Audience Engagement Techniques

Big day for our show Marketing Against the Grain Posted our 200th episode. Passed 2 million downloads. Passed 3 million YouTube views. Nice work Kieran Flanagan Some lessons from doing a podcast for 200 episodes: 1. Cross Promotion Drives Growth - doing guest spots or promo swaps with other shows or being part of a network that promotes you on other shows increases growth significantly by 30-40 percent. 2. Audio and Video at VERY different - what works on audio RSS in terms of content and format often does work as well on YouTube and vice versa. You need a playbook that incorporates both. 3. Feedback is how you grow - Listener round tables, YouTube comments, emails, engagement data make you better. Look at it and make adjustments each week and you get 10x better as those adjustments compound. 4. Guest need time to settle in - The first 5-10 min with a guest is going to get cut as they are getting comfortable and in the flow. You have to plan for that. 5. Guest bring listeners - As someone comes on your show they do bring their audience. Our guest episodes have higher views and downloads than non guest episodes. This is why so many shows are guest driven.

4 months ago we got an impossible brief...gain 500K users in 3 months. I'm proud to say we just hit 2M users in 4 months, and still growing 10% WOW. To do this we didn't send a single email, pay for an ad, or an influencer, instead we used our community and our tech. Here's our Web3 growth playbook👇 The Web3 Growth Playbook: 1 - Build trust in the market: First you have to have people trust that you are worth their time. There are many projects offering quests, so why do yours? We highlighted our team, our tech, and our successes to prove we were a legit project and worth their time. 2 - Open the aperture: Wallet based quests limit you to Web3 natives. Our tech enables anyone with email or Apple/Google wallet to join in. This allowed us to go beyond just Web3 natives, to create a much larger community by making it easy to participate. 3 - Nail The Value Exchange: There needs to be value for people to take action. We used a combination of early community rewards paid out from our upcoming listing, partner rewards, early access to other projects, mentorships, NFT's, and Discord roles. 4 - Design Quests for key goals : We didn't just ask you to follow us on Discord, rather multiple steps; follow us, and then get a specific role. We didn't just ask you to tweet, we created AI prompts ensuring tweets were unique allowing us to create new trending hashtags each week. 5 - Keep up the momentum: We released new quests regularly, and enabled one off ways to earn points so our admins could award points to any member easily for things like answering question in Discord, participating in a emoji contest, or alerting us to a bug. 6 - Create Rewards: We leveraged our NFT technology to create the Smart Cats, an NFT derivative of a Cool Cat we own. Our community minted over 500K of them in a week. 7 - Create Ambassadors: We created an ambassador program and guided them as to what content to create. In exchange we gave them mentorship, status, and points in return. 8 - Activate your Ecosystem: We are now working with our partners to integrate our quests into theirs, have them offer rewards to our community, and to allow them to personalize experiences with our Smart Pass. So now the pass is the key to our ecosystem, not just our project giving it greater value. We built all of this from scratch with our tech because we didn't see what we wanted in the market. It's provided us with the flexibility to go beyond other questing solutions to drive rapid growth. > 4m individual quests completed in 120 days > 2M users in 120 days > 500K NFT minted in 1 week > 200k unique tweets in 2 weeks > Trending multiple #hashtags > 5k average attendance for Twitter Spaces This effort has been so successful we are now offering the playbook and the Growth Tooling to others. DM me if you're interested to see what we could do for your project.

You saw the ad. You ignored it. You saw it again. Still ignored. Now you see it 6 more times. Welcome to modern D2C retargeting. Most D2C brands retarget like everyone’s always interested. Spoiler: they’re not. We audited 14 Indian D2C brands in April. Different categories. Different spend levels. ↳ But one common problem across the board: → Retargeting was quietly eating up 25–30% of ad budgets… and delivering almost no real lift in conversions. ↳ Here’s what we saw again and again: → Brands targeting the same audience across multiple campaigns. → 30-day visitors are still being hammered with BOFU ads on day 27. → High-frequency users keep seeing offers they’ve already ignored. → Everyone gets the same retargeting creative, no matter their intent level. And the worst part? Meta charges a premium to show ads to warm audiences or even if they’re cold in behavior. ↳ Why this hits harder in India: → COD mindset means More hesitation, slower decision → Lower trust in new D2C brands → Most retargeting is not segmented by behavior or timing You're not nurturing. You’re nagging. ↳ What I suggest brands to do instead: → Cap frequency and refresh retargeting ads weekly. → Use behavioral segments, not just "all visitors". → Retarget with timing logic, not desperation. ↳ My Fix for Smarter Retargeting Strategy 1. Segment your retargeting audiences → 1–3 days: Hot. Hit with offer. → 4–7 days: Educational reminder → 8–14 days: Testimonials, COD trust → 15–30 days: Low-cost nudges, not hard sells 2. Set frequency caps for warm pools → Don’t let the same person see your ad 6–10 times. → It hurts trust and inflates CPC. 3. Use intent-based retargeting triggers → Add to cart ≠ View content ≠ 10 sec video view → Each needs a different message and urgency 4. Rotate your creatives weekly → Fresh visuals and new hooks equals higher re-engagement without annoying the user 5. Track spend split between cold vs warm → If warm is eating 40%+ of budget with low conversions then pull back and fix segmentation. → Swap "Buy Now" with reminder, education, or social proof style creatives. Recap: ✅ Over-retargeting is a silent budget leak in Indian D2C ✅ Meta doesn’t care how relevant your retargeting is, you need to fix it ✅ Smart segmentation and message match means better ROI and trust ✅ Most CAC spikes come from lazy retargeting, not bad ads ✅ Treat retargeting like a nurture funnel, not a sales wall It’s not that your retargeting isn’t working rather it’s working too hard on the wrong people. Sometimes scaling starts by cutting what’s quietly bleeding your best budget. Spending ₹10L–₹50L/month and not sure if your retargeting is actually working? Let’s chat. A 30-min chat could save you lakhs in silent leaks.

Everybody thinks growing a web3 project is easy if you have money. Polkadot's example illustrates why this is NOT the case: 👇 So Polkadot spent $37m on Marketing in Q1 and Q2 2024. Some of the top categories were: • $10m on Ads and Sponsorships • $7.9m on Events/Conferences • $4.9m on Influencers • $4.1m on Digital Ads Yet despite these huge marketing activities, Polkadot somehow seems quiet and invisible. So what is it that they could have done better? Here are the top 8 ones for me: 1/ Slash all soccer club and race car sponsorships. These don't attract web3 developers and builders. Seems like we didn't learn our lessons from 2021 when projects splashed money on renaming stadiums and sponsoring all sorts of sports teams. 2/ Use respected influencers to educate about the advantages of your chain. Explain in layman's terms WHY and HOW your chain is different from 100+ other L1s and L2s out there. Simply Tweeting common sense threads and posts will not bring adoption. 3/ Build an in-house team of core contributors and loyal ambassadors and invest in their growth. Let them become the thought leaders of tomorrow in their domain and promote your chain. This is a long-term initiative but will pay big time down the road. 4/ Dramatically increase your funding for Community Building. Enable a variety of educational and ambassadorial programs.  Again, it was the community that kept Solana alive in Dec 2022 when everyone thought it was dead. When you splash 10x more funds on sports team sponsorships, it's sending the wrong to your community. 5/ Increase grants to attract tier one teams to build the best web3 dApps with killer UI/UX. Offer incentives to the existing top projects to bridge to your chain as well. 6/ Allocate more funds to organize dozens of informal Polkadot gatherings targeted at developers across the continents. Empower your community ambassadors and evangelists in different countries. Let them bring the best builders and developers together for casual meetups. 7/ Slash the budget on digital ads. Traditional ads that work well for web2 startups usually don't result in good conversions for web3 projects. 8/ Completely rethink your Media strategy. If you spent millions but people can't remember hearing about you recently, then it didn't work. That's because simply promoting a chain doesn't work. Instead, promote a new chain specific innovation or user facing feature or at least get creative with ads. Coinbase/Base and Solana are killing at this, so learn from them. -- In short, money is important but it's all about HOW you are spending in. And promoting a web3 chain is not the same as scaling a web2 startup. What works in web2 doesn't always fly in web3 and vice versa. Image source: DefiIgnas on X P.S. Anything else you'd add to the list? Let me know below. Follow 👉 Aram Mughalyan & consider sharing ♻️ this post if you like it.

1,322 meetings generated this year Outbound Sales Team = 0 - Here's how 👇 1. Cold/Initial Ads Build Awareness, Not Instant Sales We run cold ads to drive targeted traffic to our website—not to a lead gen form. Here’s the reality: B2B buyers aren’t impulse-buying $3k–$10k+ solutions on their first visit. 3% of cold traffic converts to meetings. Meaningful first impressions with possible prospects at scale... Channels We Use to Drive Cold Traffic: Google Ads (Paid Search) Paid Listings (e.g., Clutch, Influencer Marketing Hub) LinkedIn Cold Ads SEO Organic Social (like this post and YouTube for us) And yes, tell your boss to chill out! 🥶 Raining sales from cold ads isn't a thing in B2B 2. Retargeting: Build Trust, Not Friction Most buyers don’t convert on their first visit. Why? A. It’s not the right time—they’re still researching. B. They don’t know or trust you yet. C. They don’t see you as an expert compared to competitors. Our Retargeting Strategy: Focus on overcoming B + C by distributing content that builds trust and credibility and dripping in subject matter expertise where possible. Types of Retargeting Ads We Run: Case studies Expert advice & audits Testimonials Community-focused 3rd Party Validation The goal? Build trust, and position ourselves as the experts they turn to when they’re ready to buy. 3. Retargeting Intensity based on signals We adjust retargeting intensity based on their last intent-based action: 0–30 Days: High-intensity ads (4-5/week) focused on building trust. 30–90 Days: Mid-intensity ads (2-3/week) focused on demonstrating expertise. 90–180 Days: Low-intensity nurture (1-2/week) to stay top of mind without overwhelming them. This layered approach ensures prospects feel informed and comfortable reaching out when the time is right. We can't force them into being ready to buy, but we can look for signals that indicate they might be closer to making a decision and try to move ourselves higher up the consideration ladder. 4. Take an Ecosystem approach to marketing Most marketing departments fail in this next area. Setting up marketing channels as silos disconnected from the others vs an ecosystem that flows in and out of each other. A. Paid search traffic is often still the life-blood of in-market traffic with shorter sales cycles -Leverage LinkedIn ads to qualify and convert this traffic more efficiently and consistently B. Retarget your prospects on multiple channels to create the "everywhere" effect that improves recall and builds trust C. Ensure your content is worth distributing by ensuring it's dripping in subject matter expertise where possible D. Identify website visitors and own your 1st party data where possible for more personalized messaging strategies E. Leverage paid channels to drive organic community growth and always cross-pollinate your organic communities if possible. That's all for now! #B2BMarketing #LinkedInAds #DemandGen #InboundMarketing

If your social media posts are all about you and your achievements, your wins, your milestones - people will tune out. Why? Because they’re wondering what’s in it for them. Some might like your post to be polite, but if every post is self-congratulatory, your engagement will drop. Or people will just keep scrolling. People follow accounts that offer value, not just a highlight reel. Here’s how to keep your audience engaged: ✔️ Make your posts about them. Offer insights, lessons and advice they can use. ✔️ Be client centric. Show how you solve problems, not just that you exist. ✔️ Give freely. Share tips, strategies and experiences that help others. ✔️ Be authentic and human. People want to do business with people who they know, like and trust, and so make sure that you are using storytelling and being relatable in your posts. Want people to stop scrolling? Give them a reason to. Let me know what you think of this advice in the comments! #personalbranding #socialmediastrategy #linkedintips #socialmediamarketing

What I learnt building my brand over 12 years in 3mins 👇🏻 Are you ready? I remember investing countless hours and hard-earned money into flashy tools and expensive courses, hoping they were the key to social media success. They didn't work. At all. After 10+ years of trial and error, I realized that true social media mastery doesn’t come from expensive courses or tools. ✨ It’s all about taking simple, consistent actions that make a big difference. Now, I have 15k+ followers on LinkedIn, am recognized as a LinkedIn Top Voice, my posts have garnered 1.4 million views (past year), and I’ve sold over 7-figures of services through LinkedIn. The best way to master social media? Just start DO-ing! Stop over-thinking and following a thousand "gurus". Here’s what worked for me: ✨ Content that Connects: → Creating content that truly resonates with your audience is key. → Use eye-catching visuals, engaging stories, and valuable insights to grab attention. → Quality over quantity: Focus on what your audience loves and tailor your content to their preferences. ✨ Consistency is Key: → Show up regularly to build and maintain a loyal following. Sincerity begets Loyalty - online, as with offline. → Stick to a posting schedule that keeps your audience engaged and coming back for more. → Even if you’re busy, schedule posts in advance to stay active and present. ✨ Engage like a Boss: → Respond to comments, join conversations, and build genuine relationships. You don't have to always agree! → Show that you care about your followers' opinions and feedback. → Engagement creates a sense of community and trust, which is invaluable. ✨ Learn & Adapt: → Continuously analyze your results, experiment, and improve. → Use analytics tools to see what works and what doesn’t. → Be flexible and ready to change your strategy based on new algorithm, insights and trends. ✨ Be Human - It's the Journey, Not Outcomes: → Enjoy the process and let your personality shine through in your posts. → Authenticity and enthusiasm are contagious and can greatly boost your engagement. → Social media is a journey, not a destination. Embrace the process and enjoy every step of the way. To sum it up simply, the art of building your brand on social media can be found in the two words itself. Social - Be Human and authentically YOU Media - Create Content that communicates your goodness and the value you deliver What’s your best tip for mastering social media? P.s. ✍🏻 I am Benjamin Loh, CSP, a strategic growth coach and consultant who has taught over 65,000 leaders in over 20 global cities and constructed some of the leading icons (TOT, Award Winners) in the financial industry in Asia through the power of authentic storytelling and authority building. 💪 Follow me for personal brand and growth insights. #topofmind #millennials #business

5 Proven Frameworks to Get High-Quality Leads for Coaches You’re posting consistently. You’re engaging with people. You’re showing up daily. And yet, no high-quality leads. Here’s the thing, coaching clients don’t just fall into your lap. You need a system. A repeatable framework that turns visibility into sales. 1️⃣ The Content Ladder Framework Most coaches post “value” but forget to move people toward a buying decision. Here’s how to structure your content: ✅ Awareness posts: Educate & attract new audiences. (e.g., "Why most people fail at X") ✅ Trust-building posts: Case studies, transformations, behind-the-scenes of your coaching. ✅ Call-to-action posts: Ask them to DM you for a free resource, session, or next step. Each piece of content should pull your audience deeper into your ecosystem. 2️⃣ The DM Magnet Framework High-quality leads don’t just engage. They DM you. But only if you make it frictionless. ✅ Use CTAs that make it easy: “DM ‘COACH’ and I’ll send you a breakdown of how I helped X double their revenue in 3 months.” “DM ‘SYSTEM’ to see the exact steps to book 5+ clients per month without cold outreach.” A simple one-word DM CTA works because it removes the hesitation of starting a conversation. 3️⃣ The Warm Engagement Framework Most coaches struggle with cold outreach. Because it feels, well… cold. Instead of pitching out of nowhere, warm up your audience first: ✅ Comment on their posts before DMing them. ✅ Engage with their stories before making an offer. ✅ Send voice notes or personalized videos—they convert 10x better than text. By the time you start a conversation, they already know who you are. 4️⃣ The Mini-Webinar Framework Some clients need more trust before buying. Long-form content builds authority fast. ✅ Host a 15-minute value-packed training on LinkedIn or Instagram. ✅ Pick one pain point your audience struggles with and solve it live. ✅ At the end, offer a free consultation for those who need deeper help. The right people will raise their hands and step forward. 5️⃣ The Lead Magnet Framework Some people need one more push before booking a call. That’s where lead magnets come in. ✅ Create a 1-page PDF (checklist, roadmap, or case study). ✅ Offer it for free in exchange for a DM or email. ✅ Follow up with them personally after they get it. People who actively request your lead magnet are already interested. They just need a nudge to move forward. P.S. Want to build a brand that gets 5X ROI and high-quality leads? DM “BRAND”

Remarketing is often the misunderstood middle child of performance marketing. Let’s break a couple of myths🔨 🎯 One size fits all fits probably no one:  I’ve seen many companies burn money on campaigns that don’t recognize that every section of their audience has their own motivations. Why, if I had a penny for every time I visited a site with no intent to purchase their product at all, only to spot a “Schedule a Demo Today” ad by them on whichever site I visit, I’d probably be the richest guy in SaaS! I read somewhere that 84% of users either ignore or are put off by retargeting ads! Shows how important it is to get it right. Start doing these things: - Segment visitors by page depth (1 page vs 3+ pages) - Track time-on-site thresholds (>2 min = higher intent) - Create separate campaigns for pricing page visitors vs. blog readers Tailor your content based on your audience’s behavior and stage in the buyer journey (URL path visitors, action completers, cart abandoners) 🎯 Retargeting works like a mosquito coil:  Retargeting is not plug and play, and it typically doesn’t stop with one level. Retarget for all customer stages. Not only demo and trial signups. This insulates your prospects from leaving the funnel midway. We’ve had cases where we spent thousands of dollars on a retargeting campaign only to make zero sales. But here’s what happened afterward ⭐ : When we triggered another retargeting campaign for the warmer folks from the previous campaign, giving them BOFU content, we made sales. A lot of it! What’s to learn here? You’re unlikely to be bet on with just the first touch point. You have to build that awareness consistently. Create a 3-tier remarketing structure: > Tier 1 (Cold): Educational content, industry reports > Tier 2 (Warm): Case studies, comparison guides > Tier 3 (Hot): Free trials, demos, limited-time offers Build custom audiences for each segment, assign specific content types to each, and implement frequency caps based on ‘bucket temperature’. Also, the focus should also be on increasing the credibility of your company rather than only pushing them towards the CTA. Here's one customized Google + LinkedIn campaign strategy we used for a client recently. What are some retargeting tactics that’s worked for you?

I have a confession to make. I have been guilty of putting people to sleep during my presentations. Unfortunately, not once, but many times. I could blame it on the complexities of tech topics or the dryness of the subject. I could always console myself by saying that at least it's not as sleep-inducing as financial presentations (sorry, my friends in Finance). Deep down, though, I knew that even the most complicated and dry topics could come alive. As with anything, it's a skill and can be improved upon. Thus, I turned to my friend Christopher Chin, Communication Coach for Tech Professionals, for some much-needed advice. He shared these 5 presentation tips guaranteed to leave a lasting impression: 1/ Speak to Their Needs, Not Your Wants Don’t just say what you like talking about or what your audience wants to hear. Say what your audience needs to hear based on their current priorities and pain points: that sets your presentation up to be maximally engaging 2/ Slides Support, You Lead Slides are not the presentation. You are the presentation. Your slides should support your story and act as visual reinforcement rather than as the main star of the show.  Consider holding off on making slides until you have your story clear. That way, you don’t end up making more slides than you need or making slides more verbose than you need 3/ Start with a Bang, Not a Whisper The beginning of a presentation is one of the most nerve-wracking parts for you as the speaker and one of the most attention-critical parts for your audience. If you don’t nail the beginning, there’s a good chance you lose the majority of people. Consider starting with something that intrigues your audience, surprises them, concerns them, or makes them want to learn more. 4/ Think Conversation, Not Presentation One-way presentations where the speaker just talks “at” the audience lead to dips in attention and poorer reception of the material. Consider integrating interactive elements like polls and Q&A throughout a presentation (rather than just at the very end) to make it feel more like a conversation. 5/ Finish Strong with a Clear CTA We go through all the effort of preparing, creating, and delivering a presentation to cause some change in behavior. End with a powerful call to action that reminds your audience why they were in attendance and what they should do as soon as they leave the room. By integrating these, you won't just present; you'll captivate. Say goodbye to snoozing attendees and hello to a gripped audience. 😴 Repost if you've ever accidentally put someone to sleep with a presentation. We've all been there!