Pe:p Laja
@peeplaja
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You should test your messaging. CEO @wynter_com . Founder @cxldotcom @speero_agency . Host of How to Win podcast.
Austin, TX
Joined January 2009
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Company goes from $10M to $100M in 5 years.
All 130 marketers who worked there during those years: "I took the revenue from $10M to $100M."
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Happens regularly:
"Can I get your stuff for free?"
"No"
"You just lost a customer man!"
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When every department chimes in on what should go on the home page.
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Lots of people think they want a leadership role.
But mostly they want the title, not the job.
You need both strategic and operational excellence. Vision and responsibility. Most just want to be important - without the hassles that come with leadership roles.
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If you spend just 4 extra hours a week on learning while others binge 4 hours of Netflix, you'll run circles around them in a year.
Over 5 years that creates more than a 1000 hr difference.
That's massive.
That's radically changing your career trajectory right there.
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People early in their marketing career get super excited about new shiny tools, design trends, cool stuff.
Senior marketing people put the breaks on because they too were young once, and saw first-hand it didn't do shit. Tools are just tools, and silver bullets don't exist.
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When you're competing in a saturated category (most of us are), you need to take a fundamentally differentiated position in the market.
You need a narrative to compete on.
Here are the most common types of stories/narratives:
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On most websites it's the copy that has the biggest influence on conversions.
Yet so few companies actively work on optimizing their copy.
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So much of "building in public" is just an excuse to talk about yourself. Me me me. Look at me. Here's my revenue this month which is up again. Everything is amazing. Look at me.
What about the customers?
The value you added?
What about the mistakes?
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If you're in your 20s and worried about your career, don't.
Most great people I know really took off in their 30s.
Your twenties are for laying a solid foundation. Learn, take risks, be proactive.
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Stages of your marketing career:
Level
#1
: Irrelevance
Level
#2
: Being copied by
@neilpatel
Level
#3
. Being trashed by
@markritson
Level
#4
: Self-actualization.
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1/ Writing good cold email is *hard*. But it's not hard to avoid writing a terrible one.
Most emails are ridiculously long (the biggest offense) and ego-centric ("I'd love to show", "I just wanted to reach out" etc).
Here are my 10 rules for effective sales emails:
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Basecamp is without a doubt the world's biggest small company.
57 employees.
The whole world discussing their internal staff policies, and care what their stance on Apple is.
Amazing feat. Nobody else comes close.
Compete on brand, y'all.
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Hate it when biz books use dominant players as examples people should follow. Like:
"Start dropping hints about your launch! Disney released Star wars trailer 6 months before the movie, and broke social media."
Dude. It's Star Wars. No small biz can replicate that.
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Who is a marketing generalist that believes she can just thrive if given a chance. Someone looking for their big break.
I'm hiring.
DM me.
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Let's build 2 landing pages.
One is built by the world's best designer, but can't use any words.
Another one is a plain-text landing page, written by the world's best copywriter.
Which will convert better?
Copy will win by a ridiculous margin.
Invest in better copy.
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"Advice to my 30-year-old self"
@jaanmatti
, my cofounder at
@Copytesting
, just turned 30. He asked me what’s my advice for a 30 yr old.
The question stuck with me, and I decided to write some of my advice down. Turned out its mostly advice to my 30-yr-old self.
Here it is.
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Visible coupon code fields in the checkout trigger an army of people begging for discounts, abandoning carts to look for codes.
If discounting is not part of your marketing strategy, hide the coupon field.
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Think you're too old for something, like learning a new skill? If you keep it up, you'll be decently good at it in 2-3 yrs.
So if you're 40 now, you'd be 43 with that new skill. The alternative is that you'll be 43 without that skill.
And you still have a lot of life to live.
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People don't value what they're given for free. Learning that lesson again.
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I've started to notice a pattern:
People who are disciplined in their personal lives - actively pursuing a hobby, doing sports 2-3x week like clockwork, carefully planning their time around some things - they tend to excel at work too. More organized and stronger discipline.
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1. Most marketers lack creativity and guts, not data
2. Most valuable insights come from qualitative research, not quant data
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An employee quit because many tasks were repetitive, mundane.
I do the very same tasks myself, and I don't mind at all.
The difference I guess is that I see the big picture. “I'm helping put a man on the moon”. And as a leader, I failed to adequately communicate that vision.
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If you put in 10+ learning hours / week (books, courses, etc) consistently for a year, you'll get insane results. Think what 2, 4 or 5 years of that will do to your future.
Most folks are doing the bare minimum.
All top performers I know are ferocious learners.
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I don't want to hear any personal development stuff, morning routines and what not from people who don't have kids.
Or from people who don't care if they don't see their kids.
It's ridiculous that most of the advice out there is for a universe where there are no kids.
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If you don't have a large budget, organic social is your best marketing channel
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10 years ago I was a marketing consultant. I would analyze clients' businesses, and tell them what to do.
Later when I checked in:
1) they had done nothing,
2) they did it, but the execution was terrible
That's when I realized that execution is the hardest thing.
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Ok so you're a marketer who is not technical. No zaps, no CDPs, no APIs.
That's fine. But choose a path where you can enhance your technological aptitude. When you don't "get" something at first, it's time to get curious instead of becoming afraid. Seek mastery, not comfort.
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Folks want to do the strategy work and not be in the weeds.
But you earn the strategy work. Every CEO was once a star individual contributor. Coaches were players.
Being good at shipping and delivering results is what unlocked the strategy work. You gotta execute to strategize.
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Amazon is so good that even the people who hate it shop there all the time.
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How to compete
A couple of truths:
- there have never been as many brands as there are today
- barriers of entry have never been lower: access to capital, affordable tech, know-how, and talent is plentiful
- this results in *so much* competition in almost every market imaginable
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We’re offering free CXL Minidegree programs to people whose livelihoods are affected by COVID-19.
If you work in travel/hospitality/etc and your livelihood is at risk, and want to switch into a career in digital marketing, we can help you.
Please RT.
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People early in their marketing career get super excited about new shiny tools, design trends, cool stuff.
Senior people put the brakes on because they too were young once, and saw first-hand it didn't do shit. Tools are just tools, and silver bullets don't exist.
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Freelancers pay with card everywhere.
Then invoice me and are shocked to find that credit cards / paypal / etc take a %.
It's called "cost of doing business". And no I am not sending a damn check. This is how business works, get over it.
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I've wasted many huge opportunities by being too slow and hesitant.
I've wasted some money once by being too hasty.
My biggest wins have come from taking swift, decisive - even radical - action.
The importance of speed is one of my biggest lessons these last years.
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My B2B strategy podcast - How to Win with Peep Laja - is now live!
I'm looking at fast-growing B2B companies. How much is strategy? How much is luck? How do they win?
I'm unpacking it one company at a time to learn how one increases their odds of winning.
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Send Linkedin connection request --> accept --> instant pitch is a shitty funnel.
Don't do it.
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If I were a marketer looking for a new gig, here's what I'd do.
First realize that a marketer is someone who markets. Time to show them what you can do.
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More than 10 years ago I was a marketing consultant. I would analyze clients' businesses, and tell them what to do.
Later when I checked in:
1) they had done nothing,
2) or they did it, but the execution was terrible
That's when I realized that execution is the hardest thing.
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I've been on vacation for ~2 weeks. Just me and my kids in the forest.
The "forest bathing" effect is so strong that I even found myself thinking that I could just stay here and not go back to "reality".
There's time for breathing in, and time for breathing out.
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You can fast track your career by initiating projects and seeing them through, and by owning what no one seems to be owning.
Proactivity does not go unnoticed.
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I can spot a sales email in my inbox a mile away. It's like so different from "real" emails.
Yet when I try to write a sales email that looks like a "real" email, it looks like a fucking sales email too.
It's hard.
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Brands should actually double down on building personal brands inside their companies.
Not just encourage their people to be visible, but be "personal brands first".
People want to hear from people more than brands.
Brands benefit from being associated with a person.
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Me 10 years ago: "Hire for talent, train for skill!"
/goes on hiring lots of young people
Me today: Hire the most experienced person I can afford.
You just move so much faster AND get way higher quality with people who know what they're doing and know what great looks like.
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Companies that make you go through support to cancel are dicks.
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I just bought services from someone who's the best in their respective field.
They say you will forget what you paid, but you won't forget the value. But there's another underappreciated value that comes from buying from the best, the comfort of "I don't need to worry about it"
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There's no stopping the no-code movement, and marketers have to take note as well.
If we were to throw a 2-3hr online workshop on no-code predictive analytics, would you want it?
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When you're the low-cost option, not only will you have terrible margins, but you will also attract the worst type of customer.
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The most successful marketing achievement of all time: making breakfast 'the most important meal of the day'.
It's now a tradition and "truth".
It was promoted by the breakfast cereal industry early 20th century, using moralizing rhetoric, and playing on maternal guilt.
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I'm totally moved by what's being done to 🇺🇦. I have no words. That's actually not true. I am fucking angry and worried.
While I'm physically far from the war, I find it hard to get much work done, it seems meaningless considering the big picture and what really matters.
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Hierarchy of strategic messaging:
Level 1. Value. What's in it for the user? Which problem do we solve?
Level 2. Unique value. What's the value only we can deliver? What's our onlyness?
Level 3. Point of view. What do we believe?
The best messaging captures all 3 levels.
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Zoominfo has famously included auto-renewal in their contracts, and you need to cancel 6 months prior to renewal.
I did that.
Today ZoomInfo account manager emails me that auto-renew is set in motion and they are "unable to cancel the agreement."
This is a PSA: avoid
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People will always complain about the price.
In reality when people list 'price' as their main objection, it's often an excuse. The real objections are something else.
We rolled out a price plan that was 3x cheaper than the previous price plan. The demand went only up 17%.
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What are all the ways business podcasts can suck?
I'll start:
- Way too long intro (doesn't get to content until like minute 8).
- "Tell me about your backstory" 🤦🏻♂️
- Way to much filler and make nice conversation instead of "meat"
- Sponsors if they're already big (LinkedIn!?)
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My 2-month stay in the forest is getting over. Next week back to Austin.
Every year the trees are whispering "it doesn't matter" and I feel more drawn to garden work than computers.
One year I won't be able to resist, and will leave CAC/LTV ratios behind for good. But not yet.
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People: how dare these insensitive companies do marketing in these times!
Also people: how dare these companies lay people off.
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People not working in experimentation/CRO throw "just A/B test it" around like it's as simple as writing a headline, as if you could run statistically valid tests on any page, any site.
The sad truth is that most SMBs dont have the volumes to run even a single test per month.
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Yo copywriters - a much-needed dedicated service you need to roll out: humanizing B2B copy.
The amount of buzzword-laden, jargon-filled B2B copy out there is frightening. No human wants to read that crap, B2B is still human to human.
You can make a nice buck fixing it.
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I'm increasingly convinced that marketing needs to be split into "of course we're gonna do that" - content/SEO, PPC, etc - the obvious stuff AND "attempts at legendary" - wtf category, big swings, crazy stuff that just might work.
Can't be done by the same people.
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Practice and preparation - the foundation of a great result.
Ask any Olympic athlete. Ask Beyonce who had a 8 months-long preparation process (4 months of rehearsals with the band, another 4 for choreography) to deliver a 2 hr show.
That's what the top 1% of the top 1% do.
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Lead: I cancelled the demo after I saw your pricing, it's out of my budget
Me: at what price point would this be affordable to you?
Lead: anything above $0 is too much
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I seriously don't get people wasting hours on end on gaming. All that time spent could be converted into something real and useful.
Business is the funnest game you can play. Sure the progress is slower than in a computer game, but instead of points, you get real money!
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Day 1. You start your new marketing job. The email list is a nice 100,000 people.
However, the average open rate for your newsletter is under 10%.
Where do you start?
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And
@copytesting
is now live on
@ProductHunt
Please check it out, and tell me what you think!
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Am I doing this right? Am I doing this right?
Stop it. You're wasting energy. Just keep going and don't worry about it.
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Knowing benchmarks is useless.
Let's say your conversion rate is 5%, while competitor's CR is 8%. Now what will you do?
What if theirs is double of yours, 10%?
What if its lower, like 2%?
The answer in every single case is "try to improve our conversion rate".
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"Wow, this chatbot was a really nice experience, and gave great responses to my questions, and solved my issues so fast!"
...said no one ever.
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“Ugly websites convert better than pretty websites.”
You might have heard this one before.
It's not the ugliness that's the secret sauce. It's that they typically focus on copy instead.
Ugly design distracts, but good enough is good enough.
Copy-led sites convert better.
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It's important to take time off, and sharpen the saw.
I'm taking 2 weeks off. See you later.
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If you're a consultant, you're in the business of expertise. In order for others to know about your expertise, you need to demonstrate it.
It's baffling to me how many consultants have near-zero social media presence, no content marketing, no email list, dont do speaking.
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My last company, a SaaS startup, failed. I identified the following key reasons for it:
- no audience
- no name recognition
- no money to buy either
I told myself than next time around, I'll build an audience first.
Then I started a personal blog I called ConversionXL.
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If I were a consultant today wanting to make a name for myself, I'd go for an ABM strategy. Make a list of companies who should be my clients, best fit customers.
I'd then follow all decision makers in those companies on LinkedIn, Twitter.
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135
I've been massively nerding out on competitive strategy these past years.
There's a lot that goes on there, and a lot of theory/background one should know to have a full picture.
Here's a great, simplified way to think about competitive strategy.
A 🧵:
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Consulting is the easiest business to start, 0 costs to get going. Many start an agency thinking they'll use the profits to later build a SaaS business, but never get there because they're always fighting the whirlwind.
Based on my experience, this is how you can do it:
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I have a new favorite branding book.
If you're only gonna read one, read this one:
Obsessed by
@emilyheyward
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I have been trying to hire a content person for months now. 100s of applicants. All suck. People have portfolios with lame ass mediocre articles. Is it that the average writer just sucks - or no one has asked them to be better? People need to be asked for higher standards.
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Everything is easy when you're a consultant for someone.
It's way harder if it's your own business you're figuring out.
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Being unhappy is easier than being happy.
To be happy you need to do something - take care of yourself, take responsibility, make changes.
You don't need to do anything to be unhappy.
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Picked my son (10) up from his viola class, dropped some of his friends home as well. Made some small talk in the car, cracked some jokes.
After the friends got dropped off my son prohibited me from speaking to them in the future - "it' so embarrassing".
I'm officially lame.
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If you're selling to people who already know they need it, focus on "why buy from us".
If you're selling to people who don't yet know they need it, focus on "this is your amazing life with X" + "why buy from us"
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How much did you spend on your web design?
Copy is 2x as influential as design in why visitors convert.
How much did you spend on your copy?
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"How did u get so many upvotes on producthunt?", people ask me, hoping for a growth hack.
"10 years of building a network and reputation".
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Here are my top 5 book recommendations on business strategy:
- "Good Strategy, Bad Strategy"
- "Blue Ocean Strategy"
- "The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing"
- "7 Powers: The Foundations of Business Strategy"
- "The 4 Disciplines of Execution"
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Tired of going to 5 different calculators for A/B testing?
We created one calculator that does it all and tells you if you haven't reached needed sample size and duration for your test data
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I believe that a strong brand is your best, most sustainable long-term asset.
Recently I read 14 books on on branding, and found the best ones.
These are Brand Gap, Zag, and Brand Flip by
@MARTYneumeier
. Read them in order.
Short reads. You could finish them in a weekend.
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So many paid media agencies are good at targeting and campaign management, but can't do good creative for the life of them.
Which agencies can do both? Or is that too much to ask?
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