Ever dreamed of standing on stage and speaking at an event or conference? Yeah, it was never really my dream either (and I live for activities that push my boundaries and get my adrenaline flowing).However…I’ve been on a mission this year to build my personal brand, and there are few better ways to get yourself recognized than by getting up and speaking in front of an audience.

It all started when it was freeeezing cold this past Christmas. I’ve been living in Minnesota for the past year, and if you’re not from around here (or haven’t had the pleasure of visiting during the winter months), you should know that the average December temperatures are around 10-12 degrees. Or – in other words – f’ing  cold.

As is pretty usual for that time of year in Minnesota, there was nothing open. Usually I’d be out fulfilling my winter adrenaline-junkie needs with snowmobiling, but there wasn’t even much snow, so that one was a no go too…

I was pretty bored, so I decided to do something productive with my time and write an ebook on growth hacking (if you haven’t seen it already, you can find it at 100daysofgrowth.com).

While trying to promote the book, I ended up doing a ton of outreach to secure guest posts, which led to me being interviewed on more than 15 podcasts. It was while I was recording those podcasts that I realized how much I love educating people. This prompted me to revisit my quest for speaking at conferences and events.

Ultimately, I ended up securing five new speaking gigs using cold outreach emails and my tool Content Marketer. Want to get your foot in the door for similar speaking opportunities? Here’s how I did it… Continue reading → How I Got 5 Speaking Engagements Using Cold Outreach

While my business partner Colin Mathews has been working on building  Mailshake, I’ve been hard at work building buzz and recruiting beta users.

So far, we’ve had more than 3,500 people request access to the system, but only a few hundred of those really got the product and were successfully able to leverage it. Along the way, I’ve learned – relearned, actually – the importance of understanding your customers on a deep level.

One of my favorite tools for understanding my customers is the buyer persona, but what I’ve found is that most people who use this strategy don’t take it far enough. Simply knowing someone’s age, gender and geographic location isn’t enough – you’ve got to go deeper.

Below, you’ll find 150 of the questions I’ve personally used that you may find useful to ask as well. However, you don’t need to ask them all. Feel free to pick and choose the questions that are most relevant to your brand and the information you personally need to gather.

That said, before you go away and ask ten or twenty generic questions, think about this: the more questions you ask, the deeper the insight you’ll gain into your buyers and the more targeted and effective you can be in your marketing strategies. Asking more questions will take more time up-front, but the payoff will be well worth the extra effort.

Trust me. Continue reading → 150 Buyer Persona Questions You Must Ask

Is a website finished once the design and development is complete, and the site gets launched? Of course not! It doesn’t matter how beautiful your site looks or how well it converts – there are always going to be changes you can make that will improve conversions further and more importantly, make you more money.

Unlike other facets of digital marketing, conversion rate optimization (CRO) capitalizes on the visitors you already have and can result in some very big, and very quick wins. I can’t emphasize enough how beneficial this practice can be.

Meet CRO and A/B Split Testing

But before we go any further, It’s important to clarify the distinction between CRO and A/B testing. Conversion rate optimization is the whole process of making alterations to a site in order to increase conversions. This can include a variety of different testing methods, as well as data analysis and the development activity needed to implement your tests and make changes.

A/B testing, on the other hand, is a specific method of testing used to help optimize your site for conversions.

It’s really a simple premise. To run an A/B test, you set up two different versions of a page that will run consecutively. Once both pages are live, 50% of your visitors are sent to version one, while the other 50% are sent to version two. You then track how the behavior of your visitors differed between the two versions, and use this information to make permanent, positive changes to your website.

For example, you might run an A/B split test to decide between using green or red call-to-action buttons. For the sake of argument, we’ll say that version one uses green call-to-action buttons and version two uses red call-to-action buttons.

If, when the test is complete, you can see that 6% of visitors clicked the call-to-action buttons on version one, but 12% of visitors clicked the call-to-action buttons on version two, you now know that red call-to-action buttons are more lucrative for your site than green buttons.

Of course, you probably won’t stop the test there. You might then repeat the test and pit red buttons against say, orange buttons, and so on. For best results, you’ll always want to have at least one test running on your website. Continue reading → 50 A/B Split Tests to Optimize Your Site to Perfection