Lama has a degree in marketing, but she didn't feel ready for the real world. She knew the theories but lacked practical experience. This made her a bit sceptical about her knowledge when it comes to marketing, which stopped her from getting the jobs she wanted. Here’s her story:

The world’s changing and everything’s going online, so she wanted to see if our course would help her prepare for the upcoming revolution in business.

It did.

After learning the fundamentals of using Facebook ads for marketing, she spent $15 on ads and got $90 in return in three days. That’s a six-fold return on investment!

Who: Lama

Joined: 25th May

Problem To Solve:

Lama knew everything about marketing in theory, but lacked some practical tips and tricks. Even with her university degree, she may have missed some valuable lessons about how we approach marketing today.

How She Overcame it:

We shared some applicable advice with Lama. She learned useful tricks to help her improve her marketing skills. And the most important of all was that she found out how to target her audience appropriately.

What she didn’t know was that she could be just a click away from learning everything she needed about Facebook users. Data mining is very helpful when you’re looking to identify your target customer, as it lets you do your research easily. It’s because Facebook stores details about its users, which can guide you in your marketing.

Did it work? Yes! Lama had lots of success in targeting people with Facebook ads.

Her client owned a start-up so they targeted the people who had interest in her competitors. It was a larger audience and out of that, they narrowed the data down to a specific age group for their ad.

Three days later, the Facebook ad had delivered two purchases.

Lama’s client was very happy, as you can imagine.

It goes to show how vital targeting is. But it’s really all about testing.

You specify the audience and test more interests and ages to find the most likely buyers.

Best part is, she used everything that she had learnt at the Bootcamp in her first job interview (which she got during the bootcamp!). She showed the managers what she knows and what she has done. A few days later, she landed the job!

Speak soon,

Howard

P.S. Whenever you are ready, here are 3 ways we can help you become a Digital Marketer:

1. Follow us on Instagram (@growthvelocityacademy) for daily marketing tips, updates and announcements.
2. Create the perfect Growth Hacking Strategy by grabbing a free copy of our Marketing Plan Template here
3. Book in for a Complimentary 1:1 Business Mentor Session here with one of our Marketing Strategists.

You’re reading this email for one reason: You want to become a world-class marketer.

You want to be the best at what you do. And that means you’re going to put everything that you have into learning different tactics, strategies, and ideas.

That’s awesome!

But before you do any of that, you need to understand what separates world-class marketers from the rest. What makes them so great at what they do?

Three things define a world-class marketer.

1. The first is an obvious one – they make the most money.

A great marketer or entrepreneur can grow a business year-on-year. If the marketer works for another business, they’re earning a six-figure salary because they’re so good at what they do. And if the marketer has their own business, it’s thriving and turning a healthy profit. They have the skills and determination, which is why they make more than most.

But there’s more to it than money.

2. The second thing that defines a world-class marketer is that they want to make an impact.

It’s not enough for them to just turn up to work, while away the hours, and then go home. A dead-end job isn’t good enough. A great marketer has a message that they want to put out there for people to hear. They want to use their skills to create change in people’s lives.

3. And finally, we have the third thing – freedom.

Nobody becomes a world-class marketer by following the conventional path. Such marketers don’t believe in the idea of going to school, getting good grades, and then magically getting a great job at the end of it.

World-class marketers value their freedom.

They want the freedom to create…

The freedom to express themselves…

And the freedom to take their own path in life, rather than following everybody else’s.

So, are you a world-class marketer?

Maybe you’re not quite there yet.

But now that you know what it takes, you’re in a better position to achieve that status.

Speak soon,

Howard ‘Freedom Creator’ Kingston

P.S. Whenever you are ready, here are 3 ways we can help you become a Digital Marketer:

1. Follow us on Instagram (@growthvelocityacademy) for daily marketing tips, updates and announcements.
2. Create the perfect Growth Hacking Strategy by grabbing a free copy of our Marketing Plan Template here
3. Book in for a Complimentary 1:1 Business Mentor Session here with one of our Marketing Strategists.

Did you know that 81% of new businesses disappear within the space of three years?

That means that only 19% of them make it. Fewer than one in five become businesses that can go the distance.

Why is that?

What causes 81% of businesses to struggle so badly?

Most people point to a lack of customers. With no customers, the business goes broke. And when the business owner’s broke, they burn out and stop caring. Ultimately, that leads to the business disappearing.

But a lack of customers is just the symptom of something else.

The fact is, there are two reasons why 81% of businesses fail. And I’ve seen these two things time and time again after working with thousands of marketers and through launching my own businesses.

1.The first is a lack of key marketing skills.

If you’re an entrepreneur, your main focus needs to be on getting customers. There’s a lot of skill involved in doing that. It’s never as simple as just putting something out there and waiting for the sales to come. You’ve got to understand how to choose the right market, create strategies, and execute campaigns.

However, it’s the second thing that really sinks new businesses…

2. A lack of determination.

If you’re not determined to make your business work, it will end up failing. It’s what I’ve seen happen to so many entrepreneurs.

I might have two people in a classroom who learn all of the same skills from me.

If I catch up with them a year later, I’m usually going to discover that one of them went on to launch their own business. They’re making thousands in revenue and are doing well.

The other one?

3. They just haven’t done it.

They didn’t have the determination or the drive, which meant they didn’t put what they learned into practice.

Here’s my message to you…

Developing marketing skills is one huge part of the equation. But it’s not the only part.

To make sure you’re part of the 19%, you’ve got to have determination. You’ve got to take action and use what you learn to strengthen your business.

Speak soon,

Howard ’19 Percenter’ Kingston

P.S. Whenever you are ready, here are 3 ways we can help you become a Digital Marketer:

1. Follow us on Instagram (@growthvelocityacademy) for daily marketing tips, updates and announcements.
2. Create the perfect Growth Hacking Strategy by grabbing a free copy of our Marketing Plan Template here
3. Book in for a Complimentary 1:1 Business Mentor Session here with one of our Marketing Strategists.

Malak is the founder of an invoicing app. She joined Growth Velocity Academy to supercharge her marketing powers & got great results. Here’s her story:

When she had just started her business, it was all trial-and-error for her.

She wanted to learn more about how to market her product. But she was sceptical about online courses.

There are so many courses out there, and most of them only impart theoretical knowledge. They don't give you the necessary tools to actually put what you’ve learned into practice.

What’s the point of knowing the theories if you don’t have the skills to apply them?

That’s where we stepped in with the GVA Digital Marketing Bootcamp. Here, students get guidance from experts that have more than 20 years of experience in the field. These experts guide them step-by-step in applying what they learned.

It may be intensive, but it’s because you’re learning and already applying what you’ve learned at the same time. More importantly, you develop skills by learning from the best.

Who: Malak

Joined: 25th May

Problem To Solve:

Malak knew that it’d come down to marketing if she wanted to reach the right audience. Since she has a digital product, she also knew that she should focus her marketing through digital means. The problem was that she was very familiar with product development and user experience, but had no knowledge of marketing, especially of digital marketing.

How She Overcame it:

She chose our specific course that targeted digital marketing. And what she loved about it was that we were not only telling her what to do but also showing her how to do it.

Malak didn't only join an incredible community and learn about digital marketing. She also learned how to be more organised and set clear goals for her business.

Furthermore, she learned how to plan ahead. She now knows what campaigns she wants to do in a week, a month, and even in six months’ time.

Our client has picked out the right campaigns to launch in the next two weeks. She now understands how she can get to where she wants to be.

Speak soon,

Howard

P.S. Whenever you are ready, here are 3 ways we can help you become a Digital Marketer:

1. Follow us on Instagram (@growthvelocityacademy) for daily marketing tips, updates and announcements.
2. Create the perfect Growth Hacking Strategy by grabbing a free copy of our Marketing Plan Template here
3. Book in for a Complimentary 1:1 Business Mentor Session here with one of our Marketing Strategists.

Why do people give up on marketing ideas?

It’s simple – because they don’t work, right?

You try one or two things and then throw in the towel if you don’t see the results you want.

If this is how you approach it, you’re making a big mistake.

In the past couple of blog posts, I showed you how to rob and duplicate a great model and make it work for you. This strategy has brought us massive success time and again.

I also explained its key components: that you need to find ‘Craic’ inside your business and motivate people to want more of it.

During this second stage, you’ll come up with tons of creative ideas & experimenting. But here’s the thing:

Reality is, a lot of these ideas will NOT work .

Hey, at least I’m telling it you to straight

Annnnnd… You may feel like quitting as a result.

But I suggest you do something completely different.

Don’t quit. Keep Experimenting.

Because eventually, some of those experiments will work.

We call this concept High-Tempo Testing. And this is the third key component of the model.

We basically take an idea and run experiments every week or so. This is how we implement a whole bunch of things to see what works.

Now of course it’s not that we WANT our ideas to fail, but rather...we understand that experimenting is all part of the process. Because the moment we get one right, that successful idea will far outweigh all the bad ones.

Imagine if we’re to stop at experiment #36 when #37 would get us the results that we need. We would’ve never achieved the amazing results we’ve achieved.

This is exactly how you should approach your marketing.

Brainstorm lots and lots of ideas, and then run them through high-tempo tests.

Sure, some will work ok, some may not have a big impact at all. But the 20% that work can be all you need to achieve your growth goals.

The truth is that you never know when the next idea will be the one that launches your business into the stratosphere. Transforms your business. So play the numbers game, test ideas at high tempo, and you can expect to hit the jackpot at any moment.

Speak soon,

Howard ‘Idea Factory’ Kingston

P.S. Whenever you are ready, here are 3 ways we can help you become a Digital Marketer:

1. Follow us on Instagram (@growthvelocityacademy) for daily marketing tips, updates and announcements.
2. Create the perfect Growth Hacking Strategy by grabbing a free copy of our Marketing Plan Template here
3. Book in for a Complimentary 1:1 Business Mentor Session here with one of our Marketing Strategists.

Celeidh is an entrepreneur who owns a children’s tableware brand. She joined Growth Velocity Academy to pivot online and grow her business Digitally. Here’s her story:

Before Celeidh learned about us, she had been paying agencies to do her marketing.

But what she didn’t realise is that she could have been doing her own marketing the whole time! That would have saved her a whole lot of money.

If you’ve been doing the same, know that it’s never too late

Who: Celeidh

Joined: 6th April

Problem To Solve:

Celeidh used to be an entrepreneur who didn’t have the necessary marketing skillset to launch and market her own brand. Despite being the one who understands the values she wanted to convey, she used to pay others to do her marketing.

But then, we stepped in and showed her not only how she can save money and market her own products but also achieve better results!

How She Overcame it:

The GVA Digital Marketing bootcamp taught her how to use Facebook Ads and Google Analytics.

Thanks to her new marketing skills, she grew her following by almost 2,000 on her page and made £2,000 on her website.

And she had only launched it on Facebook to her friends and family. She hadn’t even gotten to the ads part yet.

Our course also taught her how to analyse and understand her results, and how to set budgets. That’s how she learned she may have been spending money on the wrong things. Soon, she was able to redirect it to what works for her business.

Best of all, she now has more time for her family!

That’s why she’s such a strong believer in the benefits that our course brings.

Speak soon,

Howard

P.S. Whenever you are ready, here are 3 ways we can help you become a Digital Marketer:

1. Follow us on Instagram (@growthvelocityacademy) for daily marketing tips, updates and announcements.
2. Create the perfect Growth Hacking Strategy by grabbing a free copy of our Marketing Plan Template here
3. Book in for a Complimentary 1:1 Business Mentor Session here with one of our Marketing Strategists.

In our last blog post, I showed you how we took a virtual soccer game from 40,000 to 350,000 active monthly users in 30 days.

As I explained, we basically borrowed Dropbox’s model. Now I want to show you how to do the same.

There are three key components that I want to break down.

The first one is what I call ‘Craic’ and it’s an Irish term which is essentially something that people want more of.

For Dropbox, it was storage. For us, it was another game. For you, it can be any part of your product that people will want more of.

Once you nail it down, the second stage is to motivate people to seek more of it. And that’s what I’d like to deconstruct here as it’s crucial to the effectiveness of this strategy.

There are three ways to motivate people to take the action that you want them to.

1. The first way is Access:

...Which is what we did. We gave people the opportunity to play more if they invited their friends. But you can find many other examples.

Think of a queue in front of a club. Someone tells you that they’ll get you into the VIP area if you bring a friend. This would motivate you to call some friends to join you, yes?

2. The second way to motivate people is Money

...aka through a financial reward. You can directly give people money as an incentive for referring you and bringing people in. Of course, you’ll want to make sure that it makes financial sense to do so.

3. Finally The third thing that can motivate people is Ego

...To look at an example, just open any social media platform of your choice.

People share things on social media because it gives them a reward in the form of raising their social status. And there are tons of ways you can leverage this in your business.

So, to sum up, you must find your business’ ‘craic’ and then see how you can motivate people to ask for more.

There’s just the final step left, which I’ll share in my next blog post.

Speak soon,

Howard ‘Buyer Motivator’ Kingston

P.S. Whenever you are ready, here are 3 ways we can help you become a Digital Marketer:

1. Follow us on Instagram (@growthvelocityacademy) for daily marketing tips, updates and announcements.
2. Create the perfect Growth Hacking Strategy by grabbing a free copy of our Marketing Plan Template here
3. Book in for a Complimentary 1:1 Business Mentor Session here with one of our Marketing Strategists.

Our youngest student Zayed joined our bootcamp when he was still in High School. He joined Growth Velocity Academy to feed his passion for Marketing, Entrepreneurship and at the same time, help his family business accelerate. Here’s his story:

Do you think it’s ever too early to start your business? Our client, Zayed will surprise you.

After all, Zayed is only 15 years old! But he’s already got a business mindset.

Here’s his story about his time at our Digital Marketing Bootcamp.

Who: Zayed

Joined: 25th May

Problem To Solve:

Zayed joined us because he wanted to get actual customers for his business. He initially thought that he had a good plan, but after taking the course he realised that his plan was actually a mess. There was no real organisation to it. As a result, he basically hoped that he would find customers.

He didn't do anything to get them. And he didn’t take any real action.

Zayed came to our bootcamp with the goal of creating some structure for his plan.

How She Overcame it:

The GVA course gave him a chance to learn about Google and Facebook ads. Also, Zayed learned a lot about optimisation, which is one of the crucial skills of every digital marketer.

The result?

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is now one of his key areas of expertise. That meant he finally knew how to make a website rank higher in search results.

And what happened next was close to magic.

After applying what he learned at the bootcamp, he got more results in the 30 days than the previous 18 months. Spectacular, isn’t it?

If he hadn't taken the course, he might have lost the confidence to develop his business.

And the lively atmosphere of the sessions also helped a whole lot. Because for Zayed, the course wasn’t anything like school.

It was far more interesting and the workload was more manageable than he expected. Most of all, he learned so much more than he expected.

The main point is that action leads to results.

You need to test and implement, try out strategies, and nail your research. Really know your market. That’s how you define your buyer persona and what works for them.

Speak soon,

Howard

P.S. Whenever you are ready, here are 3 ways we can help you become a Digital Marketer:

1. Follow us on Instagram (@growthvelocityacademy) for daily marketing tips, updates and announcements.
2. Create the perfect Growth Hacking Strategy by grabbing a free copy of our Marketing Plan Template here
3. Book in for a Complimentary 1:1 Business Mentor Session here with one of our Marketing Strategists.

Do you know what R&D stands for?

Research and Development would be the likely answer.

But not in our world!

For us, R&D means ‘Rob and Duplicate’.

Let me explain…

A few years ago, I was running marketing for this gaming business that had recently launched a soccer game. At the time, it had around 40,000 monthly users.

My job was to figure out how we could boost these numbers further.

Now, there were tons of things that we could’ve done. But I wanted to find something that would really inflate the numbers.

I turned to Dropbox for inspiration. It’s one of those companies that scaled tremendously, with the majority of growth happening because of a few good ideas.

One of those ideas was using the product for promotion. When you run out of storage, Dropbox offers you two choices:

--> You can pay for more storage, or you can invite friends and get it for free.

And that’s exactly what I used my R&D method for.

When a user finished a soccer game, they’d have to wait for 24h until their energy refills. Alternatively, they could buy a $1 virtual Red Bull and restore energy immediately.

Now, $1 is not a lot of money. But our goal wasn’t to use it as a huge revenue stream in the first place. Instead, we used it to introduce another option that would actually meet our goals…

We gave people the option to invite five friends and get more energy to keep playing.

The results?

We went from 40,000 to 350,000 monthly active users in 30 days!

The point is, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel to create outstanding success. You can just take something that’s proven to work and apply it to your business.

In my next couple of blog posts, I’ll deconstruct the tactic and show you how to R&D it yourself.

Speak soon,

Howard ‘Number Inflator’ Kingston

P.S. Whenever you are ready, here are 3 ways we can help you become a Digital Marketer:

1. Follow us on Instagram (@growthvelocityacademy) for daily marketing tips, updates and announcements.
2. Create the perfect Growth Hacking Strategy by grabbing a free copy of our Marketing Plan Template here
3. Book in for a Complimentary 1:1 Business Mentor Session here with one of our Marketing Strategists.