Build a Profitable Brand While Ignoring BS “Best Practices” with Matt Giovanisci | Ep #129

By Jason Swenk on July 6, 2016

Profitable Brand Building While Ignoring BS “Best Practices”

Want to know the best ways for profitable brand building while ignoring all the BS best practices out there?

In this episode, we’ll cover:

  • 2 ideas for profitable brand building to effortlessly generate more leads without BS best practices.
  • How to break the “me too” agency mold.
  • The #1 thing to grow your business.

Today’s guest is Matt Giovanisci and, I feel like he’s my brother from another mother… We have a similar quirky sense of humor, we’re both in the digital marketing space, we like to drop F-bombs in unlikely places, and to be honest, we both suck at writing! 🙂

Matt’s the founder of Money Lab, a business he founded with the sole purpose of making money online. His business model involves some fresh, unique, and humorous attention-getting marketing that ignores all the “rules” of marketing. He shares his story with us and the #1 key to standing out.

Matt got his start in the pool business. Yep, you read that right – pools and hot tubs. After job-hopping between pool companies, he eventually worked his way into digital marketing for them. From there, he gained agency experience and picked up coding, too. He founded and currently runs SwimUniversity.com where is clients learn to care for their pools and hot tubs. He also founded and operates Money Lab, which he calls his experiment for making a passive income online. In addition, Matt is a blogger, video/music producer and a former podcaster. Busy dude, right?

2 Effortless Ideas To Drive Traffic

Matt’s doing a ton of unique stuff to market his online businesses as well as some profitable brand building, but here are just a couple of examples:

1- Opt-in Landing Page

I first discovered Matt’s content when his “I want your email address” landing page went viral. It’s hysterical and you’ve got to check it out here. Basically, it’s an entire landing page he created to poke fun and shed light on the ridiculous marketing practice we’ve gotten into where we literally hit people over the head trying to capture their email address. Think of it like an interactive SNL skit for digital marketers 🙂

The goal for this page was pure entertainment… but the result was over 1,700 email addresses! The page was only promoted on Facebook, shared by DigitalMarketer.com and picked up by Reddit. Effortless leads.

2- Podcast Guest Interviews

Being a former podcaster, Matt knew the impact of being a podcast guest. He also knew what podcasters aren’t looking for from a potential guest. He decided once more to create a satirical page pitching himself as a podcast guest. It’s all about his qualifications as a guest, but is dripping with sarcasm and all the while making fun of the traditional promotional “one-sheet” most guests use. Matt booked 16 interviews in 24 hours with this tactic, and he’s still seeing results.

How to Break the ‘Me Too’ Agency Mold

I asked Matt how agencies could try to be different… and his perfect response was not to “try”.

That’s the thing that business owners are getting wrong. Everyone tries to be different, when really we are all intrinsically different to start with. So, be you and you will be different. Most people just copy what they see being done because of social acceptance.

Matt’s advice was to stop what you’re doing and talk to yourself:

  • Think about what bothers you – then fix it.
  • Think about what you find funny – then make fun of it.
  • Think about what you wish existed – then create it.

Be different without trying, by being yourself.

In case you missed it, that’s exactly what we did in our Agency Owner Pledge video. This is stuff that bothers agency owners, that they always say they will stop doing but never seem to be able to quit!

#1 Thing to Grow Your Business

Know what you hate doing, or what you suck at doing – and find a tool or outsource for it.

For example, Matt says he’s a terrible writer, and has always hated it. He found a solution for the problem when he discovered HemingwayApp. With the app, Matt writes as much as he wants and the app helps him trim down any unnecessary wordiness, grammatical errors, and typos.

He now approaches writing with intention and purpose. Matt says he likes reading simple text with short and punchy sentences. He has made that his signature writing style and has even incorporated this into Money Lab’s brand guidelines.

If you want to learn more, head over to MoneyLab.com/dingle. Yep, “DINGLE” …and see more of Matt’s craziness for yourself.

 

Improve as an Agency Owner

I hope this puts a spotlight on how you can have profitable brand building for your agency without getting swept up in the fake best practices out there. Don’t just stop there but take a step back and really look at struggles you need to focus on to improve your business. I have all you need to get through these obstacles.

I have advice on topics from gaining agency exposure in the news, how to build authority for your agency, or even ways to use Facebook marketing strategies to expand your brand awareness. If growth is your focus, I’ve discussed the four phases of growth within your agency and how website issues could be holding your business back from reaching your potential.

You can learn more about my life and my experience as well as lots of tips, tricks and insights by reading my blogs that cover a wide variety of topics.

If videos are more your thing, don’t worry, I’ve got you covered! You can check out more from my Ask Swenk series and more of my videos on my Youtube channel. There you will find advice from myself and other agency experts.

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