The Click & Convert Podcast: Recent Episodes
Sean Clark
Welcome to the Click and Convert podcast - the show for business owners and marketers that lifts the lid on web traffic, online conversion, and much more besides. with your host, Sean Clark from ClarkStJames.com
Nathan Hirsch has over 10+ years of experience building businesses as an entrepreneur. Along with his business partner Connor Gillivan, Nathan built his first eCommerce business to $25 million in total sales using virtual assistants.
Then, they scaled and sold their second company, FreeeUp which featured on the show in 2019, with a 100% remote team of virtual assistants.
They have been recognised on 250+ podcasts such as Entrepreneur on Fire and were on the Entrepreneur 360 List for two years in a row commending them as one of the best entrepreneurial companies in America.
At their core, they are systems entrepreneurs always looking for new ways to automate and outsource to virtual assistants and talented professionals. Nathan is here today to talk about his latest project Outsource School.
Sean and Nathan discuss a range of topics, covering Nathan's new venture Outsource School.
Outsource School Links:
OutsourceSchool Website
Email: support@outsourceschool.com and nathan@outsourceschool.com
Today’s Click and Convert podcast guest is Magda Houalla, Director of Marketing Strategy at AspireIQ. As a leader in the influencer marketing space, Magda helps brands across all industries start and expand their campaigns to meet, and exceed, their own specific goals. Magda’s client list includes the likes of Zevia, Freshly, Bed, Bath & Beyond, LL Bean and Walmart.
In this episode, Magda shares her expertise in influencer marketing, discussing a range of topics with Sean, including:
- When Magda became interested in influencer marketing and how she progressed her career to get to where she is today
- The size of businesses that Magda works with primarily
- What influencer marketing is and how a campaign might differ from a product endorsement
- How to find the right influencer to fit your brand and how different brands could leverage influencer marketing
- How influencer marketing for different budgets
- The different timescales for influencer marketing campaigns and how this will vary between brands
- How influencer marketing can work with a range of different demographics
- How Magda and her team help brands manage their expectations with ROI on these campaigns
- How the evolution of social media platforms allows brands to access different audiences with influencer marketing
Want to learn more about influencer marketing? You’ll find lots of resources at aspireiq.com/click-convert.
*Note: This is a special video episode hosted by our Sales Manager Charles Holland from his online MeetUp- Hack Your Sales Funnel*
You can find out more at: hackyoursalesfunnel.com
Want to know how one marketer generated over 600 high-value leads in 9 months on LinkedIn through content marketing?
We’ve got you covered!
Our guest speaker – Chris Branch of Seed To Branch (https://seedtobranch.com/) from our first Online “Hacking Your Sales” Webinar.
Chris is doing AMAZING things with Content Marketing on LinkedIn with his own brand and for his clients. Here are just a few of his accomplishments in the last 9 months:
- 0-20k LinkedIn followers (company page)
- 10-39k LinkedIn followers (personal page)
- 600+ leads generated for his own business
- The average value of a lead is £3.5k a month
If that wasn’t enough, just check out his own business stats for March of this year:
- 4.1 Million post impressions in 30 days
- 120 leads over this period (90% inbound) (10% referral) (0% outbound)
We’re going to run through exactly how he’s grown his personal and company pages, his secret hacks for explosive growth, and how to turn engagement into qualified leads.
On today’s show, Sean speaks with Chris Shipferling, Managing Partner at Global Wired Advisors, where he is the first point of contact for clients looking to sell their online business. For the past seven years, Chris has focused exclusively on high-level consulting for multi-million-dollar omnichannel, digitally native and Amazon-based private label and reseller brands. Chris and his partners use their 70+ years of combined investment banking experience to provide a superior level of service that was previously unavailable in the lower middle market.
But it’s not just expertise and experience to offer comprehensive financial advice. Each member of the Global Wired team has also owned, operated and sold multiple digitally native and Amazon-based businesses, meaning they are uniquely qualified to guide client companies through each step of the complex sale process.
Chris enjoys working closely with entrepreneurs and small business owners throughout the transaction process. Getting to know clients on an individual level means that Global Wired Advisors can better assist them in realising their goals to achieve the best possible sale outcome.
Sean and Christ cover a number of topics, including:
- What Chris did before Global Wired Advisors and how he got involved in this sector
- The types of business that Global Wired Advisors works with
- How long a business would typically be trading, and which factors they should consider before selling
- How it can be difficult for service-based business to sell, given the heavy reliance on the founder
- The general process for determining the value of a business, though this will vary between businesses
- How building a business with the intention of selling can actually be beneficial
- How business owners know it might be time to consider selling
- The types of potential buyers for these businesses
- How people know they can trust an agency to help sell their business
You can find out more about what Chris and his team do by visiting the Global Wired Advisors website, where you will find white papers and blog posts that explain their services. You can also input your business data into their valuation tool to get an estimate of your business value.
If you’d like more customised data about how Global Wired Advisors might help you, you can also schedule a free consultation with Chris.
Or contact Chris on Facebook.
Check out the Marathon des Sables Podcast, where Sean interviews MdS participants in the run-up to the big event- 250km through the Sahara Desert over six days- in April 2020.
As always if you have any questions you can get in touch via Twitter @SeanClark.
Subscribe to this podcast via iTunes, Stitcher and now on Spotify. If you liked it we’d be grateful if you could leave a review.
This is a special episode of the Click and Convert podcast as Sean takes part in a roundtable discussion on the Search with Candour podcast.
Sean is joined by Mark Williams-Cook and Rob Lewis of Candour as well as Michael Curtis from Further to discuss PPC and SEO. They cover recent updates and what the future holds for both paid and organic search.
Topics covered in this episode include:
- Voice Search
- AI’s impact on search
- SEO & PPC Management in the future
- The teams predictions for 2020 & beyond
On this week’s show, Sean speaks to Traci Reuter, founder and CEO of Divine Social. Traci has a gift for looking at any business’ vision, mission and message and mapping out the right strategy for them.She’s passionate about helping businesses grow using authentic and meaningful social advertising. With 25 years of experience, it’s safe to say that Traci knows her stuff when it comes to high-level marketing strategy. She shares her expertise as co-host of Social Media Marketing Happy Hour podcast, and as a contributing author in the bestselling The Ultimate Guide to Facebook Advertising (3rd edition).
Today, Traci shares her expertise as a guest on this podcast, offering up some of her greatest secrets behind mapping out a powerful social advertising strategy. She and Sean discuss a number of topics, including:
- How Divine Social came about
- They key foundations for any business when starting a new campaign and how research is the most important step of any campaign
- The suitability of different platforms, such as Facebook or Instagram, for different clients. Traci also gives us an insight into which she prefers
- Traci’s current approach to audience creation and how much she targets
- Divine Social’s preferred creative approach for effective ads, but how they adapt for clients
- How Divine Social approaches testing
- The most common mistakes in social advertising campaigns
- Tips on estimating and setting budgets
- How to keep up with ever-changing platforms and ensure that strategy fits with their abilities
Want to find out more?
Divine Social has a landing page especially for Click and Convert listeners, packed with resources to support with the topics discussed in this episode.
Or contact Traci on Facebook & Twitter.
Check out the Marathon des Sables Podcast, where Sean interviews MdS participants in the run-up to the big event- 250km through the Sahara Desert over six days- in April 2020.
As always if you have any questions you can get in touch via Twitter @SeanClark.
Subscribe to this podcast via iTunes, Stitcher and now on Spotify. If you liked it we’d be grateful if you could leave a review.
On this week’s episode, Sean speaks to Adam Lundquist. Harvard-educated, this former radio shock jock became is responsible for one of the first viral YouTube videos, when he uploaded one of his interviews in the platform’s early days. This viral video sparked Adam’s interest in the power of the internet and internet marketing. Now an agency owner, Adam has featured in a range of traditional media, such as VH1, MTV, and The Best Damn Sports Show. However, he’s also translated his knowledge into new media, featuring as a published author in Search Engine Journal, PPC Hero and Wordstream, to name just a few.
Adam’s digital marketing agency, Nerds Do it Better delivers paid search campaigns, making use of advanced statistical analysis from Harvard. This allows Adam and his team to remove inefficiencies and generate a consistent flow of customers in a cost-effective way.
Sean and Adam discuss a number of topics, including:
- Adam’s journey from radio shock jock to YouTube
- How Adam became interested in statistical analysis and the essence of the advanced statistical analysis that Adam looked at during his Harvard studies. Adam also explains the decision behind the launch of Nerds Do it Better
- How to give potential customers the confidence that you can help them, and the importance of picking up the phone
- How Adam advises measuring the spectrum of the whole marketing campaign
- Human-generated vs automated ads - the benefits of each and how each has its place
- The importance of ad copy, and tips for writing it
- Tips on generating calls from ads, rather than just a click and how these other leads can be more difficult to track and test individually
- The perks of PPC advertising over SEO
Want to know more? Get in touch!
Chat with the both at nerdsdoitbetter.com
Contact Adam on LinkedIn and Twitter
Keep an eye out for Adam on other podcasts and articles!
Resources Adam mentioned:
The E-Myth - Michael Gerber
Moneyball - Michael Lewis
Check out the Marathon des Sables Podcast, where Sean interviews MdS participants in the run-up to the big event- 250km through the Sahara Desert over six days- in April 2020.
Joshua Ramsey, fractional CMO and digital marketing executive. He owns a digital marketing agency and works with companies to assist them in mapping out a more robust marketing strategy to dominate the marketplace. With nearly thirty years of digital marketing experience, Josh is also a Google Partner.
On top of this, Josh hosts his own radio show and, when he’s not doing that, he’s travelling around the country to teach his marketing strategies and methods that have proven so successful over the years. As if that wasn’t enough, Josh has also masterminded, coded and has marketing and sales programs. Over the past ten years he’s built a CRM, programs for Operations Management and Website Auditing, as well as the world’s largest library of SEO descriptions.
Today, he’s here to share his expertise and talk about the release of his new book, The SEO Gimmick. Sean and Josh cover a range of topics including:
- What fractional CMO is exactly
- Where to start with building an effective website
- The limitations of using simple, self-build website platforms
- Marketing priorities for companies, and where SEO and paid advertising sit in this list of priorities
- The importance of setting goals, and ensuring that these are realistic in line with your company. These goals apply to all areas of your business type and size.
- Judging the value of an agency for your business and how to choose the right agency for you
- Balancing a finite budget
- The value of a good website
- How valuable a CRM is in boosting conversions and how offline marketing campaigns can be as effective as their online counterparts
Josh also talks about what you can expect from his book, and how it will help businesses avoid being ripped off. The book is available to download from Joshua’s website- though listeners of the Click and Convert podcast can get a hard copy of the book if they contact him directly and mention the show.
Got a specific question for Josh? You can contact Strategic Point Marketing, or get in touch via:
Text: 972-832-2487
Facebook: facebook.com/JRcmo/
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/joshuaramsey/
Check out the Marathon des Sables Podcast, where Sean interviews MdS participants in the run-up to the big event- 250km through the Sahara Desert over six days- in April 2020.
As always if you have any questions you can get in touch via Twitter @SeanClark.
Subscribe to this podcast via iTunes, Stitcher and now on Spotify. If you liked it we’d be grateful if you could leave a review.
On this week’s Click and Convert podcast, Sean speaks to Rick Cesari ahead of the release of his new book Video Persuasion. Rick has helped major brands, from GoPro to George Foreman build billion-dollar brands through brand response advertising and strategic video marketing. His new book puts the proven marketing techniques of big brands into the hands of small business owners, entrepreneurs, inventors and Amazon sellers, to name just a few examples.
This week, Rick brings his expertise as bestselling author, speaker, consultant and marketing & brand strategy guru. He shares his advice on video marketing best practices for influencing customers and building a brand.
Sean and Rick cover a range of topics, including:
- The role that video now plays in impacting a buyer’s decision-making process
- How technology has made it easier to produce high-quality video marketing content in-house
- Lighting and audio quality as the two most important elements of successful video content- you don’t need expensive equipment, you can even use your smartphone
- The three main types of video that buyers respond to: tutorial, demonstration, customer testimonial - Rick has tutorials for creating this on his website
- How important testimonials can be to the success of your business, as well as how to ask for testimonials
- Creating compelling, interesting content for services that aren’t tangible, avoiding a standard talking-head video
- How vital the pre-production stage of video creation is
- Three simple ways to hook people into your video
- How to choose a third-party for video production and ensure that their skill set fits your needs
- The difference between video content for direct response and video content for brand building
Want to find out more?
Video Persuasion is available on Amazon from October 15th. However, you can get a copy of his report, The Top 3 Most Effective Types of Video Content, in the meantime. Rick will send notifications about the book’s release to those who sign up.
Keep an eye out for the book on Rick’s website- making a purchase via this page will enter you into a competition in which you could visit the set of Rick’s upcoming George Foreman commercial.
Twitter - @RickCesariDRTV
Facebook- @rickcesaridrtv
Youtube- Rick Cesari
Check out the Marathon des Sables Podcast, where Sean interviews MdS participants in the run-up to the big event- 250km through the Sahara Desert over six days- in April 2020.
As always if you have any questions you can get in touch via Twitter @SeanClark.
Subscribe to this podcast via iTunes, Stitcher and now on Spotify. If you liked it we’d be grateful if you could leave a review.
Alex Debecker is co-founder and CMO of ubisend, an AI company that helps businesses solve challenges with conversational software (aka ‘chatbots’). He moved to the UK in 2016, after having built and sold a marketing agency in Belgium
Over the last three years, the company’s client list has seen significant growth, with clients including the likes of Unilever, Google, NHS and Archant. Recognised as thought leaders in their field, ubisend push the boundaries of AI and trailblaze best practices of this nascent chatbot technology.
As CMO, Alex’s role has been pivotal in raising the profile of ubisend and acquiring their impressive client list.
On today’s show, Alex and Sean discuss a range of topics, including:
- A run through of what exactly a chatbot is, what they’re powered by and what they can do
- How the likes of Siri, Alex and Google Home share chatbot qualities
- Situations in which a chatbot is particularly useful and examples of sectors where they aren’t suitable
- Advancements in chatbot technology and how this might continue to develop
- How chatbots can understand context to maintain longer, more complex conversations
- The ways in which chatbots can learn and evolve
- The necessary resources and time to effectively implement chatbot technology
- How chatbots can be a useful source of information about customers and what analytical data can be extracted
- The integration of chatbots with other third-party solutions, systems and technology to gather even more data. Which of these systems work best with chatbots in different sectors
- Alex’s thoughts on the “creep” factors in a world where chatbot technology is increasingly difficult to distinguish from human interaction and why it’s important that chatbots don’t pretend to be human
- How to weigh up the initial cost of implementation vs. the potential ROI
- The future of chatbots and how it will simplify search for users
Want to find out more about ubisend or chatbot technology in general? Get in touch:
Website- ubisend.com
ubisend’s Twitter- @ubisend
Alex’s Twitter- @alexdebecker
Case studies mentioned in the podcast:
HR chatbot reduces inbox traffic by 43%
Sales chatbot generates 30,000+ leads
As always if you have any questions you can get in touch via Twitter @SeanClark.
Subscribe to this podcast via iTunes, Stitcher and now on Spotify. If you like it we’d be grateful if you could leave a review.
On this week’s show, Sean interviews Nathan Hirsch, expert in remote hiring and eCommerce. Nate has been selling online since 2010, selling over $25 million worth of product through his eCommerce business. He is now the founder of FreeeUp.com, the hands-on hiring marketplace. FreeeUp.com connects online business owners with pre-vetted remote workers, redefining how businesses are able to hire remote freelancers online. You can find Nathan on leading podcasts, such as Entrepreneur on Fire, Eventual Millionaire, and now this one! Sean and Nathan discuss a range of topics, covering:
- How and when Nathan first came up with the idea of remote workers
- The major advantages to hiring remote workers, notably flexibility and choice
- The potential disadvantages that stop every business owner from working with remote workers. Factors to be considered before hiring a remote worker and how communication is key
- How to manage remote workers on scale and how online tools can be useful
- Creating and maintaining a sense of team spirit and motivation among a team of remote workers
- Getting around the potential obstacle of different time zones
- How FreeeUp, Nathan’s remote hiring solution, solves problems associated with hiring remote workers
- Why, despite the common misconception, hiring remote workers isn’t necessarily just a cost-saving way to hiring low-value offshore workers
- How and why hiring remote workers is actually beneficial to the workers you’re hiring
- Why Nathan thinks that, despite multiple other benefits (including time-saving, environmental benefits and saved travel costs), larger corporations have been slow to take advantage of hiring remote workers.
- What listeners should consider to maximise their chances of success before they give remote workers a try
Want to try FreeeUp? Get $25 free credit when you mention Sean Clark or Click and Convert Podcast Got another question for Nathan? You can get in touch via: Facebook- nathan.hirsch Twitter- @realnatehirsch LinkedIn- Nathan Hirsch Email- nathan@freeeup.com Book an appointment- https://calendly.com/freeeup-nathan Listen to Nathan’s own podcast: Outsourcing and Scaling Join the podcast Facebook group: FreeeUp Facebook Group As always if you have any questions you can get in touch via Twitter @SeanClark. Subscribe to this podcast via iTunes, Stitcher and now on Spotify. If you like it we’d be grateful if you could leave a review
This week, we speak to Mark Williams-Cook, Digital Marketing Director of Candour. With 15 years of experience in the digital marketing industry, Mark has spent his time working at senior management and director level at three major UK digital marketing agencies, working as a full-time affiliate, making and flipping websites, one of the first in the YouTube Partner Programme and built and sold SaaS tools for both SEO and social media.
Over the years, Mark has worked with the likes of Expedia, Hitachi, FatFace and Groupon on their search marketing. On top of this, he’s talked at digital conferences (BrightonSEO, Retra and TalkingTech to name just a few) and is Chartered Institute of Marketing Faculty speaker- he’s even designed one of the first iterations of their digital bootcamp. In addition to this, he currently runs three digital marketing courses with Jarrold Training for Search Engine Optimisation, Google Adwords and Google Analytics.
However, even with all of these achievements, what pleased his mum was something a little lower-key. Mark wrote a chapter on SEO in Build a Brand in 30 Days and she said this made her happy as it was something tangible because she didn’t really understand what he did for a living.
Mark’s current goal is to make Candour the best possible place to work in order to attract amazing staff who can create great results for clients.
Sean and Mark cover a number of topics, including:
- The different types of SEO that should be considered
- Just how large the job of ‘SEO’, what skills are required and how more people might need to be involved than you’d first think
- The importance of mobile SEO in today’s world
- How the loading speed of your website might impact SEO rankings
- The role that links play and how quality trumps quantity
- Where content fits in the SEO plan and how quality is so important
- How we can and should be using Google’s AI
- The personalisation of search in light of Google’s AI
- Daily tasks for an SEO and how measuring and tracking your rankings is vital
- Why SEO might not always be the answer
Want to know more? Get in touch with Mark!
Candour- https://withcandour.co.uk/
Search Norwich - searchnorwich.org
Twitter- @thetafferboy
Resources:
SEMrush
Lighthouse
We’d like to thank our show sponsor Opteo.
Opteo is a Google Ads management tool and much more. If you run one Google Ads account or 100 Opteo will save you time and enhance your ad management skills. Smart, powerful, and built to make life easier. It will automate routine Google Ads tasks, and alert you automatically to trends and even make automatic recommendations. You can then spend more time on high-level strategy and creative work.
We use Opteo in our agency to make us more efficient and effective.
Go to opteo.com/clickandconvert to claim your 6 week free trial.
As always if you have any questions you can get in touch via Twitter @SeanClark.
Subscribe to this podcast via iTunes, Stitcher and now on Spotify. If you like it we’d be grateful if you could leave a review
On this week’s Click and Convert podcast, Sean interviews Naeem Arif. With nearly 30 years of experience as a business owner and management consultant, Naeem has provided consultancy to CEOs, directors and senior leaders of major corporations around the world. He’s developed a formidable reputation for his success over the years in an array of different industries, including retail, hospitality, manufacturing, consulting and the public sector.
He has experience working with some of the world’s biggest brands - Jaguar Land Rover, BBC and British Airways to name but a few - and has been involved with 26 different transformation projects, helping to deliver over £1 bn of success during this time and providing support with the most recent business challenges, such as the GDPR and brexit.
However, this hasn’t been at the cost of his own business ventures. Naeem is also the CEO of a number of multi-award-winning companies, employing 22 people in the Midlands.
On top of all of this, Naeem has shared his expertise in his four Amazon best-seller books, published in English, Mandarin and Russian, and today, he shares his expertise with us.
Sean and Naeem cover a whole host of topics, including:
- What Naeem means by advocating ‘Business Basics First’, as referred to in his latest book Customer First: How the best loved brands convert and retain customers
- Where responsibility for customer service should lie within a business, and how it can extend further than your ‘customer service’ staff
- Practical advice for becoming a ‘customer first’ business and how all employees must share the same mindset for it to become possible
- The main stages of a customer-first transformation journey, and the importance of realising, and accounting for the fact, that a customer's experience of your business isn’t necessarily a linear journey.
- Why leading on price is never a good idea- make customers value your business through a unique product or service
- How businesses can understand, and calculate, lifetime value and how doing good deeds for your customers can reap long-term rewards
- An explanation of the three key sections in Naeem’s book: Create, Share and Retain. Naeem also explains why businesses should focus more energy on the retain stage
- What Naeem thinks the modern customer journey looks like and how speed, simplicity and having multiple touch points are vital components
- How businesses can monitor and measure their own customer service level and how the Net Promoter Score is one of the easiest way to do this.
Got more questions for Naeem? Get in touch:
Email: naeem@NAConsulting.co.uk
Twitter: @NAConsultingLtd
Facebook: /NAConsultingLtd
LinkedIn: /naeemarif
As always if you have any questions you can get in touch via Twitter @SeanClark.
Subscribe to this podcast via iTunes, Stitcher and now on Spotify. If you like it we’d be grateful if you could leave a review
On this week’s show is AJ Wilcox, long-time digital marketer who fell in love with the LinkedIn Ads platform in 2011. In 2014, AJ founded B2Linked.com, a company that specialises in LinkedIn Ads account management, training and consulting. Since 2014, he has managed hundreds accounts on the network, reaching a combined total of $110 million in ad spend, and has worked directly with several among LinkedIn’s top 10 accounts.
AJ’s faith has had a huge impact on his entrepreneurial journey. He was offered multiple job opportunities after he was fired from his last job, and prayed to God to understand what he should do. The answer was to turn them all down and start his own business- and AJ has never looked back since!
Sean and AJ discuss a number of different topics, including:
- Who should consider advertising on LinkedIn and how you can determine whether it might be right for your business
- The value in advertising via social media platforms versus Google ads.
- How advertising on LinkedIn differs from on platforms such as Facebook and Google, and what you need to consider
- The impact mobile LinkedIn users will have on your advertising strategy
- The role organic engagement plays alongside ad activity
- How sales navigator can be highly beneficial to pushing your LinkedIn ads
- How enlisting the help of an agency can help you see results from the LinkedIn ads platform faster
- AJ’s thoughts on how easy it is to use the LinkedIn ads management interface following a recent update
- The impact of video ads on engagement rates
- Which sorts of ads businesses should use when they first start out on the platform
- The performance of lead ads versus ads that drive people to sign up on a website
- How adding a personal touch to your targeted ads can make a huge difference to conversion rates, and how this is possible on a large scale
- How you should deal with social media leads in the sale process
Got more questions? Get in touch!
- Twitter @wilcoxaj
Rescources:
- AJ’s checklist
On this week’s show, Sean speaks to Paul Miller, founder of CozyPhones and Next Level Licensing. Paul has been expanding his e-commerce brand since 2015, and speaks of the importance of seeking licensing opportunities for his products. Having locked in a licensing deal with Nickelodeon in 2017, Paul’s brand skyrocketed and culminated in a global mass market distribution deal. Nowadays, Paul shares his expertise with others, helping businesses how to follow his path and achieve growth to a size they could only dream of before. Today, Paul is hear to teach us how to reach new heights through the power of licensing.
Sean and Paul discuss a number of different topics, including:
- How Paul got to where he is now, and at what moment he realised the value in product licensing
- What type of businesses should think about product licensing, and any prerequisites they should be aware of- quality is a must
- The potential that can be unlocked when you license your products and how value lies in more than just profit margins
- The dangers and pitfalls that must be taken into account
- Tips for evaluating potential licensors
- How licensing your product to more than one brand can be beneficial
- The wider opportunities for product licensing
- The fees and costs associated with product licensing
- The next steps for listeners that have an interest in licensing a product
Resources Paul mentions:
Amazing Freedom
Paul’s own free course
Prosper Show 2019
As always if you have any questions you can get in touch via Twitter @SeanClark.
Subscribe to this podcast via iTunes, Stitcher and now on Spotify. If you like it we’d be grateful if you could leave a review
On this week’s show Sean interviews Jon MacDonald, founder and president of The Good, a conversion rate optimization firm that helps brands convert more of their existing website traffic into buyers.
With names like Adobe, Nike and The Economist on its client list, it’s fair to say that The Good has been a success- confirmed by its position on Oregon’s list of top 20 fastest growing private companies.
Hardly surprising, given that many brands that have worked with The Good have seen a 100% increase in revenue, on average.
Jon knows a thing or two about encouraging site visitors to take action, and shares his expertise on conversion optimisation in publications, such as Entrepreneur and Inc.
In addition to this, Jon volunteers for several causes throughout the Pacific Northwest and is an active committee member of industry associations and peer groups, such as Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO).
Sean and Jon discuss a number of topics in today’s show, including:
- Jon’s background and how he came about founding The Good
- Why Jon hasn’t been tempted to diversify The Good’s services, and why there’s value in expertise
- Jon’s personal approach to CRO: The Conversion Growth Programme
- The nature of tests that Jon runs to establish the best method of conversion optimisation for clients and how false data can misguide businesses
- The most common issues among clients at the start of new CRO projects: navigation and branded terms
- When clients should expect to see gains, and when improvements are likely to level out
- The specificities of two services offered by The Good: Data-Driven Redesign and Audit-Only Research. These are just two CRO services that clients can choose
- How companies that can’t afford to invest in third-party services can implement their own CRO strategy and how these techniques can put companies at a much better starting place if they do invest in a service, such as The Good at a later date.
Want to learn more? Check out The Good’s content. Sign up to the weekly email list for tips on how you can help your own business with CRO.
Does your website receive at least 10k hits each month? Try out The Good’s free landing page assessment.
Contact John directly: jon@thegood.com
Website: thegood.com
Twitter: @jonmacdonald
Services Jon mentions:
Google Analytics
Hotjar
Google Optimize
Optimal Workshop
Usability Hub
As always if you have any questions you can get in touch via Twitter @SeanClark.
Subscribe to this podcast via iTunes, Stitcher and now on Spotify. If you like it we’d be grateful if you could leave a review
This week, Sean interviews Daniel Daines-Hutt, Co-founder of AmpMyContent. Both Daniel and his business partner, Freyja Spaven, are internationally recognized experts in Content Creation, Strategy and Sales Systems. Having originally started a clothing company to gain the right to remain living in New Zealand, AmyMyContent were stocked in five stores and selling thousands of items both in store and online within five weeks. This business development forced Daniel and Freyja to focus on the use of both content marketing and promotion for traffic and retargeting for more sales, which is how he has become such an expert.
Daniel now works behind-the-scenes at AmyMyContent to create the paid traffic systems and automations, as well as writing about paid traffic and the promotion of paid content. While Daniel also talks about the sister site to their main venture, InboundAscension, it’s at AmpMyContent that he shares the lessons he learned along the way.
One of Daniel’s most recent achievements is that his guide to paid content promotion featured as article of the week on GrowthHackers. It’s this (30,000 word!) article, advising how to generate a 22:1 ROI promoting blog posts, to a cold audience using Facebook ads, that Sean and Daniel discuss in this week’s show. Sean and Daniel cover a range of topics, including:
- Why more people should promote the content that they work so hard to create, and why it’s not necessarily as simple as hitting the ‘boost’ button on Facebook
- A run through of the four main parts to Daniel’s process and how each is integral to the overall process
- Why businesses must have a strategy and understand the goal of each piece of content
- The importance of knowing business numbers to be able to develop a successful strategy
- How understanding your audience inside and out is also paramount
- How to create the best ad copy for your audience to achieve the highest number of clicks and conversions
- Why it’s important to invest time and money into your business ads on Facebook, and how you don’t need to have a huge budget to do this
- When design comes into play with ads, and why it shouldn’t be the first thing you think about
- Which tools and processes are best to track ads and report on them
- The vital role of testing when it comes to Facebook ads
Want to know more about what Daniel has to say?
Follow on Twitter: @InboundAscend
Subscribe to the newsletter
Bonuses resources:
Guide to creating killer content
‘Manifesto’ about promoting posts
On this week’s podcast, Sean speaks with Jim Huffman, founder of growth agency GrowthHit and author of The Growth Marketer's Playbook: A Strategic Guide to Growing a Business in Today's Digital World
On top of this, Jim has scaled another online business to three million impressions per month in under 18 months and is currently overseeing the marketing for C-backed ecommerce brand that has 100,000 members and does over seven figures in monthly sales- so it’s hardly surprising that his startups have been featured by The Wall Street Journal, TODAY, Forbes, TechCrunch, GQ and Wired. As if that wasn’t enough, Jim is a marketing instructor for the ANA (Association of National Advertisers) and has advised brands like Mattel, FedEx, Sephora and Clorox. He also shares his expertise as a Techstars growth mentor and a teacher of digital marketing at General Assembly and, in this podcast, Jim shares his knowledge of growth marketing with Sean.
In the podcast, Jim and Sean touch on a number of topic areas, including:
- What exactly is growth marketing and why it’s so important to businesses
- The main reasons that startups fail in today’s business world and how knowing your customers is one of the most important elements in success
- The benefit of frameworks in business growth and the idea behind Jim’s own FACT framework
- How and when a business knows that it’s ready for growth and ways in which startups can recognise and uncover growth opportunities
- How businesses can ensure they have the right marketing infrastructure in place to grow successfully and how to go about planning and prioritising the next steps in the growth journey
- The primary tactical elements businesses should consider once they’re ready to acquire new customers, convert interest into sales and scale up the process
- Jim’s top recommendations for marketing tech tools, starting with the basics of project management to tracking tools.
Want to learn more about growth marketing? Buy Jim’s new book to delve deeper into his knowledge and put his advice into practise using the exclusive promo code for Click and Convert listeners: seanclark
Connect with Jim Huffman on Twitter
Other resources:
- ClickMinded
- Hacking Growth: How Today's Fastest-Growing Companies Drive Breakout Success
- Lean Analytics: Use Data to Build a Better Startup Faster
On this week’s show we have Todd Earwood, founder and CEO of MoneyPath. Todd and his team help to build growth campaigns, specific to the particular needs of clients.
As an advocate of webinars, Todd believes that these are hugely underused as a marketing campaign. Having helped his clients produce webinars for a number of years, HubSpot and GotoWebinar urged Todd to share his webinar formula, which led to the creation of his webinar training program. Webinar Works.
Today, on the Click and Convert podcast, Todd shares his expertise on the use of webinars for marketing, using ROI marketing to drive sales.
On the show, Sean and Todd discuss a number of different topics, including:
- How to set realistic goals for webinar marketing, and what expectations customers should have
- What type of content works in webinars, and how to go about identifying potential topics for your webinars
- The sectors that webinars work for, and how this marketing technique isn’t more or less suited to any particular sector
- Where webinars fit into the sales process, and how it isn’t necessarily the same in every situation
- The best way to promote your webinars, and how to balance the investment of time and money in this promotion.
- How there are many more types of webinar than simply live vs pre-recorded, and the benefits of each, providing you’re being honest to your customers
- The importance of being sophisticated in your direct response marketing technique in your webinars and how to do this
- The best webinar platforms, for both experienced webinar producers and webinar newcomers and how it can be worth investing more in a higher-quality platform
- Audience size target should be a good ratio of how many people actually sign up to how many people actually listen to the webinar and how high-intent leads are most valuable. The importance of targeting those who didn’t listen as a follow up
- Todd finishes the webinar with one key takeaway: the best webinars have more than just one person talking
Find out more about webinars, with these exclusive resources for Click and Convert listeners: https://webinarworks.co/clickconvert
Connect with Todd Earwood on Twitter
On this week’s Click and Convert podcast, we speak with Nick Usborne copywriting and web writing expert.
Nick has written for some of the world’s best-known brands Citibank, Apple,
Chrysler, MSN.com and New York Times to name just a few, having won 15 rewards for direct response copywriting in his time.
But it’s not just his own writing that is so impressive; Nick is also known for the training courses he gives to other copywriters and businesses looking to improve the quality of content on their websites.
Nick attributes his success to ‘conversational copywriting’, on which he shares his experience and expertise in today’s interview.
Sean and Nick discuss a range of different topics, including:
- What exactly is conversational copywriting, and what makes it different to standard copywriting
- The main elements of conversational copywriting and why it works so well
- How businesses can use conversational copywriting to drive sales, for both long and short form ads, including Google Ads and Facebook Ads- you just need to encourage your audience to click
- How anyone can employ these techniques, regardless of their existing copywriting skills and resources and how you can go about developing a conversational voice in your copy
- Examples of companies that have successfully used conversational copywriting and conversation in their advertising. It applies to more businesses than you might expect.
- The next step for someone looking to understand more about conversational copywriting and how they can use in their own writing.
Looking for more information on conversational copywriting? Visit Nick’s website or take advantage of his free course on conversational copywriting for listeners of the Click and Convert podcast.
Follow Nick on Twitter: @nickusborne
Check out one of Nick’s books
Nick’s examples of conversational copywriting done well:
- Jeff Walker’s Product Launch Formula
- Ann Handley of Marketing Profs
- Johnny Walker Ads
In this week’s show we interview Glenn Fisher, founder of AllGoodCopy.com, a free online resource for direct response copywriters and marketers. For over a decade, Glenn has worked with Agora, a multi-million pound international financial publisher and now writes on a freelance basis as well as coaching aspiring copywriters. In this interview, Glen delves into the wisdom behind his recent publication ‘The Art of the Click: How to Harness the Power of Direct-Response Copywriting and Make More Sales’, covering a range of topics including:
- What exactly is copy, and the difference between direct and indirect-response copywriting
- What experience goes into becoming a successful direct-response copywriter, and why it’s worth taking time to respect your copy- even if you don’t invest in a copywriting specialist
- How direct-response copywriting is essential when it comes to the success of Google and Facebook Ads
- The importance of reading and researching the entire way through the copywriting process and how getting inside the subject makes writing so much easier
- How we can leverage rote learning to learn copywriting
- The importance of touching emotions in copywriting to sell products
- The four Ps and Us in copywriting and how they help you produce quality copy
- The role a headline plays in the efficiency of your ad copy and the other ways you can attract attention to your copy
- Why you need to get creative with your use of testimonials in your copy
- The importance of giving users and incentive to make the click, and how clarity is vital in your call to action.
- Knowing when to stop writing and managing your time.
Want to know more? Buy Glenn’s book ‘The Art of the Click: How to Harness the Power of Direct-Response Copywriting and Make More Sales’
Get in touch with Glenn:
Twitter- @allgoodcopy
Email- allgoodcopy@gmail.com
Website- www.theglennfisher.com
In this week’s show we speak to Gabe Weisert, managing editor of Zuora's 'Subscribed' magazine and co-author of the recently released Subscribed: Why the Subscription Model Will Be Your Company's Future - and What to Do About It. Gabe has previously written for Yahoo!, Forbes.com, and Andrew Harper's Hideaway Report. Sean and Gabe discuss a range of topics covered in Gabe’s latest release including:
- What exactly is the Zuora platform and how it allows businesses to convert their business into a subscription service.
- How the subscription model can be beneficial to businesses and how even big brands, such as Caterpillar, have adopted this subscription model, as well as why certain subscription businesses haven’t been successful in the past.
- The key implications on revenue, and what you should be aware of before you embark on the shift towards a subscription business model.
- How your audience and SLA should be the key focus of your business model.
- Why the four Ps of marketing (Price, Product and Promotion and Place) might not be as important as they used to be.
- How the shape of your business and make up of your team will change as you make the shift to a subscription model.
- The starting blocks for businesses looking to transition to subscription services and how a subscription model is suitable for every business as we transfer from an ‘asset to access’ mindset.
Want to find out more about applying the subscription model to your own business? Buy your copy of Subscribed: Why the Subscription Model Will Be Your Company's Future - and What to Do About It. You can also take heed of Zuora’s inspiring advice by listening to the Subscribed podcast, or attending one of their global Subscribed conferences.
Get in touch with Gabe via Twitter or LinkedIn.
In this week’s podcast, we spoke to Joris Bryon, co-founder of dexter.agency, the conversion optimisation specialists.
Joris and his team help e-commerce companies increase revenue through a combination of conversion optimisation and A/B testing.
Joris’ recent publication ‘Kill Your Conversion Killers with The Dexter Method™ - A Pragmatic Approach to Conversion Optimization for E-commerce’ passes on his expertise so that you too can kill your conversion killers.
In the interview, Sean and Joris discuss a range of topics, including:
- How there’s more to increasing revenue for e-commerce websites than simply increasing traffic- not all traffic is equal.
- Why continually redesigning your website might seem like a good idea, but can often be counterproductive.
- The red button/green button theory and why the colour isn’t the most important factor in increasing your conversions, but the contrast and the size.
- A/B testing might be an essential element of conversion optimisation, but it isn’t the first or most important test, especially for low-level traffic sites.
- How often you might expect to find a winning combination when you’re running tests on methods to increase your conversions and how using a process, like the Dexter Method, can be a much more efficient way of testing.
- The potential dangers of following ‘best practises’ for e-commerce website optimisation- every site is different. This means that it’s important to find what works for your business, and that directly copying your competitors can be a bad idea.
- Getting people to convert can be about psychology. But before going there, there are some typical aspects of your site that should be assessed first, such as accessibility and usability.
- How big an impact design has on CRO, and how some elements of your homepage, such as sliders and video backgrounds can do more damage than good to conversion rates.
- What is micro-copy and why is it so important? Expedia saw a $12 million profit increase due to one micro change.
- An overview of the Dexter Method for CRO and its key steps: collect your data, execute the changes based on this data, test these changes, evaluate the changes, repeat. Joris explains the value of each step in this method.
Want to find out more? Buy your copy of ‘Kill Your Conversion Killers with The Dexter Method™ - A Pragmatic Approach to Conversion Optimization for E-commerce’
Get in touch with Joris:
Email: joris@dexter.agency
Website: dexter.agency
In this week’s Click and Convert podcast, Sean interviews Christine Nicholson, an author, speaker and consultant who helps businesses change their outcomes, in turn changing the lives of business owners and their families’ lives. In her role as The Profit Fixer, Christine has 25 years’ experience working with small and medium business owners to change how they think about success, teaching them to work smarter instead of harder to achieve their goals and increase their profits.
Christine kindly shared her expertise on how businesses can make the most out of LinkedIn and distinguish their business profile in just an hour each week, without spending a penny on premium features. Her advice touches on:
- The importance of client engagement and connecting with the correct people on LinkedIn to ensure that your connections are mutually beneficial.
- Why you need to understand your company and what you have to offer, researching competitors and pinpointing your USP before you create your profile.
- The difference between your service and its value, but how both are intrinsically linked.
- The value of posting and sharing high value content to show your connections and potential clients that you’re a good source of information. They’ll remember what they learned and link it back to you.
- It’s not just your connections that are important, but the people they’re connected with, too.
- Why automated messages simply won’t work, and how you’ll need to build your messaging machine before you get started.
- The importance of consistency to establish your voice as trustworthy and respectful. People don’t want to be manipulated, and mixed messages can give the impression that you’re being dishonest.
If you’re looking for more of Christine’s expertise, be sure to check out her 2017 publication, 5-Minute Finance for advice on understanding numbers in business. Keep an eye out for her new book, What’s Your Profit Scoretm, due to be released in September 2018, that can help you understand how to get more out of your business.
Think you might benefit from Christine’s services? Head to yourprofitscore.com to complete the short questionnaire for a business diagnosis and tips on how to help your business.
Contact Christine:
LinkedIn - /cnicholson66 - be sure to reference Click and Convert in your request to connect!
Email - christine@theprofitfixer.co.uk
Facebook - /christinefixer
Twitter- @christinefixer
www. theprofitfixer.co.uk
In this week’s episode, we spoke to Scott J. Bintz, founder of RealTruck.com and author of Principles to Fortune: Crafting a Culture to Massively Grow a Business. Scott founded e-commerce RealTruck.com in 1997, but after selling the successful business in 2015, he turned his attention to Red Headed Rebel, advising companies on their e-commerce & digital marketing ventures. Scott used his passion for business to develop the Red Headed Rebel brand further, launching but entrepreneurial coffee company RHR Brews and RHRswag.com, a website selling parts for drag race cars. In this interview, Sean and Scott discuss a number of different topics, including:
- How Scott made his transition from his non-business background to e-commerce.
- The strategies RealTruck.com used Scott to onboard suppliers to take a risk on e-commerce when they were used to selling in brick and mortar stores.
- How ‘the endless pursuit for more’ caused Scott to lose interest in business, and how his interested in dirt track racing and the development of RHRswag.com helped him stay inspired.
- The importance of overcoming failure. How testing something, reviewing its impact and making changes accordingly can make a bigger difference than getting it right first time.
- The importance of being humble. Scott discusses how transparency and treating people right is the most important advertising method of all, and how he can balance this with running a successful business.
- How both new businesses and developed businesses can take heed of Scott’s advice. He says it’s simply a matter of trial and improvement in getting a business to run smoothly.
- The importance of nurturing the culture of a business in order that it outlives the CEO, and how Scott has been involved with RealTrucks.com since he sold the business in 2015.
Scott had some incredibly useful insight to share in this interview. If you’d like to know more, or have any further questions, these links may help:
Buy Scott’s book on Amazon.
Twitter: @Bintzness101
Website: principlestofortune.com
In this week’s episode, we talk to Michael Koral, co-founder and COO of digital advertising RoboAgency, Needls. The Needls ad platform allows businesses to automatically create, target and optimize digital ads on both Facebook and Instagram. Using its proprietary intent engine, Needls identifies buying signals within posts, tweets and status updates through Data Science and AI, ultimately determining the perfect target audience for these ads by monitoring social media conversations in real time. Needls then delivers advertisements directly to these individuals, resulting in a high-quality traffic and impressive ROI for advertisers. Michael started his first business aged 18 while still at university, and now, with 12 years of experience, helps other businesses reach potential clients at the right time with Needls. In this interview, we cover a number of topics, including:
- What is a RoboAgency;
- The main issues with the way that we currently run Facebook ads, and how the complexities of the DIY approach compare to the cost of agencies, as well as the main mistakes that mean people don’t see a return on their Facebook ads;
- Michael’s preferred Facebook targeting options and his advice on audience targeting;
- How creativity can be important in advertising, and whether video ads perform better than image ads;
- How Michael’s approach to Facebook ads differs for B2B;
- How businesses might need to think differently when it comes to Instagram ads;
- How Needls can save businesses time and improve ad results, making the entire process easier.
Get in touch with Michael
Send an email - michael@needls.com
Schedule a call- calendly.com/mkoral
Website- needls.com
Twitter- @NeedlsAds
Facebook- The Official Needls Page
In this week’s podcast, we interview Paul Goggin, author of ‘Cloud First: Why Your Technology Is Killing Your Small Business And What To Do About It’. With over 20 years of experience in the IT industry, working with some of the largest global corporations, Paul now runs his own company Innovo Consulting. Innovo Consulting specialises in helping small businesses with tight budgets to save time, money and the environment, using Cloud technology.
In the podcast, Paul shares some of his industry insight on a range of Cloud-based topics, including:
- The typical scenarios Paul finds businesses in when they are struggling with their IT infrastructure, and at what point it becomes economical to hire an IT professional to help them, as well as how a business might choose the right IT support for their needs.
- The difference between On Premise and Cloud First IT solutions. Paul covers how Cloud First affects communication methods, and how businesses can remain in control of their apps and data, even after moving to a Cloud First solution.
- How businesses with weaker internet connections can still benefit from a Cloud First solution.
- How businesses can ensure the security of their Cloud-based data, covering issues such as ransomware, GDPR and 2 Factor Authentication.
- The first steps a business should take to adopt the efficient model that Cloud First solutions offer, and how Paul encourages his clients to adopt the new processes that he suggests.
Useful links:
- FREE copy of Paul’s new book, “Cloud First – Why Your Technology Is Killing Your Small Business And What To Do About It”
- Google G Suite
- Acronis for backup of computers to the cloud
- Spanning cloud backup
Webroot Anti Virus and Malware protection
On this week's podcast, we interview Brian Greenberg, who has generated over $50 million in revenue from the businesses he has founded in e-commerce, marketing, and financial services.
With over 10,000 reviews and testimonials from customers, Brian has earned the reputation of 'The salesman who doesn't sell', which explains the title of his new book, 'The Salesman Who Doesn't Sell. A Marketing Guide to Selling While You Sleep.'
In the podcast, Brian gives us an insight into his unique approach to marketing, covering topics such as:
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What role social proof plays in marketing;
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The best way to go about obtaining reviews, and why it is important for B2B to encourage them;
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The role social media plays in marketing;
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Why Brian is such a proponent of SEO;
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How to keep customers coming back to your business.
If you have any of your own questions for Brian, you can contact him via Twitter @greenbergbrian
Named 'The Salesman who doesn't sell', Brian has also been named one of the most creative people in financial services.
Brian runs e-commerce websites at Touchfree Concepts and Wholesale Janitorial Supply and is the founder and president of True Blue Life Insurance, whose mission is to be transparent, honest and helpful to their customers without ever bugging or pushing them.
Listeners of the Click to Convert podcast can download a free audio version of Brian's book.
As always if you have any questions you can get in touch via Twitter @SeanClark.
Subscribe to this podcast via iTunes, Stitcher and now on Spotify. If you like it we'd be grateful if you could leave a review.
On this week’s podcast, we interview Garrett Moon, CEO & Co-Founder at CoSchedule and author of the recently-published 10x Marketing Formula.
Garrett used the marketing technique that he covers in his recent publication to build CoSchedule, the dynamic, interactive calendar that integrates with a business’ overall marketing strategy, from nothing to 1.3 million page views each month, 250K email subscribers, and 9000+ customers in 125 countries in just 4 years.
In the interview, Garrett shares his marketing expertise as we cover a number of different topics, including:
- Why it is difficult to replicate the successes of long term marketing campaigns when there are so many examples of them;
- How businesses can avoid falling into the trap of trying and failing to copy other businesses;
- Why Garrett advocates thinking like a startup when it comes to content marketing;
- How content hacking plays a part in this startup mindset;
- What the 10x Marketing Formula is exactly
Garrett also shares his expertise on creating the game-changing content within a business marketing plan, and how business owners can generate their own ideas that follow the 10x Marketing Formula guidelines.
Resources
CoSchedule: www.coschedule.com
10x Marketing Formula: www.coschedule.com/10xbook
Garrett's twitter: https://twitter.com/garrett_moon
Garrett's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/garrettmoon/
As always if you have any questions you can get in touch via Twitter @SeanClark.
Subscribe to this podcast via iTunes, Stitcher and now on Spotify. If you like it we’d be grateful if you could leave a review.
On this week’s podcast, we interview Bastian Ernst, the CEO and founder of Wild Audience as he shares some of his expertise on respect- based marketing.
Bastian actually began his career working in Silicon Valley, but gave this up in 2015, knowing that there was something bigger waiting for him to discover. That ‘something bigger’ was actually Wild Audience, which he built out of a passion for marketing technology, and is based on the premise of building up a relationship with your audience before selling them a solution to their problem. This marketing technique is based on trust, and your audience having respect for the advice you give them- hence why it is called Respect-Based Marketing.
However, unlike the majority of business success stories, Bastian actually made his first sale before he had even developed his product- which is what makes his story so interesting. He took a lot of risks, made mistakes and analysed a lot of feedback before he got into his current position.
In the interview, we talk about just how Respect-Based marketing works, covering:
- Who exactly Respect-Based marketing is suitable for;
- How to build this vital relationship with your audience in order to position yourself as a respectable information source;
- How to make other businesses hunt you with a Respect-Based marketing approach; and
- How Bastian was able to build a business work $100 k in just 6 months, avoiding offering promotions, discount and product launches in favour of an approach that was solely based on the respect and relationship he had with potential customers.
Resources:
8 Steps To A Super High Converting Evergreen Sales Funnel - PDF
On this week’s podcast we are lucky to have Henry Stuart co-founder & CEO of Visualise - a virtual reality production studio. He is also the author of Virtual Reality Marketing: Using VR To Grow A Brand And Create Impact which is due to be published this October.
Henry began his career in Photography however he soon took his skills to new levels. Henry is now a regular speaker and thought leader in the Virtual Reality sector and has written articles for Wired, BBC, Marketing Magazine, The Financial Times, The Drum and many more.
Some of Henry’s clients are worldwide brands such as Mercedes F1, Harrods, Audi, Samsung, Ray-Ban, O2, BBC.
Today we are talking about Virtual Reality, more specifically, about marketing in VR. According to one study, 74% of consumers find VR ads less intrusive than regular digital marketing, with a 70% same-day-recall rate.
This “new” medium is booming - by 2025, the industry is expected to become bigger than TV. If you are old enough you’ll remember Second Life which was launched in 2003 by Linden Labs.
Testament to the popularity of VR Second Life still exists 15 years on.
In the show we will be covering:
- The difference between VR & AR? (augmented reality)
- Why VR marketing?
- How to choose the right VR experience to market your business?
- How do we get our marketing into production?
- How do you measure the success of a VR campaign?
- Is this an opportunity for many to be first to market?
- What’s the future for VR?
Resources
- Henry Stuart’s Book: Virtual Reality Marketing: Using VR To Grow A Brand And Create Impact
- Second Life by Linden Labs
- Henry Stuart’s Company: Visualise
- Road To VR a virtual reality blog
2018 has been a year for regulatory change with MiFID 2, PSD2 and now the wiser impacting introduction of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) on the 25th May.
Data protection and privacy regulations have existed in law for many years, but GDPR seeks to formalise and strengthen some of the existing directives. Whilst there are some new rules and tighter restrictions, some of the impacts of GDPR have been overstated.
Although the penalty for breaches are now very severe, you can mitigate your risks by taking positive action now.
On this week's podcast we are lucky to have and expert in corporate and commercial law, Richard Turner of Leathes Prior solicitors.
Richard obtained his law degree from the University of Edinburgh in 2006 before going on to achieve a distinction on the LPC at BPP University. Richard supports and advise clients on data protection obligations and offers bespoke training courses in this area.
In the show we focus on GDPR’s impact on marketing, as this is the area I have received most questions on. We’ll be covering the following topics:
- How to collect data under GDPR
- Required data protection policies
- The difference between data processors and controllers
- What is “Consent” and when can you use “Legitimate interest”?
- Will it lead to a world of websites full of tick boxes?
- The impact on social media marketing & remarketing
- Data access and managing user requests
- Data collection
- Historic data and can you still use it
Resources
- Leathes Prior & data protection
- Facebook’s stance on GDPR
- Google’s commitment to GDPR compliance
- Hubspot’s view on GDPR
- The UK’s Information Commisioner’s Office (ICO) GDPR guide & checklist
- Creating GDPR compliant forms for your website
- JD Weatherspoons deletes its customer email list in response to GDPR
When we start out in business often designing a logo or website is the nearest we get to thinking about a brand.
A well developed brand can play a major role for your company. How it is perceived in the market, how it reflects your values and even how internal staff behave within the business.
On this weeks show we interview Tu, Erika and Alina who together are Tea. the brand agency of choice for entrepreneurs of all levels.
The guys take us through the following elements of brand building:
- The importance of building a brand
- The elements to consider
- The relation between brand and design
- When to start thinking about a brand
- How to choose someone to work with
- How much you should invest in building a brand
As always if you have any questions you can get in touch via Twitter @SeanClark.
Subscribe to this podcast via iTunes, Stitcher and now on Spotify. If you like it we’d be grateful if you could leave a review.
Affiliate marketing is an often overlooked marketing channel. Even though it can be one of the most cost-effective when it comes to driving sales or leads.
It is one of the only marketing channels where you pay on a per sale basis, not per click. This makes it very profitable.
Sound too good to be true?
Like all things in life, there is no “free-ride” it takes effort and some time to implement an affiliate program correctly.
So on this week’s show, we have one of the leading authorities on affiliate marketing, Priest Willis Sr.
Priest has 20 years experience in affiliate marketing and is currently Senior Global Affiliate Marketing Manager for Lenovo, the number one global PC Company.
He gives us an insight into what it takes to run a successful affiliate campaign for your business.
Connect with Priest on LinkedIn or Twitter and listen to Priest’s Podcast.
Resources
- Free Affiliate Marketing Beginners Guide by Priest Willis Sr.
- Affiliate Mission
- Affiliate Summit London February 6th & 7th 2018
- Priest Willis Sr. speaks at Affiliate Summit London February 6th, 2018
Welcome to 2018 and for our first podcast of the year, I’m looking at some of the important updates we are going to see from the leading platforms.
The key players make many changes through the year, but some of those to come are likely to have the biggest impact on your business.
We have changes from Google which impact SEO and AdWords. LinkedIn introduces a new media format and Facebook are picking on business pages yet again!
In addition, we have GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) coming in to force in May this year.
Listen in to the show for more details and there are links below to some of the key resources mentioned.
Resources * Google Search Console * Meta Description Length * Google’s SEO Tips * GDPR Checklist * Facebook’s News Feed Update
As always if you have any questions you can get in touch via Twitter @SeanClark.
Subscribe to this podcast via iTunes, Stitcher and now on Spotify. If you like it we’d be grateful if you could leave a review.
Why does one website perform better than another in the search results? How can I ensure your website stands the best chance of ranking for your chosen target phrases?
These are the questions anyone involved with search engine optimisation is always being asked. The issue is that the answer is never straightforward.
Google certainly won't tell you, it's their "secret sauce".
Of course, if you have been in the industry long enough you have an idea of the concepts. That doesn't help when you need some facts to demonstrate to a client or your boss.
That's why I am so grateful to companies that do this research on our behalf.
Moz has been producing ranking factor reports for some time and their latest is the Local Search Ranking Factors of 2017.
For this podcast, we focus on the SEMRush Ranking Factors Report which has just recently been updated. This report contains some fantastic findings, including 5 new factors.
To get our view on the report listen in to this episode.
As always if you have any questions you can get in touch via Twitter @SeanClark.
Subscribe to this podcast via iTunes, Stitcher and now on Spotify. If you like it we’d be grateful if you could leave a review.
Have you ever wondered why your Facebook ads don’t give you a return on investment? Yet other people are always raving about their success with them.
Or do you continually see competitors bidding on generic terms on Google AdWords in your industry and wonder how they afford to do it?
Rather than placing ads in front of anyone that searches “dog food”, as an example, they are probably using pre-defined audience lists.
Audience lists can be derived from your website visitors, previous customers, newsletter sign-ups as well as in many other ways.
Listen in to this week’s show to find out how you can benefit from audience lists. Especially during the festive season.
There are a few different approaches to search engine optimisation, dependant on your objective.
It goes without saying that the first stage is always to carry out an SEO Site Audit. You need to maximise your advantage and having a search friendly website is critical.
If your objective is to drive organic traffic to your website, the most straightforward method for accomplishing this is to create regular content. As long as you have a solid content plan and you’ve done your research, traffic should start to flow over time.
Sometimes though you need to rank for that more competitive term. Normal blog content, however well planned will rarely cut it.
In this episode of the podcast, I’ll take you through a method used to rank number 1 in search for those more competitive terms.
Resources mentioned in the show:
- Moz’s Open Site Explorer
- Keyword Explorer
- MozBar Chrome Plugin
- Hemingway Editor
- Hunter.io Email Search
- Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins
- Ogilvy on Advertising by David Ogilvy
- The Gary Halbert Letters
Listen in and as always if you have any questions you can get in touch via Twitter @SeanClark.
Subscribe to this podcast via iTunes or Stitcher & if you like it we’d be grateful if you could leave a review.
Marketing videos when done well look simple and effective, but we’ve all been subjected to the “boring” corporate talking head.
This week on the show we have an expert in video creation and animation, Michael Stiff, co-founder and Director of All is Flux.
I’ve known Michael for a few years now and he’s produced amazing work for some of our clients.
So following on from our recent episode on using video for online marketing. Then our blog post demonstrating the 83% cost saving using video in Facebook advertising.
I thought it would be great if Michael could give us some tips on video creation.
If you’re looking to create your own marketing video in-house or brief ideas for an agency production, Michael discusses these common mistakes to look out for.
- Lack of emotion & passion
- Not targeting a specific audience profile
- Pitching products & services features
- Not defining an objective
- Lack of editing
Listen in and as always if you have any questions you can get in touch via Twitter @SeanClark.
Subscribe to this podcast via iTunes or Stitcher & if you like it we’d be grateful if you could leave a review.
Marketing videos when done well look simple and effective, but we’ve all been subjected to the “boring” corporate talking head. This week on the show we have an expert in video creation and animation, Michael Stiff, co-founder and Director of All is
“Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half.” - John Wanamaker, US department store merchant (1838 - 1922).
For many years we believed online marketing went a long way to counter this statement. To some degree we were right.
In a much simpler environment, before multi-device usage, for example, understanding which channel of online marketing was working was reasonably simple.
A customer would typically use one computer to do their research and purchasing. Tracking their interactions with our marketing was reasonably easy to do.
Now users not only use multiple devices to research and purchase, they use much more complex search strategies too.
We’ve been so used to using the default Google AdWords, and Google Analytics, “Last Click” attribution model that some of the decisions we now make about which channels are bringing in the sales are incorrect.
In this week’s podcast, I discuss the various attribution models you can apply in Google AdWords and suggest which ones you should try. I will also introduce you to Google’s new “Data-Driven” attribution model and Smart Bidding.
Listen in to learn more.
Resources mentioned in the show
Google AdWords Data-Driven Attribution Model
Purple Bricks case study, a 28% uplift in conversions
Listen in and as always if you have any questions you can get in touch via Twitter @SeanClark.
Subscribe to this podcast via iTunes or Stitcher & if you like it we’d be grateful if you could leave a review.
Online consumption of video has seen a rapid growth in the past few years. As mobile becomes the go to device for browsing the web, video becomes the platform’s default content. So moving images are becoming ubiquitous amongst consumers.
As marketers we are always fighting for our audiences attention. Competing in a world crowded with content. Yet blog posts and images litter the web, with many banner ads unseen and much marketing content unread.
So is it time to move to a new medium, video?
Facebook and Google think so, and all the stats on video marketing point to an increased effectiveness from its use.
But video brings its own challenges when it comes to production. Most of these are resolved with the increasing power of devices like the iPhone and a range of apps, many free.
In this episode I’ll take you through some the findings, the challenges we face and the simple solutions that you can use to produce the perfect ad.
Resources:
Facebook’s Guide to Video Advertising (includes apps) https://www.facebook.com/business/m/facebook-video-ads
Facebook Video Ad Stats https://www.facebook.com/iq/articles/moving-pictures-the-persuasive-power-of-video
Google’s Guide to Advertising on YouTube https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/features/youtube-playbook/
We often focus so much on getting more and more people to our website, we often overlook their experience when they get there.
Improving your website’s conversion rate by 50% could work out a lot more cost effective than trying to get 50% more traffic. The bonus is that you get to keep that conversion rate once the work is done. Unlike the increase in traffic which you have to pay for to maintain.
So on this week’s show, we are going to talk about the “convert” rather than the “click”.
Tom Haczewski from The User Story joins me to discuss UX Design & Usability. Tom previously worked as an e-commerce analyst for Virgin Money. He has more than 11 years experience in usability research and UX design has more recently worked with the likes of ASDA, Virgin, HMV, Arco, Econsultancy, BBC and RAC.
Tom takes us through the differences between UX Design & Usability. It's relationship with conversion rate optimisation. The benefits of including these in the design and development process, and even how you can perform some simple Usability tests in-house.
So join us as we make an effort to improve your user experience.
Resources mentioned in the show:
Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability by Steve Krug
User Testing
What Users Do
Listen in and as always if you have any questions you can get in touch via Twitter @SeanClark.
Subscribe to this podcast via iTunes or Stitcher & if you like it we’d be grateful if you could leave a review.
On the podcast this week I talk with musician, entrepreneur and social media strategist Damian Keyes.
Damian founded The British Institute of Modern Music (BIMM) at age 18, which is now valued at over £50M. He then went on to build and invest in several other businesses including DK Music Management, DK Music Academy & Warble Entertainment. Damian continues his music career and has played at London’s Hyde Park to 150,000 people alongside Eric Clapton, Alanis Morissette, The Who, & Bob Dylan.
There are many synergies when it comes to building a band and building a great social media presence. Damian provides a unique perspective from the music industry that many in the business world can learn from.
Join me as I discuss building your audience on social media with Damian.
Listen in and as always if you have any questions you can get in touch via Twitter @SeanClark.
Subscribe to this podcast via iTunes or Stitcher & if you like it we’d be grateful if you could leave a review.
On this week’s show Rob Tyson, former co-host, pays us a visit. Rob has been working on some new projects and gives us some insight into the future of online course and information products.
Rob has 12 years experience of running online course and membership websites. In this time the landscape has seen some big changes. The style of courses that did well 5 years ago no longer attract the attention they once did. Rob points out that you now need to create increased value with not only your course content but also the background support.
The rise of popular course listing websites like Udemy & Lynda.com has made much course material a commodity. Along with many websites selling other services listing course material completely free of charge in order to leverage sales of their core product.
So if you are interested in running an online course or sales of your existing course isn’t living up to expectation listen in to what Rob has to say.
You can find out more at RobTyson.net/webclass
In this week’s show I interview Rebecca Lieb, author of the newly released book, Content - The Atomic Particle of Marketing: The Definitive Guide to Content Marketing Strategy.
Rebecca is a strategic advisor, research analyst, keynote speaker, author, and columnist. Her areas of specialisation are digital marketing and media, with a concentration in content strategy, content marketing and converged media. She works with many of the world's leading brands on digital marketing innovation.
On the show we look at why a content strategy needs to be part of your organisation. Especially as advertising starts to become less effective. Rebecca also reveals her 10 steps to a solid content strategy.
Rebecca’s book is released on the 3rd June in the UK and in digital in the US, with hard copies available in the US from 28th June.
You can follow Rebecca on Twitter @lieblink or visit her website at http://rebeccalieb.com.
Why do some startups ideas become a stellar success? Whilst other seemingly more deserving startup ideas fold way before their potential is realised.
A lot of this is down to marketing, or lack of it in the case of the failures.
If you don’t pay as much attention to marketing your startup as you do to developing it you can end up in this undeserving pit of despair.
So how do you avoid this common startup trap?
In this episode, we look at marketing your startup. How marketing should start as soon as you have an idea, sometimes even before then. With an “always be marketing” approach you can ensure that your idea has the maximum chance of success.
So listen in and as always if you have any questions you can get in touch via Twitter @SeanClark.
We have covered search engine optimisation extensively over the previous weeks in the show. Although, I would like to dig a little deeper on is local SEO. This is one area where many small businesses struggle as the approach is somewhat different to standard search optimisation.
In this episode of the podcast, we’ll look at the differences between local SEO and normal SEO. Google’s uncanny ability to know when you are performing a local search and how the desktop experience can be very different to the mobile one.
We’ll cover Google My Business, the importance of reviews in local SEO and the impact your location can have on where you appear in the results. How to improve your chances of ranking in local search and finally the impact of new trends like voice search on the future of local search engine optimisation.
In this week’s podcast, we chat with Mark Samms, co-founder of Ninja Outreach.
Ninja Outreach is a blogger and influencer outreach platform, which allows you to manage your campaign from end to end.
With influencer marketing taking off and SEOs in constant need of quality links, outreach is more important than ever. As any marketer will tell you, however, it can also be one of the most challenging aspects of the job, with finding, qualifying, reaching out and following up on prospects often extremely time-consuming.
In the podcast, Mark provides some crucial insight into the art of running a professional outreach campaign.
So listen in and as always if you have any questions you can get in touch via Twitter @SeanClark.
Subscribe to this podcast via iTunes & if you like it we’d be grateful if you could leave a review.
In our previous episodes we have focussed on starting out with search engine optimisation. But what if you have been doing this for some time? How can you improve rankings and the number of visitors to your website without producing more and more content?
Whilst we would never advocate putting a stop to your content production once you have it underway. There does come a time when you need to review past efforts and possibly improve on what you have already done.
In this episode we look at how you can use Google’s Search Console to identify content that may already be appearing in search but not necessarily delivering that valuable web traffic.
In this episode of the show we look at off site search engine optimisation.
Up to now we have focussed on your website and the technical elements that can prevent it from ranking well. This is only one part of the puzzle.
Optimising your website won’t get you ranking on its own. Especially if you are in a competitive business sector.
SEO is very much about how authoritative you appear in your market online. The more authority you have the more likely you are to rank well.
Google largely uses links from 3rd party websites to yours as a measure of that authority. But be warned, not all links have the same value. And quantity certainly does not beat quality in the SEO space.
If you want to find out more about off site SEO and the right way to build links listen in to the show.
In this show we are going to cover the second part of Onsite SEO, looking at more technical issues. Last week we looked at:
- The tools we use
- Site structure
- Title Tags
- Meta Descriptions
- Header Tags
- Duplicate Content
Now it’s time to get a little more technical with Onsite SEO and look at some of the other issues that come up.
- Protocols - HTTP & HTTPS
- Response Codes - 4xx & 5xx
- Image Alt Text
- Directives - NoIndex, NoFollow, Canonicals, Rel Prev & Next
- Site Speed - Google & Pingdom
- Mobile Friendly
In this show we are going to cover the first part of Onsite SEO.
I’ll take you through running your own site audit:
- The tools we use
- Site structure
- Title Tags
- Meta Descriptions
- Header Tags
- Duplicate Content
In the next show we’ll get a little more technical with Onsite SEO and look at some of the other issues that come up.
This week’s podcast is about Google Analytics and Goals. Many of us use Google’s free analytics tool, but do we really get the most out of it? To help your business make better decisions based on real data, you need actionable insight.
Using Goals within Google Analytics can do just that.
On the Click and Convert podcast this week we have some controversial ad targeting updates from Facebook, Twitter changes its mind on its dashboard and we answer questions on your AdWords quality score.
On this week’s show we get into the importance of selecting a niche for your business. Focusing your efforts on a particular market sector or becoming a product specialist has many advantages.
Just for clarity targeting SMEs is not a niche!
We identify what could be good niches to explore and the process of selecting your niche.
Mentioned in the show is the book The Pumpkin Plan: A Simple Strategy to Grow a Remarkable Business by Mike Michalowicz.
In addition we have an important announcement about the show for 2017.
So listen in and as always if you have any questions you can get in touch via Twitter.
We have all experienced it, that feeling of deja vu. You visit a website, look at a product or service, and then everywhere you go online you see an ad for it.
This advertising trick, known as remarketing, is a great way to keep your product or brand front of mind whilst potential customers are still in the “consideration” phase of a purchase cycle.
It is one of my favourite marketing tactics due to its low cost, ease of implementation and effectiveness. After driving visitors to your website, based on their actions or non-actions, you can continue to show them ads as they traverse the web.
One of the great things is that it doesn’t matter where they go, you can show remarketing ads on Facebook, Twitter and thousands of websites that are in the Google Display Network.
It also works whether you sell B2B or B2C because is based on the visitor not the platform they are on.
To find out more about remarketing and how you can use it as part of your advertising strategy listen in to this special 100th episode of the Click and Convert podcast.
Email marketing automation is used by thousands of businesses around the world. If you are unfamiliar with this method of using email marketing you may not understand why it is so popular.
From optimising your staff’s time to optimising which customers your sales team focuses their effort on, the scope of email marketing automation goes way beyond simply automating your marketing department’s repetitive tasks.
You can use email automation during the customer onboarding process, for lead generation and to reactivate dormant email addresses.
Best of all aside from pre-planning, the effort to do this is minimal. Whilst the rewards are maximised.
(In which Rob interviews world-leading marketer & entrepreneur Neil Patel.)
Ever heard of KISSmetrics, Crazy Egg or Hello Bar?
Well, a guy called Neil Patel either co-founded or founded all of those.
The Wall Street Journal calls him a top influencer on the web, Forbes says he is one of the top 10 marketers, and Entrepreneur Magazine says he created one of the 100 most brilliant companies. He was recognized as a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 30 by President Obama and a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 35 by the United Nations.
So, he’s kind of a big deal when it comes to online marketing.
So would you be curious to know exactly what he’d do with a thousand marketing bucks right now, to get the best return?
Yeah, me too.
So I asked him, in our brand new podcast – and, I have to say, his answer surprised me.
Listen now, and in addition to discovering where he’d put that $1000, you’ll also discover:
- The marketing channel that accounts for less than 10% of the traffic… but more than 40% of the revenue
- The biggest opportunity area for marketers in 2017
- The characteristics of web content that goes viral
Subscribe to this podcast via iTunes & if you like it we’d be grateful if you could leave a review.
Any questions catch us on Twitter @SeanClark or @MrRobTyson.
On this week’s podcast we are discussing our old friend Twitter.
There’s been a lot of talk in the tech press recently about Twitter being up for sale. With rumours that Google, Salesforce and even Disney may be interested in buying it.
Unfortunately for Twitter, it doesn’t look like they have any takers anytime soon.
The ailing social media platform loved by many has stalled in its growth. With a mere 313 million active monthly users, it is far behind Facebook’s 1.7 billion active monthly users.
It has other issues too, it’s inability to generate a profit for a start. Although it did generate a total revenue of close to $602 million in the 2nd quarter of 2016 this is outweighed by its running costs, creating a net loss of $107 million. This is due to the way Twitter has grown, leaving it with some costly overheads as it has matured.
The other issue is that the user base is hard to define with many people holding multiple accounts, the prolific use of automated bots and the incessant trolls that prowl Twitter looking for their next victim.
So after painting such a black picture is there any life left in Twitter for businesses?
Rob and I think so, to find out what our view is on Twitter for business listen in to the show.
Subscribe to this podcast via iTunes & if you like it we’d be grateful if you could leave a review.
Any questions catch us on Twitter @SeanClark or @MrRobTyson.
In the previous show we discussed the importance of conversion rate optimisation or CRO. Whilst it is good practice to implement CRO on your website, it’s not always that easy.
One of the major issues most websites face is a low volume traffic. Performing conversion rate optimisation on a low traffic website can be difficult, and sometimes impossible.
The issue being that you won’t have enough data to make a decision over which version of your test is optimal.
So this week we provide some ideas around how you can still take advantage of the benefits of conversion rate optimisation.
Whether the objective of your website is to collect leads or generate sales Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO) is one of the most important exercises a website owner can undertake.
CRO is the practice of making adjustments to your site through testing. The tests aim to improve the rate at which you convert traffic into leads or sales.
The reason it is so valuable?
When you get it right, you can see a much greater return on investment than the alternative of just driving more traffic to your website.
CRO is greatly misunderstood. So, this week we discuss 6 common misconceptions of Conversion Rate Optimisation testing.
Many businesses pay to drive traffic to their websites vis pay per click, with little regard to where they send it. Paid traffic from AdWords, Bing Ads or Facebook Ads usually ends up on the home page, or on a product page at best.
Ideally you should be creating custom landing pages to send traffic to from your online advertising. But even in Wordpress or other website platforms with content management systems this can be an onerous task. Often it is not optimal either.
This week myself and Rob discuss the landing page software we use and have tried that helps us get results for ourselves and our clients.
Good landing page applications should offer these key components:
- Speed of implementation
- No need for web development skills
- Access to proven templates
- Access to conversion data
Here are 4 landing page applications we recommend you give a try to see which best matches your needs.
- LeadPages (Rob’s current application)
- Unbounce (Sean’s current choice)
- Instapage
- OptimizePress (WordPress theme/plugin)
You can also grab a great 20 point landing page checklist from Rob’s website for free.
Google are renowned for making changes to their services and platforms, sometimes shutting them down altogether. Radical changes though, are usually reserved for their "free" services and those that are not direct revenue generators. So the recent changes in Google AdWords has caused quite a stir.
This week we discuss the 2 recent changes Google has made to AdWords. With one of them being billed the biggest change in Google AdWords in 15 years.
To here our opinion on these changes listen to the show.
Subscribe to this podcast via iTunes & if you like it we’d be grateful if you could leave a review.
Any questions catch us on Twitter @SeanClark or @MrRobTyson.
Rob has done some research into email subject lines and in this week’s show he reveals the results.
Once you’ve got your email into someone's inbox the next thing you need to do is to get them to open it. A powerful and relevant subject line is the key to higher open rates.
You don’t want to trick them into opening it, otherwise they won’t respond to the content of the email and are unlikely to open others from you at a later date. You do want to pique their interest, and get them curious about what is inside.
The research comes from 5 years work on his email list and approximately 1500 emails. From this he produced his top 100 best performing email subject lines.
Rob takes us through his top 5 performing email subject lines in the podcast.
You can get access to the complete 100 top performing email subject lines here.
Subscribe to this podcast via iTunes & if you like it we’d be grateful if you could leave a review.
In this week's show we look at 3 common mistakes that are made when running Facebook ads.
Facebook advertising is becoming extremely popular, and ever more effective. This is reflected in the amount now being spent on advertising on the social network.
Facebook’s revenue from advertising was up 63% for the 2nd quarter of 2016 to $6.24 billion. Mobile ads, account for around 84% of that revenue.
If you haven’t yet given Facebook advertising a try, maybe it is time. Before you do though it may be worth listening in to this week’s show so you can give your ads the best chance of success.
Subscribe to this podcast via iTunes & if you like it we’d be grateful if you could leave a review.
Any questions catch us on Twitter @SeanClark or @MrRobTyson.
This week we talk about Bing Ads, the often overlooked paid search marketing channel.
Pay per click (ppc) marketing is dominated by Google AdWords, especially in the UK where Google’s market share in search is around 86%.
If you already have a profitable ppc campaign running in AdWords, replicating it in Bing Ads can provide a high return on investment.
Listen in as we take you through why we believe Bing Ads is a great addition to your online marketing.
In this week’s show Rob takes the “Lead”, as we discuss Lead Magnets.
These are a powerful way to attract people to leave their contact information on your website. When used in the right way a lead magnet will way outperform your standard contact page in terms of lead generation. Lead magnets turn your website from a passive brochure into a critical business function.
Listen in as we go through 13 steps to creating an effective lead magnet.
Want to see a lead magnet in action? Visit Rob’s website at Robtyson.net.
In the newly named Click and Convert podcast, Sean and Rob reveal one simple pricing ‘trick’ that can boost your revenue by 30% or more.
Business owners typically set their prices in the following ways:
- Guessing
- Look at the competition
- Cost plus margin
None of these are ideal, and even then we fail to increase our prices on a regular basis too.
Using a method called the “Triplicate of Choice” which allows us to take the guesswork out of setting prices and increase revenues.
Listen in to the show to find out more.
Episode 87 of The Small Business Marketing Report Podcast
In this week's podcast Sean and Rob discuss 3 of their favourite marketing tools.
This is not an extensive “100 online marketing tools” list with applications dragged up from the dark depths of the web.
Rather these are 3 practical tools myself and Rob use in our day to day business to drive and convert traffic for ourselves and our clients.
These aren’t free tools either. Whilst 2 of them do have free trials, they are serious applications that can have a positive impact on the performance of your business.
The reason we are promoting them?
Because they work!
- OptinMonster
- Adespresso
- Visual Website Optimizer
So come listen to this episode and find out why we are so excited.
Most blogging platforms have a comment facility and there are third party systems that include additional features. They are so easy to include as part of your site
Yet Copyblogger turned off their comments some time ago. Seth Godin, one of the most prolific bloggers posting every day for many years has never had comments on his site.
If these 2 sources of some of the greatest thought leadership in their space don’t allow comments on their posts, should you?
Find out what we think by listening to the show where we go through these potential reasons why blog comments don’t work for you:
- Has the ‘Conversation’ moved to Social Media
- Spam comments blocking the system
- Time commitment required to manage comments
- Negative social proof, if you have no comments!
- Do we even want people to comment at all?
This week Rob Tyson speaks with Joshua Millage Co-Founder of Lifter LMS, a free, open source ‘learning management system’ plugin for WordPress aimed at people who want to sell online courses – AND make them ‘sticky’.
- The best way for someone with expertise, who’s new to online courses, to get started
- The problem with traditional online course and membership site software
- Why LifterLMS recently went ‘freemium’ – and how scary that was
- Misconceptions about ‘gamification’ in the context of online courses and the ways you should actually use it
- The pros and cons of marketplaces like Udemy
- The outlook for the online course market in the next few years
Episode 84 of The Small Business Marketing Report Podcast
When your hosts Sean Clark and Rob Tyson started their careers in online marketing, email marketing was simple:
"Build the biggest list possible and blast out the same message to everyone regardless!"
Email marketing is changing fast, and in this show Rob asks Ian Brodie, the author of the excellent, Amazon number 1 Best-selling book ‘Email Persuasion’, to identify what he believes are the 5 big trends in email marketing right now.
Listen in to this free podcast now to discover:
- The 5 big trends changing email marketing now – and how to benefit
- Why the ‘startup culture’ lit a fire under email marketing
- Why Facebook is obsessed with getting your email address
- How to use social media with email for best effect
- Ian’s choice of email marketing software
- Why you’ll be left behind by Big Trend #2 – unless you start acting now
- Ian’s favourite tools to get more subscribers and grow your email list
- ‘New’ popups, ‘welcome mats’, ‘exit intent’ technology and tactics discussed
- The shift to mobile and what to do about it
- How to use style and story to improve your results
Mentioned: email testing from Litmus.
Scott Oldford is an online lead generation specialist who helps entrepreneurs grow their business by helping them implement a sustainable source of qualified leads through online marketing funnels.
And he believes you are missing out on 80% of the potential leads available to you, simply because you are not talking to them in the right way.
Scott began his business career aged 7, selling eggs from his grandfather's farm. By 16 he ran a multi-million dollar business, by 21 he'd not only lost it all but racked up in excess of $700,000 in debt, and by 23 he'd recovered to create a new business with $1m in revenue. And he's still only 24 :)
In our brand new podcast, Rob Tyson talks to Scott about:
- What's a 'marketing funnel' and how do we create one?
- Why you can't treat all leads the same
- Scott's SSF formula for lead generation
- How to use different types of lead magnet to speak to different types of prospect
- What kind of email series should you use to 'talk' to new prospects?
- How many emails? How far apart?
- How often should you try to 'sell'?
- How much 'content' vs 'selling' should there be?
- What Scott sees as the big trends in online marketing in the next 2 years
In this episode Robert interviews Adrienne Richardson a Facebook Advertising specialist.
Facebook has certainly grown in potential for advertisers over the last few years. Moving on from the controversy of Facebook Business pages not being as effective as they once were, it’s advertising platform has more than made up for it.
With new features being released almost monthly, advertising on Facebook isn’t restricted to growing your Facebook audience. From capturing leads to driving sales, it can deliver a measurable return on investment.
One area Facebook advertising is fairly unique, apart from the size of the captive audience, is the ability to pinpoint target your advertising.
Adrienne will take us through some of the intricacies of Facebook, and provide some great tips for getting started with her 5 point checklist.
In a world of noise, how do you break through and get YOUR message across?
Well, it starts with attention – and in this episode Robert gets the lowdown from pro direct response copywriter Donnie Bryant (http://donnie-bryant.com/) on 5 proven ways to grab attention, by using powerful psychological forces. Including:
- How to use hidden dangers and unexpected consequences to draw people to your message like moths to a flame
- Why certain kinds of statistics get shared on social media
- Why picking a fight is often great for business (and how to benefit even if you don’t do the fight picking)
- How to use personality – and how much personality is too much?
- How to use secrets and codes for almost guaranteed attention
Businesses are normally so obsessed with driving traffic to their website. Whether it be looking for the latest Search Engine Optimisation techniques. Leveraging Social Media and Content Marketing. Or even spending money on pay per click campaigns.
Often they overlook the traffic already coming to their website, and what more can be done to get them to buy.
In addition many will start to run Google AdWords campaigns or Facebook Advertising without any thought for testing and making the most of the available ad budget.
This week I speak to Michael Leftwich, information product marketer and conversion optimisation expert. Michael will give you some tips for not only improving conversion on your website, but also in your pay per click campaigns on Google and Facebook.
Some of the tools mentioned by Michael include:
- Adespresso
- Unbounce
- Leadpages
- Clickfunnels
This week Robert speaks to Rob Kosberg, founder of Best Seller Publishing, the definitive leader in authority marketing and business growth strategies using a best selling book. Rob is recognised for his expertise in helping others to get published with their own best selling books.
A book can sometimes be your best lead generator. It also gives you massive authority in your space due to the fact that so few people are published. Even if you don’t become a best selling author, your book could positively impact your business's growth.
Listen in to find out more.
Without a steady, predictable consistent stream of the customers you really want, your business gives you frustration – not satisfaction, pride and freedom.
But it doesn’t have to be that way, as Dov Gordon, who helps small business owners attract more quality customers in less time, explains to Robert in our brand new podcast.
This is a must-listen if you're feeling pulled in many directions with your marketing - and you want a simple process that actually adds up to consistent clients. You’ll discover:
The only six steps you need to include in your marketing and selling system
- Why listening to ‘marketing plumbers’ is likely doing you more harm than good
- Why it’s all about 'marketing helium' – and how to go about creating it
- How to create the ‘Eavesdrop Effect’ so your ideal clients are eager to hear about what you do
Right now, you can also get a free copy of Dov’s manual (previously sold for $97), "How to Systematically and Consistently Attract First-Rate Clients", from http://dovgordon.net/manualfree.
Robert interviews Lisa Bloom, founder of Story Coach, works with organisations developing Transformational Story Leaders, creative yet resilient cultures, and leading powerful change processes with the power of storytelling. She works with entrepreneurs and business owners that are overwhelmed and stressed to help them find confidence, attract ideal clients and make more money by finding their success story. And she trains coaches to use storytelling as a powerful approach to impact their clients and grow their business.
She is a professional Storyteller, accredited Coach, Author, Mentor and Leadership expert. Lisa's groundbreaking techniques have enabled her grow her business and take to the stage where she speaks internationally about this approach to business, leadership and coaching.
Lisa is the author of the Amazon bestseller "Cinderella and the Coach-the Power of Storytelling for Coaching Success!" and the creator of the Business Story Mastery & Certified Story Coach Programs.
To find out more listen in to the show.
This weeks guest is SEO expert and fellow podcaster David Bain.
David is founder and host of Digital Marketing Radio and Head of Growth for Analytics SEO.
In this show we discuss the right way to do SEO in 2016.
David takes us through the elements of SEO that are likely to have the biggest impact on your business in 2016. Reinforcing how critical it is your site is technically sound with regards SEO. How not all content is the same, and of course the importance of mobile.
We also shouldn’t forget social media. Yes it does impact your SEO.
For more 2016 digital marketing predictions join David on 14th December 9pm GMT for a 2 hour show with 52 digital marketing experts from around the world.
You can also sign up here for a free version of Analytics SEO’s powerful SEO Management Software.
To find out more listen in to the show.
In this episode we talk about direct marketing and some rules that should not be broken.
Over at his website, direct marketing master Denny Hatch has pulled together what he considers the 9 Inviolable Rules of the trade. Even though most of these rules were conceived well before the Web existed, they still apply.
In fact some of these are more important in the Internet age than ever.
The Rules 1 & 2 There are two rules and two rules only: Rule 1: Test everything. Rule 2: See Rule 1. — Malcolm Decker
3 Ed Mayer’s Corollary: “Don’t test whispers.”
4 “Success in Direct Marketing is 40% Lists (Data), 40% Offer and 20% everything else.” —Ed Mayer
5 “The offer should be so attractive, only a lunatic would say no.” —Claude Hopkins
6 “If you want to dramatically increase your results, dramatically improve your offer.” —Axel Andersson
7 “The 7 key copy drivers—the emotional hot buttons that make people act—are Fear – Greed – Guilt – Anger – Exclusivity – Salvation - Flattery. If your copy isn’t dripping with one or more of these, tear it up and start over.” —Bob Hacker
8 “Make it easy to order.” —Elsworth Howell
9 “Avoid grey walls of type.” —David Ogilvy
What do people see when they search for your business on Google – and what can you do if it’s not what you want?
I talked to Jeremy Gin, CEO of SiteJabber, a leading community of 700,000+ online business reviewers, about how small businesses can manage their reputations online.
You’ll discover:
- Why reputation management is so important for small businesses and how the ‘industry’ works
- How the leading reputation management and review platforms work - and why they're unfair to both businesses and consumers
- What to do – and not do – if you find a negative review online
- Where e-commerce and reputation management will be in the next 5-10 years.
How do you blend the personal and professional for people within your business, create a great culture and a business structure that works?
Jonathan Raymond, formerly CEO at Emyth, and now founder of Refound talks about how they help businesses create a great leadership structure. Allowing the business owner to step back and work on the business rather than it.
If you want to know how to build a culture within your business that works, listen to the show to find out more.
Ever wondered how journalists choose the people they do to interview? Are you ever left thinking why is it that company on TV again and not mine?
Getting your business noticed can be really tough, especially when it comes to mainstream media.
Pete Walter, a former TV producer, spent 5 years working for BBC News and now runs a company helping small business get noticed by, and deal with, the media.
In this week's episode Pete lets us in on the secret of getting noticed by the mainstream media. More importantly he provides some insight into how to handle the media when we get that interview.
Startup founders are so often focussed on their product that they expect customers just to gravitate toward it once it is released. However wonderful your new idea, this is rarely the case.
Even if you do find some early adopters establishing any meaningful growth can be difficult.
In a world where Google dominates the search market launching a new search engine is probably one of the hardest sectors to win customers. In 2008 Gabriel Weinberg did just this, launching his search engine called DuckDuckGo.
DuckDuckGo now gets over 10 million searches a day and Apple last year included it in the Safari browser on iOS. Even with its unique take on user privacy Gabriel has worked hard to establish a foothold in the search sector.
From lessons learnt trying to grow his own customer base he has co-authored the book Traction: How Any Startup Can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth. In the book Gabriel outlines a framework he has developed called Bulls Eye that allows for a more structured approach to customer acquisition for any business.
In this episode I interview Gabriel about DuckDuckGo, his new book and the methodology behind it.
Listen in and please do let me have any feedback in the comments below.
Launching your website is just the start of your online business. Nothing is going to happen unless you drive traffic to it. Ideally, you will have this covered in your marketing plan.
If not, and you are looking for some inspiration listen in to this week's podcast.
We go into more detail on the 4 main ways to generate website traffic. Which are quite simply:
- Buy It
- Earn It
- Borrow It
- Multiply It
Email marketing is possibly one of the best ways to engage your target audience and build a sustainable business online. When it comes to doing email marketing effectively there are no shortcuts.
Before you can email anyone you need to have a list of people to email.
It is the way in which you obtain this list which will determine, not only the success of your email marketing. But potentially the overall success of your business. One of the shortcuts many businesses consider is buying email lists.
In our opinion this is never a good idea. In fact it can do more harm to your business than good.
This week we look at the pitfalls of buying email lists. Not only in terms of the lack of return on investment but the possible legal ramifications when you don’t have explicit permission to email someone.
Video is a very powerful form of marketing. With the increased performance of smartphones they are also very cheap and easy to make.
Producing a video is one thing. Making it effective is another.
If you fail to capture your audience's attention from the start, it is highly unlikely they’ll hang around to watch it to the end.
That’s why this week we have a simple formula for creating one of the easiest types of video marketing, an ‘In Person’ or ‘Talking Head’ video.
We’ll take you through 7 easy steps that will ensure your marketing videos are not only watched but convert too!
We spend a lot of time inventing ingenious ways to get more traffic to our websites. Spending money on Adwords campaigns, Facebook advertising and email marketing. Or we take hours crafting blog posts and optimising our site for search.
Rather than spend time driving more traffic, what if we worked on better conversion the traffic we already get?
This week we discuss an area many businesses overlook when it comes online marketing, landing pages. The pages you direct traffic to from your proactive marketing campaigns.
We look at the 5 key elements of an effective landing page. Both myself and Robert use landing pages for our own use and our clients. They typically have a single purpose, lead capture. When implemented well they can magnify conversion rates and provide a high return on investment.
Social media is impacting many areas of both our personal and work lives. In some market sectors it is more noticeable than others.
Recruitment is one area in which social media is having the biggest effect.
Today we talk with Julie Bishop aka JobHopJulie. Julie is a social media trainer, social recruiter and author of The Social Jobseeker.
Julie explains how she helps companies leverage social media to improve their recruitment methods. In the process lowering costs and increasing the quality of the employees they hire.
We a look at the uses for each social media channel in the recruitment process. As well as identifying what it takes for a company to recruit in an effective manner.
It may be no surprise that there is more to it than just a Tweet with an ad for your job vacancy!
*Please note: Apologies, sound quality is poor half-way through this show*
This is the missing episode in which we discuss the CRM systems we have looked at using over the years.
There are 7 in total:
- Pipedrive
- Contactually
- Zoho - used by Sean
- ActiveCampaign - used by Robert
- Infusionsoft
- Hubspot
- Salesforce
This episode was inspired by a recent blog post by Seth Godin, “Every marketing challenge revolves around these questions”.
Seth is a prolific blogger, has written many books and is a sought after at talking events for his insights and observations. He publishes a blog post daily, some as short as a sentence, but nevertheless powerful and thought provoking.
A lot of the time Seth takes the everyday, simplifies it and just makes you think. Which is exactly what happened in this case.
He raises 7 questions about marketing, most of which are obvious. Still many of which remain unanswered in most companies.
We dissect Seth’s post and hopefully you should get some value from our discussion.
Often talked about, mostly misunderstood and rarely implemented. A CRM or Customer Relationship Management system can be one of the most important tools for a growing business to implement.
Before you implement a CRM though it is necessary to understand what you want to do with it and what you want to get out of it. Far too many companies integrate overly complex CRM solutions, at a cost, that is totally unnecessary for their business requirements.
Yet, when implemented well they can provide valuable insight into the sales and customer service operation of your business.
They can also deliver fantastic returns on investment that help your business grow and expand as you understand more about your prospect and customer base. In an online environment they provide even more rich data and insight about your customers.
Listen in to the show as we discuss CRM systems in more detail.
In this episode of the Small Business Marketing Report we discuss the use of pop ups to increase newsletter sign ups and downloads.
For some these are an annoying fact of the modern web and get in the way of the user journey. For others they are a valuable contributor to increased conversion rates.
We discuss the pros and cons, with a mix of research to help you make your mind up.
In addition we provide some suggestions for the more popular pop up applications available online.
Episode 61 of The Small Business Marketing Report Podcast.
The third and final episode of a 3 part series on the Google AdWords platform. In the first episode we assessed whether AdWords was right for your business. In the second episode we got you started in setting up your first campaign.
In this final episode we look at structuring, launching and managing your AdWords campaign.
Episode 60 of The Small Business Marketing Report Podcast.
The second of a 3 part series on the Google’s AdWords platform, in this episode we introduce you to setting up your first campaign.
Episode 59 of The Small Business Marketing Report Podcast
In the first of a 3 part series on Google’s AdWords platform we discuss whether AdWords can work for any business.
A website’s bounce rate is often comes up in discussion, but do you know what it really is? If it matters? Or what impact it may have on the performance of your website and ultimately your business.
In this week’s episode we take a detailed look at bounce rate, answering some of these questions, and providing ideas of what you can do to turn your bounce rate around.
On the show this week we discuss some of the podcast shows we listen to and why they are our favourite picks. They are also listed below should you wish to subscribe to them.
We listen to podcasts quite a bit as it gives us access to information that you can’t normally get in mainstream media. It is also a very effective use of commuting time.
Sean’s Podcast Picks
- Six Pixels of Separation
- Twit
- TED Radio Hour
- Freakonomics Radio
- DTNS
Robert’s Podcast Picks
- Startups For The Rest Of Us
- Conversion Cast
- Antipreneur - The Ben Settle Show
- 1 Day Business Breakthrough
Sean interviews Marc Stigter co-author of the book Solving the Strategy Delusion.
Marc Stigter is an international strategist who works with organisations on unlocking deep insights and realising distinctive strategies. His own insights have been gained as a global practitioner at executive level, as a research academic at doctoral level, and as a strategy advisor at organisational level.
Marc is an Honorary Senior Fellow at the University of Melbourne's Graduate School of Business and Economics, and an Associate Director at Melbourne Business School. He has held executive positions with blue-chip companies around the world.
Almost all organisations these days claim to have a 'strategy' - it would hardly be fashionable to not have one! But how many of these strategies are delusional, destroy value and organisations?
This is part of the discussion Sean has with Marc in this episode.
