.
As mentioned above, Taco Bell has started to create a reputation for its strong, funny brand. If you tweet them, they will likely respond with a humorous comment.
The goal is to be so relatable that customers love to interact and talk about Taco Bell. When people are talking about you and with you, they’re more likely to be loyal customers.
Below is an example of a tweet that represents Taco Bell’s brand identity and messaging. They respond to tweets like a sarcastic, funny best friend would.
TheSkimm is a daily newsletter that aims to quickly inform young women of current events. The brand is known for having a bold, witty personality similar to that of its target audience — millennial women.
The goal? To mirror its target audience. Act like the fun, irreverent best friend to help readers get started with their day.
In the tweet below, theSkimm stays true to its brand messaging and identity by starting off with a sharp, witty comment on Congress.
When I think of FabFitFun, I think of trendy products that are popular with self-care influencers. The brand has cultivated a following by partnering with influencers on Instagram who are trendy, fashionable, and take care of themselves.
And this image of self-care and trendy products is carried out through its content as well. Below, the company tweeted its blog about trendy tech accessories. This type of content is right in line with the brand messaging consumers hear about on Instagram.
Trader Joes is a grocery store that has created an almost cult-like following through its brand messaging. They are a fun, cheap, organic food store with a small-town, neighborhood feel. For example, they even put out an old-fashioned newsletter called the “Fearless Flyer.” This includes product roundups and recipes.
The content Trader Joes puts out reinforces its brand image as a small, neighborhood grocery store. With brand messaging that is consistent with its unique value proposition and personality, customers relate to the brand as if it were a person.
Besides the fact that Taylor Swift is one of my favorite singer/songwriters, I had to include her because her brand messaging is on point.
From the time she was 16, Taylor Swift has used social media and brand messaging to connect with her fans. This is another example of someone who has created a cult-like following through brand messaging.
Taylor Swift’s brand is that she’s like the girl next door, something her audience relates with. In the example below, someone on Tumblr posted a tweet on Swift’s birthday, and Swift responded like … well, like the girl next door. A fun, outgoing best friend you can easily talk to on social media.
Your brand message is something that’s strategically created to help you stand out and relate to your customers. Your personality and values should be evident and align with that of your audience.
Fans can dress up as fashion icon Moira Rose and take a picture by her wig wall. Or sit with real menus at Cafe Tropical. And smell the rose votive candles (and purchase them, of course) at a real-life Rose Apothecary. When the beloved Pop TV show Schitt’s Creek announced its first-ever pop-up in October…
And yes, who doesn’t want to be at the top of Google for some of the most competitive terms? But the reality is, we don’t all have the budget or time.
So
then, what should you do?
Well, what if I told you there were simple ways to get more organic traffic and, best of all, you don’t have to do one bit of SEO?
Seriously.
So,
what is it? And how can you get more organic traffic?
Well,
this story will help explain it…
The
old days
When
I first started my journey as an SEO, I got really good at one thing.
Getting
rankings!
Now to be fair, this was back in 2003 when it wasn’t that hard to rank on Google (or any other search engine for that matter).
Stuff some keywords into your page, your meta tags, and build some spammy rich anchor text links and you were good to go.
You
could literally see results in less than a month.
SEO wasn’t too complicated back then. So much so, that I even started an SEO agency and created a handful of sites.
I was starting to rank my sites at the top of Google but they didn’t make a dollar. Literally, not a single dollar.
In fact, I was actually losing money on them because I had to pay for the domain registration expenses and hosting.
So, one day I decided that I was tired of losing money and I was going to do something about it. I took the keywords that I was ranking for and started to type them into Google to see who was paying for ads for those terms.
I hit up each of those sites and tried to get a hold of the owner or the person in charge of marketing.
I asked them how much they were paying for ads and offered them the same exact traffic for a much lower price. I was able to do this because I already had sites that ranked for those keywords.
In other words, I offered to rent out my website for a monthly fee that was a fraction of what they were paying for paid ads.
Next thing you know I was collecting 5 figures in monthly checks and my “renters” were ecstatic because they were generating sales at a fraction of the costs compared to what they were spending on paid ads.
So, what’s the strategy?
Well, it’s simple. Back in the day, I used to rent out my websites… the whole site.
These
days I’ve learned how to monetize my own site, so I don’t rent them out.
So why not rent a page on someone else’s site? From there, modify that page a bit to promote your products or services?
I
know this sounds crazy, but it works. I have one person that just reaches out
to site owners asking if we can rent out a page on their site. We do this for
all industries and verticals… and when I look at how much we are spending
versus how much income we are generating, it’s crazy.
Here are the stats for the last month:
Rental
fees: $24,592
Outreach costs: $3,000
Legal
costs: $580
Copywriting
and monetization costs: $1,500
Total
monthly cost: $29,672
Now
guess what my monthly income was?
It
was $79,283.58.
Not
too bad.
Now
your cost on this model won’t be as high as mine because you can do your own
outreach, monetize the page you are renting on your own, and you probably don’t
need a lawyer.
And don’t be afraid of how much I am spending in rental fees as you can get away with spending $0 in the first 30 days as I will show you exactly what to do.
Remember, it’s also not what you are spending, it’s about profit and what you are making. If it won’t cost you any money in the first 30 days and you can generate income, your risk is little to none.
Here
are the exact steps you need to follow:
Step
#1: Find the terms you want to rank for
If
you already know the terms you want to rank for, great, you can skip this step.
If you don’t, I want you to head to Ubersuggest and type in a few of your competitors’ URLs.
Head
over to the top pages report and look at their top pages.
Now
click on “view all” under the estimated visits column to see a list of
keywords that each page ranks for.
I want you to create a list of all of the keywords that contain a high search volume and have a high CPC. Keywords with a high CPC usually mean that they convert well.
Keywords
with a low CPC usually mean they don’t convert as well.
When
you are making a list of keywords, you’ll need to make sure that you have a
product or service that is related to each keyword. If you don’t then you won’t
be able to monetize the traffic.
Step
#2: Search for the term
It’s
time to do some Google searches.
Look
for all of the pages that rank in the top 10 for the term you ideally want to
rank for.
Don’t
waste your time with page 2.
What
I want you to look for is:
Someone who isn’t your competitor. Your competition isn’t likely to rent out a page on their site to you.
A page that isn’t monetized. Not selling a product or service. (If the page has ads, don’t worry.)
A site owned by a smaller company… a publicly-traded company isn’t likely to do a deal. A venture-funded company isn’t likely to do a deal either (Crunchbase will tell you if they are venture-funded).
Step
#3: Hit up the website
Typically, through their contact page, they should have their email addresses or phone number listed. If they have a contact form, you can get in touch that way as well.
If
you can’t find their details, you can do a whois
lookup to see if you can find their phone number.
What’ll
you want to do is get them on the phone. DO NOT MAKE YOUR PITCH OVER EMAIL.
It
just doesn’t work well over email.
If
you can’t find their phone number, email them with a message that goes
something like this…
Subject: [their website name]
Hey [insert first name],
Do you have time for a quick call this week?
We’ve been researching your business and we would like to potentially make you an offer.
Let me know what works for you.
Cheers,
[insert your name]
[insert your company]
[insert your phone number]
You
want to keep the email short as I have found that it tends to generate more
calls.
Once you get them on the phone, you can tell them a little bit about yourself. Once you do that, tell them that you noticed they have a page or multiple pages on their website that interest you.
Point
out the URL and tell them how you are interested in giving them money each
month to rent out the page and you wouldn’t change much of it… but you need
some more information before you can make your offer.
At this point, you’ll want to find out how much traffic that page generates and the keywords it ranks for. They should have an idea by just looking at their Google Analytics (you’ll find most of these sites don’t use Google Search Console).
Once
you have that, let them know that you will get in touch with them in the next
few days after you run some numbers.
Go back, try to figure out what each click is worth based on a conservative conversion rate of .5%. In other words, .if 5% of that traffic converted into a customer, what would the traffic be worth to you after all expenses?
You’ll
want to use a conservative number because you can’t modify the page too
heavily or else you may lose rankings.
Once
you have a rough idea of what the page is worth, get back on the phone with
them and say you want to run tests for 30 days to get a more solid number on
what you can pay them as you want to give them a fair offer.
Typically,
most people don’t have an issue because they aren’t making money from the page
in the first place.
Step
#4: Monetize the page
If
you are selling a product, the easiest way to monetize is to add links to the
products you are selling.
For
example, if you are selling a kitchen appliance like a toaster, you can add
links from the article to your site.
The easiest way to monetize a blog post is to add links to products or services you are selling.
Don’t delete a lot of the content on the page you are modifying… adding isn’t too much of an issue but when you delete content sometimes you will lose rankings.
As
for a service-based business, linking out to pages on your site where people
can fill out their lead information is great.
Or you can just add lead capturing to the page you are renting out. Kind of like how HubSpot adds lead forms on their site.
I’ve actually found that they convert better than just linking out to your site.
When monetizing the page you are renting, keep in mind that you will need disclaimers to let people know that you are collecting their information for privacy purposes. You also should disclose you are renting out the page and nofollow the links.
Once you are monetizing the page for a bit, you’ll have a rough idea of what it is worth and you can make an offer on what you’ll page.
I recommend doing a 12-month contract in which you can opt-out
with a 30-day notice.
The reason you want a 12-month agreement is that you don’t want to have to keep renegotiating. I also include the 30-day opt-out notice in case they lose their rankings, you can opt-out.
And to clarify on the op-out clause, I have it so only I can opt-out and they are stuck in the agreement for a year.
Conclusion
SEO isn’t the only way you can get more organic traffic.
Being creative, such as renting pages that already rank is an easy solution. Best of all, you can get results instantly and it’s probably cheaper than doing SEO in the long run.
The only issue with this model is that it is really hard to
scale.
If I were you, I would do both. I, of course, do SEO on my own site because it provides a big ROI. And, of course, if you can rent out the pages of everyone else who ranks for the terms you want to rank for, it can provide multiple streams of income from SEO.
The beauty of this is model is that you can take up more than one listing on page 1. In theory, you can take up all 10 if you can convince everyone to let you rent their ranking page.
So, what do you think of the idea? Are you going to try it out?
Over the summer, AWeber announced that it was the first small business email service provider to support the new AMP for Email technology! Now, we’re excited to share the latest evolution in how we’re making it powerfully-simple for you to use AMP for Email inside AWeber.
AMP stands for Accelerated Mobile Pages. When paired with AWeber, the powerful technology has the ability to completely transform how you connect with your prospects and customers via email.
With AWeber and AMP for Email, your subscribers won’t have to leave the inbox or head to their browser to visit a web page. Instead, they can RSVP to an event, sign up for a newsletter, leave a product review, answer a survey, or view a live package shipping update — all inside your email!
Big news! AWeber has now added one of the most popular AMP for Email features — an image carousel — to our drag-and-drop email editor. The AWeber Image Carousel, powered by AMP for Email, is an interactive element that rotates through multiple slides of images. You can include photos, GIFs, blog posts, or products. As an AWeber customer, all you need to do is click the Carousel element in the tool box and drag it into your email. Then, add up to 6 images.
Previously, if you wanted to include multiple images, you had to stack them one on top of the other, taking up valuable space in your email. The AWeber Image Carousel is compact, interactive, and beautiful. Watch the video below to see how easy it is to use the Carousel inside AWeber.
AMP for Email turns static emails into interactive and dynamic content. By removing layers of friction and allowing people to directly engage with content faster, you’ll reduce the number of steps your audience has to take to respond to an offer or promotion, and ultimately drive more business.
That’s why AWeber is continuously evolving how powerfully-simple it is for you to send AMP for Email-powered messages inside our platform. We want you to see success faster than ever before.
The AWeber Image Carousel, powered by AMP for Email, is just the start. Through AWeber’s API, you can also create other powerfully-engaging interactive and dynamic content using AMP for Email components. (See how we’ve been experimenting with other AMP elements inside AWeber’s own weekly newsletter, FWD: Thinking.) If you send these AMP components through AWeber, they will display in Gmail, Outlook, and Mail.ru messages TODAY!
Fans can dress up as fashion icon Moira Rose and take a picture by her wig wall. Or sit with real menus at Cafe Tropical. And smell the rose votive candles (and purchase them, of course) at a real-life Rose Apothecary. When the beloved Pop TV show Schitt’s Creek announced its first-ever pop-up in October…
And yes, who doesn’t want to be at the top of Google for some of the most competitive terms? But the reality is, we don’t all have the budget or time.
So
then, what should you do?
Well, what if I told you there were simple ways to get more organic traffic and, best of all, you don’t have to do one bit of SEO?
Seriously.
So,
what is it? And how can you get more organic traffic?
Well,
this story will help explain it…
The
old days
When
I first started my journey as an SEO, I got really good at one thing.
Getting
rankings!
Now to be fair, this was back in 2003 when it wasn’t that hard to rank on Google (or any other search engine for that matter).
Stuff some keywords into your page, your meta tags, and build some spammy rich anchor text links and you were good to go.
You
could literally see results in less than a month.
SEO wasn’t too complicated back then. So much so, that I even started an SEO agency and created a handful of sites.
I was starting to rank my sites at the top of Google but they didn’t make a dollar. Literally, not a single dollar.
In fact, I was actually losing money on them because I had to pay for the domain registration expenses and hosting.
So, one day I decided that I was tired of losing money and I was going to do something about it. I took the keywords that I was ranking for and started to type them into Google to see who was paying for ads for those terms.
I hit up each of those sites and tried to get a hold of the owner or the person in charge of marketing.
I asked them how much they were paying for ads and offered them the same exact traffic for a much lower price. I was able to do this because I already had sites that ranked for those keywords.
In other words, I offered to rent out my website for a monthly fee that was a fraction of what they were paying for paid ads.
Next thing you know I was collecting 5 figures in monthly checks and my “renters” were ecstatic because they were generating sales at a fraction of the costs compared to what they were spending on paid ads.
So, what’s the strategy?
Well, it’s simple. Back in the day, I used to rent out my websites… the whole site.
These
days I’ve learned how to monetize my own site, so I don’t rent them out.
So why not rent a page on someone else’s site? From there, modify that page a bit to promote your products or services?
I
know this sounds crazy, but it works. I have one person that just reaches out
to site owners asking if we can rent out a page on their site. We do this for
all industries and verticals… and when I look at how much we are spending
versus how much income we are generating, it’s crazy.
Here are the stats for the last month:
Rental
fees: $24,592
Outreach costs: $3,000
Legal
costs: $580
Copywriting
and monetization costs: $1,500
Total
monthly cost: $29,672
Now
guess what my monthly income was?
It
was $79,283.58.
Not
too bad.
Now
your cost on this model won’t be as high as mine because you can do your own
outreach, monetize the page you are renting on your own, and you probably don’t
need a lawyer.
And don’t be afraid of how much I am spending in rental fees as you can get away with spending $0 in the first 30 days as I will show you exactly what to do.
Remember, it’s also not what you are spending, it’s about profit and what you are making. If it won’t cost you any money in the first 30 days and you can generate income, your risk is little to none.
Here
are the exact steps you need to follow:
Step
#1: Find the terms you want to rank for
If
you already know the terms you want to rank for, great, you can skip this step.
If you don’t, I want you to head to Ubersuggest and type in a few of your competitors’ URLs.
Head
over to the top pages report and look at their top pages.
Now
click on “view all” under the estimated visits column to see a list of
keywords that each page ranks for.
I want you to create a list of all of the keywords that contain a high search volume and have a high CPC. Keywords with a high CPC usually mean that they convert well.
Keywords
with a low CPC usually mean they don’t convert as well.
When
you are making a list of keywords, you’ll need to make sure that you have a
product or service that is related to each keyword. If you don’t then you won’t
be able to monetize the traffic.
Step
#2: Search for the term
It’s
time to do some Google searches.
Look
for all of the pages that rank in the top 10 for the term you ideally want to
rank for.
Don’t
waste your time with page 2.
What
I want you to look for is:
Someone who isn’t your competitor. Your competition isn’t likely to rent out a page on their site to you.
A page that isn’t monetized. Not selling a product or service. (If the page has ads, don’t worry.)
A site owned by a smaller company… a publicly-traded company isn’t likely to do a deal. A venture-funded company isn’t likely to do a deal either (Crunchbase will tell you if they are venture-funded).
Step
#3: Hit up the website
Typically, through their contact page, they should have their email addresses or phone number listed. If they have a contact form, you can get in touch that way as well.
If
you can’t find their details, you can do a whois
lookup to see if you can find their phone number.
What’ll
you want to do is get them on the phone. DO NOT MAKE YOUR PITCH OVER EMAIL.
It
just doesn’t work well over email.
If
you can’t find their phone number, email them with a message that goes
something like this…
Subject: [their website name]
Hey [insert first name],
Do you have time for a quick call this week?
We’ve been researching your business and we would like to potentially make you an offer.
Let me know what works for you.
Cheers,
[insert your name]
[insert your company]
[insert your phone number]
You
want to keep the email short as I have found that it tends to generate more
calls.
Once you get them on the phone, you can tell them a little bit about yourself. Once you do that, tell them that you noticed they have a page or multiple pages on their website that interest you.
Point
out the URL and tell them how you are interested in giving them money each
month to rent out the page and you wouldn’t change much of it… but you need
some more information before you can make your offer.
At this point, you’ll want to find out how much traffic that page generates and the keywords it ranks for. They should have an idea by just looking at their Google Analytics (you’ll find most of these sites don’t use Google Search Console).
Once
you have that, let them know that you will get in touch with them in the next
few days after you run some numbers.
Go back, try to figure out what each click is worth based on a conservative conversion rate of .5%. In other words, .if 5% of that traffic converted into a customer, what would the traffic be worth to you after all expenses?
You’ll
want to use a conservative number because you can’t modify the page too
heavily or else you may lose rankings.
Once
you have a rough idea of what the page is worth, get back on the phone with
them and say you want to run tests for 30 days to get a more solid number on
what you can pay them as you want to give them a fair offer.
Typically,
most people don’t have an issue because they aren’t making money from the page
in the first place.
Step
#4: Monetize the page
If
you are selling a product, the easiest way to monetize is to add links to the
products you are selling.
For
example, if you are selling a kitchen appliance like a toaster, you can add
links from the article to your site.
The easiest way to monetize a blog post is to add links to products or services you are selling.
Don’t delete a lot of the content on the page you are modifying… adding isn’t too much of an issue but when you delete content sometimes you will lose rankings.
As
for a service-based business, linking out to pages on your site where people
can fill out their lead information is great.
Or you can just add lead capturing to the page you are renting out. Kind of like how HubSpot adds lead forms on their site.
I’ve actually found that they convert better than just linking out to your site.
When monetizing the page you are renting, keep in mind that you will need disclaimers to let people know that you are collecting their information for privacy purposes. You also should disclose you are renting out the page and nofollow the links.
Once you are monetizing the page for a bit, you’ll have a rough idea of what it is worth and you can make an offer on what you’ll page.
I recommend doing a 12-month contract in which you can opt-out
with a 30-day notice.
The reason you want a 12-month agreement is that you don’t want to have to keep renegotiating. I also include the 30-day opt-out notice in case they lose their rankings, you can opt-out.
And to clarify on the op-out clause, I have it so only I can opt-out and they are stuck in the agreement for a year.
Conclusion
SEO isn’t the only way you can get more organic traffic.
Being creative, such as renting pages that already rank is an easy solution. Best of all, you can get results instantly and it’s probably cheaper than doing SEO in the long run.
The only issue with this model is that it is really hard to
scale.
If I were you, I would do both. I, of course, do SEO on my own site because it provides a big ROI. And, of course, if you can rent out the pages of everyone else who ranks for the terms you want to rank for, it can provide multiple streams of income from SEO.
The beauty of this is model is that you can take up more than one listing on page 1. In theory, you can take up all 10 if you can convince everyone to let you rent their ranking page.
So, what do you think of the idea? Are you going to try it out?
As a consumer — and a marketer — one of my favorite brands to watch is Taco Bell. In the last five years or so, Taco Bell has begun making strides in its brand messaging.
The brand has reinvented itself on social media, introducing a new, bold personality. With its food, packaging, marketing campaigns, events, philanthropic efforts, and interior design, Taco Bell reinvented itself into a full on lifestyle brand.
Doing this — telling a compelling brand story through messaging — isn’t easy.
Marketers need to have an entire brand identity to communicate what their business does, what it’s about, and why it’s different. Oh, and it needs to resonate with people and strengthen your company’s values and reputation.
That’s why marketers need to craft brand messaging that their audience can relate to.
Below, let’s review brand messaging — what it is and a framework to get started.
So, how do you get started crafting brand messaging that your target audience will love?
You need to know two things like the back of your hand: your target audience and unique value proposition.
Then, you can begin to write out a brand identity that’ll help your company make all its marketing decisions. Would a brand that cares about “X” do this? Would a brand that’s motivated by “Y” sell this?
Your brand identity will inform your company’s behavior because it’ll tell you why your brand matters, what it stands for, and why it’s different from other brands.
A brand identity that your audience relates to and has a personality — or talks to your audience like a friend — is how you’ll continue to remain relevant to your consumers and create loyal customers.
Brand Message Framework
With a full understanding of brand messaging and creating a brand identity, you might be wondering, “Now what? How do I get started?”
And it’s a fair question. That’s why we’ve created a brand message framework that you can use to begin crafting a brand message or identity.
1. Figure out who you are.
To get started, your brand message needs to answer these questions:
How do you differentiate from your competitors?
What is your unique value proposition?
What kind of messaging will resonate with your target audience?
Who is your target audience? What do they care about?
Does your brand message tell a story?
What are your company’s goals? (No one is perfect and your target audience can’t relate to a seemingly perfect brand).
What are your company’s values?
While you’re answering these questions and beginning to map out who your brand identity is and what your brand messaging will look like, remember that your brand message answers the question, why? Why does your audience care?
2. Know your audience.
Now that you have a better idea of what you offer and who you are, you need to understand who your audience is. If you haven’t already, create buyer personas that represent who your customers are and their goals. This will help you find alignment between your brand and your consumers.
3. Start a document that explains your brand message.
After you’ve answered the questions above and written out your personas, begin compiling this information in a document that explains what your brand message is, your unique value proposition, and key themes that are core to your brand identity.
Then, start to figure out how your brand identity relates to your buyer persona. What are the patterns and what do they have in common? This is how you’ll make decisions on brand messaging. You’ll see what your audience cares about that align with your values and can derive messaging opportunities.
4. Brainstorm messaging opportunities.
With a clear document that represents who you are and who your audience is, you can then begin to look for messaging opportunities. How can you relate your current campaigns to your brand message? How can you use content to convey your values?
Once you have an idea, you can create a tagline that communicates who you are and your unique value proposition.
At this point, you should have created a brand message and identity that’ll inform your messaging. Now, we wanted to review a few tips for creating messaging that stays true to your brand:
Stay focused on the brand positioning: With all the content you write, ask yourself, “Is this true to our values?”
Relate to your audience: When you create content, use your buyer personas and brand messaging document to ensure that you’re talking about something that’s relevant to your audience.
Don’t be perfect: Similarly to the point above, people aren’t perfect and brands shouldn’t be either. Don’t over promise and communicate that you’re perfect, because you aren’t and it’ll come off disingenuous.
Communicate your message everywhere: In everything you write and all your marketing decisions, think about your brand message. Whether you’re writing copy for your website, creating slogans for packaging, or marketing an event, your copy needs to communicate your brand message.
Be simple: Keep it simple. If your brand’s personality or overall values are confusing or hard to discern, people won’t relate to you. The last thing you want to do is create a brand message that your audience is confused by.
Brand Message Examples
1. Taco Bell.
As mentioned above, Taco Bell has started to create a reputation for its strong, funny brand. If you tweet them, they will likely respond with a humorous comment.
The goal is to be so relatable that customers love to interact and talk about Taco Bell. When people are talking about you and with you, they’re more likely to be loyal customers.
Below is an example of a tweet that represents Taco Bell’s brand identity and messaging. They respond to tweets like a sarcastic, funny best friend would.
TheSkimm is a daily newsletter that aims to quickly inform young women of current events. The brand is known for having a bold, witty personality similar to that of its target audience — millennial women.
The goal? To mirror its target audience. Act like the fun, irreverent best friend to help readers get started with their day.
In the tweet below, theSkimm stays true to its brand messaging and identity by starting off with a sharp, witty comment on Congress.
When I think of FabFitFun, I think of trendy products that are popular with self-care influencers. The brand has cultivated a following by partnering with influencers on Instagram who are trendy, fashionable, and take care of themselves.
And this image of self-care and trendy products is carried out through its content as well. Below, the company tweeted its blog about trendy tech accessories. This type of content is right in line with the brand messaging consumers hear about on Instagram.
Trader Joes is a grocery store that has created an almost cult-like following through its brand messaging. They are a fun, cheap, organic food store with a small-town, neighborhood feel. For example, they even put out an old-fashioned newsletter called the “Fearless Flyer.” This includes product roundups and recipes.
The content Trader Joes puts out reinforces its brand image as a small, neighborhood grocery store. With brand messaging that is consistent with its unique value proposition and personality, customers relate to the brand as if it were a person.
Besides the fact that Taylor Swift is one of my favorite singer/songwriters, I had to include her because her brand messaging is on point.
From the time she was 16, Taylor Swift has used social media and brand messaging to connect with her fans. This is another example of someone who has created a cult-like following through brand messaging.
Taylor Swift’s brand is that she’s like the girl next door, something her audience relates with. In the example below, someone on Tumblr posted a tweet on Swift’s birthday, and Swift responded like … well, like the girl next door. A fun, outgoing best friend you can easily talk to on social media.
Your brand message is something that’s strategically created to help you stand out and relate to your customers. Your personality and values should be evident and align with that of your audience.
