Interview with Noah Kagan from OkDork.com

I recently had the chance to interview Noah Kagan from OkDork.com, a blog that I have been reading and getting ideas from for quite some time. Noah worked at Facebook and coordinated Community Next, as well as being the director of marketing at Mint.com.

His blog is filled with short, thought-provoking and call-to-action posts, which I find great. Anyways, without further ado, here is the interview.

1. How did you get into the fields of product management and marketing?

I got into the field when i started making web businesses in college, comegetused.com, collegeup (defunct), ninjacard.com. I had to market and PM which i guess was deciding how to build the websites.

2. As you have grown and taken on new projects (like Mint and CommunityNext), what has been one or two of the most important lessons you have learned in terms of marketing?

Marketing is 1 thing. who is your audience and how do you get a hold of them. secondly, is how to get your audience to help (want to) do the marketing.

3. From a marketing/promotion standpoint, what are some things that you always take into consideration when launching a new project (for example, creating hype for the product/service)

Build hype WAY before you ever need it.

4. On OkDork.com you state that you are interested in social networking and that you have worked at Facebook. Obviously, these sites deal with many thousands of users - is there anything of particular interest that you have learned by dealing with such a large volume of users?

Yeah, people love complaining. its hard to figure out what to do when you have so many people wanting so many things.

5. Do you have any essential tips, techniques, software, or resources that you think would be beneficial for new webmasters struggling to promote their sites?

Yeah, try a lot of things to promote, measure EVERYTHING, test, repeat.

6. Last question, and possibly the most important - Star Wars or Lord of the Rings?

Neither ;) [Gasp!]

Posted in Resources | 2 Comments »

Experiments in Promotion Update 2

Here is what I have done so far with my experiment in ebook promotion:

• Written a four page ebook, including affiliate links
• Built a one page minisite that offers my ebook to download
• Submitted my ebook to ~10 directories

I don’t think that this alone will get me much traffic or sales, so here is what I plan to do:

• Submit to as many more ebook directories as I can find
• Put some articles on my site and try to draw in some search traffic
• Post in relavent forums with the ebook link in my signature
• List my minisite in website directories for the appropriate subject

I’ll keep you updated with how my progress goes - in the meantime, keep an eye out for my upcoming posts on forum promotion 101 and how to monetize a proxy website.

Posted in Experiments | 2 Comments »

Sunday’s Quote - #1

This Sunday’s quote is simple but has large implications:

Advertising is the “wonder” in Wonder Bread - Jef I. Richards

Think about Wonder Bread - it is by far the most popular white bread on the market, and maybe even the most popular bread period. You can buy a loaf of it anywhere for about $1. What’s so special about it?

Nothing. Nothing at all. It’s just like all the other generic white bread brands out there, it doesn’t taste any better, and it is certainly not nutritional. So why is it so incredibly popular? Because of lot’s of promotion and very effective marketing.

How can we learn from Wonder Bread? I think that the lesson we should take out of this is that you don’t always have to have the best product on the market, you just have to be able to market it as the best.

Posted in Quotes | 1 Comment »

100 Ways To Get More Traffic To Your Blog

InternetBabel.com compiled a big list of 100 ways to get more traffic to your blog - some of them you will already know but some will be new to you. Here are some examples:

• Make your blog as different as possible.
• Use interactive features like polls and surveys.
• Let your readers know about great little known resources.
• Take criticism.
• Admit your faults.
• Create bragging rights.

Check out the link and learn some new techniques!

Posted in Promotion Techniques | 1 Comment »

The Power Of Mindshare

Christopher M. Knight once said these very important words:

You must have mindshare before you can have marketshare.

Consider the truth in that statement for a moment. Your users make up your market so it follows that without them you have no market. Don’t market TO them, rather communicate WITH them. Identify and understand your target audience’s needs then create solutions that deliver satisfaction to them, based around their needs, not yours.

This is not a new idea, and I am sure that you have heard the same general advice from any marketing site you may visit - but not everyone understands why it is important. The answer: it builds mindshare. And mindshare equals marketshare. And marketshare equals profit.

Your challenge: connect with your users - become not ’some guy’ who is trying to sell them something but rather a unique individual who is offering them a product or service that fits their unique needs and with whom they can relate to.

Posted in Promotion Techniques | No Comments »

Experiments In Promotion #1 Update

I’m making a change in my first ‘experiment in promotion’ - instead of doing article marketing, which is very time consuming (of which I don’t have too much currently), I will be using eBooks instead. Same concept, different technique. I will write a couple of short, concise (and free) eBooks that provide good and relevant content concerning a subject that I can find a couple affiliate offers around.

The eBook will contain links to a one-page minisite that I create around the affiliate offers and information I wrote, and may contain direct affiliate links. I will then distribute my eBooks through various means. This is a test to see two things: how much traffic/downloads and how many conversions I can get. I will be keeping you updated on my progress and results.

If you have any tips or suggestions please feel free to comment! Also, if you have done this before, let me know how your results were.

Posted in Experiments | 1 Comment »

Promotion is Perseverance

Promoting your website is not something you do from time to time. It’s not something that you do until you start to see success and than stop. It’s an all the time gig and it takes dedication. Think about it this way - in school, you work hard to get an ‘A’ on that first math test. You get the test back and did indeed get the ‘A’, but you don’t stop working now. If you stop working with just one good grade all of your future grades will be low - you have to keep working, keep studying the whole school year.

The same is true about promoting a website. You don’t stop promoting after you start to see an increase in traffic. If you do, your traffic will not be sustained at that level, it will drop back down.

So here is my call to action: define a couple of daily/weekly goals for yourself, write them down, and then do them. Every day. You won’t become successful if you are lazy. For example, try something like this:

• Make 3 posts in 5 different forums targeted around your niche every day
• Guest post on someone else’s blog once a month
• Create one informational video and upload it to YouTube once every two weeks
• Read and comment on 5 different blogs targeted around your niche every day
• Write one concise but informative ebook and release it to the public once every month

These are just some examples of what you should be doing to really promote your website. The traffic (and revenue) is there for those who are willing to work hard for it.

Posted in Motivation, Promotion Techniques | 2 Comments »

Good Links, Round 2

It’s that time again - here are some of the best reads I have come across recently.

• 7 Reasons Why The Best Marketers Are Bloggers @WarriorBlog.net
• A fun exercise on “Could You Turn $200 Into $400 In A Week” at Cathlawson.com
• Stop Worrying About Google @Copyblogger.com - talks about how you can become successful by just focusing on the three “S”s.
• 3 Simple Concepts To Follow For A Successful Website or Business @DoshDosh.com

Remember, there is always more to learn!

Posted in Resources | 3 Comments »

Experiments in Promotion #1

I’ve decided to start experimenting with promotion techniques that I have read from different blogs around the web. I will catalog and analyze my progress, and at the end of each experiment I will release a case study ebook. So for my first experiment I will be performing article marketing on an affiliate offer.

1. I will find an offer through Copeac, Clickbank, or any other company that I can write about.
2. I will create a mini-website around the offer with affiliate links
3. I will write multiple articles around the offer-subject with links to my site or the the product itself
4. I will submit these free articles to all the article directories that I can find
5. I will submit to Craig’s list

This is a tentative outline. I’m not sure how many articles I will be writing, but I think at least a dozen. The article lengths will probably be around 400 words.

Any ideas / comments? I will keep you updated on my progess.

Posted in Experiments | 5 Comments »

Don’t Post Into 5 Different Categories

I read a lot of blogs and some of them have a habit that I find very annoying - they have placed each of their posts into four or five different categories. Besides from looking like they are trying to inflate their article count (by one article counting again for each category it is placed in), there is another reason why I think this is bad practice. I believe that if you are doing this than either your posts are too broad and need to be refined or that your categories overlap and need to be refined.

Remember the importance of choosing a niche? Well, writing articles inside of that niche is the same way. You want your articles to be focused and specific, not broad and attempting to cover everything. If you have been writing an article that is a thousand words long and fits into multiple categories of your site, then consider breaking it down into a couple of smaller, more targeted posts that each have their own, distinct category.

Why? It keeps the user focused and forces you to keep yourself focused instead of rambling off about all different subjects in your post. So next time that you’re tempted to place a post into multiple different categories, go back, break it up, and make it laser-specific.

Posted in Usability & Accessibility | 7 Comments »