CC9 -- Missandei

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That direct link drop resulted in 24 unique visitors. Enough said for this one.
I'm preparing a second blast. In the mean time, I opened a new thread in one of the niche forums - I hope it will bring at least 10% of the 1k goal from the latest CC9 assignment.
 
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The forum traffic leak experiment I had from last night brought very few visitors BUT anyway..
I'm crafting stories for submitting on Reddit, niche forums and even forums where unexpected target audience may be sleeping and waiting to see what an amazing thing exist that they didn't know about.

Have a good day everyone!
 
If it bleeds, we can kill it said Arnold in The Predator

I made small, but important steps, especially when talking about the blog comments.

Since my last post I've tested new traffic leaks in niched forums.

After that I jumped on the blog comments. This is what I find as the easiest thing up to now. Using what CCarter taught it's pretty easy to comment. What's the toughest part is when you want to consciously troll and create a discussion to bring higher amounts of traffic.

The original blog comment assignment is to extract 100 visitors from a single comment. I'll try to do achieve it in the next 7-10 days, everyday testing and improving.

At the same time I can definitely say that I can already put 100 good to decent comments for 2h work.
 
Update 17 Feb:

  • Recently seeing a raise in the traffic from the blog comments, but no single comment has brung 100 visitors - I should increase the polarity.
  • Got 150 visitors from Reddit - just shared the link

Till next update will continue with:
- Blog commenting
- new Reddit pawnage
- Writing new stories and submiting to forums (one of the most exhausting things for me)​

P.S.
Any feedback is highly appreciated.​
 
Earlier I've set a goal related to the forum traffic leaks. I won't be able to meet the deadline.
I'm focused on the commenting and Reddit traffic leaking.

Comments:
I'm leveling up, learning how to spot opportunities and go beyond simply commenting. For example an hour ago, I spotted opportunity and tried to put a compelling comment. Then I saw who wrote the article and found his mail. Quickly outreached to him getting into conversation. He replied and I hope I'll end up with a media coverage for the crowd funding campaign which is approaching.

I prefer commenting on really fresh blog posts, in order to increase the chance for a reply if I go further and outreach the author. But that's not always the best thing to do. Discovering hot blog posts with social tools is the 2nd strategy I use.
​
Reddit TL-ing:
Nothing special here in the last 24h - I'm commenting and collecting points since I'll need some authority in the subreddits I'm soon planning to shoot.
​
Forum TL-ing:
I realize that I need to manage my accounts, before a try to drop my links there. Last week I went broad and dropped the link in a broader niche forums, which didn't bring the expected outcome. Writing the right story is a big MUST here.
​


 
Kimoto said:
Created a pinterest (today stats: 13 boards, 200 pins, 5 followers) & tumblr profiles with the intention to share repursposed content there – is this a traffic leak at all?
Click to expand...

Wow! I really love your case study!

When you are now looking back at your pinterest boards. Did pinterest work out for you? Which type of content did you post there?
 
Hey @algospider, thanks for reminding me what I've been doing at the beginning.

Creating assets like rich Pinterest profile for me means building an evergreen source of leads. I stopped developing Pinterest for various reasons like:
- Pinterest not being the kind of platform my niche spend time on
- The low referral traffic results I was getting

I believe I could develop it more, but the CC9 went into the better direction so I had to cut it.

So, the answer is no - Pinterest did not work for me. I branded Pinterest profile and created various undustry related boards and even put links to my site on almost every pic - I'm not 100% this was smart.
 
Kimoto said:
So, the answer is no - Pinterest did not work for me. I branded Pinterest profile and created various undustry related boards and even put links to my site on almost every pic - I'm not 100% this was smart.
Click to expand...

Thx for your answer!

Which type of content did you create? Just reposted cool images or did you create images on your own?

I am using quote images a lot! However, they do not tend to attract customers,
 
Always re-pinning and maintaining a separate board with product only images. Adding quote type of images is not bad idea.

You can try cutting a bigger image into 9, 16 or 25 puzzle like images and create some impressive boards to create a general message for your target audience. Then make sure to spend time promoting it.
 
Update, 26th Feb:

Blog commenting:
Slowed down in last few days BUT now, every time I see a good opp, I attack aggressively like:
  • always being a bit nagging
  • always link dropping
  • always asking a question an trying to create a discussion
Trying to lit the fire sparkling a bit smarter.

Edit: Stunt you could also apply
When I create more compelling comment, I continue reviewing comment opps until I find another one.

In the meantime I would have found a couple of blog posts on which I put comment with a link to the blog post with my compelling comment.

>>> This is how I funnel people to see my main comment and click on the link I've dropped.
 
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As mentioned in my previous update. I've slowed down, especially when it comes to commenting. Now, every time I have a chance to work on the project I'm dropping the link.

A guy in our team who's responsible for the website has added a gif image as a background video showing the exact way our product works. This helped us improve our conversion rate a bit.

Devoted to all CC9ers:
Recently I made a major change in my sleeping pattern which allowed me to wake up much earlier and much more productive. I really want this to continue - it gives me new powers.
 
CCarter: think of your 3 top biggest problems and talk about it in your individual thread

Ok.

1). Working on more than 1 project - I have a daily job a few more projects besides the one I'm in on CC9.

2). I feel I'm a bit stupid for not able to complete even 1 of the 3 recent home works - the blog comments went well, but didn't achieved 1k referral traffic. My biggest success until now is in Reddit - around 300 visits... :( Forums seemed to me the easiest, but crafting stories requires more.

3). The project I'm in CC9 is heading to launch a crowd funding campaign soon - to succeed we'll need to attract many backers' attention. We have plan. Let's see what will happen. (Last update here is we'll launch the CF campaign sooner than planned - after 7 days)

 
The previous post described my biggest problems. In this post I'm focusing on solving the first problem: working on more than one project.

Working on more than one project
Solution​

I decided to put this online and stay accountable. I need this, because there are some forces that work on keeping my time and energy split between few projects. This is a kind of assistance to hold my plan unchanged.

My daily job - will keep it. At least for now it helps me learn patterns of efficiency that are easily copied over my personal project.

CC9 project - currently this project won't be discussed in the post. (except the update for the crowd funding campaign at the end).

The 2 years old project - it's a snails game lacking a lot of components that will make it successful. There's a sub-project inside which has a good chance though. A good content creator is involved. I plan to exit the project and the sub-project in 3 months and my plan is to monetize the sub-project and give it away to my partner, who is still on the opposite site - very motivate, no matter how hard it is and how tiny experience he has in this area.

Other smaller ventures will be just smashed by my efficiency patterns which I try to improve all the time. I'm a bit afraid of the type of person I may turn into - a niche person who's unable to maintain healthy relationships with most of his old circles.

Few days left before the launch of our crowd funding campaign. I'm collecting a bit energy for my task during the campaign.
 
Update March 31:
Traffic leaks and campaign spreading initiatives for the last 7 days:
- Launched the crowd funding campaign
- published on producthunt.com - will publish it tomorrow
- shared on Reddit
- received media coverage from big tech media

I'll try to give you an update how things are going a bit later.
 
The crowdfunding campaign isn't going in the desired direction. As I understand the other guys from the team are willing to stop it any time soon. At this time, it means the project will be dead.

At the same time I don't want the knowledge I gained from CC9 just disappear. I'll get in touch with @CCarter to suggest a crisis solution.
 
@Kimoto That's a shame... You guys still have over a month left, don't a lot of campaigns start to really pick up right around the last few days?
 
I added you on skype, but here are some questions I need EXACT answers to.

1. How are you promoting the kickstarter?
2. How many people have you contacted that can be potential cheerleaders for the kickstarter?
3. Why did the blogpost seriously stop? The point was to warm up your leads/customers/visitors.
4. When was the last time you emailed your list?
5. Have you been emailing your list more then once a month since you've been growing or started? (The purpose of this is again to warm the leads, and keep your brand in their minds).

It's important to know that for every 1 month you do not email your mailing list it loses a minimum of 10% of it's value. Why? Cause people don't remember you after a 1-2 weeks of no communication, a month, they'll be like - meh. So if you have someone that signed up 10 months ago, but have not heard any communication since - that email is 100% useless. Inboxing is already hard, having them open your email is also hard, so if they signed up they are looking forward to your information - this is what baffles me, cause people simply do not email people that signed up to their newsletter.

Oh, you have nothing to say? how the fuck is that possible when you are marketing a product? Why not talk about some new XYZ that your product compliments? Why not get someone to guest-post some content and put that as your email newsletter or on your site and promote that. You have to always be marketing and always stay in front of your audience - otherwise they will get distracted with their own lives - and when you do finally email them, hopefully they might remember you and hopefully they might still be interested - which is doubtful since an extremely long amount of time has passed.

What you need in your moment if crisis is to act like you are running for President of your country, and you've entered the race with 1 month till the voting - you've got a lot of catching up to do, but that means you have to be everywhere. Contact as many authors of big publications as possible, Wired, TechCrunch, and anything within your industry- Email them ALL - and I mean EVERYTHING FUCKING ONE OF THEM, tweet to them all, there are no days off, you need a lots of exposure - work weekends until people tell you to simple fuck off, cross them off your list and move on.

You need email your newsletter every 3 days or every other day until the kick starter ends, give them incentive to help spread the word to their relatives, family and friends - Make it like Your product/service IS running for president. You have to be everywhere - now is not the time to hold back, you have to flood the internet with activity and if you get banned it really doesn't matter since you are considering ending the project anyways, so you have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Shit you can hit up bloggers and allow them to give away 1 free version of your product to any of their subscribers in a contest - just for the exposure!

When we did producthunt at SERPWoo we had a week leading up to the day, a Friday, where we contacted as many people as possible and let them know "Hey Friday we need your help, can you help us out?" - Even our customer base that were already customers were emailed about the upcoming producthunt 3 days before, then 1 day before, and then that Friday - we ended up in 3rd or 4th place cause of the push. We literally were everywhere and annoying everyone, but we had a great product so people loved it. The lead up to any campaign is critical As well as when you are in a campaign.

This isn't just a KickerStarter campaign - this is your fucking Presidential campaign you are running for, you need to be every fucking where, you need all hands on deck, everyone in the office not taking any days off, including weekends and grind to push your product/service and your Kickstarter - cause realistically this is it for you. You might make it, you might not, but sitting around and hoping to ride the momentum you had 2 years ago - that's never going to happen. That's the reason I talked about engaging the audience constantly, that's the reason I talk about doing that image album of how it was made, it's all about keeping the lead/customer/visitor warm and your brand in their minds.

You need to get hyped about this - this is your moment, every obstacle is an opportunity to shine and show your true capabilities. If you don't give it your all right now - when you are in a sink or swim scenario, what the fuck is the point of living? When will you give it all?

"When you are about to battle for your life, you must make full use of your weaponry. It is false not to do this, and to die with a sword undrawn." - Miyamoto Musashi (The Book of Five Rings)​

When you are in a life or death situation you have to use BOTH swords, meaning you HAVE to give 100% no matter what. Go into the situation thinking you are going to die no matter what, the project is getting shutdown no matter what, - with that mentality, it gives you freedom to do anything and everything to go crazy and promote the shit out of your campaign.

The worst thing you can do is sit around waiting for some outside source to create the momentum you need for your campaign - This is it, there is nothing left after this, SO START MARKETING.
 
It feels like a failure...

I have played XXXX game for over 220 hours (+other driving games on top of that), and even if I want to, I can not see the point of this product. It is halfway solution, not really serving on any purpose.

SUCH PRODUCTS are generally made to give player the best control of the XXXX experience. It is way better than D-pad or analog stick. For console (PC) games and simulators it makes sense to add a XXXXX as a interface to enjoy the game.

Now, CONSOLE NAME has a astonishingly precise sensors to mimic that. It is perfect for simulators and driving games. Apart of maybe bit better grip (and pedals, which are almost as equally important for the driving), there are nothing you can really add to that out-of-the-box experience. CONSOLE NAME is a portable device to play games where ever you like. Part of the good mobile experience is that you can hold and tilit it in the way it is convenient for you. Attaching it to a OUR DEVICE makes it restricted and just horrific to use, and it creates a domino effect: you need a bigger screen in front of you, proper play chair ...and suddenly you are wondering, why you are throwing money on this “car simulator" on top of an CONSOLE NAME and not on top of a decent gaming console.

The mobile games are designed to be player in short amount of times or at least way shorter than console ones. The approach is different than a “proper” gaming console sitting in one specific space waiting you to play for hours and hours (and takes ages to boot up). With mobile game, you can just launch it quickly and drive a few laps. Trying to combine these 2 different approaches creates a conflict: Killing the easy-play, usability and portability without really adding anything to it.

I hope I am just a small portion of car game players and not representing the majority with this conserns. And I really hope the best for these guys with their product.

Feedback like the one above and the fact that the majority of the feedback was negative lead the founder of the start up to take the decision to cancel the campagn.

Answers:

1. How are you promoting the kickstarter?
A lot of tech media was outreached, we got covered on a couple of big media.
Unfortunately Cnet didn't wrote about although we were promised. A lot more energy had to be spent there.

2. How many people have you contacted that can be potential cheerleaders for the kickstarter? - guys from the team correct me if I'm wrong, but I think there wasn't a typical cheerleader to support the campaign, if we doesn't count the other founder who contacted about 300 people.

3. Why did the blogpost seriously stop? - it sounds very stupid, but here are some pure facts:
I'm the one responsible for not managing to persuade the founder to write the story of the startup and upload the images of the creation process and then email the list. This was done for the Kickstarter page.

4. When was the last time you emailed your list? - Email list was emailed with the launch of the KS campaign. Then every single subscriber was emailed again and there was under 1% response rate.

5. Have you been emailing your list more then once a month since you've been growing or started? - No

It's clear that the answers explain why we reached this moment. A key thing is I'm not a founder or co-founder. My grinding motivation was slapped the day I heard the plans for the KS campaign canceled. I came up with a plan to get back to action and achieve the results we had at the launch day. I think, the decision for cancelling was caused by the heavy load of negative feedback we were receiving before and after the launch.

But @CCarter asked the right questions, and he knew where and why we've failed, this is crystal clear. Even with conversions under 1% with 15 mln. target audience it's still possible to achieve the funding goal. The worst thing is that the discourage was caused by people who are not the target audience and people got influenced..
 
Well if the founders are out cause they got a little negative feedback and cancel the project that's a mental barrier problem. People signed up for the newsletter, they wanted the product, who gives a shit what the nay sayers said. You have to always keep marketing regardless of what other people state around you.

If people waste time listening to people with discouragement we wouldn't have PC today - recall Hewlett Packard didn't want to do a personal computer cause "normal people wouldn't know what to do with it". Same with anything that's coming to market. The clear thing is/was that people signed up for the newsletter - it was for a product they wanted, meaning they were willing to pay for it - that's all the encouragement that was needed.

I think the bigger question is why did it take 2 years to come up with a prototype and why is it still not finished... But there is nothing else that can be said now...

So what's the plan now, the company's done?
 
No, this is the estimated target audience.
 
CCarter said:
So what's the plan now, the company's done?
Click to expand...

Everybody is taking his own way. I got my eyes opened and gained enough experience to do the obvious and start walking into @builttodominate's steps. I feel I got new friends here and this's a the right envinronment to throw the seeds of a new tree and grow it till it reach some healthy mid $X,XXX/m and then I leave the fancy 9-5 cubicle and keep growing further.
 
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As many other guys, I've never managed to achieve it until now. Reasons why not until now are countless, I don't see a reason to go into details. Let's say I was missing the important ingredient called BuSo and forget about it.
 
Hello everyone,

Welcome to this new show sponsored by our kind hosts from BuSo :smile:

I'll be competing in a fair game with the CC9-ers, also:
- @Shooter
- @animalstyle
- @anyone-else-grinding-to-build-own-asset

I'm one of the CC9-ers who's project just crashed ingloriously. I got out and jumped in a new vehicle to quickly catch the rest.

Ingredients:
- a domain name
- an evergreen niche
- a simple content marketing plan

Goal:
A). Reaching mid $X,XXX and B). Exiting with a nice 6 digits sale + quiting the daily job or C). Continue working on the same project + quiting the daily job.

Fine.

I'm about to ignite the spark now.

I'll be answering questions depending on the time availability.
 
There are 4 main categories and I'll be building 4 different lists - some offering a newsletter with the best content from my site and other news from the niche, some offering a nice report helping the subsciber to choose the best product for his needs.

I think I have enough topics and keywords to write about, but while I'm picking a free responsive wp theme and building the site structure I have the following question: what's your recommendation for a hosting. I'm now using a HG and they also have VPS upgrades, but probably this isn't the best choice.

Tomorrow's goal:
1). Get the hosting answer
2). Install the wp with quickly researched free and fast responsive theme (will be replaced in the process of development)
3). Compile 1 piece of content for one of the four categories.

Other tasks on my list:
- sign up for new CPA networks and standalone affiliate programs
- compile a report for one of the categories
- set up the 4 opt-ins
- add new KWds on Google Alerts (I already added the basic keywords) -
1). will need this to find traffic leak opps - mainly blogs for submitting fresh blog comments
2). also to use for news sources for the HootSuite - will set a task to load the Twitter & FB posts with last week's news and interesting blog posts every monday.
- build a list of 100 prospects for reverse guest posting
 
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