As essential marketing

Essential Marketing Start Guide
for Agencies and Freelancers
AppSumo
Insider tips from the whole marketing squad at AppSumo

Well, we looked at our calendars and realized we didn’t have enough time to offer one-
on-one consulting to every Sumo-ling...
So we wrote a digital marketing playbook instead. You know, the next best thing.
But we didn’t want to offer generic digital marketing advice. We had to select a guinea
pig business to keep all the advice focused and actionable.
So: What business did we use?
Well...our business.
No, not AppSumo. We used Lewis Commercial Writing, the two-person SaaS copywriting
consultancy run by the brilliant masterminds authors behind this ebook.
What if you could sit down with the
AppSumo team and get free consulting
across all your digital marketing efforts?
Introduction

CHRIS VOSS, AUTHOR OF NEVER SPLIT THE DIFFERENCE
Background
As a small service business, we’ve run head-first into plenty of digital marketing mistakes,
challenges, and frustrations over the years trying to make Lewis Commercial Writing
sustainable.
We figured our experience would be pretty relatable to many other Sumo-lings. All the
consulting advice from this book is geared toward us — but it’s meant to be widely
applicable to business owners who are so busy delivering results for their clients that
they often neglect their own marketing efforts.
It’s often a lot easier to work in your
business than to work on it.
So we at Lewis Commercial Writing sat down with seven members of the AppSumo
marketing team to capture the insights they’d offer to small service businesses trying to
level up their digital marketing.
Who is this ebook for?
Many of the principles captured in this book can be broadly applied to many types of
businesses. But since we’re writing this from the context of a couple of freelancers, the
tactics packed in this ebook will likely resonate most with freelancers, small agencies,
and other service-based businesses.

Table of
Contents
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
FB ads: How the heck do we set them up?!
Social media: Make your post a scroll-stopper
Email: How to publish powerful emails like Appsumo
SEO: Keyword research demystified
Youtube: Launching a B2B YouTube Channel
Google ads: How to skip the SERPs
Referrals: Building a word of mouth flywheel
1
17
30
42
53
61
76

CHAPTER ONE
FB ads: How the heck
do we set them up?!

We set up a FB ads campaign years ago, but just got 3-4 low-quality leads. We pulled
the plug after a couple of days and haven’t tried again.
Our business runs on referrals. We haven’t tried advertising very much. To be honest,
anytime we’ve tried ads out of curiosity, it’s gone really wrong. We’re not sure how to
set up campaigns or how to determine if they’re successful. Thing is, we’re just not sure
how FB marketing fits into what we’re doing.
We use Facebook groups for prospecting and outreach, but haven’t had any success
with advertising.
Here are a few tactics Lewis Commercial Writing has
tried over the years:
Challenges:
Context
AppSumo | Essential Marketing Start Guide for Agencies and Freelancers 02

AppSumo insider
Nick Christensen is the Head of Customer Acquisition at AppSumo. He’s been at
AppSumo for three years — previously, he ran an advertising agency specializing in
helping business owners perform lead gen through Facebook ads.
Instead of using Facebook ads to drive immediate sales, you have to make the conversion
point something much simpler. What’s the lowest barrier to entry you can set to connect
more with potential customers?
For us, we chose to focus ads on successfully booking a free 15-minute consulting call.
Do Facebook ads work for B2B?
“
“
According to Nick,
Facebook is a huge opportunity for
B2B businesses.
- Nick Christensen | Head of Customer Acquisition at AppSumo

10 steps to launch a B2B Facebook ad
Lewis Commercial Writing tried to launch Facebook ads a few times over the years. But
we’ve NEVER had success. Usually, we tried to DIY them and literally never published
because we got so confused.
One time we got an ad live — but we don’t think we did it right. We got a couple of really
low-quality leads, and no conversions.
So we roped Nick into three calls to walk us through EVERY step it takes to get a Facebook
ad off the ground. We. Finally. Made. It. Happen.
Step 1: Decide on your offer
To begin, you need to figure out your offer. You want to make your campaign precise,
not generic. If you offer a B2B service like us, it’s best to start with a low-barrier offer.
You don’t want to try to convert a cold lead on a four-figure purchase. You want to just
get them to take a simple first step into your sales funnel.
Ask yourself: What does success look like?
In advertising, success should always be measurable. Once you have your goal, you can
turn that into an exact conversion metric. You’ll use that metric to determine your level
of success.
In our case, our conversion metric is booking a free 15-minute consultation.

Step 2: Create a landing page
and Thank You page
The landing page we created for the campaign
Next, you need to match your messaging. You’ll need three things before you start
creating ads: a landing page, a graphic, and copy for the ad. Once you have your offer,
you’ll need the copy and creative.
Make sure the landing page call-to-action and branding matches what you put in the ad
graphic. Consistency, as they say, is key.
We created our landing page in Wix. We designed our campaign creative in Crello, an
AppSumo tool we ADORE. (Sarabeth uses Crello for everything from social media graphics
to MP4 videos for YouTube intros and outros, etc.)

What does a good Facebook ad creative format look like? For a single image: go for
a landscape or square image (1080 x 1080 is what Nick recommended). For video, go
for a 4:5 aspect ratio with a length of 45 seconds or less — and always include closed
captioning to make your messaging clear to those who have the sound off.
On images, you must follow the 10% rule for text. Facebook mandates that you can only
fill 10% of the ad image with text. If it’s more than that, Facebook will force you to upload
a different image. Fortunately, Facebook lets you test graphics in their Text Overlay Tool.
Pro tip: If you need ad creative and copywriting inspiration, keep in mind you can search
through millions of ads in the Facebook Ads Library. For instance, you can check out
AppSumo’s Facebook ads to get some inspiration!

Yep, this one should be self-explanatory. Easy peasy.
Add your lead Pixel to the Thank You page code. This will tell Facebook that a meeting was
successfully booked and allow it to count getting to this page as a successful conversion
event. We added our Pixel to the backend of Wix.
Follow this link to access the Ads Manager.
Step 3: Create a Facebook page
for your business
Step 4: Add a payment method
to the Ads Manager
Step 5: Add Facebook Pixel to
your CMS

Step 6: Create an Event within
the Ads Manager
Click the hamburger icon in the top
left corner of the Ads Manager. Select
“Events Manager.”
Click “Create” to prompt a dropdown menu.
Select “Create Custom Conversion.”
Name the campaign.
Click the dropdown menu under “Create
Conversion Event.” Click “Lead.”
Add your domain name (read: not the
landing page) to the “Rules” section.
Click “Create” and then “Done.”

Step 7: Create a campaign
From the Facebook Ads Manager page, click “Create” in the top left corner.
Click “Select Guided Creation.” Select “Conversions.” Then scroll down.

Step 8: Select the attributes, job titles, and
interests of your ideal customers
On the next screen, name the Ad Set. Make
sure “Website” is selected for the type of
conversion. Select “Lead” when prompted
about Optimization for Ad Delivery.
Scroll down the page to the Audience section.
Here’s where you target the characteristics of your
ideal audience. Ask yourself;
Select the age range of your ideal clients.
Under “Detailed Targeting” begin typing interests
of your ideal customers.
What do I know about my most profitable customers?
What jobs do they hold?
Which influencers or thought leaders do they follow?
What topics, industries, or companies might they be
interested in?

Select the languages you’d like to reach. For us, we only selected English.
Generally, when you’re starting off, you don’t want a huge audience because you
can tear through your budget pretty quickly. It’s best to start small and focused to see
what works — after, you can expand your reach as you see what converts.
For high-volume websites: In our example, we created a custom audience based on
interests and job titles. But the most optimal way is to use “Lookalike Audiences.” For
this strategy, you need at least 5,000 monthly visitors to your website. This allows
Facebook to use the information it knows about your ideal customers to create an
audience that looks like your best customers.
Select a daily budget for your campaign. Then click “Confirm.”

Step 9: Add the creative
Name the Ad. Then select the type of creative you’re using. In our case, we chose
“Single Image or Video.”
Scroll down to the Media section, and click “Add Media.” Upload the graphic you
created for this ad.

Now you’ll add the copy. There are three places you can include copy: Primary Text,
Headline, and Description.
Quick reminder:
The headline is normally the call-to-action.
Put your services into the Primary Text. Avoid clunky paragraphs. Go for short, easy-
to-read sentences that draw your eye down the ad.
You can also use emojis in this section. You might also choose to put a link to the
landing page at the bottom of the Primary Text, giving readers one more place to click.
On the right-hand side of the screen, you’ll be able to see in real-time what your ads
will look like in someone’s Facebook or Instagram newsfeed.
Now scroll down to the bottom of the page and click “Confirm.”

Step 10: Test and iterate
Your ad is now live!
If you would like to run a second ad for split testing, click the checkbox beside the
campaign you just created.
Then click the third tab to the right, called “Ads for (1) Campaign.”
Beneath the ad, click “Duplicate.”

Then just click “Duplicate” and use the steps in this chapter
to create a second ad in the same campaign.
Budget across ads explained:
It’s worth noting that your budget was set at the
campaign level. That means if your campaign
includes two ads at a $15 daily budget, each ad
will receive a $7.50 daily spend limit. By creating
a second ad within that campaign, you’re not
doubling your budget. You’re distributing it
across multiple ads.
And you’re all set!

Facebook Ad Tips & Best Practices
test, test, test
The magic of advertising is in the testing. If at first your ad falls flat, tweak aspects of
your audience, offer, copy, or graphic to see what gets a better response. As you find
what works, you can invest more money into the ad to keep it going.
Even then, continue to try new iterations to keep incrementally improving the ROI of
your ad spend.
Testing is key. That’s why a lot of people fail. At AppSumo, Nick and his team test
hundres of different ads every year.
We walked you through the steps to create a Facebook ad campaign geared toward
cold leads. But the best way to get conversions is to retarget people who’ve already
visited your website, since they already have some familiarity with your brand.
Retargeting can work if you get 5,000+ monthly visitors. Retargeting serves ads out to
warm leads. You can also use those events to double down on “look-a-like” customers
based on conversions on your website.
Many people simply point Facebook ads to their business homepage. Nick says this
will significantly hurt your conversion rate. You need to send leads to a focused
landing page that nudges them toward a single specific action. In our case: booking a
free call.
Retarget warm site visitors
Don’t make this common Facebook ad mistake

CHAPTER TWO
Social media: Make your
post a scroll-stopper

Context
Over the years, we’ve been fairly active on social media. On and off, we’ve used a
combination of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Twitter helped us get a few
PR hits, but never resulted in a lead — so we stopped focusing there.
In this section, we’ll cover Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram, since that’s where we’ve
received the most social media leads over the years.
We have a LinkedIn business page, but we’ve never gotten leads from it. We used to
have a Facebook business page, but eventually deleted it.
Our Instagram is mostly for personal use, but we’ve won one good client using it. We’re
open to investing more heavily there.
Our biggest wins with social media have come through joining relevant Facebook groups
and interacting with our ideal clients on LinkedIn (using our personal profiles).
We’ve had some success with content marketing on LinkedIn. Also, we’ve been hired
through LinkedIn organic search and LinkedIn ProFinder.
It’s often hard to measure the ROI of social media for a service business. Most of our time on social
media feels completely wasted — like a total time suck.
We get a lot of traction from other freelancers and minimal traction from our ideal clients.
In summary: We know social media can have a massive impact, but right now it feels mostly like a
drain on our time, with occasional wins.
Some tactics we’ve tried over the years:
Challenges:

AppSumo insider
Meet Bronte Mojdehi, Marketing Manager at AppSumo. She’s been with the AppSumo
team since the beginning of 2020. We called Bronte to discuss some of the challenges
we’ve faced trying to build a strong social media presence — as well as to gather some
of the tactics she recommends for organically marketing a B2B service business.
Here’s what Bronte has to say about organic social media for freelancers and small
agencies.
You don’t have to go viral or build a massive audience to experience big wins for your
business on social media.
Big wins for freelancers and agencies can happen in the small conversations that happen
on social media: interactions in comments, DMs, and social shares that drive just a few
people to your website or profile.
- Bronte Mojdehi | Marketing Manager at AppSumo
Organic social overview for agencies
and freelancers
“
“
When it comes to professional service businesses,
the number of leads usually matters
less than the quality of leads.

Real business impact: one-to-one
Getting traction on LinkedIn
When you know your ideal customers, one-on-one interactions on social media become the
lifeblood of your business. You can begin engaging with their content, even dropping links to
your website or work in the comments or DMs (when they’re relevant and not forced). Seriously,
contact people directly.
Most articles about social media success talk about virality and building an audience. But
achieving success for your business — whether it’s through leads, clients, and referrals —
might come more often through personal interactions.
Content marketing
LinkedIn can be a goldmine for finding B2B leads for agencies and freelancers. Take one
hour weekly to plan out 2-3 posts for that week, tailored toward your ideal customer. Try
to work 2ish weeks out in advance.
Think of a few relevant keywords your target audience might be using. (If you don’t
already know some, you can skip ahead to Chapter 4 for keyword finding tips.)
Search for individual keywords and phrases in the search bar. Consider the hashtags being
used in the most popular posts. Click those hashtags to see how many people follow
them. If it’s a decent crowd, make that hashtag part of your regular posting strategy.
Expand your reach with hashtags

We’ve learned that it’s much easier to get traction providing value to other freelancers
than our core audience. The key isn’t to ignore the easy traction or to only double down
on whatever gets the most likes.
Instead, do a mix of both. If you’re posting 3 times per week, make two of those posts
tailored directly to helping your ideal customers. You can use the third post to share fun
business stories that other freelancers and agency owners can relate to, like how you
landed your first client.
What would your ideal customer post on LinkedIn if they were looking for your services?
Maybe something like…
“Looking for a web designer”
“Our company is hiring a freelance developer”
“We need a social media ads manager”
“Looking for a B2B content writer”
“Hiring a headshot photographer”
Create content for two people
Use the search bar

As long as you’re willing to scroll through some irrelevant posts, you’ll often stumble on
businesses looking for your exact services. All you have to do is pitch them!
LinkedIn also has a lesser-known service for connecting freelancers to anyone hiring
contractors.
When you sign up for LinkedIn Profinder, you’ll receive periodic notifications from
LinkedIn when someone near you is looking for your services. Profinder allows up to
five freelancers to bid on a single project — so it’s worthwhile to construct a thoughtful
pitch.
LinkedIn Profinder
You get the picture.
Use the LinkedIn search bar to search these phrases. (Sort the Content category by
Latest instead of Relevance to see the most recent requests.)

Kicking butt on Facebook
Joining Facebook groups is a great way to find
quality leads. But which groups do you join?
We recommend a 50-50 model. Half of the groups
you join should be where your ideal clients spend
time. In our case, we’ve joined several SaaS
Facebook groups over the years — and this has
turned into many leads over the years.
You should also spend half your time in groups
with your peers. These are groups where other
freelancers and agencies might be looking to refer
out work or even partner on projects.
50-50 model for Facebook groups
Create your own Facebook group
Once you’ve joined some of these groups, become an active member of the group.
When it’s natural, talk about yourself and your services. Sometimes you’ll even be able to
organically share a link to your website.
Another way to get traction on Facebook is by building a community. This contains all the
benefits of joining communities, except with a few additional privileges.
Beyond the obvious benefits, like being the moderator or setting community rules, you
also get to be seen as an authority to anyone who joins the group. It’s like the difference
between attending a big conference and speaking at a big conference. The speaker
carries more authority than random strangers you bump into in the hallway.

What about Facebook posts and pages?
Grow a B2B following on Instagram
The biggest wins on Facebook these days come from Facebook groups. Business pages
have infamously lost a lot of their organic power over the years. If you want your followers
to see your latest post, it’s often a matter of paying-to-play.
But that doesn’t mean you should delete your Facebook business page. You’ll need that to
run Facebook ads, which we covered in Chapter 1.
Posting from your personal account might get you more traction than posting from a
business page. But you have to stop and ask yourself: Are these interactions moving my
business forward?
For us, posting on our personal Facebook pages means getting a couple of quick likes
from friends and family. It’s not ideal for reaching our target audience.
Instagram is great for gaining brand visibility and sharing your wins.
As you’d expect, It tends to be a personal platform where everyone shares pictures from
their lives. But just because Instagram is personal doesn’t mean you should double your
personal Instagram account as your business account.
And if you’re a joint-venture like us, it makes more sense to create a shared Instagram
account to represent the business instead of just one person.
Now, here’s how you should think about posting.
Mastering Instagram

Instagram Stories
Instagram posts
Instagram users spend most of their time watching Stories. So that’s where you want to be
posting content regularly — every day, if you can.
You can talk to the camera vlogger style, share images and graphics, or just post written
content straight to the story. Share wins, things you’re learning, discounts you’re offering,
and even your hot take on a trending topic.
Using hashtags in your stories can broadcast them to a larger audience to help you grow
your following
What should you share in Instagram posts?
As we mentioned, Instagram is a highly personal platform. People respond well to
pictures of you, stories about your big wins and past struggles — the things that make
you human.
But it can be hard to always come up with another story about yourself every time your
post. You can also infuse things like quotes or tips of the trade.
In terms of frequency, a minimum of 2-3 posts per week is recommended. Posting
something every day is even better.

Instagram feed
Instagram Reels
The keyword here is cohesive.
When someone lands on your Instagram feed, it’s professional to have a consistent
appearance across your posts. This can mean using the same four colors in all your
graphics, using the same font every time you post, and maybe even timing certain types
of posts to appear with calculated regularity in the feed.
Use tools like PromoRepublic to see how your grid is going to look once your scheduled
posts go live.
Instagram just launched its TikTok competitor: Reels.
How do you get traction on it?
Think of Reels as a mix between Instagram Stories and TikTok. Reels lives on the
Explore page for now, which means it could be a great way to get your content in front of
complete strangers — hopefully, your ideal audience.
Use Reels as a place to tell your brand story by introducing yourself, telling a bit about
what you do, providing actionable lessons, and even showcasing work.
Instagram doesn’t offer a trending hashtag section yet, but once that rolls out, it might be
worth including relevant hashtags, songs, and trends (similar to TikTok) in your posts.
If you’re already on TikTok, you can repurpose your existing videos for Instagram Reels
to get double the traction for half the work.

How to find quality hashtags
Dedicated content creation days
Instagram has done an excellent job curating hashtags.
As you start typing broader keywords into Instagram, it provides you additional related
hashtag suggestions.
Like posting on LinkedIn, it helps to determine the best hashtags by seeing where the
engagement is happening. Where do you see people getting a lot of traction for their
hashtags? Mimic what you see working using the hashtags you see trending in your
industry.
Posting on social media every day is a big ask. Many entrepreneurs may prefer to batch
their content creation into a single day and then schedule each post to publish over the
next week.
For Bronte, content creation day is Wednesday. The exact day matters less than the
outcome: you set aside a short block of time every week to create and schedule social
media posts.
Level up your social media posting

All systems engage
Secret ingredients: Time, frequency, and
pioneering
Posting high-value content is just one part of the content marketing puzzle. It’s also
essential to interact with other people’s posts by leaving thoughtful comments that add to
the conversation happening on someone else’s feed.
Simple interactions like these — especially on pre-viral content — can get your ideas
in front of many people, helping you reach your target audience using someone else’s
following.
Occasionally someone will come up with a couple of one-off tactics to quickly amass a
large following on social media. It’s flashy and exciting when it happens, but it’s not usually
easy to replicate.
Instead, the best way to grow an engaged following on social media is to let three words
do their honest work: time, frequency, pioneering.
As you consistently share ideas and stories, more and more people will find your content
online and follow you. You’ll also learn what types of posts resonate best with your
audience, improving engagement as you grow.
And the people most of us love to follow on social media (outside of people we know),
have another thing in common: they pioneer trends instead of just following them.
So experiment. If everyone in your industry posts the same thing, mix things up. Try
something new.

Bring followers to your newsletter
Social media tools
Design tools:
Schedulers:
One of the hurdles of content marketing on social media is that an audience can (in
theory) disappear in a day. As you build your following on LinkedIn, Instagram, and other
social platforms, it’s worthwhile to frequently nudge followers to subscribe to an email list.
Canva - free version
Crello - free version
RelayThat
Pixteller
Later (easy free version)
Sked Social (paid tool - more expensive)
PromoRepublic (Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook scheduling)
Facebook content creator studio allows scheduling
Publer
SocialBee
Sociamonials
Depositphotos

CHAPTER THREE
Email: How to publish
powerful emails like
AppSumo

We have an email capture on our website on our home page and a “Subscribe” page for
our weekly newsletter. Subscribers get a welcome email and then weekly newsletters
every Monday all about writing, freelancing, copywriting, and resources (like business
books and blogs that we love).
The newsletter only partially targets our ideal audience. If we had to guess, we’d say
that 75% of the people subscribed want to be freelancers or copywriters. As of now,
only 20% is our ideal audience (i.e. people who might hire us one day). The other 5% is
miscellaneous: friends, entrepreneurs looking for business inspiration, etc.
What we’ve tried over the years:
Challenges:
Context

AppSumo insider
Chris Grullon, Email Marketing Manager, has worked with AppSumo for four and a half
years. He’s the mastermind behind AppSumo’s most powerful revenue driver — email.
And yes, in case you’re wondering, he’s often the mastermind behind those famous
AppSumo email subject lines.
While his average email makes about $40K, he’s written Black Friday emails that have
brought in over $250K. We sat down with Chris to learn what he recommends for a
B2B service business who wants to increase the impact of their email list.
Here’s what Chris has to say about creating powerful emails.

- Chris Grullon | Email Marketing Manager
“
“
According to Chris, the power of email is its return on investment.
With email, you have a private list of
people who have opted into hearing
from you, so they’re automatically more
inclined to buy from you.
What’s so great about email?
Email lets you reach an infinite number of people — in a really personal way. Sure, you
may have hundreds of competitors in your field, but if you’re already in someone’s inbox,
you have an advantage over all those other companies.
When it comes to increasing your email engagement, the key is to make sure every
email you send is worth reading. AppSumo has been able to maintain good open rates
because they’ve built a reputation for sending emails that people want to read.
In the beginning, AppSumo only sent emails about deals that were entering or leaving
the store. But over time, they realized that constantly sending emails asking customers
to make a purchase increased churn. So they began incorporating more content-focused
emails. These emails helped build brand awareness while making it clear that AppSumo
was determined to not let it be a one-sided relationship.
Isn’t email kinda, y’know...outdated? We’ve heard people say it. Those people are wrong.
By valuing your readers’ time and crafting purposeful emails, you can keep your
open rates high, increasing your chance to convert readers into buyers.

Focus on value
For a service business, Chris recommends you use the 2-to-1 ratio: send two educational/
informational emails to every one call-to-action.
If you go the newsletter route, just remember to focus on value. You want your newsletters to
be shareable so subscribers tell their network, netting you more readers. Prioritize publishing
goodcontent,butdon’toverdoit.Makelifeeasierforyourselfbypickingtopicsyou’regenuinely
excited to write about.
The key to making email work for you? Quality and consistency. Oh, and having an email list.
If you are a freelancer or agency who doesn’t have an email list, stop reading right now and
go create an email capture form on your website! This is a non-negotiable. (And if you don’t
want to read through dozens of comparison articles about which email service provider to
use, go get yourself SendFox.)
“ The #1 REGRET I’ve heard from anyone building their business
or personal brand is they wish they would have started building
an email list sooner. ”
- Noah Kagan AKA Rabbi Can’t Lose

Focus the newsletter on easy (but natural) upsells: To use copywriting as an example,
we could send an email that teaches readers how to write content freebies to grow their
business. At the bottom of the newsletter, we could include a simple call-to-action like:
“Want us to create content freebies for you?”
This works because you’re providing value by teaching others how to do something, and
also giving people an opportunity to hire you if they’d rather let you do the heavy lifting.
Welcome sequence: See below.
Browse Abandonment Email: When someone lands on your site or navigates to a specific
page, you can choose to have your ESP automatically email them. That email can contain a
targeted message about the page they visited.
For example, if they landed on our “How to Write Press Releases” page, you can send them
an email with three additional tips not listed on that page. This tactic may be considered
advanced, but can lead to powerful retargeting results. If you have many different products
— or productized services — pages, this might be an email tactic to implement ASAP.
What can you really do with a newsletter? Small service companies like ours don’t have all
day to spend creating content. So how can we turn our newsletter into a money-printing tool?
Chris had a few ideas.
Launching a newsletter for lead generation

2. The intro
3. What we offer
Now that your new subscribers have their freebie, it’s time to introduce yourself.
Within the next couple of days, send your intro email: What do you write about? Why do you
have a newsletter? What are you passionate about? What are some fun facts about you or
your business?
This is the connection email — where you form a human bond with your latest subscriber.
Consider adding a photo of yourself or your office space. You’ve only got one chance at a
first impression, so make it count. Onboard them into your world.
It’s time to get to business. Tell subscribers more about your services. While a lot of your
subscribers will never purchase from you, listing your services at least makes them aware of
what you offer. This makes it easier to refer you to people within their network, and gives
them a mental model for who you are and the services you provide.
What should your first four emails look like?
1. The promise
If you want to create the most basic email welcome sequence, here’s what you should do.
Set up these emails to drip over the course of 2-3 weeks:
If you have a freebie like a checklist, ebook, pack of templates, white paper, or guide to entice
people on your signup page (which you should), your first email should simply deliver that
gift to the new subscriber. Don’t bury the download in a long introduction email.
Just keep it short and sweet — and deliver on what you promised.

4. Pitch
It’s time to call your readers to action. The fourth email should be a hard pitch for your services.
You could send a discount or simply offer a low-barrier-to-entry action, like a free 15-minute
consulting call. You might consider adding in a fifth email as a follow-up, just to check in to
see if people want to take you up on your offer.
We only have one email in our onboarding sequence right now, so we asked Chris to give his
feedback on it. Below, we included a before and after, with markups featuring his advice on
how to optimize our email. If we had additional time, we’d overhaul our sequence even more.
It would include the promised lead magnet in its own email, followed by an intro and then an
email that teases our SaaS copywriting and UX writing services.
We’ll get there one day! For now, here are the incremental improvements we’ve made:
Our welcome email overhaul

Email do’s and don’ts
Avoid vanity metrics
Save advertising budgets with an email list
Hacks to grow your list
List size doesn’t matter. At least, it doesn’t have to matter. The more important metrics
include open and click-through rates, and whether you’re writing to your ideal
customer. Worry more about truly engaging ideal customers on your list.
Ads are expensive. And for many companies, ads can quickly eat away at your marketing
budget. If you have an engaged list, email is your best bet for a return on investment.
Subscribers want to be on your list, hearing your ideas, getting your insights, and — in the
case of AppSumo — getting insider deals.
AppSumo has been able to grow its email list through lead magnets and giveaways that
are geared toward the ideal end-user. It steers clear of generic giveaways like one for an
iPhone or Macbook. Those kinds of giveaways are not targeted enough, and will just lead
to you spinning your wheels for low-quality sign-ups.
KingSumo software giveaways definitely help attract that ideal customer, along with lead
magnets. But ultimately products and word-of-mouth are what drive the most growth for
the business. So just be patient — you’ll start to see more traffic as your brand awareness
grows.
If you build your email list right, it will become a highly
engaged audience of your ideal customers who get
excited whenever your email hits their inbox. Pretty
powerful stuff.

Email capture tips
The design and copy on your email capture form(s) or website popups should cater to
your ideal client and clearly communicate how they’ll benefit from signing up. Remember:
this is an exchange. They give you an email, you give them value.
The best example of how to optimize your email capture form, by far, comes from Harry
Dry at MarketingExamples.com.
Tell real success stories — try emphasizing or even proving ROI to show that if they sign
up, they could get similar results.
Offer a free consultation call and put subscribers into a nurture sequence.
Turn your newsletter into actionable tips for whatever your service is. (Harry Dry’s
approach.)
Here are some more ideas for dialing in your email capture forms:

Optimal open rates
Writing powerful headlines
Although it varies by industry, 20% is a solid low bar for email open rate. Over 30% means
you’re doing pretty darn well.
One way to keep your list fresh and your open rates high is to send a “check-in” email
to anyone who hasn’t opened an email in a while. That email can be as simple as “Hey, is
everything ok? You haven’t been opening our emails recently and we want to make sure
you still want to be on our list.” This will usually either re-engage someone or have them
unsubscribe (which is okay, because they weren’t active anyway).
Email subject lines in 2020 are all about being punchy.
People really enjoy seeing how witty companies can be. So put on your thinking cap and
do your best to come up with something that will impress and pique curiosity. Just be sure
it’s relevant to the content inside.
And while it’s okay to be punchy and playful for a newsletter, read the room. Serious
emails — with important information — should be more straightforward.

CHAPTER FOUR
SEO: Keyword research
demystified

Lewis Commercial Writing publishes ~1 post per month on our internal blog
We’ve recently tried more content marketing on LinkedIn, which has gotten us some
interesting leads
We’ve used a handful of SEO tools over the years, including SEMrush and Ahrefs. (Lately,
we’ve been using Ahrefs more.) We’ve gotten the hang of things for the most part, but
we still feel like we only use these tools to about 5% of their real capacity — at the tune
of $100+ per month.
Lewis Commercial Writing is a copywriting company. So we get paid to write for others
every day. That makes it hard to find time to write for our own blog.
Here are a few tactics we’ve tried over the years:
Challenges:
Context

- Dean Yeong | Content Manager at AppSumo
“
“
Dean mentioned that
if you want to get the most out of SEO,
you’ve got to be willing to invest in a
paid tool.
AppSumo insider
Meet Dean Yeong, Content Manager at AppSumo Group. He’s worked at Sumo Group
for three years, building out the SEO team at AppSumo and Sumo. As a two-person
copywriting team, we wanted to learn from Dean what we should do to improve
our search ranking. We had a lot of questions about keyword research, publishing
frequency, and much more.
Here are some of Dean’s best practices for keyword research using Ahrefs.
Paid vs free SEO tools
There are many free keyword resources out there, but understanding keyword volume and
difficulty is core to the challenge of finding keyword opportunities. Those types of details
are hard to find outside of tools like Ahrefs and SEMrush.
For this keyword research tutorial, we decided to go with the tool that Lewis Commercial
Writing and AppSumo already use for keyword research: Ahrefs.

2 powerful keyword research tactics in Ahrefs
Method #1: Find the intersection of high search volume
and low competition
Step 1: Find seed keywords
The first step is to come up with a list of “seed keywords.”
Seed keywords are simple terms that answer basic questions about your business. By
answering the following questions, you should end up with a strong list of seed keywords
to get you started:
What do you do?
Who is your target audience?
What problem do you solve?
What results do you get for clients?
What topics do your target clients like to read?
Once you’ve answered those questions with a few words and phrases, drop those seed
keywords into Ahrefs’ Keyword Explorer tool. Click the search button.

Step 2: Locate keywords with low keyword difficulty (KD)
After you’ve entered your seed keyword(s) into Keyword Explorer, click the tab
“All Keyword Ideas” in the left column.
This will generate new similar keywords based on the ones you came up with.
For most agencies and freelancers, some of these keywords will be really
competitive — and therefore, hard to rank for. So our next step is to eliminate the
hard-to-rank-for keywords, so you’re just left with the simplest ones.
For this, click the dropdown menu labeled “KD” and set the maximum difficulty to 25. This
will provide you a list of high search volume keywords, with low rank difficulty.
The next task is to comb through these keywords to eliminate the ones you know are
irrelevant. In this case, we’d avoid using “mighty fine” because that’s a branded keyword
for another copywriter.
You want to save the most relevant keywords to your keyword list. Just click the checkbox
beside every keyword that sounds relevant to what you’re targeting.

Step 2: Locate keywords with low keyword difficulty (KD)
Now you can investigate some of these keywords more closely. Simply click on a keyword
to open a screen with more details about it.
Scroll down to the bottom of this page to find the list of top pages for your keyword.
Open each of these pages to investigate.
Even if competition is low for the keyword you’re targeting, it’s worth looking at the articles
and webpages currently on the first page for that search term. Remember: there’s a reason
Google is ranking them in the top spot. By reading each top article, you might be able to
borrow their secret sauce — and make your articles twice as good.
Just a few things to look for as you browse competitor articles:
Title
Article structure
Headlines
Length (word count)

Reading the top-ranking articles will also teach you a thing or two about searcher intent,
helping you answer the question: Why did someone search that term in Google?
The more you know about search intent, the easier it is to write quality content that solves
the reader’s problem.
The second approach is to discover what keywords your competitors are ranking for —
that you are not. Here’s how you do that using Ahrefs.
Method #2: Competitor keyword research

Step 1: Write down your main competitors
Step 2: Insert competitors into Ahrer’s Content Gap tool
Competition is a weird subject in the professional services business. There may be
thousands of people offering similar services to you. Still, you’ll never compete with most
of those professionals, because there’s so much work to go around.
So how do you nail down competitors to find keyword opportunities?
In our case, we decided to define our competitors by who’s ranking for the most
copywriting-related content on Google. Whose names keep coming up for Google search
results we want to rank for?
We Googled terms like “SaaS copywriter” and “software copywriter” to see which names
appear.
You can do the same for your business. Write down any competitors who come up again
and again.
In the Ahrefs dashboard, start by typing your business
URL into the search bar and click search.
Click the Content Gap tool.
Begin listing the selected competitor URLs into the
respective type boxes on the next screen.

The content gap tool lets you compare your website’s search ranking with the
search ranking of your competitors, looking for keywords where they rank and
you don’t.
Click “Show keywords,” and consider the list.
You’ll get a long list of keywords. These include keywords your competitors are ranking
for that you should set your sights on. You can use this list to decide where there may be
opportunities to compete head-to-head.
Like we mentioned in the first keyword tutorial, the KD dropdown will help you limit
the keywords you view by their ranking difficulty. That way, you don’t waste your time
scrolling through the most challenging keyword opportunities.

Content marketing (and SEO) best practices
The fastest way to improve your search traffic:
Increase your posting frequency
Great ideas are often better than finding the right
keyword
The fastest way to rank high is to publish more content. It’s basic math. The more blog
posts you publish, the more keywords you naturally start ranking for.
If you write one post per month, you’ll have 12 posts that might get ranked by the end of
the year.
If you write one post per week, you’ll have 52 posts that might get ranked by the end of
the year. Basic arithmetic.
Sarabeth and I have always been pretty bad at writing for our own blog. We publish about
one article per month. Dean recommends at least one blog post every two weeks — but
ideally, we should publish once per week.
If you have a great idea for a blog post, sometimes it’s better to punch out the great post
instead of always diving into keyword research. Great ideas can spread on social media,
driving more traffic — and possibly backlinks — to your website.

Use other forms of distribution
Writing about ideas that get you excited makes them easier to write. Often, that
enthusiasm can also be sensed from your readers, which allows them to share in your
excitement in the subject.
In addition, unique ideas help develop thought leadership. You can add new ideas to
your larger industry conversation. Instead of simply writing about what people are already
curious about, you can give them a new framework or idea that they didn’t know they
wanted until they read about it on your blog.
Plus, you can start with writing a powerful blog post and then do keyword research to
make sure you can optimize your idea.
Don’t limit yourself to just search engine optimization. Even if you’re writing for search, it’s
important to distribute your content far and wide using other channels.
Here are just a handful:
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
LinkedIn
Quora (answer questions and post in Spaces)
Reddit
Medium
Hacker News
Zest.is
Your newsletter
Partner newsletters

CHAPTER FIVE
YouTube: Launching a
B2B YouTube channel

Actually...we’ve never tried using YouTube to grow our business, though we’re very
interested in starting. We’ve been on video a handful of times for interviews — plus
that one time we made a copywriting video for AppSumo. #ShoutOut
We’ve considered creating YouTube videos for several months. We think it’s a great
medium, and it doesn’t seem like a lot of our competitors are using it. However, it’s a
bit intimidating. We want to produce quality content, avoid coming across boring or
awkward, and not use up all of our time. In summary: we’re procrastinating like crazy.
Here’s what we’ve tried over the years:
Challenges:
Context

Brandon Wells is a Content Producer at AppSumo. He started working on video content
with Noah Kagan in 2017 and then started working directly with AppSumo in 2018 —
eventually becoming full-time in May 2019. We called Brandon to teach us the best
practices of launching a YouTube channel for our business.
Here’s what Brandon taught us about launching an entertaining and educational YouTube
channel.
Does YouTube work for B2B?
Brandon Wells
- Content Producer at AppSumo
AppSumo insider
YouTube is an opportunity to add visual instruction to your business. It’s a unique
medium that probably reaches a totally different audience than, say, your company blog
or your LinkedIn page. It’s a lead magnet for your business that stretches into a new
medium that you might not be used to reaching.
You can use YouTube to:

You want to be passionate about the things you’re talking about. Make sure you’re always
interested in the things you want to make videos about.
Research: Certain keywords get searched a lot more than others. You can use tools
like Ahrefs to find high volume keywords. Take a notepad and write down the topics or
keywords you’d be excited to cover.
Once you have your topics, it’s tempting to procrastinate (like we’ve done) because you’re
nervous. It can be scary to put yourself out there. But the best way to build a channel is
to simply start creating content.
Here’ what you should know to get started:
Grow a following around your business or personality
Drive leads to your website
Broadcast your message to people who might not find you any other way
Teach customers how to use your product
Give leads another way of connecting with you on a personal level
And so much more…
Choose a topic
Publish before you feel ready

Checklist for creating and editing a quality YouTube video
Don’t film with bright lights behind you. Balance light, so you’re not backlit.
Avoid noisy areas, so audio is nice and crisp.
Too much echo? Look at the floor and ceiling in your room — you could be sitting in an
echo chamber. Try putting carpet down as a solution.
Remove any dead space in your videos. When Brandon is editing videos, he splices
separate takes together so they feel just like one sentence. This helps you get to the point
of your video faster.
How often should you post on YouTube?
The unspoken rule of content marketing is that you should post as often as possible.
According to Brandon, that means at least once per week. But at the end of the day, it
depends on how personal you are with your audience, and how long or in-depth your
videos are.
Noah Kagan once spoke with an editor at NPR to
get feedback and ideas for his podcast and YouTube
channel. One of the big editing takeaways was to
mention what people will gain from the episode just a
few seconds into the episode. It’s like a teaser to capture
someone’s attention early.
That one recommendation has become part of almost
every YouTube and podcast episode Noah records. You
may have heard this line: “In this video, you’re going to
learn point 1, point 2, point 3.” Brandon says this teaser
should take less than 20 seconds — so don’t go crazy.
Quickly get people excited about what they’re going to
get, and then dive straight into the meat of the video.
Posting frequency
Editing tip from NPR

The type of person watching YouTube is a different audience than someone browsing
Instagram, LinkedIn, or the NYTimes.
Start by thinking about why someone might come to your channel. Most of the time,
it’s probably to be entertained or to learn.
If you’re creating educational content, make sure to always solve the problem you’re
addressing in the title. There’s nothing worse than sitting through a 10 minute ramble
that promises to solve a problem, only to be left with the same problem looming by the
end of the video...
For creators, it helps to write a script and stick to it.
P.S. don’t try to muster enthusiasm about subjects you don’t care about. You’re better
off picking topics you’re genuinely excited to discuss, so that your passion comes
through on the screen.
The YouTube algorithm depends on many factors like views, spikes of views,
subscribers, time spent on someone’s channel, time spent in each YouTube session,
etc., but watch time is a factor you should definitely optimize for.
If you can create long videos that retain someone’s attention for 15-20 minutes, then
do it! But if you’re better at chunking content into 2-4 minute videos, then do that
instead. What matters most is that you find a flow that keeps viewers’ eyes on your
channel.
That all starts with creating the best video content that you can.
How not to be boring
Should we know anything about the YouTube algorithm?
Standing out and getting attention

Collaborating with people is always a good way to grow your following (and help
someone else grow their following at the same time). Try interviewing people on your
channel. Participate in challenges or pitch to be a guest on someone else’s YouTube
series.
One of Brandon’s main pieces of advice for finding topics that people care about:
follow the zeitgeist. Post content that fits into the intersection of your interests and
what’s happening in the world of your ideal audience.
We’ve talked for months about the possibility of launching a YouTube together. Finally,
Brandon inspired us to launch a channel — with a twist.
In the spirit of following the zeitgeist (and creating videos about something we’re
excited about), we decided to create a channel that encompasses: a shared interest
we have + what people ask us about most + what we don’t see online.
And we landed on this theme: how to build a successful online business with your
partner. Within a week, we reached 110 subscribers, so I’d say we might be onto
something here.
Collaborate with others
Follow the zeitgeist

You don’t have to spend a lot of money to create quality YouTube content. In fact, you
probably already have most of the tools you need. And if you’re insistent on spending
money, don’t do it until you’ve started trying things with what you’ve already got. That
way, you can spend your budget where it matters most.
That said, here are some tools you can use to get started creating YouTube videos
from home:
Our new channel in Tubics with all the SEO recommendations we need to implement
Tools + equipment
Cell phone camera
(Wired) Apple headphones
Tripod
iMovie (Mac)
Adobe Premiere Rush (PC)
Hire freelance video editor (If you’re going to spend money, spend it here, Brandon says!)
VidIQ
Tubics - Get an annual deal for a limited time!

CHAPTER SIX
Google ads: How to
skip the SERPs

We’ve tried Google Ads a couple times over the years, but we never closed a new
client using it. That said, we believe Google Ads is a great way to get leads — even
though we haven’t seen it for ourselves.
We’ve done some SEO over the years (and therefore, keyword research) which has
helped us land a handful of clients, especially in the last 6 months.
Several weeks ago, we launched a Google search ad for our business. We let it run
for a few weeks and didn’t receive any conversions. We were a little overwhelmed by
some of the technical aspects. Once our ad was live, we couldn’t figure out how to edit
it. Basically, we were lost and needed a lot of help.
A few things we’ve tried over the years:
Challenges:
Context

Jack Paxton started working with AppSumo as a freelancer. Over the
years, he’s grown into an agency, Top Growth Marketing, that still works
continuously with AppSumo to spearhead Google & Facebook ads. We
had a call with Jack to learn the best practices of launching a Google
Ads campaign for our business.
Here’s what Jack had to say about launching a Google ads campaign.
When you try to launch your first Google ad, new users are led through a simplified
(and less effective/customizable) ad creation process just to make sure they get their
ads up and running fast. The problem is, because this initial campaign is so simplified,
Google doesn’t give you the same control as you’ll have after that first campaign is live.
In other words, your second campaign has more options than your first. Jack wanted
to show us the better campaign creation process. So, he quickly created a dummy
campaign just to zoom past the Google Ads onboarding steps. That’s what you’ll have
to do as well if you want to get the best possible campaign set up.
To use the following tutorial, first click through the step-by-step campaign Google
walks you through. Then pause* that first campaign, so that you can start using Google
Ads to its maximum capacity.
Okay — let’s dive in.
*Pause and delete your dummy campaign immediately after you create it, so you
don’t waste your $$$.
7 steps to launching your first Google ads
Step 1: Skip the simplified ad
AppSumo insider

The key here is specificity. You want to make your campaign precise, not generic.
If you offer a B2B service like us, it’s best to start with a low-barrier offer. You don’t
want to try to convert a cold lead on a four-figure purchase. You want to just get a
simple first step into your sales funnel.
Just as with Facebook advertising, you want your success to be measurable. That
begins by defining clear metrics for measuring success — which starts with defining a
successful campaign.
What would you like your conversion metric to be?
Once you’ve answered that, you’re ready to build a campaign.
Just like with Facebook Ads, you’ll use Pixels to track success. You’ll include a pixel on
your landing page as well as your Thank You page.
Step 2: Create a campaign goal
Step 3: Create a landing page and Thank You page
Optional: In this section we recommend hard-coding Pixel to your
landing and Thank You pages, just like we did in the Facebook Ads
chapter. But to more easily set up a conversion goal, you can also
skip this method by connecting your Google Ad account with your
Google Analytics Account. This allows you to import data and goals
to your Google Ads, letting you automatically record your conversions,
use audiences from Google Analytics, and look at metrics like bounce
rate and time on site. If you use Google Analytics, skip to Step 3.

When someone arrives on your Thank You page, that will alert Google that there’s
been a successful conversion.
Click the blue Plus (+) sign.
Click “Website.”
Note: Even though we are “booking a call,” we still want to use the
website conversion option. Using the “phone calls” option places a
Google Voice number in the ad that people can call.

Under the Category section, select “Book Appointment.”
Select “Don’t use a value for this conversion action.”
Count it “Once.”
Keep the 30 day click-through conversion window and one-day view through window
(this is the most common combination across ad networks).
Under Attribution Model, click the dropdown and change it to “Position based.”
Click “Create and Continue.”

Now you have options: Install the Pixel yourself, email it to your developer, or use
Google Tag Manager.
We decided to code it ourselves. When you click “Website,” you’ll see this screen.
Simply copy the code and add it to the top of your Thank You page.
By adding the Pixel to the Thank You page, you’re telling Google that when someone
arrives on this page, there’s been a successful conversion. All of this has to be done
before you start designing a campaign.

Note: The pixel conversion option allows you to track “view through”
conversion, while the Google Analytics connection option does not.
But now that it’s out of the way, we can start creating your first Google Ad!
From the Campaign screen, click the blue Plus (+) sign. Select “New Campaign.”
Click “Leads.”
Step 4: Create a campaign

Click “Search.”
Check “Website visits.”
Drop in the URL to your landing page.
Hit “Continue.”

On the next screen, you’ll be asked to name your campaign.
This deserves its own point because this step is more important than it sounds.
Think of the name as a description of the campaign that lets you easily distinguish
it from future campaigns. In our case, we called it “Search / nonbranded / UX
copywriting.”
Step 5: Name the campaign
Campaigns vs. Ad Groups - What’s the difference? It’s helpful to
think of campaigns as buckets filled with many similar ad groups. Your
campaign is the broader category. Individual ad groups are the range
of variations within that category. When you’re naming a campaign,
use a specific keyword phrase (in our case, “UX copywriting”). It’ll
serve as the bucket for all future ad sets containing that keyword
phrase, with the goal of addressing every question or pain point
someone might have.

Select the countries, states, or regions you’d like to target.
Select languages and insert your daily budget. Under Audiences, select
“Observational.”
Under Bidding, focus on Clicks to start with. Then swap over to Conversions later on
once you have some data.

Under Sitelink Extensions, check all the pages you’d like to feature.
You can add callout extensions like “free consultation” or “money-back guarantee” —
any short message you might like to add.
Click “Save and continue.”
Should you use sitelink extensions? Yes! Sitelink extensions increase
the amount of information you can give someone within a single ad
placement. The price you pay Google doesn’t change, but you get to
feature more content and information about you, your services, and
business.

Jack likes to think of ad groups as the variations along a certain keyword phrase.
Select a certain keyword. That keyword has to be in every keyword phrase and every
ad within that ad group. Otherwise, you’re using too broad of a search term, which can
result in a lot more unqualified leads and lower relevancy scores.
As soon as you can’t fit the keyphrase into the ad group, you create a new one. At
the end, you’ll have a pyramid. You’ll have the main core buckets (under Campaigns:
your services and the benefits you provide); beneath that, you’ll have ad groups (all
the keywords you’ll be targeting); and further below, an extensive variety of phrases
containing the target keyword.
You can find these keywords using Google Keyword Planner.
Once you’ve added your keywords,
click Save and Continue.
Step 6: Set up ad groups
Helpful note: As you type keywords into the box, put quotations
around them to signify that you’re going for “Phrase match.” Start with
the phrase match, then use broad match or exact match as you see
positive or negative results.

Now the part you’ve been waiting for: creating search ads.
Remember that Google works on a relevancy score. The more relevant your ad is
to the end-user, the more powerful it will be (and the better it will perform in the ad
auction). Google takes several things into consideration: the keyword you’re targeting,
your overall relevancy score, your account history, and your bid.
Google wants to find the best balance between showing the most accurate/relevant
result for the end user, while still getting the most money from advertisers.
Tips for writing relevant ads:
Step 7: Create and publish your ad
Use the keyword phrase you’re targeting in the ad and landing page
Offer a clear call-to-action
Name the benefit(s) of using your services
Once you’ve inserted your ad copy, click “Save and continue.”

Click “Publish.”
And your ad is live!

CHAPTER SEVEN
Referrals: Building a
word of mouth flywheel

We’ve been in business at Lewis Commercial Writing since 2017. Before then, Alex
freelanced under the business name Copy by Alex.
Since the beginning, we’ve relied mostly on referrals. Happy clients have regularly
rehired us or recommended us to their colleagues and friends. (Thanks, Ilona!) We
occasionally tried a few tactics to increase referrals, but for the most part we’ve kept it
organic.
In other words, we’ve left it to chance.
In the past, we joined topical or regional Facebook groups, becoming regular
contributors within the community. Now when someone is looking for a copywriter, we
regularly get tagged in those posts as recommended writers. This has worked better
than any other referral tactic.
We aim to be 100% organic: do good work and happy clients refer us. We’re on some
third-generation referrals at this point, which is pretty amazing.
Our email signature for the past six months: “Our business runs on referrals. If you
know anyone who needs a copywriter or ghostwriter, please pass along my email. “
Over the years, in an attempt to drop our price to accommodate a new client budget,
we’ve basically asked people to refer us. It was all reliant on trust factor, but we’ve
never received work this way.
We network with other freelancers or agencies to occasionally receive referrals.
We also engage in content marketing, leading people in our network to refer us to
relevant projects
Here’s what we’ve been doing so far:
Context

AppSumo insider
Meet Seann Stubbs, Growth Lead at AppSumo. Seann has been part of Sumo Group
since 2017. We jumped on a call to learn what we could do to make referrals more
predictable in our business.
Here are the ideas Seann gave us for driving more referrals.
Make it clear that referrals are welcome
Many service businesses assume their clients naturally know referrals are encouraged.
But in reality, sometimes you have to make that abundantly clear. In short: you have
to name it in subtle but structural moments along the client journey. Make sure you
communicate it at least once to each client. As a best practice, shoot for moments of
maximum happiness: whether in the final email exchange, invoice, or after collecting
feedback once the project is completed.
Referrals are unpredictable and untargeted, but they account for a large percentage
of our business. Referrals are often lateral, but we’d like to move up to work for bigger
and bigger clients if possible.
We get a lot of leads that aren’t right for us that we end up referring out to other
freelancers. This isn’t the worst thing, because it helps us become the resource
and connector in our network. We’ve considered starting a paid outbound referral
program, but we worry that that’ll leave a bad impression. (Note: Another freelancer
recently tried this with us and admittedly it didn’t feel great.)
Challenges:

- Seann Stubbs | Growth Lead at Appsumo
“
“
Don’t miss the chance to communicate:
We live by referrals, we die by
referrals.
To start off, offering incentives in exchange for referrals is a great tactic. But Seann
recommends you keep it simple. Gift cards are nice. But instead of giving a monetary gift,
consider giving a service, upgrade, mention, or feature in a blog post.
It’s worth mentioning that compensation isn’t always the right choice. In his book Predictably
Irrational, Dan Ariely talks about social vs. economic norms. He writes about how we live
in two worlds: “one characterized by social norms and the other characterized by market
exchanges.” People don’t mix the two — they do things for free as a social gesture or they
do things to get paid for work they deliver. There’s really no overlap. In human psychology,
there’s a stark difference between these two exchanges, so keep that in mind as you plan a
program around referrals.
Offer incentives
The big question for deciding how to set up your referral program is:
What do my best referrers care about? How can I find what motivates
them? It’s an evolving process.

Referral models
2 tips for automating referrals
SendFox built-in referral tool
Successful referral program examples
Reward model: Give a gift or compensation for each successful referral made.
Altruistic model: The Reward model, only two-sided: Give $10, Get $10. This model has led
to the highly successful AppSumo referral program.
Milestone-based referral model: A milestone-based referral program might not work for
a service business, but it’s worked for Noah and Morning Brew.
Scaled referral model: If getting one large project is a lot more valuable than getting two
or three smaller projects, consider building a referral program that disproportionately rewards
large referrals over small ones.
Email marketing: Add a sentence or link to every email sent in your welcome series: “Thanks
for working with us. Referrals are our lifeblood.”
Add a referral program landing page to your website: “Get $10” at the top of the
navigation bar. You can link to it post-purchase or after someone leaves you a review — or in
those emails.
1.
1.
2.
2.
3.
4.
Anyone using SendFox for their email marketing can use the easily built-in referral hub
tool to set up a milestone-based referral program to get more subs. This feature gives
people three different ways to share their code, and allows you to set up your own
milestones to reward referrers.

If you’re curious, check out Noah’s example. This could work really well for newsletter-
or email marketing-based businesses, or more of a consulting-type service business.
Noah’s milestones

Morning Brew milestone-based referral program
Mistakes & troubleshooting
Morning Brew’s simple yet genius program has garnered them hundreds of thousands
of subscribers. By setting up high-quality gifts like extra newsletters, stickers, mugs,
t-shirts, and beer glasses, they’ve incentivized people to share their referral code widely.
But note: this may not work as well for a service-based business that doesn’t have the
brand affinity of Morning Brew.
Seann has noticed that people have a propensity to set referral programs up and forget
them. Referral programs can work, but they’ll need some love to keep them effective. Be
sure to revisit the terms of your program and add some new flair into it from time to time.
Get people who’ve worked with you to naturally come back to you. Again, you’ll have to go
back to your ideal customer and figure out what kind of incentives work the best.
If your program isn’t working, consider revisiting it with these questions in mind:
Could you have chosen the wrong prize for your ideal customer?
Do you have the wrong framing, placement, or approach?
Perhaps it’s more of a question of messaging: have you conveyed the benefits in a
clear way at moments when clients are satisfied with the work you’ve done?
Or is it the timing? Your program doesn’t need to be in your clients’ faces all the time.
Keep in mind that the best time to ask or share about your program is after the project
is done.

Many business owners tend to overcomplicate their referral programs, which can lead to
lost opportunities. As Donald Miller says, “If you confuse, you’ll lose.” Make sure people can
understand your program in less than 30 seconds. Keep it simple and easy to grasp.
Tracking referrals
Fix your referral mindset
How AppSumo does referrals
You can track referrals with a link-sharing tool that provides metrics about shares, how many
people have come through that link, etc. You can also just keep a manual spreadsheet. If
you’re running ads and have the appropriate website traffic, consider retargeting people
with Facebook retargeting ads.
People tend to fear asking for referrals. But keep in mind that in making the request, you’re
just planting a seed. Rarely will someone refer a colleague right when you ask. The worst
that can happen is they’ll brush you off. While there is some pride involved in the process,
try to remember that it’s more about being tactical: if you know you did a good job, just
ask. What’s the worst that could happen?
Also, remember to use moments of feedback to segue into referrals. If someone leaves a
review, immediately explain to them how important referrals are to your business. Ask them:
“Do you have anyone in mind who might like to work with us?”
Seann helped AppSumo launch an improved altruistic model referral program using Friendbuy.
It’s really simple: if you refer a new AppSumo customer, you get $10, and they get $10.

For a company of AppSumo’s size, referral programs are an important part of new buyer
acquisition. Previous iterations of the program didn’t have enough safeguards to prevent
people from taking advantage of the program, so Seann wanted to use a tool with more
advanced tracking features to prevent referral fraud.
In addition, the previous AppSumo referral program wasn’t altruistic, so new buyers weren’t
incentivized with a discount. That all started to change once he used Friendbuy.
Seann also realized the benefits of mentioning the program in more emails and post-purchase
user flows. Most notably, adding the program in the menu bar on AppSumo.com and email
footers led to a huge spike in referrals: 700 to 1,000 new buyers a month.

Friendbuy
GrowSurf
Viral Loops
Referral Rock
Referral Saasquatch
Tools to automate and simplify referrals
Most service businesses run on referrals. A tool can simplify the process of tracking where
referral leads come from:

Let’s name the unspoken problem we’ve all likely faced in our businesses: a lack of diverse
marketing channels.
Since the beginning, Lewis Commercial Writing relied on organic “strategies,” like stumbling
upon projects in Facebook groups, getting projects out of the blue from LinkedIn and Google,
and receiving spontaneous referrals.
But that lack of predictability is dangerous for any business. At the heart of this ebook is a push
to diversify your marketing. We know you’re probably already nailing a few of the marketing
approaches mentioned throughout this ebook, but it never hurts to open up a few more
channels.
It’s time to level up your business. Hopefully, this ebook gave you the tools and tactics — and
inspiration! — you needed to make it happen.
Now, onward to greater heights!
Final note: Never put all your eggs in one basket

Key Takeaway
Let’s name the unspoken problem we’ve all likely faced in our businesses: a lack of diverse
marketing channels.
Since the beginning, Lewis Commercial Writing relied on organic “strategies,” like stumbling upon
projects in Facebook groups, getting projects out of the blue from LinkedIn and Google, and
receiving spontaneous referrals.
But that lack of predictability is dangerous for any business. At the heart of this ebook is a push
to diversify your marketing. We know you’re probably already nailing a few of the marketing
approaches mentioned throughout this ebook, but it never hurts to open up a few more channels.
It’s time to level up your business. Hopefully, this ebook gave you the tools and tactics — and
inspiration! — you needed to reach even greater heights.

In summary, we’d encourage other service business owners out there to invest in marketing your
business. Step out of working in your business to work on it. Spending the time to implement these
strategies will be well worth the effort.
Once you share your expertise with the world, your business will grow in turn.
Onwards,
Alex & Sarabeth
Final note from Alex and Sarabeth
While writing this ebook, we tried to implement as many of these tactics as we could in real time.
It’s all been pretty impactful. In the weeks leading up to the publication of this ebook, we launched
a YouTube channel and have received:
Two high-quality leads from YouTube viewers
120 YouTube subs
Two leads from Facebook ads
Multiple invitations to speak at digital events and on podcasts (thanks to social media
and YouTube)
Multiple leads from LinkedIn search

As essential marketing

Empfohlen

Empfohlen

Weitere ähnliche Inhalte

Was ist angesagt?

Was ist angesagt? (20)

Ähnlich wie As essential marketing

Ähnlich wie As essential marketing (20)

Mehr von David Raudales

Mehr von David Raudales (9)

Kürzlich hochgeladen

Kürzlich hochgeladen (20)

As essential marketing