7 Things I Learned from Neil Patel about Online Marketing

June 12, 2020

Who is Neil Patel?

Neil Patel is definitely one of the coolest guys I’ve ever come across. Being both humorous and extremely clever, Neil is like a younger brother of Seth Godin, easily the best marketer of the decade!

Neil is the co-founder of Hello Bar, Crazy Egg and KISSmetrics, and he is a main contributor to the online growth of NBC, Amazon, Viacom, HP and more.

President Obama and the United Nations recognized him as one of the top 100 entrepreneurs under the age of 35. To top it all, Forbes added his name to the top 10 online marketers of the moment, while Entrepreneur Magazine recently said that Neil Patel is the proud owner of one of the best and most successful companies in the world.

Needless to say, Neil Patel is a marketing guru who has proven time and time again that marketing is amazingly fun and extremely interesting.

Here are 7 things about online marketing that I learned from Neil Patel.

All 7 are extremely powerful tips, so try to implement them in your marketing strategy and you will definitely enjoy a tremendous success.

1. The Best Time to Post on your Social Media Websites

There are certain hours of the day when your visitors access social media platforms more often. Post your content during those periods of the day and enjoy a maximum exposure.

Here is an infographic on Neils Site, QuickSprout that teaches you exactly when to post updates and what to post during each hour of the day. This infographic is powerful and could prove to be a gold-mine for your online business.

I’ll see if I can sum it up, but PLEASE visit QuickSprout for the full report :

  • Facebook – Thursday and Friday
    • 1pm to get the most shares
    • 3pm to get the most clicks
    • Broader Suggestion of anytime between 9am – 7pm
    • Pro Tip from Neil: Use the tool “FanPage Karma” to find the optimal time tailored to your audience!
  • Twitter
    • Monday Through Friday – B2b
    • Wednesday Through Sunday – B2C
    • 5pm for the highest retweets.
    • 12pm and 6pm for highest CTR (possible due to lunch breaks, and people bored on their commutes home from work)
    • Pro Tip from Neil: Use the tool “Followerwonk” to find the optimal time tailored to your audience
  • LinkedIn – Tuesday Through Thursday during business hours
    • 10am-11am for the most clicks and shares
    • According to Fannit, the best times to post are 7am-8am and 5pm-6pm.  The worst times are Monday and Friday for US based time zones.
  • Pinterest – Saturday 2am-4am and 8pm – 11pm (yeah, this surprised me too)
    • According to SEJ, Pinterest activity peaks at approximately 9pm
  • Instagram Engagement stays high all week, with Monday having a slight advantage and a slight dip on Sundays.
    • 3pm-4pm
  • Google Plus – Monday Through Friday
    • 9am – 11am
    • According to Buffer, late mornings during weekdays are best to share on Google +
    • Pro Tip by Neil: Use the tool Timing+ to find the optimal time tailored to your audience.

2. Longer Blog Posts not Only Rank Better, but Get More Social Media Shares

There is no perfect length of a blog post. However, what Neil made me realize is that content has a huge importance when it comes to search engine rankings. Moreover, content is very important to its readers. Well, not all content – only those parts that can be easily scanned. You see, people rarely read posts word by word; instead, they pick out individual words and sentences after scanning the page.

Longer blog posts are better for one simple reason – they contain more information that can be scanned. According to statistics, longer posts perform better on every level – higher content variety, more words to be scanned, more headlines, more backlinks, more LSI keywords & more shares.

3.  A Ferrari and Nice Clothes can Make you A Lot of Money

On his blog, Neil explains how (the appearance of owning) a new Ferrari made him over $1,040,000 or how  spending $162k on clothes made him just shy of $700k. Things are pretty simple – possessions and the appearance of success build credibility.

Having nice clothes can help you in a business meeting, enabling you build better & stronger relationships. Add to that a nice car like a Lambo or a Ferrari and you’ve potentially got yourself hundreds of business owners interested in doing business with you.

He found that by posting pictures up of the car (below) to his facebook that he generated 193 likes, and was hit up by various exotic car dealerships because they saw the images and assumed he liked fancy cars.

(Want to know the best part?  The car in the picture wasn’t even Neil’s.  He went with a friend to a racetrack, had the photo taken and posted it on his facebook page.)

Anyways, eventually he was able to build a relationship with a few of these dealers and ended up making an arrangement with an exotic car company that owns 12 dealerships across the United States.  As a result of this he was able to generate $1,041,493 for commissions he helped generate for them.

ALL of this as a result of him posting the below picture on his facebook page.

How a Ferrari Made Neil Patel a Million Bucks Things I Learned from Neil Patel

As ANOTHER experiment on lifestyle marketing,  he spent $162,301.42 on expensive clothes.  Neil points out that “People believe what they see. If people think you look successful, in their eyes you are successful.”

As a result of having nice clothes, Neil gets random compliments all the time.  Now, he has not been able to close any business deals as a result of THIS as most random strangers won’t have 6 or 7 figures in their bank account to give you – but he is able to close 4 out of 10 business meetings and noticed that he closes MORE meetings when he dresses extremely successful.

People want to be associated with a successful person, and dressing that way helped him increase his closing ratio from 25% to 40%!

Want to know something funny about Neil?

Despite being so successful and having a pretty significant net worth, he’s NOT a flashy or ‘look at me’ type of guy.  He doesn’t own a car, does not drive because he’s actually scared to –  and he usually works and watches TV on the floor in his condo when home.

Neil is actually quite frugal.  As a investment opportunity, he bought his Vegas condo for $1.7 Million.   As a social experiment he spent $230,000 of furniture & decor to portray the image of “being successful.”

After this experiment, he determined that it doesn’t matter what your home looks like because nobody really sees it.  He donated all of his furniture (except the bedrooms), and sits and works on the FLOOR.

(You can read more about this story on his Ferrari post if interested)

Neil Patel has no furniture!

4. Everything About Consumer Psychology

I was always passionate about psychology. Speaking bluntly, I strongly believe that this is the most important aspect of a marketing campaign. If you are not able to understand how your customers think and act, you will never be able to create products and services that cater to their own needs.

In his complete guide that can be found here, Neil treats every single aspect of customer psychology, including:

  • The Mind of Today’s Consumer
  • The Power of Emotions
  • The Psychology of Online Consumption
  • The Psychology of Pricing & Color
  • Avoiding Any Points of Friction

This whole study is very well documented, offering tons of precious info on how 21st century consumers think and act. For instance, I’ve learned that today’s consumers are driven by research, have strong filtering systems and care mostly about their personal gains.

If you want to stay on top of the competitors and break new ground in your niche, you need to read this study and understand how customers think. As a bonus, you can study this image that details the exact path to conversion:

5. What the hell IS Growth Hacking?

This might be a new concept for you, as it was for me a few weeks ago before reading Neil’s guide on Growth Hacking. This new phenomenon is a revolutionary concept that deals with growing your business. In fact, this new concept is all about growth. Growth hacking revolves around company growth, customer database growth and profit growth.

In this growth hacking study, you can find well-documented information about the growth hacking process, the growth hacker funnel, product tactics to get more visitors and pull & push tactics for getting tons of visitors. If you are interested in growing and expanding your company and learning how to retain customers quicker than ever before, check out his guide. It could be exactly what you needed in order to be successful in your industry.

Neil Patel Speaks on Growth Hacking

6. How to Increase Search Traffic with Google’s Next Update

Granted, I’m an SEO guy myself – but I still pay attention to EVERYTHING Neil blogs about, SEO or otherwise.  On March 30 Neil posted a very interesting article that has already been tweeted over 600 times. This is what I learned from his post and wanted to pass onto you:

7. How to Create a Memorable Brand

I love McDonalds and Starbucks. These two brands have really managed to stand out in their niches. However, did you know that you can have your own memorable brand?

These two companies started from the scratch, just like yours.

Neil’s A to Z guide on creating a memorable brand can be found here and contains some amazing ideas on how to walk in the footsteps of McDonalds, Starbucks, Coca Cola, and the list goes on.

These are the four ingredients that you need to be successful:

  • Perfect understanding of your customers
  • Honesty towards your customers
  • Friendliness
  • Depth

Is that All?

No way! Neil Patel has tons of hugely interesting stuff on his blogs on both NeilPatel.com AND quicksprout.com.

You can also learn about boosting your revenues through cross selling & upselling, generating $100k a month from a brand new blog, creating a deeper connection with your readers and getting new customers without spending any money.

Neil Patel is the real deal. I think he is one of the best marketers alive, and he’s definitely in my top 10 Marketers list. Check him out. You won’t regret it!

About the author 

Jeff Lenney

Welcome to my corner of the internet! I'm Jeff Lenney, your navigator through the exciting seas of Affiliate Marketing, SEO, and ECommerce. My journey started back in 2009, and since then, it's been a whirlwind of success and fun in the digital world.

Before I dove headfirst into the vast ocean of affiliate marketing, I honed my SEO skills with some of the biggest agencies in sunny Southern California. I've been the SEO compass for 7-9 figure giants like Agora Financial, Investor Place, and Timothy Sykes, guiding them through the complex currents of online visibility.

But wait, there's more! I've also worked quite extensively with affiliate marketing legends like Anik Singal, Jimmy Kim, Aidan Booth, Dori Friend & others. Did I mention I was Anik's head coach from 2012 to 2015? Yeah, I've been around the block a few times!

My expertise isn't just confined to the boardroom. I've shared my knowledge and experiences on numerous podcasts, shedding light on the intricate dance of affiliate SEO.

So, whether you're a seasoned pro looking to catch the next big wave or just dipping your toes into the digital marketing ocean, I've got a treasure trove of insights for you. Stick around for fun tales, savvy strategies, and maybe a few laughs as we debunk myths and explore the latest trends in the world of online marketing. 

Dive into my posts and let's make some waves together! ✋ My Name is Jeff Lenney. I'm an Affiliate Marketer, and Search Engine Optimization Expert with over 10 years experience. I like to talk about marketing, SEO & ECommerce, so read my other posts here: Jeff Lenney's Articles

  • I am new to online marketing and I have been spending the last month or so reading and watching as much as I can on internet marketing and making money online. I bought hosting and domain subscription so I can set up niche websites fast. After watching your review on gs2 I am little discourage because I though if I found good quality niches with low competition and could simply build my little simple websites with good content and actually run cheap paid traffic to it and I would see positive cashflow.

    I am kinda getting sick of people trying to sell me stuff. I bought a bunch of membership from clickbank and I had them refund everything except the free marketplace because I was getting sucked into big spending with no results.

    My total cash outlay so far on this venture is around under 600$ which includes three years or hosting unlimited domain and 3 years of deep discounted domain name purchases…

    Not sure why I am ranting to you but saw your video on gs2 review and you seem genuine.

    Thanks for reading…

    • Heya Lloyd,

      No problem man – glad I inspired you to rank on my blog. 😛

      Really though, let me know if i can help you in any way!

      Jeff

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