Writing blogs that actually get read & viral is really difficult.

But not rocket science.

Here's how to do it right👇
Let's take the example of the Hustle here.

1/ Your goal is to make people FEEL. If they FEEL, they’ll act.

Your content is a journey. As if you’re writing an episode of Game of thrones.
2/ On writing the headline

Most people find the content with the headline.

Put 95% effort on the headline and 5% on the content.

The draft headline does not need to be your final headline (you can pick one later) but it should tell the story.
3/ On writing the description: Think about the audience.

“In an attempt to become the most productive person on the planet, I gave up food and lived entirely off Soylent. Here’s how it went."
4/ The first draft

It will suck. And, that’s okay. Just write anything. Once you have a motion, you’ll keep going.

It will be horrible and simply accept it.
5/ Incubate

After the first draft. Get up walk around.

Eat. Take rest.

It could be 5-minutes or two years.

Then, go back to the article to edit later.
6/ Editing (where the magic happens)

This is where you take something from crap and turn it into gold.

Quick tips: Look in different formats.

Print it. Then, check.

Send it to the most critical person on the earth to tell you what is wrong with it.
7/ Create the slippery slope

The sole purpose of the first sentence is to get you to read the second sentence of the copy. The sole purpose of the second sentence is to get you to read the third sentence.

It’s incredible to get people to slowly go deeper and deeper.
8/ What works to use the slippery slope

Tell the story half...then say "but first.."

How it happened, but let me get into that later.

Use opened ended questions and answer later.

Use but...then..to tell the story.
9/ Cut

Cut the first and last 25%.

Every word must be necessary. Nothing more and nothing less.

You need to kill your darlings aka favorite words but not necessary.
10/ Go back to the first sentence

Make the first sentence punch some in the face. It should hit hard. It should make them curious.

How Hustle blog made it work 👇
10/ Write simple

It should be with an 8th-grade reading level. No jargons. Use the Hemingway app to tell your grade-level story.

It is written in a way that you can tell your mother.
11/ Make it easy for eyes

Keep sentence shorts (2-4 lines).

Give spacing and big fonts.

Which one is easier to read?
12/ Go back to your headline

Write 25 of them.

Show your headlines to a few friends and ask them which one they would click on. Select one of those.

See which one they picked.
13/ Pick your image

Don't make it your logo. Make it Clicky.

Don't use stock images

Make it more human.

Tell a story with your featured image too.
14/ Some other tips

Always optimize it for social media.

Find inspiration from your favorite bloggers and artist to get you in the mood.

15/ You get a blog post that gets viral.

This Hustle's blog got viral 👇
This content was inspired from @theSamParr & his video here:
That’s all folks

Retweet it if you find it valuable so others can get inspired.

Follow @theSamParr - His content is 🔥

Follow @aazarshad for more growth marketing content.

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More from @Aazarshad

10 Jun
Many people think influencer marketing is dead or has low ROI.

I believe that it is not true,it is just getting started. Read further 👇
1/ Folks who find low ROI on influencer marketing are simply doing it wrong.

They don’t build relationships. You need to offer free products to the right influencers.
2/ How do you really build relationships with influencers?

You take them on a date and pay for their lunch.

This is called Product Seeding

Learn more about seeding here:

Then, play it cool. Don’t expect anything in return.
Read 10 tweets
20 May
My friend @iammarcthomas Grew His Former Company's MRR (@doopoll) by 800%

Here’s how he did it.

They never ran growth himself so first, he went on learning from Demand Curve.

Demand Curve is one of the best growth marketing courses out there.

Moral: Admit it when you don’t know something.

Sign up for demand curve here: demandcurve.com/?ref=aazar.sha…
2/ They converted landing page visitor from 4 to 14%

They found what are some key value propositions that really resonate with their audience.

Instead of becoming generic software, they choose to go with use-cases (#JBTD)
Read 9 tweets
12 May
I've been sending cold emails since 2015 successfully.

I've received a good response and learned a lot from it.

Here's the checklist you should steal before sending any cold email.
1/ Does it say "X from the company"?

2/ Does the subject line create curiosity + urgency?

3/ Hook: Does it create "Interest"? Something that's benefit-driven. Make them "imagine". Say something that they normally don't come across (it's unexpected). Does it have a promise?
4/ Body: Is it specific? Does it create scarcity? Does it have a trigger word? Does it have a deadline?

5/CTA: use the word "imagine". And, Is it "compelling" enough? — Is it simple and clear enough to follow?
Read 5 tweets
9 Jan
In 2017, I did my master thesis on Growth hacking.

But in 2020, I changed my mind about it.

I started exploring growth marketing and related stories.

I started podcasting about it.

I'm sharing my key insights from those stories with y'all.

*Thread*
1/ Let me clarify: I'm not fighting against the semantics. I actually think people took the word "growth hacking" the wrong way.

Sean Ellis was disappointed with what it meant to different people.

But basically, it focuses on short-term wins than long term play.
2/ Insight from @nelio_leone on my podcast:

Facebook Ads: Understand your customers and find those insights to get ahead of your competition.

Your Facebook ads can only win based on creativity, not by number crunching.
Read 13 tweets
31 Dec 19
A year ago, my previous startup didn't grow as I wanted it to be.

I was down and didn't know what's next.

But this year turned out great.

Joined Userpilot as a Head of Growth, grew the business 40% MoM consistently, and made it profitable.

Few lessons I learned on my way 👇
1/ Stay focused, we had an opportunity to expand into employee onboarding. We didn't go that way. Staying focused helped us achieve explosive growth in one market.
2/ Start blogging related to your topic, specialty, personas, and category. It will give you SEO credibility and keep building links to those high intent topics.
Read 9 tweets
9 Aug 19
#Retention is the new growth, so if your business is struggling with retention, be ready to pivot and do something different. If you don't, you won't want to imagine what might happen. I wrote this blog for G2crowd: learn.g2.com/user-retention…
1/. Make potential customers' first contact with your product as enjoyable as possible.
Make your ad and landing page as correlated as possible. Try to keep the same voice, copy, message, and design.
2/Step into the potential customer’s brain

What are the common problems your customers are facing? Your goal is to make them addicted to your product, so point our their problems and mention your solution. Here's an example.
Read 16 tweets

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