Julia McCoy, Founder and CEO of Express Writers
By Cheval John
November 22nd, 2017
Today’s episode of What’s The Word? features Julia McCoy, founder of Express Writers.
Express Writers provides content for different types of business industries around the world.
Julia is also the host of “The Write Podcast” and the popular twitter chat, #contentwritingchat.
She is a best-selling author of the book, “So You Think You Can Write? The Definitive Guide To Successful Online Writing,” and “Practical Content Strategy and Marketing” set to be released on November 30th.
In this episode, you will hear
-What led Julia to start Express Writers
-How her company achieved over four million dollars in revenue with limited advertising
-Why she started #contentwritingchat
-Her favorite social media platform
-The person (past or present) she would like to interview on her podcast
Snippet on Vallano Media TV
Full episode on BlogTalkRadio
Website: www.expresswriters.com
Twitter: @expwriters
Quotes from Julia on:
BUILDING EXPRESS WRITERS
Jumping into something I did not know how to do and then figuring it out along the way was definitely one of my methods to success.
That kind of opens the door for you to learn by failure when you really do not know what you are doing.
You jump into it and you figure it out.
BOOTSTRAPPING YOUR BUSINESS
That really depends on the circumstance.
It is really hard for me to say you should do one or you shouldn’t do the other because everything I have learned has been without funding.
I have talked to many business owners and what they tell me about funding is if you do not have a clear plan on what you are doing with, let’s say a couple million you are going to get, it really won’t do you any good because you learn how to kind of just sit back and not work really hard to be the leader in your industry.
Whereas, if you are fighting for a paycheck, which I have been all of my six years of running the company, that kind of drives you to create the best product and be the best authority in your niche.
So I feel like that drive really comes from, “I have to make money and I have to figure this out.”
CONTENT MARKETING
I think content marketing is a huge channel, especially if you do not have a lot of capital.
There are big brands testing with their ad budget directly against their content marketing.
They found that content marketing returns four times on investment versus footing a traditional paid ad.
The basis of really making that return when you set up your content marketing is you want to find the right audience and you really want to grab their attention because if you are speaking to everyone in front of you, the return is so low.
So you really have to speak to the right people and go from there when it comes to your content.
A lot of content marketers drop off too early because they do not see the return overnight.
We kind of look for that return immediately and when it does not happen, we get discouraged.
With content marketing, you have to hang in there.
I have been doing this for six years and it is still hard for me to wait around and see the return.
You have to consistently put out the right content.
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Rachel Moffett, Blogger at Define Your Hustle
By Cheval John
Rachel Moffett made an appearance on What’s The Word? to share about her journey to becoming a social media manager for Express Writers.
Her journey began when she started blogging in 2009.
Along the way, she founded her website, Define Your Hustle.
In this episode, you will hear:
How Express Writers’ twitter chat, #contentwritingchat, build a deeper community with their audience
Why blogging takes a lot of work
Why putting a year into blogging does not make you an overnight success
This episode was recorded on Facebook Live via Blue Jeans Network
Snippet on Vallano Media TV
Full Episode on BlogTalkRadio
Website: www.defineyourhustle.com
Twitter: @redheadrachel
Quotes from Rachel:
INFLUENCER MARKETING
I think a true influencer is really somebody who has trust with their audience.
I think there is a lot of misconceptions that just because you have a million followers on Instagram, you are an influencer.
It’s a lot more effective to have a smaller highly engaged audience than a huge audience that is not paying attention and is not listening to anything you have to say.
If they do not trust you, they are not really going to buy into what you are trying to sell or anything like that.
So I do think it really has to do with trust and building a relationship with your audience if you really want to be a true influencer on social media.
TWITTER CHATS
Twitter just makes it so much easier to have a conversation with people in real time.
You could certainly have conversations on Facebook or Instagram as well.
I do feel on Twitter, people are a lot more open to having a conversation and I think twitter chats kind of break the ice a little bit and makes it easier to reach out and start a conversation when somebody might be a little afraid to reach out to someone new.
LIVE STREAMING
The reality is it’s a really powerful way to connect with your audience.
Whether it is live video or if it is pre-recorded YouTube videos, your audience gets to see you and hear you.
It is like they are right there with you and interacting with you in a way.
On a blog, they are just reading written content.
While that is great and I love reading blog posts, I think there is something really special about that connection you have where you can have a real time conversation with somebody over a live broadcast.
If you enjoyed this episode, would you share it with your friends and colleagues.
Also, who would you like to hear from on this show?
Popups Are Spam
By Cheval John
When you think you have figured out a social media platform, all of a sudden, they change the algorithms.
Now your social media campaigns have very little impact for your business due to the pesky algorithms.
Your try to learn from experts on how to “beat” the algorithm so you can get back to the glory days of organic reach.
Social media are rented land.
If you are building your business solely there, you will have problems.
The old e-mail is still important despite the growing importance of social media because it is your real estate.
When you build your subscriber base through e-mail, you can withstand any algorithm change in social media.
Which lead to the dreaded pop ups.
Pops ups are like the annoying commercials which interrupts your show because the advertisers are trying to get their product out in front of the viewers.
You are reading a fantastic article on a blog when all of a sudden, a pop up appears in the middle of the article asking you to subscribe to their website.
Some believe popups works because they will get more e-mail address.
The tactic of using the popup is very bad and it shows a person or company are very desperate for e-mail address.
That is where the social listening comes into play because you can see what people are chatting about on a daily basis.
The social chatter can give you ideas of what you can write about on your blog.
When you write quality content consistently, your audience will feel inclined to subscribe to your blog.
Over time, you will grow your blog organically through building your e-mail lists.
Even more important is the same people will share your content on social media to their audience which will bring more traffic to your blog.
This is the boomerang effect of building your e-mail lists the correct way instead of using the lame tactic of the popup.
If you decide to go the route of using the popup, you will end up losing the prospective customer in the long run.
Here’s An Additional Article on Avoiding Popups:
4 Easy Ways to Get More Subscribers (Without Using Annoying Popup Boxes)-Julia McCoy, Founder of Express Writers and Contributor To Search Engine Journal
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