CC9 -- Kaylee

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ModernMarketeer

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Hey there,

I hope this opening thread finds you all well and excited to begin (what is without a doubt) a life changing experience!

My name for this experiment is ModernMarketeer and I'm a marketeer by trade, working in the marketing department of a large corp.

Everything I've done previously has been more traditional marketing - brochures, flyers, mailshots and events... what the digital world sometimes call outbound marketing.

I've only just begun my journey into digital, having realized the freedom (and riches) it could bring!

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Picking A Niche

I wanted to start a website in an industry where I could confidently produce the initial batches of content and actually make an impact.

The market size should be big enough to support me financially (should it be successful), the market should cross international borders and the audience should have a consumer mind set.

While there's nothing wrong with managing multiple niche projects, I want to build one great site and one great list - one that can be sold to a corporate business eventually.

It didn't take long to think of an industry and carryout some basic market research. After exploring a few angles I decided on a sports niche.

Goals For The Project

The overall goal is to build an industry leading website that becomes the go-to source for information without depending on Google. I want to build the type of site that naturally gets mentioned in forum posts.

I've set an objective of signing up 1,000 people to an active email list in the next 90 days.

What I Hope To Gain

Traffic!

Money may make the world go round but in the digital world without traffic there's no money.

I have this idea, it's something that I'll expand upon as we go through but if I crack the niche and master Google-free traffic sources then the future's going to be very bright for us all.

Time Per Week

I work away a lot, spending a few days each week living out of hotels which means once I've finished working for the day the evenings are pretty quiet. I've decided that I can dedicate a minimum of 10 hours a week towards learning my new craft.

Traffic

Targeted traffic makes the world go round. I created the site just before I submitted my traffic leaks application which means traffic sucks right now.

By the end of this project I'll have a steady stream of at least 500 visitors per day from leaked sources alone.

WIIFM (or what's in it for me)

I wanted to put myself out there because I know that's the only way I'll take action.

The ModernMarketeer name will be worth nothing if I don't follow this through until the end.

My goal (along with mastering traffic leaking) is simply to move the traffic needle from 0 right through to 500+ visitors.

Proof that the system works!

Where I'm At

I've read a lot of blogs and forum posts where the writers start a project and despite starting from scratch and preaching that they didn't lean on their contacts for help - we all know that they do.

I this project to be a true telling that real marketers can find value it.

I have no pre-existing contacts or massive twitter followings to lean on. I don't have an existing mailing list but I've got motivation, an idea and hustle.

My sites currently getting a staggering 0 visits each day but the domain is currently showing with a Google search (even if the brand name isn’t just yet).

One thing that I've been keen to start cracking on with is content!

I started out with no content and over the past week I've written close to 13,000 words and 17 articles.

I've refreshed my knowledge of wordpress, setup the site, installed a professional theme ($40) and played around with the editor to get it just right.
 
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Remember the big sports publication sites have the ability for user generated content submissions :smile:

bleacher
yahoosports
etc...

So many sports bloggers for guest blog opportunities for traffic. good luck!
 
I love that this project is starting from scratch. Makes things exciting.

Your goal of building a list and selling it is unique amongst the CC9 so far. That's very clever. Selling data and hot targets is something I tend to never think about, but that's definitely how most of the money online flows.

Good luck! :smile:
 
My Official Take:

Tons of competition for this niche, but lots of great opportunities. This type of audience is the type to stay loyal once they find a good center base for news, information, and the latest info. Permission based marketing is going to be critical for this, that means, gathering emails, sending out weekly newsletters, updating the social media accounts weekly, and giving tips throughout the year to stay in shape and train.

Due to the uniqueness of this niche, it can be approached from 3 different angles all with winning capabilities. The brand is going to be critical for this, and should be pushed more so then the actual niche. Reverse guest-posting of newbies, intermediates, and experts also has great potential.

Newbie guides are going to be critical for success and entering the hearts and minds of the next generation of this niche. Even the health aspect can be touched on if we really want to go wide, but probably not necessary.

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One thing to note is the world-wide interest of this peaked in August 2004 - 10 years ago, and has steadily declined. I figure its due to new competitors whether fads or not, coming onto the scene. I also saw some of the monetization keywords I favored has seen a rapid decrease - more so then the general niche. The volume is still huge and has a great international presence. OP do you think there is possibly a renaissance coming for this sport OR do you think we are at the tailend?
 
Awesome overview @CCarter !

You're right, looking at the search data it does appear to be the tail end of a trend! However if we look at industry reports on spend/participation it's all on the up.

You hit the nail on the head when you brought up the audience. Building the brand and the audience loyalty is key to this niche... along with the list!

My focus this week is going to be on creating a newbie guide as I think this could be critical for on boarding those initial subscribers to the list and helping to cement the brand in the users mind.
 
I'm really digging the daily updated by @Satvrn so thought I would follow suit and start posting mine!

09/12/2014 (3 hours)

+ Installed UpdraftPlus (another hat tip to @@Satvrn)
+ Properly added the newsletter signup form to the site now I understand more HTML
+ Created the last few social media channels
+ Installed 'Search Meter' Wordpress Plugin (as mentioned by @@CCarter in Big Brand Checklist)
+ Produced 2 testimonial scripts (60 words each)
+ Purchased 2 x video testimonial gigs from Fiverr (2 * $5.50 = $11)
+ Created outline of blog post to write tomorrow

I was pretty tired today after work so picked some of the easier tasks to complete.

Concerning Segmentation

Segmentation and data are awesome! They are two of the main reasons that I'm so excited about this digital marketing journey!

The ability to know your visitor before he's even told you more about him is crazy to a humble 'offline' marketeer.

Simply knowing the country that a reader is coming from means that I can switch out affiliate links, banner ads and ebooks with just a few lines of code (I know this can often be faked but I don't think my target audience will be doing much of this).

With this in mind my email list now includes a few extra fields in the database such as experience level and country which will allow me to segment this in the future and send different offers/content to different subscribers.

I know this is a major case of putting the cart before the horse but I just wanted to start getting feedback on the idea!
 
10/12/2014 (1.6 hour)

Man I'm so glad that I had such a productive day yesterday as I didn't have much time (still managed a solid 4 pomodoros though).

+ Finished 750 word article that I outlined yesterday
+ Wrote outline for tomorrows article.
+ Bought 1,500 Twitter followers to give my profile a bit more credibility.
+ Added a mailing list sign up form above the comments in the post template.
+ Decided to outsource some of the content so have submitted a few job requests to various writers to find a service I like.

I only managed to get one chance to read through the on-site crash course so I'm going to print that out tonight and make a to-do list following on from that.
 
Trying to find something to complain about - only found one category with no content - disastrous, lord help us all.

Wow, your validation is really good - almost had a perfect score... almost, a bit of cleaning up with the duplications and you are good.

Carry on...
 
@ModernMarketeer good choice to go along with Satvrn bulletin structure. I also like it as it's transparent and easy to follow. I'll be following your progress on the sports niche and the fact that you're starting greenfield without any prior assets makes things even more compelling for newcomers. Good luck!
 
11/12/2014 (3 hour)

+ Faffed around with trying to speed up an acceptable site
+ Created the first 3 pages of content for my first beginners guide
+ Messed up my .htaccess, broke my site and then managed to figure out how to fix it!


I wasted far too much time today trying improve the site speed of my site and eventually forced myself to leave the tweaking once the speed was under a second! This is a marginal gain and something that I can look at again if I ever need to squeeze that little bit extra from the site.

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I'm actually pretty vexed with myself for faffing about. I should have been creating value not messing around with code that I know little about!

Eventually I gave my head a shake and started working on my first 'beginners guide' which is what I should have done from the start or I could have really hustled and created an article for the 1 remaining empty category that @CCarter mentioned earlier!

C'est la vie
 
12/12/2014 (4 hours)

After yesterdays shocking performance I wasn't going to waste another day!

+ 1000 word blog post
+ Downloadable resource created (not available for download yet)
+ 600 words added to beginners guide #1
+ Sent out a few tweets to start boosting my tweet/follower ratio
+ Added my first video testimonial to the website
+ Created a brief for developer to build an email-to-download script

Email-to-download plugin

I read a post by @CCarter (here on the 'Meg Chamber' thread) where he spoke about controlling your own list and this totally made sense!

We aren't depending on the whims of Google for traffic so why should we depend on a 3rd party to keep our data safe.

That's why I've decided to bring all email addresses into my database before they're pushed across to MailChimp. I've sketched out a few ideas and sent them across to freelance developer that I've worked with in my corporate gig.
 
13/12/2014 (0 hours)

Saturdays are always a family day which meant I didn't even pickup my laptop so nothing exciting to report I'm afraid.

I did see an email pop in from Fiverr letting me know that my second testimonial gig had been completed.

I've blocked out a few hours this afternoon to hopefully make some progress and I'll update later.

UPDATE: 14/12/2014 (3 hours)

+ 800 word post which filled my last empty category
+ Uploaded new testimonial to YouTube
+ Bought 3 * usability reviews of my site + 2 competitors
+ Fixed 2 bugs with my site design
 
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15/12/14 (2 hours)

The main focus for today was writing but the great news is after 45 pages of content my first beginners guide is now 60% complete!

I figure it's all about value - customers will want access to the information and I have an asset to trade in exchange for an email address.

+ 1000 words added to guide
+ 6 article topics for writer brainstormed
+ Content editorial calendar created
 
Thanks @c4yrslf12 - I think I mentioned before that I wanted to try and provide daily updates as I think an honest account is great for reflecting on... especially for those like me who are new and think you need to be super human to make it work.

Yesterday I struggled to actually get much done as my 9/5 had to take priority and I had to have dinner with clients which left little time for the project and meant I didn't really do anything to add real value.

16/12/2014 (1 hour)
+ Managed to make a few twitter posts
+ Joined a few Facebook groups
+ Chased my content guy to check his progress.

17/12/2014 (0 hours)
Failed to actually get anything done today. If I wasn't keeping this as an honest account I could say that I spend all day in 9-5 meetings but the reality is that after travelling all day I simply couldn't be bothered to work on the evening! I'm just accepting that this will happen from time to time and not letting it get me down.
 
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18/12/2014 (3 hours)

Finally managed to get a solid effort in after a rather unproductive week.

+ Received and tested the mailing list script from my developer.
+ Managed to attract an industry expert to help with content
+ Signed up for affiliate programs
+ FINALLY finished the first draft of my ebook (100 pages!!).
+ Outlined an article idea
+ Joined a couple of forums, reddit and Facebook groups.
- Didn't manage to get the script onto the website (didn't understand the HTML)
- Messed something up so page load speed has jumped back up a little
 
Thanks @DeltaNine I'm lazy compared to some of the guys and girls taking part in the CC9. I just figure that some days I'm going to get a solid block of work in so I've gotta make hay while the sun shines!

19/12/14 (5 hours)
A rather big important meeting was cancelled today which meant I got away from work early and not only did that mean an early weekend - it meant that I managed to log some time on my project.

I'm really pleased with how my beginners guide is coming along - hopefully after a bit of a stock photography blitz it should be ready to go live on Monday.

+ Read, Re-read and then re-read again the latest CC9 post
+ Submitted the first part of my homework for the project.
+ Started working on the second half
+ Engaged with my audience on Twitter (also shared my 1st piece of content with them)
+ Started dropping content into my ebook template - just need to download some images over the weekend
+ Figured out how to install my custom PHP script (although didn't get chance to upload the new files)
+ Finally got the usability reports back and have made some notes about where I'm falling down vs competition.
+ Started seeding Facebook post with content.
+ Looked into some free stuff to giveaway/incentive for readers
+ Reviewed affiliate account applications (5/5 accepted)

Not a bad day all things considered - now just gotta spend the rest of this Friday doing my homework!
 
@Satvrn this is awesome - I'm currently downloading Photoshop and I'll make sure I look into getting the professional looking graphics sorted.

I was actually shocked by how many pages I'd produced and the standard isn't too bad either!
 
Awesome work @Satvrn! Looks like the meeting getting canceled was a good thing :thumbsup:

I also use graphicriver all the time. Great quality stuff for cheap. Keep up the good work and keep us updated!
 
I really appreciate the support guys, it's great motivation.

I really like the fact I'm working full time along side the CC9 project; it's sort of focused me to get on with creating value rather than messing on imgur.
 
20/12/14 (0 Hours)
Family day today so didn't really pick the computer up although I did see that my first and only promotional tweet got picked up and was featured on a weekly round up type site.

21/12/14 (4 Hours)
+ CC9 Homework (2/3 tasks complete)
+ Forum accounts created
 
22/12/2014 (3 Hours)

+ Finished CC9 Homework
+ Outlined article & review
 
23/12/2014 (2 Hours)

Today was pretty full on with the 9-5 and I only managed to spend a couple of hours working on the website and the majority of the time was spend trying to fix my monumental cock up!

I stupidly thought I could hack together a custom PHP function...

I was very, very wrong!

Eventually I figured out that I just needed to restore my functions.php file and everything was back to normal (including the site coming back online) but lesson learned - keep out of the code!

+ Spent time fixing my own stupid mistakes
+ Produced a 400 word post (I'm not happy with the quality of this)

I was really hoping that I'd get my ebook live before Christmas but I seem to have failed at this so the next goal date is before Jan 1st.
 
29/12/2014 (3 Hours)
Okay so Christmas is done for another year and it must be about time to get back to work.

Today I had a few bits to finish up with my CC9 homework assignments and I should be done with the final bit tomorrow.

I did have some big plans for today but I didn't manage to get much done as I was keen to refresh my memory of where we're at. Thankfully I think it's starting to sink in/

+ CC9 homework (100 article ideas)

- Ebook graphics
- Ebook content
- Social media posting
- Ebook proofing
- Forum postings
 
29/12/14 - 31/12/2014 (8 Hours)

All my time this week has been spent working on the CC9 homework assignments (it's been tough) but fingers crossed I'm now up-to-date with everything.

I've not had time to get my ebook/new posts/social media posts sorted but hopefully I'll get some time over the weekend (once I've recovered from tonight).

See you all in 2015!
 
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