Marketers With Attitudes

In this interview you’ll learn the following:

How to use sales enablement to accelerate your revenue.

What sales enablement is and why you should care.

The secret sales enablement techniques Elay used to drive hyper-growth while at Salesforce.

And much more (really).

In this interview with Ring Central’s global head of sales enablement, Sheevaun Thatcher, you will learn the 4 pillars of sales enablement –– so you can develop a kick-butt sales enablement strategy for your own business.

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Sales enablement is essential to the success of your business in 2021.To better understand why sales enablement is so vital, let’s walk you through an unlikely scenario.

Imagine this: you’ve just been drafted by the Utah Jazz in the 2021 NBA draft.

But when you show up for training camp in Utah, the facility has no workout equipment, no basketballs, no hoops, and no coaches; you are on your own.

This scenario would never happen to you in the National Basketball Association.

But if you happen to be a salesperson, this nightmarish scenario of being deprived of the resources and training you need to be successful is quite common.

In this article, we’re going to show you how to use the art of sales enablement to provide your salespeople with the resources they need to perform like an NBA All-Star –– to boost your earnings in 2021.

Let’s get started.

What Is Sales Enablement?Let’s start with the basics.

Sales Enablement is the practice of providing your salespeople with the content, coaching, and strategy they need to effectively engage buyers.

Okay, now that you understand the basic definition of sales enablement, let’s take a closer look at what we mean by content, coaching, and strategy.

Customer-Facing Sales Enablement Tools:

And there are Salesperson-Facing Sales Enablement Tools (for internal use):

Sales Training Videos (playlists; modules)
Sales Funnel Visualization
How To Measure Success (KPIs)
Sales Strategy (cadences & Playbooks)

This bullet-point list by no means covers everything in the sphere of sales enablement, but it should give you a good foundational understanding to build on.

Why You Absolutely Need A Sales Enablement Strategy In 2021According to Sirius Decisions, executive B2B buyers consume 17 pieces of content over the course of the sales cycle.

So, if you want to educate buyers, shorten sales cycles, and win more customers, you need sales enablement content –– and lots of it.

Now, more than ever, potential buyers want to consume content before they can warm-up to your offer and trust what you’re selling.

Don’t misunderstand us, salespeople are the superheroes who fuel your go-to-market strategy. But they need sales enablement content to help them better engage with potential buyers.

There’s another big reason why you need a sales enablement strategy in 2021.

Virtual SellingBecause of the pandemic, there is much less face-to-face interaction taking place.

As a result, salespeople are now being forced to do sales from a distance, across different regions and timezones.

This means salespeople, for the most part, are no longer taking prospects out for steak dinners and martini-fueled lunches.

Instead, salespeople are engaging potential buyers with videos, articles, webinars, and zoom meetings.

You might be thinking, “Traditional in-person sales techniques will return after the world goes back to ‘normal.’”

But the truth is, virtual selling is here to stay. It’s cheaper, more efficient, and, when done right, it can actually speed-up sales cycles in ways that in-person meetings simply cannot.

According to a Mckinsey & Company survey, 65% of B2B decision-makers think this new, virtual sales process is more effective than the previous sales models used before the pandemic.

Train Your Sales Team If You Want Explosive GrowthSales enablement is more than just a way to engage buyers; it’s a way to get the most out of your salespeople, too.

According to Verne Harnish, author of the bestselling book Scaling Up, “Investments in training and coaching provide you with the best returns available to your business.”

Simply put, if you want your sales team to smash their quota and be a growth engine for your business, you need to provide them with training, coaching, content, and a great strategy.

How Can You Implement A Sales Enablement Strategy For Your Own Business?You know the basics. Now it’s time to show you how to use sales enablement to boost your revenue in 2021.

Keep in mind that your business is unique. And there’s no possible way to provide you with a sales enablement strategy that solves all of your unique business challenges –– not in a single blog post, anyway.

With that being said, we will show you a step-by-step framework that will help you get started implementing your own sales enablement strategy.

1). Align sales and marketingEvery great sales enablement strategy begins with alignment. Everyone in your company needs to be on the same page.

This is especially true of your sales and marketing teams.

Aligning your sales and marketing team can help your company become 67% better at sales win rates, according to research from Marketo and Reachforce.

Ideally, you want your sales and marketing departments to function like one, tightly-knit team.

Helpful tip: Before you even think about a sales enablement strategy, work on breaking departmental silos –– and unify your marketing and sales teams. This way, both departments are in the loop and ready to help you do research and planning. After all, the success of your sales enablement strategy depends heavily on organizational cooperation.

2). Research & Planning (building a strategy)Now that you have the cooperation of your entire organization, it’s time to formulate a strategy.

Let’s take a closer look at the activities required to build a successful sales enablement strategy.

Internal Brainstorming & SpitballingChances are, your sales and marketing teams know a lot of information about your company, important stuff, like:

Common customer questions
Common customer objections
How long it takes to convert a lead
The real-world impact that your product or service delivers
If customers clearly understand your value proposition
The types of content your customers enjoy (blogs, videos, webinars, podcasts)
The places online where your customers can be engaged (Linkedin, Reddit, Instagram, Youtube)
The kinds of challenges your sales & marketing people are confronting daily
The kinds of resources that would make life easier for your sales and marketing team

By brainstorming with your internal team, you will discover a multitude of new, powerful insights, which will inform the development of your sales enablement strategy.

Helpful Tip: Compile your brainstorming session onto a Google Doc, in bullet-point format. This way, you have an organized list of ideas ready to go.

By brainstorming ideas with your sales and marketing teams, and gathering their input, the alignment will be easier to implement

Customer ResearchAfter you get insights from your team members, it’s time to go and get input from the people who fuel your business: Your customers.

Get inside their heads, so you can discover better ways to engage with them through content, products, services, and customer service.

Your major goal with this step is to find better ways to serve your customers.

Here are our favorite ways to extract insights from customers:

Surveys (You can make them free with Google Forms)
Video Conference (You can use Zoom)
Phone call
In-person meeting

No matter what tool you use to extract insights, make sure you speak to your customers like a human and not a robot. You want honest responses.

Let’s move to the next step.

Topic ResearchWhat are the topics that your customers and would-be customers care about most?

To figure this out, you can use an SEO tool like Ahrefs, SEMRUSH, and SparkToro.

With the help of these tools, you can easily identify the topics that resonate most with your audience.

This way, when it comes time for you to make content –– blog posts, videos, podcasts, copywriting –– you know exactly what you should be creating.

Sales process designIf you want to build a great sales process, you have to make it visual.

Here is a great example of sales process design, courtesy of Jacco van der Kooij, Founder and Co-CEO of Winning By Design, the no. 2 fastest growing company in silicon valley, according to Silicon Valley Business Journal.

Measurement & Leading KPIsIf you want to have a successful sales process you need to know what to measure.

You’re probably wondering, “What should I measure?”

That’s a tricky question because the answer is different for every company.

You have to decide what KPIs are important for your business, and then track them.

Here are some examples of important KPIs you could be tracking.

Average time to conversion
Sales rep calls and emails made
Inbound opportunities
Win rate
Opportunities created
Customer acquisition cost (CAC)
Salesperson response time
Average profit margin

Helpful Tip: If you’re not sure what KPIs you should be measuring, talk with your sales and marketing teams. They’ll likely give you the input you need to figure out which metrics will have the biggest impact on your business.

3). Create Sales Enablement ContentNow that you’ve done extensive research, both internally and externally, it’s time to create the sales enablement content that will transform your business.

Remember at the beginning of this article where we laid out the two types of sales enablement tools?

If you don’t remember, listen up, because we’re going to walk you through it again.

Equipped with the research you have conducted –– the internal research with your sales and marketing teams, customer research, and topic research –– it’s time to turn that information into content.

Customer-Facing Sales Enablement ContentAt this stage, you’re going to turn all of that research into action.

It’s time for you to create content that will engage your target customers.

This is the kind of content you should create:

Website (SEO-optimized; with pixel tracking)
Blog posts
Tutorial Videos
Case studies
Reviews
Testimonials
Webinars
White Papers
Slide Deck Presentations
Graphics & Design Elements

And here’s the kind of sales-enablement content you should create to empower your sales team:

SalesPerson-Facing Content* Sales Training Videos (For onboarding and growing your sales force) * Sales Process Design * Sales playbooks * Measurement Protocols (Leading KPIs) * Frequent Coaching Sessions * Custom, personalized content made specifically for one buyer.

In Conclusion: Sales Enablement Can Transform Your Business

To build a reliable sales process, with reliable salespeople who are performing at a world-class level, you need to arm them with sales enablement resources.

Players on the Utah Jazz are given the training, resources, and coaching they need to reach their potential. You should be treating your salespeople the same way.

If you need any help with your sales enablement strategy, book a free 30-minute strategy session with us today.

We hope this article gets you one step closer to achieving your goals. Take care.

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Joe Hall is one of the most respected technical SEO professionals in the marketing game. He is the founder of Hall Analysis, a high-level SEO consulting agency with big-name clients such as Buffer and NBC Universal. In this interview, Joe will teach you how to get your website in shape for Google’s 2021 core web vitals update.

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In this interview, you will learn the following: how to do content marketing in a pandemic; how to manage your time for maximum productivity and happiness; how to build a marketing strategy from scratch; and how to find the winning mindset.

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In this interview with Brendan Hufford, you'll learn the following: How you can use SEO to generate more leads and sales; the most common SEO mistakes small businesses make and how to avoid them; what the future of SEO might look like; and the marketing opportunities every business should be thinking about right now.

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Are you looking to build a sales strategy from scratch? If so, you're in the right place. In this interview with sales strategist Charlie Light, he's going to teach you the must-know fundamentals of building a crazy-effective sales strategy. Charlie Light is the owner of prospect aim, a Denver-based sales agency specializing in cold outreach, and today he’s going to turn you into a lean, mean, sales enablement machine.

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This episode features John Trigonis, who is a successful author, Ted Talk speaker, and crowdfunding advisor for movies like Super Troopers 2, Code 8, and Con Man.

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In this interview with working journalist Lindsay Boyle, you’ll get answers to the following questions:

What does it take to be a working journalist in 2020?

What does the typical day of a professional journalist look like?

How do journalists structure their stories for readers?

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Nipsey Hussle was one of the greatest marketing minds in rap music history.

In his short life, he built several successful businesses in his community, invested in emerging crypto startups, and advocated for black entrepreneurship.

As an artist, he was nominated for a Grammy.

From art to business and marketing, Nip could do it all.

If you’re a marketer, prepare to improve your game:

Here are 5 timeless marketing lessons you can learn from Nipsey Hussle’s legacy.

Let’s get started.

1). You don’t need a formal education to be a great marketer In late 2013, three years after opting out of an unsuccessful label deal with Epic Records, Nipsey Hussle orchestrated perhaps the greatest marketing feat in hip-hop history.

He independently sold 1000 physical copies of his mixtape, Crenshaw, for $100 each, earning himself $100,000 in under 24 hours.

Nips's inspiration for the Crenshaw mixtape strategy, known officially as the Proud2Pay campaign, came from Jonah Berger’s book Contagious.

In an interview with VladTV, Nipsey mentions how he came across the book in the first place, saying, "It was referred to by my mentor, Big Bob Francis."

Even though Nipsey Hussle dropped out of Hamilton High School and would go on to join the Rolling 60s Neighborhood Crips shortly thereafter, he didn't stop pursuing knowledge outside of the classroom.

By seeking the guidance of mentors and prioritizing self-improvement, Nipsey Hussle was able to cultivate his imagination and develop the blueprint for his success (without a college degree).

Don't get down on yourself if you don't have a formal education. Find mentors, utilize free online classes, and read books.

2). Invest back into your business For most people, especially those who come from Nip's low-income neighborhood in south-central Los Angeles, $100,000 in mixtape money would've been good enough––it would have been the end goal.

But Nipsey had bigger plans: "The dream and the vision, was to start a label and start a music movement."

Instead of blowing his money on a nice car, jewelry, or strip club appearances, Nip took his $100,000 in mixtape money and paid expenses toward his record label, All Money In No Money Out.

So the next time you hear about Nipsey Hussle's mythologized $100,000 mixtape story, always remember the most important detail: Nipsey invested that money back into his business.

At the time of his tragic passing, Nipsey Hussle's net worth was an estimated $8 million. That large sum of money makes $100,000 seem like a drop in the bucket.

Learn from Nip's legacy. Don't be shortsighted: Invest your earnings back into your business.

3). Build a movement, not a brand

Photo by Jimmy Fontaine

Jay Z bought 100 copies of Nipsey Hussle's mixtape, Crenshaw. But Nip's loyal fans bought the rest.

Here's the thing, though, the Crenshaw mixtape was available for free. But people were willing to pay $100 for it because they believed in Nipsey Hussle's movement.

Nip explained his movement to RapRadar:

“It ISN’T the price of the plastic case and polyurethane disc...it’s the price of Revolution! The price of Rebellion against an industry that has tricked us all into making products that have no soul for fear of not being heard if we don’t.”

— Nipsey Hussle

We're facing a litany of problems in our society right now. We don't need more brands; we need more movements.

Nipsey Hussle stood for something unique in hip-hop: Self-empowerment, financial literacy, black entrepreneurship, and humanitarianism.

If you want people to care about what you’re doing, be like Nipsey, and build a movement.

4). Reputation is the greatest marketing tool In addition to opening multiple businesses in his Los Angeles neighborhood of Crenshaw and Slauson, Nipsey gave job opportunities to convicted felons and invested his money into projects that benefited the people in his community.

Photo Credit: Jerritt Clark/Getty Images for PUMA

One of Nipsey's most ambitious community projects was Vector 90, which, according to Sonaiya Kelley of the LA Times, is "a combination co-working space and STEM center in the Crenshaw district," which strives to "serve as a conduit between underrepresented groups and corporate partners in Silicon Valley and beyond."

In the same LA Times article, Nipsey revealed his hopes for Vector 90: "In our culture, there's a narrative that says, 'Follow the athletes, follow the entertainers,' and that's cool but there should be something that says, 'Follow Elon Musk, follow [Mark] Zuckerberg.’"

Nipsey used his time, money, and energy for the benefit of others. That's why he was referred to as "Neighborhood Nip" by those in his community.

When you lead by example and show love to your community, that's more powerful than any marketing campaign. Remember, your reputation precedes everything.

5). Success comes from patience Marketing is difficult. Heck, if we're being honest, life is difficult. Before Nipsey Hussle had mainstream success, he suffered countless setbacks:

No high school diploma
Was involved in countless gang shootouts in Los Angeles
The police raided his recording studio, seizing all of Nipsey's recording equipment in the process.
After signing with Epic Records, the label changed executives, forcing Nipsey out of his record deal.

Nipsey Hussle released his first mixtape, Slauson Boy Volume 1, in December of 2005. On February 10th, 2019, a little over 13 years later, Nipsey Hussle's first studio album, Victory Lap, was nominated for Best Rap Album at the 61st Grammy Awards.

When asked about his perseverance, Nipsey was honest,

“I’m not gonna lie and portray this ultimate poise like I been had it figured out—naw, I just didn’t quit. That’s the only distinguishing quality between me and whoever else.”

— Nispey hussle

If you want success--in marketing, music, or life--you must be willing to stay the course.

Nipsey Hussle’s Legacy Speaking at Nipsey Hussle's Celebration Of Life Ceremony, pastor Shep Crawford said it best, "Nipsey lived in his 33 years what most of us won't do if we had 1,000 years."

This data visualization, created by SAMMI W, does a good job summing up what Nipsey Hussle accomplished in his 33 years of life.

Nipsey Hussle is a huge influence on the team here at Ouster Marketing. He created wealth for himself and others, gave back to his community, and evolved as a human being, going from gang-banging drug dealer to a legit entrepreneur and community leader.

On April 11th, tens of thousands of people flocked to the Staples Center, and the streets, to pay their respects to Nipsey Hussle, whose funeral procession stretched more than 25-miles through the Los Angeles neighborhood he grew up in.

When thousands of people flood the streets to witness your funeral procession because of the positive impact your life had on others . . . that’s a victory lap.

Rest easy Nip.

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Imagine you’re an aspiring graphic designer and music fanatic from Missouri.

You move all the way to New York City so you can attend art school at SVA.

You graduate and land your dream job: Art Director at Atlantic Records.

You cannot believe Atlantic Records hired you straight out of art school, and because you suffer from imposter syndrome, you always feel like you don’t belong, that you aren’t good enough.

But instead of panicking, you learn meditation and completely transform your mindset.

Then, after more than 3 years of hard work and mindfulness, you’re blessed with a breakthrough:

Within the span of only a few months, your work appears as cover art on 2 of the number-1 albums in the country.

Stop imagining, because this kind of a success story can happen for you too.

This success story belongs to Matt Meiners, and in this interview, he’s going to share actionable tips and tactics, and equip you with the mental tools necessary to reach your own breakthrough moment.

Enjoy the interview.

You’ve done album art for Lil Uzi Vert, A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie, and 21 Savage, among others. Tell us about what led you to a career in graphic design?Matt Meiners: I went to school to study biology, and I ended up failing miserably. And then I went to community college and started taking graphic design classes and loved it.

I could tap every point of interest, from research, how to communicate different things with people and subject matter, drawing and illustration, and just being expansive in that way. And that's what led me to graphic design.

Matt Meiners collaborated with Virgilio Tzaj on the design work of 21 Savage’s number 1 album, I am > I was.

When I met you at The School Of Visual Arts (SVA) you were rebounding from a low point in your life. Can you tell me about that dark patch and how you got yourself out of it?

Matt Meiners: It was one of those moments where I didn't feel like myself, and I didn't know how to deal with that. I was failing and had never failed before.

I was leaning on things, you know, drinking too much, partying too much, eating bad food and trying to avoid reality.

I realized I had to change my work habits, that I have to be accountable for what I created. That was kind of like what I was missing in my life.

When you’re creating art for superstars like 21 Savage and Lil Uzi Vert, is there any added pressure knowing that millions of people are going to see your work?Matt Meiners: When you say it like that, I do kind of feel some pressure, but it really only hits me after it's out and I'm like, “Oh damn, I hope I didn't leave some weird layer on."

But honestly, it depends on the project and the artist. I’m trying to fight to the finish line.

Do you communicate with artists while you’re working on their album art?Matt Meiners: Yeah, it varies from project to project. Like, sometimes you might be working through a management person or somebody with the label, or you might be working directly with an artist.

Sometimes it's communication through email and pitches and I just kind of throw-in what I think is cool. Artists have a lot of vision for the way a visual should look.

So sometimes it's very direct. Like, “I want to be on a horse in the middle of the desert,” and then you try to figure out how to make that happen.

As for the Uzi project, I've never met him, but I worked with another creative who does really good work. His name's Spike Jordan, and we worked together on that.

Spike has a long relationship with Uzi, so he was doing like the interfacing with him. Together we created all the visuals for Luv is Rage 2.

And for the 21 Savage album, I worked with another talented creative, Virgilio Tzaj. He asked me to do the lettering for it, and that's kind of how that works. He kind of went the art direction and just got me involved for my brush skills.

Tell me about your experience working with A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie? Also, tell us how you got that gig in the first place?Matt Meiners: I was previously working with Atlantic records, and so I worked in the art department there, and when A Boogie got signed, I was like, "Oh man, I really want to work on his project. I love his music."

So I went to the creative director, Greg Burke, and I was like, “Hey, I’d really be down to work on this project. Can I give it a shot?” It went super smoothly from there. I got hooked up with his management at Highbridge, QP, a super great guy.

We actually had a couple of illustrators working on it, and it wasn't going the way that he wanted. So I ended up drawing the whole thing in a week. And he was like, "I'm totally down with this. This is what we're going with.”

I always wanted to be an illustrator, and it was a super humbling experience. But up to that point, I'd only ever talked to A Boogie on the phone, or he would send me videos of what he was thinking.

So when it came around to Hoodie season, this last record, we sat down and met, and we were talking, and he was like, "Let me show you my other covers that I've put out in the past."

He starts showing me them, and I'm like, "Yeah, I know this cover. I'm the one that drew that, you remember?" And he was like, "Oh dang, I didn't realize it was you."

And then it was so great. He was just really complimentary and super supportive of me.

How did you become the art director at Atlantic Records?Matt Meiners: There was an industry portfolio day at the end of senior year. It was rainy, and I was going to ride my bike from Bushwick into the city. But I was like, “Nah, I don't think I'm going to go.”

Then I decided to go. I was pretty late, and there was only one seat left, and it was in a corner, and there was this light flickering over my table. It was the worst seat, and I was like, “Damn, this sucks. I shouldn’t have come.”

There I met two guys from Atlantic Records, Marco Brisky, and Greg Burke, and they worked in the art department. Greg is the creative director and he was like, “Man, your work's really good. We really like it. You should come in and hang out sometime and see what the office is like.”

I ended up going in and meeting them, and on the day of my graduation, they called and offered me a job. I couldn't believe it.

You’re an advocate for meditation, especially amongst artists. Tell me how you first discovered meditation and why it’s so important?Matt Meiners: I was introduced to it at SVA by a teacher there, Frank Young. We met once a week for three hours, and for the first couple of classes, for 20 or 30 minutes, we would just meditate in different ways.

I wasn't feeling good at the time. I think meditation was definitely one of those things that really helped.

What advice would you give to aspiring graphic designers? Matt Meiners: One of the things that I started doing early that has been helpful to me throughout my career is just keeping references of what I like and building a database of things that I can go back to and look for inspiration.

If you want to check out more awesome graphic design work from Matt Meiners, here’s the link to his website

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In this article, we’ll give you 10 reasons why your video marketing campaign is failing to produce revenue for your business. And the best part is: we’ll help you correct your mistakes and get on the path to profitable video marketing. Let’s get started. There’s a lot for you to learn, young Jedi.

1). You aren’t creating videos for every stage of the sales funnel People rarely watch a single video and pull out their credit card to make a purchase.

If you want people to purchase your product or service, you have to build trust, and trust isn’t built overnight (especially if you sell high-ticket items).

To build trust with your prospects, create a body of videos that moves them along the sales funnel. Every video you create should answer a different set of questions your prospects might have.

Understanding the sales funnel will improve your video marketing efforts Imagine if 10 people walk into a car dealership and all look at the same car. Should the car salesman approach all 10 people with the same brochures and sales pitch? Of course not.

Some people might know everything about the car already. While others may need a basic briefing on the car features and safety record.

Whether it’s in real life or online, every customer needs to be spoken to differently. And your job is to create a video marketing campaign that speaks to each of your prospects directly. And while this can feel impossible, it can be done.

Diversify your videos so every stage of the sales funnel is accounted for. Top of funnel content - for people who are unfamiliar with your product or service. Or know of it a little bit.

Top Funnel

- Facebook Video Ads

- Instagram Video Ads

- Youtube Video Ads

- Blog posts (with embedded videos)

Middle of the funnel - for people who are interested and want more info about your product or service

Middle Funnel

- Webinars

- Facebook Videos

- Instagram Videos

- Youtube Videos

- Blog posts (with embedded videos)

Bottom of the funnel - for people who are really close to making a decision about buying your product or service.

Bottom Funnel

- Case studies

- Testimonials

- Demos

- Webinars

Keep in mind that there is overlap. A single piece of content can satisfy several stages in the sales funnel. However, you do want to create each piece of content with one stage of the sales funnel in mind.

2). You only do paid marketing If you want to create a video marketing campaign that boosts revenue and strengthens relationships with customers, you need both paid and organic marketing strategies in place.

Let’s look at the pros and cons of paid marketing.

Pros of paid marketingRunning video ads on Facebook, Instagram, and Youtube will allow you to reach a highly-targeted audience.

These types of ads generate leads, get more people to the awareness stage of the sales funnel, and they give you the ability to run effective remarketing campaigns.

Cons of paid marketingAs large companies continue to shift their advertising money away from TV and radio, in favor of online channels, the cost to advertise on social media will continue to get more expensive.

The cost to advertise on social media increases every single year. You don’t want to be too dependent on paid advertising.

One day you might not be able to afford it. And when that day comes, if you’re over-reliant on paid marketing, you’ll lose all of your traffic.

Now let’s look at the pros and cons of Content Marketing.

Pros of Content Marketing Organic reach is free—aside from time and effort—and it often builds the greatest trust with your audience. I mean, think about it: When was the last time you trusted a paid advertisement?

Cons of Content Marketing Algorithms are crushing organic reach, making it very difficult to build an audience without paying for advertisements.

You need a strategy which includes paid ads & Content Marketing Paid Ads Keep customers coming into your sales funnel. After all, if your sales funnel doesn’t stay full, you’ll go out of business.

Content Marketing builds trust with your audience and grows an email list full of people who genuinely love your content. And when paid traffic becomes too expensive for you, it won’t kill your business because you took the time to build an audience.

Remember, video-marketing campaigns are more than just a collection of advertisements. In addition to ads, you need to create videos that educate and entertain your audience. You need Content Marketing.

3). Your video production process isn’t scalable Audiences have come to expect consistency. This means that you need to have a Content Calendar. But your content calendar can be impossible to stick to if your videos are expensive and take too long to produce.

If you can’t reliably produce videos, you will never build an audience. And if your videos are too expensive to produce, you’ll go out of business.

The solution is simple. Create a workflow for your videos. Every video you make should follow the same workflow.

By creating a workflow, you’ll be able to produce videos with the efficiency necessary to stay consistent and within your budget. And this will make your audience happy.

4). You aren’t optimizing headlines There’s too much content available online right now. Marketing-guru Neil Patel claims that there’s 1 blog for every 7 humans on earth.

And you can expect content production to continue at an unrelenting pace.

According to Mary Meeker’s 2019 Internet Trends Report, which is widely known as the holy grail of annual marketing reports, 50% of the global population are internet users, with mobile being the preferred way we experience the web.

Translation: You’re competing with a lot of people for attention.

To stand out, you must craft perfect headlines for your videos. But crafting a good headline doesn’t happen in an instant. To find your perfect headline, you must first do some testing.

And the best part about testing headlines: It’s free.

Free tools that will help you test your headlines * Coschedule Headline Analyzer * Sharethrough * Advanced Marketing Institute

If you have multiple headlines and can't decide which one to go with, ask your community for help picking a headline. You can do this by running polls on social media.

Here are your options:

Twitter polls
Facebook Polls
Instagram stories polls
Youtube Polls

5). You make videos without doing keyword research Text-based content has dominated Google’s search results for 2 decades. However, that is starting to change.

Videos are now appearing at the top of Google's search results. And you can expect this to become the new norm. So if you think keyword research is strictly for text-based content, think again.

By doing keyword research, you’ll know some really important stuff, like:

Is there an audience for my desired topic?
Is there high-competition for my desired topic?
Is this topic worth it from a business perspective?
Is there an opportunity for me to add something new and valuable to this topic?

Here are some Free SEO Tools you can use to perform keyword research:

Ubersuggest
Google Trends
Google Search Console
Answer The Public
Ahrefs Free Backlink Checker

If you’re unsure about how to do keyword research, here is my favorite free Keyword Research tutorial.

6). You don’t use Instagram Stories

IG Stories are the perfect way to learn how to make attention-grabbing videos that are specifically designed for mobile devices. Using this platform will improve your mobile-first storytelling chops.

Because each video can only be 15 seconds long, Instagram Stories force you to tell quicker stories. And as attention spans continue to shrink, you’ll be happy that you know how to make short, punchy videos.

Instagram Stories tell you who your true fans are With Instagram Stories, you can find out exactly who watches your videos. And you can find out who stopped watching, and when.

This means you can identify the people who consistently watch your IG Stories. This data can be extremely helpful when deciding on who to reach out to for promotional reasons.

By knowing who watches your videos, you’ll know exactly who will be receptive to your outreach DM’s. And you’ll know who to avoid, too.

(Snapchat offers you the same insights. However IG Stories are more popular.)

If you’re new to Instagram Stories, here’s a great free resource to help you get started.

7). You aren’t remarketing There’s an age-old principle in marketing known as The Rule of 7. Basically, the rule of 7 states that a customer needs to experience your offer 7 times before they will consider buying your product or service.

That means you need to get your videos in front of your would-be customer/client multiple times. And remarketing is the way you accomplish this.

If you’re new to the concept of Remarketing, here’s 2 of my favorite Free Remarketing Tutorials:

Facebook Ads Retargeting
Youtube Video Remarketing

8). You aren’t paying attention to your advertising frequency According to Buffer, people get annoyed when they see the same advertisement multiple times. This means you could be inadvertently annoying your potential customers with your video advertisements. Don’t do that.

To prevent people from seeing the same video advertisement multiple times, set a limit on your advertising frequency. This way people won’t hate you. After all, if they hate you, they definitely won’t buy what you’re selling.

Remember, you want to get your content in front of your would-be customers as much as possible. However, you don’t want them to see the same exact content over and over. Adjusting your ad frequency will solve for this.

Here’s how to adjust your Ad frequency on Facebook.

Here’s how to adjust your Ad frequency on Google.

9). You aren’t using data to inform your creative decisions If you ignore the data about the videos you make, you are ignoring your audience.

I understand that data analysis isn’t fun for most people. So if analyzing data isn’t your thing, don’t worry, I’ll simplify the process for you.

If your Youtube dashboard is telling you that most people leave your videos in under 15 seconds, your audience is telling you that the intro of your videos need reworking.

Your job is to look at your data, try to figure out what your audience is telling you, and make the appropriate adjustments.

Simply put, your audience is giving you hints about what they want from you. But unfortunately these hints don’t come to us in the form of something cool like a fireworks display; no, these hints instead come in the form of data.

Here are 2 free resources to help you make sense of your data:

Complete Guide to Youtube Analytics
Guide to Google Analytics

Do You Want Help With Your Video Marketing?Talk to us over the phone or via skype, tell us about your business and the challenges you are currently facing, and we will answer any questions you have.

In addition to answering all of your marketing-related questions, we’ll teach you, step-by-step, how to create a lead-generating content marketing strategy for your business.

There’s no catch. After the free strategy session, you have no obligation to work with Ouster Marketing. We won’t harass you with phone calls or annoying spam emails.

If you like the value we provide you, we hope you’ll consider hiring us on as your marketing agency. But that’s your decision.

Our mission is to help small-and-midsize businesses, like yours, achieve ambitious goals.

Take care of yourself, mentally and physically. Work smart. Look up from time to time. Pay attention to the needs of the people in your life. Turn an air-mattress into a sailboat and pretend to be a pirate on a budget. Enjoy life. Work smart. Success will follow.

Cheers

Want our marketing secrets?

Email Address

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Thank you! Prepare to turn your business into an SR-71 Blackbird.

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Are you missing out on opportunities to make more money with your video marketing efforts?

Video marketing is evolving fast. It’s difficult to stay on top of every new tactic, strategy, and opportunity.

In this post, I’ll let you in on 3 mostly-untapped video marketing opportunities and the tactics you can use to seize them.

As my favorite Italian plumber would say, “Let’s a-go.”

1). Video SEOSince the beginning of the internet, text-based content has led the charge in SEO efforts. But that’s starting to change.

Google now ranks videos at the top of its search results. In addition to that, Youtube (owned by Google’s parent company Alphabet) is the 2nd largest search engine in the world, processing more than 3 billion searches a month.

Let’s talk about the ways you can utilize video to improve your SEO.

Optimize your blog posts by adding video Even today, blogging is one of the best ways to generate more revenue. According to Hubspot’s State Of Inbound 2018 report, your business is 13X more likely to see positive ROI if you implement a well-crafted blog strategy.

Yes, blogging is still effective. But it has changed. The success of your blog now depends more on video content.

Every time you write a new blog, your text and images should be accompanied by a video. To drive this point home stronger, look at this blog post from one of the world’s most successful marketers, Neil Patel.

Neil has 4 videos embedded in this blog post (which also happens to rank on the 1st page of Google).

We’re not endorsing Neil Patel and his agency. But you can’t deny his ability to rank content on Google.

On just about every single one of Neil’s blog posts, he has an embedded Youtube Video. Keep in mind that Neil always adds a video that is related to the topic of the blog. He isn’t just embedding random videos on his blog posts.

By embedding your YouTube videos on your blog posts, you can gain an unfair advantage against your competitors who still rely solely on text and images.

Here’s another mind-blowing stat that reinforces my point.

According to Martech.zone, embedding a video on your page increases its chances of ranking at the top of Google by a factor of 53.

Video keeps users on your webpages longer (Dwell Time) Google rewards web pages that keep people’s attention.

If a user clicks your web page in the SERPs and then immediately leaves the page, it sends a powerful signal to Google: Your web page is not satisfying the intent of the searcher and, therefore, your page should not be at the top of Google’s search results.

By embedding a YouTube video at the top of your blog post, it keeps users’ on your web page longer. That’s because video content is more engaging than text and static images. According to Forbes, users’ spend 88% more time on websites with video.

If you’re not doing it already, start embedding video content on your blog posts. You can thank me later.

We don’t have a video embedded in this blog post, but that’s because we haven’t yet produced a video that relates to this given topic. But we will very soon, rest assured.

2). Video marketing empowers your sales teamYour company has to make sales to stay in business. Ya gotta sell, baby.

With that being said, it always surprises me when I learn about just how inefficient the average sales rep is. Sales reps are only spending 35% of their time selling. That means your average sales rep is spending most of his or her time NOT SELLING.

Now, before you yell at your sales team and do your impression of Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross, consider the challenges your salespeople face every day. The research, the emails, the time they spend on software like SalesForce.

Your salespeople are overwhelmed. But you can use video marketing to make their lives easier.

How to use video marketing to empower your sales teamEven when your sales reps are talking to prospects, actively selling, they’re up against a myriad of questions that lengthens the buying process and slows productivity. But video marketing can help.

Instead of looking at sales and marketing as two different departments, bring them closer together. Destroy the silos.

By building a cooperative environment where your sales and marketing people can coexist, you will cultivate conversations and tactics that improve company efficiency, leading to more sales.

No one understands your prospects the way your sales reps do. They should be informing you about the kinds of videos your company should be producing.

If your sales reps hear common objections, they can inform your marketing team. Then your marketing team can create videos that handle those specific objections, which will ultimately help your sales team, your marketing team, and your customers.

3). Videos improve your landing page conversion rates If your landing pages don’t convert, your company is in trouble. And this trouble could force you back onto the air-mattress in your father-in-law’s garage.

I don’t want you to have to experience the extreme back pain that comes from sleeping on an inflatable raft.

Luckily, though, there’s a simple way for you to drastically improve conversion rates on your landing pages and avoid the air-mattress altogether: Video.

In a study cited by Unbounce, the landing page software company, “using video on landing pages can increase conversion by 80%.”

Do you want help with your video marketing?Book a free strategy session with us. Talk to us over the phone or via skype, tell us about your business and the challenges you are currently facing, and we will answer any questions you have.

In addition to answering all of your marketing-related questions, we’ll teach you, step-by-step, how to create a lead-generating content marketing strategy for your business.

There’s no catch. After the free strategy session, you have no obligation to work with Ouster Marketing. We won’t harass you with phone calls or annoying spam emails. If you like the value we provide you, we hope you’ll consider hiring us on as your marketing agency. But that’s your decision.

Our mission is to help small-and-midsize businesses, like yours, achieve ambitious goals.

Cheers

Want our marketing secrets?

Email Address

get instant access

Thank you! Prepare to turn your business into an SR-71 Blackbird.

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A fake, reputation-damning claim was published about your business on Ripoff Report. You’re panicking. You’re upset. You’re angry.

But most of all, you want to know how to get the fake claim removed from Ripoff Report, and you want to do so as cheaply as possible.

Well, you’ve come to the right place. We’ve been in your shoes.

A jealous competitor published a fake Ripoff Report claim about our business, Ouster Marketing, and we fought to get the issue resolved—successfully—without spending money.

When it comes to resolving fake claims on Ripoff Report, most of your options are prohibitively expensive (we’re talking thousands of dollars).

In this post, I’ll show you the most cost-effective ways to deal with false Ripoff Report claims, as well as every other option you have at your disposal.

But first, let’s go over the basic stuff you must understand about Ripoff Report.

It’s almost impossible to completely remove fake Ripoff Report ClaimsBecause of a little-known piece of legislation called the Communications Decency Act, Ripoff Report isn’t responsible for any falsified claims made about your business on their website.

Ripoff Report is an extortion racket

Because anyone can publish a fake claim about your business on Ripoff Report, scammers and grudge-holders can use the site as a way to extort money from innocent business owners.

In addition to scammers and grudge-holders, you must also watch out for competitors who are eager to sink your reputation with unethical tactics via Ripoff Report.

What can you actually do about false claims on Ripoff Report?Let’s go over your list of options and the PROS and CONS of each.

Contact the person who made the false claims about your business

PROS:

If you know the person who published the false claim about your business on Ripoff Report, perhaps you can persuade them to edit the claim and admit that it was fake. This way, if potential customers read the report, at least they’ll know it isn’t true.

CONS:

Even if the person who made the false claim about your business agrees to cooperate with you, they will not be able to delete the claim from Ripoff Report. The original author of the false claim is only granted the ability to edit the post. This means that the fake claim about your business will still be visible on Ripoff Report.

Give your side of the story

PROS:

Submitting a rebuttal will give you the ability to warn readers about the veracity of the claims made about your business.

CONS:

Submitting a rebuttal can inadvertently improve the visibility of the claim, pushing it higher in Google’s search results.

Pay $2,000 to join the Ripoff Report corporate advocacy program

PROS:

There are none. This is another extortion tactic designed by Ripoff Report.

CONS:

You pay $2000 and there’s still no guarantee that Ripoff Report will remove the false claim.

Sue Ripoff Report or/and the author of the fake claim

PROS:

Taking legal action like this could very well get the false claim removed.

CONS:

The cost of legal action may not be worth the removal of the fake claim.

Hire a professional reputation management company

PROS:

A professional reputation management company will create a campaign that removes the false claim from the 1st page of Google.

CONS:

A professional reputation management company can cost you more than a lawyer in some cases.

Our advice for dealing with fake claims on Ripoff Report Create content and push the fake claim off of the 1st page of Google.

Instead of paying large sums of money for an uncertain outcome, create blog posts, podcasts, and videos. Share your experience and knowledge. Create value and be as transparent as humanly possible.

Help your customers and would-be customers solve their challenges. Earn their trust by being helpful.

This way, if a fake Ripoff Report claim is published about your business, nobody will believe it anyway, because you’ve proven yourself to be useful and trustworthy.

Create high-quality content and force Google to prioritize and index your new webpages. This tactic will result in getting the fake Ripoff Report claim pushed off the 1st page of Google.

There’s a bad joke in the SEO world.

Where’s the best place to hide a body?

On the second page of Google.

We also recommend this tactic:

Prove that the claims made about your business on Ripoff Report are verifiably falseIn the false claim made about our business, real names and businesses were mentioned alongside our own. So, naturally, we reached out to the other people who were mentioned in the false claim.

One of the other people mentioned by name in the false report filed a rebuttal, making it known to readers that the claims made on Ripoff Report were completely fake.

So if other names are mentioned in the fake Ripoff Report claim, contact the other people who are mentioned. Chances are, they don’t want their names on this website any more than you do, and they’ll most likely be willing to file a rebuttal on your behalf.

Contact the police (if you know who the author is)

For us at Ouster Marketing, we know who defamed our reputation. This particular guy routinely harasses us online and via text.

And because of issues surrounding the guy’s mental health, it appears as though we can expect him to continue his dirty tricks.

However, we did report the guy to the police. If he continues to pursue illegal, unethical activities in an attempt to harm us, we have a well-documented case against him.

So if your situation is similar to ours, and the individual who published the fake claim is harassing you on and offline, please, go to the police. If they can’t help you, at least you’re not out of any serious amount of money.

Protect the reputation of your business moving forward We now live in an age of fake news, disinformation campaigns, and online trolling. The internet offers anyone the ability to ruin the reputation of your business.

Caution: Outdated Meme

Publish high-quality content. Be transparent. Take control of the narrative surrounding your business.

By controlling the narrative that surrounds you and your business, you make it impossible for scammers to destroy the business you’ve worked so hard to build.

If You Want More Help Dealing With Your Fake Ripoff Report ClaimWe know from experience that dealing with fake claims on Ripoff Report is no laughing matter; it can cause anxiety, fear, and shame. No innocent business owner should ever have to deal with this.

We offer a free strategy session, where you can speak to us directly over the phone or via Skype.

In the strategy session, we’ll talk about your situation, create a content strategy specifically designed for you, and resolve the fake Ripoff Report claim made about your business, once and for all.

There’s no catch. I’m not going to pressure you into buying anything. If you take me up on the free strategy session, the only thing I ask of you: Pay it forward. If you see someone who could use your help . . . Help them!

And if you need our help, take advantage of our free strategy session. It won’t be available forever.

Take care of yourself, mentally and physically. Work smart. Look up from time to time. Recognize the needs of others. Hide whoopie cushions underneath your Dad’s chair. Spread laughter.

Cheers

Want our marketing secrets?

Email Address

get instant access

Thank you! Prepare to turn your business into an SR-71 Blackbird.

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Finding the right marketing agency to partner with can be a game changer for you and your business.

If you hire the right marketing agency, you will get more leads, see a substantial increase in revenue, and you’ll build stronger relationships with your customers, making them happy and loyal.

But if you hire the wrong marketing agency, your business is going to lose insane amounts of money, and you might end up sleeping on the air mattress in your father-in-law's dusty basement.

(No disrespect to your father-in-law’s dusty basement.)

Luckily for you and your father-in-law, this article will show you how to choose a great marketing agency, one that you can partner with and expect to see big returns on your marketing budget.

Let's get started, your business needs an awesome marketing agency to partner with.

Here are 6 things to look for in a great marketing agency.

1). Understand exactly how the marketing agency produces real-world business results No marketing agency can solve the challenges of every business.

When looking for an agency, you need to find out how they’re producing results.

This way, you’ll know if they can use their marketing tactics to solve the specific challenges facing you and your business.

Here are a few things to deeply consider:

The Methodology they use to produce results

Marketers love to hurl acronyms at you like snowballs (SEO, PPC, KPI, CLTV). Don’t be scared to ask questions about the specific details.

After all, if the marketing agency can’t explain to you, in easy-to-understand language, the exact process they use to achieve results, run away from that agency faster than Indiana Jones runs away from a giant boulder.

Every successful marketing agency follows a process, a step-by-step formula which helps them produce repeatable results for their clients.

Ask the marketing agency to explain to you every step of their process. And if you don’t understand something, ask them for more explanation.

Digital Marketing is not esoteric black magic; hire an agency whose methodology you can easily understand.

I know what you might be thinking, "I don't understand digital marketing and the language associated with it."

While that is completely understandable, you can always ask the people in your circle for help.

For example, find a friend or relative who is savvy in marketing, and invite them to help you inspect each marketing agency until you find a perfect fit.

Look for unique talents and specialization A sound methodology is required for marketing success. But methodologies can only be executed upon with the right talent.

Some agencies are masterful with link building and SEO, some are great with pay-per-click advertising, and others are skilled in social media.

Your job is to find out what makes a particular agency unique. Remember, you’re looking for specialization, that one thing they can do better than the rest of the pack.

Covid-19 update: Because of shrinking budgets and limited resources, you may want to find an agency that has a bunch of different skills and abilities. For instance, we here at Ouster Marketing have begun offering new services to help business owners grow during the pandemic.

Work with an agency whose unique skills are suited for the unique business challenges you face.

2) Look for a marketing agency that communicates with candor and transparency Before you even think about hiring a marketing agency, sit down, and have a long talk with them. Tell them about all of the challenges facing your business.

For a marketing agency to be truly effective, they need to understand your business the way you understand your business; they need to get inside your head.

After you talk to the marketing agency about your challenges, the next step is for the marketing agency to perform research.

This research will inform their strategy and approach, building the blueprint for how they plan to help your business grow.

Here are some important questions to ask every marketing agency:

How do you produce marketing results for clients?
Can I see the results you’ve produced for clients?
Can you explain to me how, exactly, you will go about producing results for my business?
How long will it take you to produce demonstrable results?
Can we set specific benchmarks?

Depending on your business and its challenges, you might have plenty more questions you’d like to ask, but the above questions will go far when deciding who to consider and who to avoid.

3). Look for a marketing agency that fits your company culture

Today, businesses aren’t shy when it comes to expressing their views on politics and society.

The days of neutrality are over, which is why it’s so important for you to hire an agency whose beliefs and values align with your business.

This section doesn’t require vast amounts of explanation. But be sure to understand, now more than ever, the beliefs and values your company espouses are just as important as the products and services you sell.

Find a marketing agency that shares your values. Ask yourself this question: Do I want to be friends with these people?

4). Find a marketing agency that isn’t territorial about the work they do for your companyThere are marketing agencies that keep the work they do for you in a hard-to-reach silo.

Let me give you an example. Let’s say that you’ve become dissatisfied with the work a marketing agency is doing for your company and it’s time to hire someone else.

A professional agency will help you onboard the new agency you’ve decided to hire, which means handing over all the work they’ve done, making the transition smooth for both you and your new agency.

A bad agency will throw a childish tantrum and refuse to hand over the work they’ve been doing for your business.

Be aware that marketing agencies have access to your most powerful marketing weapon:

DataMarketing agencies collect and analyze vast amounts of data. They know what marketing tactics are working for your business, and they know the ineffectual tactics that are absolute wastes of money.

The marketing agency you work with must be willing to grant you complete access to all of your company’s marketing data.

Never let a marketing agency be the gatekeeper to your marketing assets. Make sure that you have access to all of it, always.

5). Find a marketing agency with a decent websiteWhen it comes to finding a great marketing agency, you should be looking for an agency with a decent website.

Remember, if you don’t like the way they present themselves to the world, you probably aren’t going to like the way they represent your business.

Here are some questions to ask about their website:

How fast does it load?
Is it designed well?
Does it contain a Unique Sales Proposition (USP)?
Does it have useful blog content?
Does it contain clear messaging

Answering these questions will help you choose the right marketing agency.

6). Look for a marketing agency that sets SMART GOALSThere are two kinds of marketing agencies:

The kind that gets paid from your marketing budget (parasites)
And the kind that gets paid from the results they produce for you and your business (marketing professionals)

It’s pretty obvious that, ideally, you want to hire an agency that earns its money because of the results they produce for you.

This is precisely why you want to find an agency that is willing to set some SMART goals.

What are SMART GOALS?Goals that are:

Specific - 250 new leads per month
Measurable - The 250 new leads per month can be measured in the lead forms
Attainable - 250 new leads per month is an attainable goal
Relevant - 250 new leads per month will have a relevant impact on business
Timely - The goal is 250 new leads PER MONTH

Above I use a made-up example (250 new leads per month)

Any marketing agency that you partner with needs to be held accountable from day 1. With SMART Goals set in place, you have a way to gauge the success of your marketing efforts.

Professional basketball players get paid to perform, and their performance can be measured in stats like points, rebounds, and assists, among many other things.

If you owned a basketball franchise, you wouldn’t pay top-dollar for a player that isn’t putting up respectable stats, and that’s exactly how you should treat any marketing agency you partner with.

With SMART GOALS put in place, you can do precisely just that.

Need Help With Your Video Marketing?Book a free strategy session with us.

Talk to us over the phone or via skype, tell us about your business and the challenges you are currently facing, and we will answer any questions you have.

In addition to answering all of your marketing-related questions, we’ll teach you, step-by-step, how to create a lead-generating content marketing strategy for your business.

There’s no catch. After the free strategy session, you have no obligation to work with Ouster Marketing.

We won’t harass you with phone calls or annoying spam emails. If you like the value we provide you, we hope you’ll consider hiring us as your marketing agency. But that’s your decision.

Our mission is to help small-and-midsize businesses, like yours, achieve ambitious goals.

Cheers

Want our marketing secrets?

Email Address

get instant access

Thank you! Prepare to turn your business into an SR-71 Blackbird.

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