- The easiest way to learn digital marketing
is just go and do it.
Create your own website.
Go start a WordPress website.
You can do it for free at wordpress.com
or you can buy your own domain name,
and pop up like a site on Dreamhouse
and crank something out,
and just try to learn and market your own site.
Go read sites, whether it's mine at neilpatel.com
or someone else's, that's fine.
And just go and try to market your own site and get traffic.
The best way of learning is just doing it yourself.
(upbeat music)
- We began our conversation with one
of the most important topics, the future.
And more specifically the future of digital marketing.
This is what Neil Patel had to say
about digital marketing post pandemic.
- With the pandemic there's been a big boom
on anything internet based.
It's convenient, you can get it delivered to you,
you don't have to worry about COVID.
And what you'll end up seeing in the future as well
is because people are starting to order off of Amazon,
people who have never ordered before, like my parents
or people who are older ordered online sites now, right?
Like they're ordering from e-commerce sites.
They're getting used to it.
They're seeing how it actually can be cheaper
and more convenient than even going to the store.
So post-COVID, what you're going to see is
a lot of people continuing with online commerce,
which is going to increase the demand for digital marketing,
but it's also going to increase
how competitive digital marketing is as well.
Which means you're going to have to spend more money,
spend more time, more resources to get the same results
that you were getting before.
- On the topic of digital marketing trends
we also wanted to cover
is there such a thing
as content situation.
The answer might surprise you.
- When we look at content marketing
the stats are pretty basic
in which there's over a billion blogs
and there's roughly 7 billion people in this world.
So you have roughly one blog for every seven people.
That's a lot of content.
And then you have TikTok, you have LinkedIn
you have Clubhouse, you have Instagram.
The number of social platforms
out there has continually been increasing.
People are now repurposing content
continually trying to build a audience.
There's so much noise in the marketplace
that it's harder to stand out.
No matter what you're doing,
you can jump over Lamborghini and if you're jumping
over Lamborghinis and it used to go viral on YouTube
everyone's jumping over Lamborghinis right now
and it doesn't go that viral anymore.
The point I'm trying to make is
there is a lot of content
and there'll continually be more content.
And even though people are producing content mass scale,
I personally don't see it actually decreasing over time.
What I do see is people struggling to stand out.
- Yeah,
- So you're going to see more noise
and even if more content is being produced,
you're not going to see as much content stand out
or you're not going to notice much.
Just like you know how you have banner blindness,
- Yeah. Yeah.
you see banner ads so often, you tend to ignore them.
You'll start doing similar things with content
and there's a lot of tools that are coming
up which AI is helping you create content actually
becoming easier to create it.
There's tools like Canva that help you create
the visual images even quicker.
So it's just going to cause more people
to create even more content.
But again, I believe people are going to have
"content blindness" similar to banner blindness
in which they're going to ignore most of the content.
- And because we began the topic of content marketing
I had to ask what would his predictions
for some content marketing trends be?
- There's two big ones.
So one is lives like this.
Think about doing a podcast interview but on Facebook
and you can use the streaming platforms to go live
on Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram
- Yeah.
- and you can do an interview everywhere at the same time
which can help you grow quicker.
The second content format that I'm experimenting
with is Reels.
Okay, so everyone has a different version
of reels; shorts, there's TikTok, right?
- Yeah.
- it's going to vary per platform
but the content is pretty much the same.
If you create these "reels",
what ends up happening is the people
who see that content can be more
than just your followers.
So it's another easy way to grow.
- Actually Pinterest recently launch their story pins.
Not sure if you have heard about them
but they are basically the same kind of format
such as reels, but they enable you to create story pins
which are up to 20 pages long,
so you can combine your reels
and they're super, super powerful for organic reach as well.
So anyone looking to repurpose their Tiktoks, their reels
their reach absorbs Pinterest story pins are
definitely a viable option as well.
- And it's funny, not too, people talk about Pinterest.
Pinterest is one of the best sites
if you're in e-commerce and you're trying to generate sales.
- But because content marketing is only one portion
of digital marketing, I also wanted to ask you
how can a beginner
at digital marketing learn it effectively?
Here is his best advice.
- The easiest way to learn digital marketing
is just go and do it.
Create your own website.
Go start a WordPress website.
You can do it for free at wordpress.com
or you can buy your own domain name and
pop up like a site on DreamHost and crank something
out and just try to learn and market your own site.
Go read sites, whether it's at neilpatel.com
or someone else's, that's fine.
And just go and try to market your own site and get traffic.
The best way of learning is just doing it yourself.
You can read all you want
but if you don't actually implement,
it's not going to take you that far.
- After you've gained knowledge in digital marketing
as a whole, you'd also want to gain knowledge
in one specific industry.
Here's how to pick your niche according
to Neil Patel.
- Figure out what you have more natural skills
and start with that
and just focus.
People used to tell you that you can do everything.
You can't do everything.
I can't be a doctor, I'm not good at it.
I don't have the stomach to see the insides of someone
or their blood, that's just not me.
Focus on what you're naturally better at
because that's what you'll enjoy
and just double down and be the best person
at that one thing.
- And to wrap up the topic of digital marketing
I also wanted to learn what are some
of the best resources that Neil Patel utilizes himself.
Here is his list.
- I read a lot of blogs more than books
'cuz they tend to be more up to date.
And then I do a ton of experimentation
- Straight to the point answer.
Do you have any blog suggestions for our
audience?
- I keep up with search engine land
search Engine Journal, Moz Backlinko.
But yeah, those are the main blogs that I'm keeping
up to date with.
And then the other thing I do is track all your competitors
and see what they're doing
and see what kind of content they're pushing out
and it'll give you ideas.
The other thing to do is continue to look out
for your competitions on podcast interviews.
A lot of times they spill their beans
on how they're growing
or what tactics they're doing
and listen to that because they'll give you ideas as well.
- After we have discussed digital marketing as well
as the future of digital marketing,
I wanted to learn what is
Neil Patel's social media strategy.
Here's what he shared with us.
- I have this formula that's been working really well
in which 40% of the time
I create beginner content.
Beginner content being like how to tie a tie,
how to install a toilet, stuff like that.
I know that's extremely beginner
but that's the stuff that people are searching for
but it doesn't create tons of social shares
and it doesn't create tons of back links.
10% of the time I'm creating advanced content.
Content with stats data that shows me as an expert.
Stuff that'll get a lot of social shares
back links, but doesn't generate that many links.
Then 20% of the time I'm focusing
on rewriting older articles.
I go into Google search columns,
I see the older articles
and I take my last 30 days compared
to the previous 30 days of the last year.
So I'm comparing my last 30 days
to the last year during the same time period in essence.
And I'm seeing which content generated more traffic
back then than it does now.
And I look at that content pieces
and I see my competitor's ones
and I rewrite mine
and try to make it way better than theirs
so that way I can get more traffic to my older articles.
And I do that 20% time
and 30% time, which gets me to a hundred percent.
I go and I promote my content.
Hitting up people on social media,
asking them to share my content,
offering to share their content,
emailing people I link out to
asking them to share my content.
But like processes like that
just really help get me more traffic.
- And because I know that a lot of the audience
of Neil Patel as well as my audience
is from the younger generation,
I had to ask him
what would the best advice for his younger self be?
- I would tell him to focus.
When I was 20 years old I had ADD.
I tried doing way too many things.
I should have just focused
and if I stuck with marketing
and I stuck with just practicing
and helping them with their marketing
versus trying to do too many companies,
I would've had one company that was much bigger
and much larger doing much better.
But I didn't do that.
I had ADD.
People would tell me about a really cool idea like
hey we should end up creating Invisalign
through 3D printers or we should do some random stuff
and it'd be like, ah, cool.
Let me give you some money or let me try that.
I should have just focused my energy and my efforts.
- And there is actually a great quote
from my native language.
It says from two chairs on the ground.
Basically if you try to multitask,
if you try too many things
your focus is going to be diverted
and you are all going to be ending up with nothing.
This is something which a lot of people
especially in the social media marketing world
should not take for granted.
Yes, you can repurpose content.
Yes you can be on multiple places
at the same time and grow simultaneously
but unless you have those processes set in place,
you're going to struggle
with multiple social media platforms.
I couldn't also miss the chance to ask him what
would his best advice to social media marketing experts be?
This is what Neil Patel had to say
- Don't try to go viral.
The other day I was talking to a friend
and he's like, how many video views do you have?
And I'm like, I have 37 million video views
and I did it without going viral.
And I was like, it's just consistency.
You keep creating content,
you keep pushing it out there on the social platforms
you'll keep doing well
and people are gunning for that.
Let me just create that one hit wonder and get lucky.
And I'm like, that's not in your control
but what is in your control is consistency
hard work and just doing it for a very, very long time.
- Even if you go viral,
there is another point of view to
that whole scenario.
Going viral is actually
in my opinion, a double edge sword
because every single time that you go viral,
then you have an expectation
that your next post should go viral as well.
Or you start comparing your own post,
which didn't go viral
and start thinking to yourself, oh damn,
that post should have gotten more views.
And just as you said, in a lot
of times digital marketing, social media, marketing
there are a lot of factors that we can attribute to.
There are a lot of factors that we can predict
but a post going viral is often unpredictable.
Focusing on what you can control,
focusing in on what is in your immediate area of control
is the best strategy.
Being consistent is definitely one of these elements.
And yes, as cliche as it might sound
this is something which Neil has practiced.
This is something which got 37 million video views
and I'm sure a lot more link clicks
on his blog and there is a reason for that.
- As inspiring as Neil Patel can be,
we still have to remember
that he is just like us, a normal human being
and if he can become as knowledgeable
and helpful to millions of people, you can as well.