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CoSchedule started the Actionable Marketing Podcast (AMP) in 2015 and has recorded and published more than 300 episodes. CoSchedule has worked with some of the smartest minds out there that share their stories with you through this podcast. This season, CoSchedule brings back some of the best of the best evergreen content.

Content marketing is a highly competitive space. Every single day, nearly 60 million blog posts are published and five billion YouTube videos are watched. Are you always trying to edge out search results to be on top? Discover how to reframe your mindset when it comes to content marketing.

Today, we’re talking to Garrett Moon, CoSchedule CEO, about how to handle such competition when it comes to content marketing and his new book, 10X Marketing Formula: Your Blueprint for Creating Competition-Free Content That Stands Out and Gets Results.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Marketers are responsible for bringing in leads, sales, people - big tasks - to support core business metrics. Garrett’s book describes taking the formula, process, tips and tricks, and things that work and don’t for CoSchedule and making them available to anybody to use and implement in their business and marketing process.
• Gartner’s Hype Cycle: How new technology is adopted. When content marketing took shape a few years back, all of a sudden, everyone was adopting it and reworking their marketing teams, creating content, doing blogging, building email lists, and other tasks. Content marketing made a lot of promises to us.
• Now, Garrett believes we are entering the trough of disillusionment. We adopted content marketing, but what about those big promises that were made? What about the results? Why are you not getting the results you were promised?
• How do marketing teams provide business value? Content marketing needs to be reinvented.
• Garrett describes the "copy cat" epidemic in marketing. There is so much free content online where pieces of strategies, tactics, and other items are copied and pasted. However, it does not create an entire picture or blueprint.
• The goal is to create a framework from start to finish to find something unique to your business that only you can do and be successful with. Something that stands out and gets results.
• Creating Competition-Free Content: Not only is your business and products in competition, but your marketing is in competition with other marketing. Find a way to break past that barrier created by competitors.
• The book, Blue Ocean Strategy, refers to the Bloody Red Ocean, which is full of competition and where businesses are fighting each other to stand out - they’re at war with each other. However, the Blue Ocean is wide-open and uncontested. You're free to swim around and move about because you have successfully been able to differentiate yourself from the competition.
• To differentiate your content marketing, focus on your topics, how you create content, and how to connect that content and share it with your customers.
• 10X reference: look at what you are doing and ask if what you are doing will help your team multiply results, including increasing sales leads and the number of visitors to your Website.
• Marketing teams need to focus on 10x growth rather than increments of 10 percent improvements. Marketing teams are designed to produce results, not worry about risks.
• Agile Manifesto: focuses on how software development could be better. A powerful way to cause engineers to rethink and reframe what they’re doing.
• 10X Manifesto: focuses on how so much of marketing is about mindset when it comes to how we do and approach things.
• Results or Die: 10X marketers work in a results or die oriented business, not 10 percenters allowed. Many think of marketing as a process for things they do - marketing is the blog, social media channels, conference booth, etc. There’s all these deliverables that a marketing team creates and hands off to others, such as the sales and support teams. Marketers are not here to produce Web ads or build a Website. They’re here to help produce business results and help grow companies.
• 10X marketers understand that growth requires failure, strength is in progress, not perfection. Teams that embrace failure (fail fast) understand that it is not about failure but acknowledging imperfection.
• Marketing comes with assumptions: assume methods used to get the message out will work; assume there’s the right mix of email ads; assume messages are right; assume the timeline is correct. Ever realize how much you are guessing?
• The problem is in the marketing plan. It becomes a risk-removal tool that leads to pointing fingers and placing blame on others. Instead of a plan, start with a goal.
• To start down the 10X marketing path, list what work you did this week. Are these 10X or 10 percent activities? Do any of these activities have the ability or potential, in a short period of time, to multiply results by 10X?

Links:

• Garrett Moon
• 10X Marketing Formula
• Gartner Hype Cycle
• Blue Ocean Strategy
• Agile Manifesto
• SpaceX
• Elon Musk
• CoSchedule

Quotes by Garrett Moon:

• “Everyone was really excited about it (content marketing). There was a lot of energy. A lot of hype behind it, and a lot of big promises that content marketing made to all of us.”
• “If we’re going to really double down. If we’re really going to continue doing this, how do we really make it sing? How do we really make it pay for itself and become a true part of our results?”
• “For us (CoSchedule as a start-up), it was results or die.”
• “Once teams start looking at what they’re doing, how their processes are built, one thing they tend to find is that much of what they’re doing is based on mitigating risk vs. generating results.”

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CoSchedule started the Actionable Marketing Podcast (AMP) in 2015 and has recorded and published more than 300 episodes. CoSchedule has worked with some of the smartest minds out there that share their stories with you through this podcast. This season, CoSchedule brings back some of the best of the best evergreen content.

The success of your company depends on the marketing you do, how you choose to present the benefits of a product or service, and which audience to target. How you position a product or service can make or break your company. Stop right there. Forget everything you thought you knew about product positioning. Connecting your product or service with buyers is not a matter of following trends, selling harder, or trying to attract the widest customer base.

Today, my guest is April Dunford, who has launched more than a dozen products and shares some of the biggest mistakes that startups, marketers, and entrepreneurs make with product positioning. Also, she’s the author of Obviously Awesome: How to Nail Product Positioning So Customers Get It, Buy It, Love It. April’s book describes her point of view on positioning and offers a step-by-step process to perfectly position your product or service.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Career Change: Fake it til you figure it out. How hard can it be?
• Do it right, and the company grows quickly, gets acquired; you get bored and do another startup
• Definition of Positioning: How to win at doing something that a well-defined market cares about
• Perfect marketing execution won’t save you from weak positioning; marketing execution and results are only as good as positioning that feeds into them
• Who should decide the positioning for your product? Everybody
• Siebel Story: Too small to buy out beyond a billion dollars
• Positioning Pitfalls: People don’t do positioning deliberately; and when they try to fix it, they don’t follow a process but wing it or write a “Positioning Statement”
• Positioning Statement Components:
  • Who’s your competitive alternatives?
  • What are the unique capabilities or features that your product has?
  • What’s the value that those features can enable for customers?
  • Who’s my target customer?
  • Is this a market that I’m going to win?
• Signs of weak positioning include:
  • How a customer reacts to your product/service
  • They compare you to a non-competitor; not in the right market
  • Customer knows what you do, but not the value or why they should care

Links:

• April Dunford
• Obviously Awesome: How to Nail Product Positioning So Customers Get It, Buy It, Love It
• CoSchedule

Quotes by April Dunford:

• “Not only is positioning a thing I should figure out, it's potentially a super powerful thing.”
• “Two years after graduating from engineering, I'm running this great big marketing team. It's global. I’ve got this giant budget...even though I was completely unqualified for it.”
• “I focus on positioning, mainly because I think people do a really terrible job at positioning. There's not many people that know how to do it right.”
• “A shift in positioning can totally result in a shift in the product roadmap, a shift in your pricing, a shift in a way you sell, a shift in your channels.”
• "You see signs of weak positioning across your entire sales marketing funnel, but often the place where it’s most obvious is looking at how a customer reacts when they first encounter your product or your offering."

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CoSchedule started the Actionable Marketing Podcast (AMP) in 2015 and has recorded and published more than 300 episodes. CoSchedule has worked with some of the smartest minds out there that share their stories with you through this podcast. This season, CoSchedule brings back some of the best of the best evergreen content.

Planning and creating content that ranks well on the search engines can be difficult. It comes down to keyword selection and use, but that’s not all. You’ve heard the expression, “content is king,” and that’s still true. Your success has everything to do with the value and uniqueness that your content has to offer the people who will be seeing it!

Today, we’re talking to Tim Soulo, the head of marketing and product strategy at Ahrefs. Tim knows how to create valuable content, and he shares his best tips on finding keywords, promoting your content, and standing out from your competition.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Information about Ahrefs and what Tim does there.
• The most successful content produced by Ahrefs: the types of articles and pieces, as well as how they promote and analyze them.
• Tips on ranking for not only your core keyword, but also relevant keywords.
• The process Tim uses for coming up with content ideas.
• What it takes to outperform your competition.
• Why it’s important for an SEO marketer to do research that no other blog has written about or compiled.
• Tim’s thoughts on length and why it might not be important in the way that you are thinking. Tim also talks about long “ultimate guides” and gives his advice on making them more user-friendly.
• How to use backlinks to promote a piece to help it rank.

Links:

• Tim Soulo
• Ahrefs
• How to Do Keyword Research for SEO
• How to Submit Your Website to Search Engines
• CoSchedule

Quotes by Tim Soulo:

• “The only way to outdo, to outperform the competition is to offer something unique and something better than they have.”
• “You have to have something to offer which wasn’t published, which wasn’t said before you. You usually need to be at the forefront of your industry, you need to be a so-called thought leader.”
• “It’s not about trying to crank everything you can into the article, it's about delivering value and persuading people that you can solve their problem in as [few] words as possible.”

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CoSchedule started the Actionable Marketing Podcast (AMP) in 2015 and has recorded and published more than 300 episodes. CoSchedule has worked with some of the smartest minds out there that share their stories with you through this podcast. This season, CoSchedule brings back some of the best of the best evergreen content. Has your smartphone ever beeped or vibrated to let you know that something, some piece of information or message, is waiting, just for you? Without even thinking, you read, listen to, or watch, and become completely absorbed in it. How have these pieces gained so much power over our behavior and attention? How do software companies hook us, and what can marketers learn from this phenomenon?

Today’s guest is Nir Eyal, who says today’s smartest companies have melded psychology, business, and technology into habit-forming products. Nir is the best-selling author of Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products. He’s an angel investor and expert in behavioral design. He unveils some psychological principles behind some of today’s biggest and most valuable companies.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Skill of the century is the ability to cultivate focus
• Behavioral Design: Engaging, habit forming products built with consumer psychology in mind
• People use the Hooked model to engage with a product or service
• Step 1: Internal trigger (reason why you use a product - to modulate your mood, to feel something different; products and services cater to emotional discomfort)
• What’s the user’s itch? What’s their pain point that occurs frequently enough to build a habit around?
• Step 2: Action (the simplest behavior done in anticipation of a reward and relief from discomfort; technology shortens the distance between the need and reward)
• Lewin’s Equation: “People act in accordance to their personality and their environment” - the easier something is, the more likely people are to do it
• Step 3: Reward Phase (the itch gets scratched, the customer’s need is satiated, and their problems are solved)
• Element of Variability: Something of mystery, something of uncertainty
• 3 Variable Reward Types: Rewards of the tribe, the hunt, and of the self
• If you can form a habit, you can engage people with your brand through a community/content habit, and monetization is the result of engagement
• Step 4: Investment Phase (increases likelihood of the next pass through the hook by loading the next trigger and storing value)
• Content, data, followers, and reputation get users to invest in your product
• Companies should make a deliberate effort to understand consumers better; what makes people click and tick, so you can build services that they want

Links:

• NirandFar.com
• Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products
• Habit Summit
• Stack Overflow
• CoSchedule

Quotes by Nir Eyal:

• “Where we always start is what’s the user’s itch? What’s their pain point that occurs frequently enough to build a habit around?”
• “The easier something is, the more likely people are to do it.”
• “Monetization is a result of engagement.”

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CoSchedule started the Actionable Marketing Podcast (AMP) in 2015 and has recorded and published more than 300 episodes. CoSchedule has worked with some of the smartest minds out there that share their stories with you through this podcast. This season, CoSchedule brings back some of the best of the best evergreen content.

These days, you need to create both a great Website and great content to rank on Google.

Today, we’re talking to Brian Dean, an SEO expert and founder of Backlinko, about how to fuel your 10x content using his research method called the Skyscraper Technique.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Black Hat SEO: Stuffing keywords and creating fake signals to rank in Google
• Google penalized sites using Black Hat SEO strategy
• White Hat SEO: Show Google everything you did to optimize your site
• Backlinko teaches people White Hat SEO strategies
• SEO Elements: Keyword and topic research; create content around them
• Two types of keywords: Information and commercial
• Create and optimize content that gets the most searches around keywords/topics
• Differences between well-researched and not researched content and topics
• Provide one-stop shopping for all the information customers need
• Skyscraper Technique: Research to figure out what content will perform well
• Ways to improve content - go bigger and better, curate, storytelling, and more
• Focus on quality over quantity; create less content, make it more valuable
• Common missteps when implementing “less is more” strategy and ranking

Links:

• 10X Marketing Formula by Garrett Moon
• Backlinko
• Backlinko on YouTube
• Jon Cooper
• Tim Ferriss and the 4-Hour Work Week
• Google Keyword Planner
• Reddit
• CoSchedule

Quotes by Brian Dean:

“You really have to create legitimately great content and a legitimately great Website to rank in Google.”

“Everything starts with a keyword with SEO.”

“They just regurgitate what’s already out there and that’s not the type of content that’s going to rank as well on Google.”

“There’s tons of ways to make your content more valuable than the competition.”

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CoSchedule started the Actionable Marketing Podcast (AMP) in 2015 and has recorded and published more than 300 episodes. CoSchedule has worked with some of the smartest minds out there that share their stories with you through this podcast. This season, CoSchedule brings back some of the best of the best evergreen content.

How much attention do you pay to keywords in your content?

For too many people, the answer is “none” or “nearly none.” While having engaging content that attracts human readers is vital, ignoring keywords is going to make it difficult for those human readers to find your content in the first place.

This bad advice to ignore keywords has made it so some marketers really don’t know how to use keywords effectively at all.

Today, we’re talking to Julia McCoy, the CEO of Express Writers. She’s not only an amazing writer but also considered a thought leader in her industry. She talks to us about using keywords well when creating content.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• How Julia got into freelance writing, what made her start Express Writers, and what she does there.
• An overview of the content strategy at Express Writers.
• How Julia helps older content maintain a high ranking in the search engines.
• Why targeting low-competition keywords works.
• How Julia finds the keywords and what tools she uses.
• How Julia defines good content for Express Writers.
• Tips on weaving keywords into great content.
• Why long-form content is important when it comes to ranking.
• Where to focus first if you’re a content marketer getting started with keywords.

Links:

• Express Writers
• Julia McCoy
• Rand Fishkin: How to Create 10x Content
• SEMRush
• Mangools
• Julia’s Content Strategy Course
• CoSchedule

Quotes by Julia McCoy:

“Just having engaging writing is number one. You have to write to be read. Number two, you have to be super thorough on the topic.”

“Once we have that keyword, it’s not just about the keyword, it’s about creating content where that keyword is the topic."

“Consistency is key. Whenever you start, give your audience something to look forward to.”

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CoSchedule started the Actionable Marketing Podcast (AMP) in 2015 and has recorded and published more than 300 episodes. CoSchedule has worked with some of the smartest minds out there that share their stories with you through this podcast. This season, CoSchedule brings back some of the best of the best evergreen content. Have you ever wondered what the process would be like to start something from scratch and end up with a million users? Our conversation is going to help you set better goals and achieve more than you ever have before.

Today, we’re talking to Noah Kagan, the chief sumo at sumo.com and AppSumo. He also hosts Noah Kagan Presents, which is an awesome podcast, and has a steady stream of stuff on okdork.com.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• How Noah handles the marketing at Sumo.com and what has the most potential.
• How Noah ended up at Mint, where he helped grow the company from zero to more than a million users.
• Why Noah doesn’t believe in hope in the business world.
• The process Noah used to put his plan together, come up with ideas, figure out how much traffic he had, and more.
• Common mistakes that Noah sees other people making.
• Why copying methods described on other people’s blog posts doesn’t work.
• The greatest piece of marketing advice Noah has received.

Links:

• Sumo.com
• AppSumo
• Noah Kagan Presents
• OkDork.com
• CoSchedule

Quotes by Noah Kagan:

“I believe in hope in fantasy and fairytales in the real world or in the non-business world, but in business, no.”

“If you're not making mistakes, you're probably not experimenting enough.”

“At the end of the day, it really just comes down to you got to do it yourself... go and experiment yourself, go and promote something.”

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CoSchedule started the Actionable Marketing Podcast (AMP) in 2015 and has recorded and published more than 300 episodes. CoSchedule has worked with some of the smartest minds out there that share their stories with you through this podcast. This season, CoSchedule brings back some of the best of the best evergreen content.

Where do your customers hang out? What kinds of things do they like? What publications do they read? Customer research involves a lot of leg work, so does this information even matter? How can you leverage such insight for SEO?

Today, we’re talking to Rand Fishkin, founder of SparkToro and author of Lost and Founder. He is a powerhouse in the content marketing and SEO world.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Background, origination, and purpose of SparkToro
• Reaching/Researching Audiences: Slow, frustrating, and inaccurate process
• Companies spend money contracting agencies for a list of top customers, blogs, podcasts, and events
• Bones of Audience Intelligence: 1) Identify audiences across channels; 2) Know audience density; 3) Use trustworthy and valuable metrics
• How to obtain, benchmark, filter, and analyze data
• Data Points: Which to focus on and where to get them
• Social Network Profiles: Report follower count and engagement
• Biases generate unrepresentative data influenced by SEO
• Significant sample sizes and diverse groups are needed for true coverage
• Examples of missing specific audiences
• SparkToro lets you find people who practice specific fields
• Does current audience intelligence data represent the market as a whole?
• Improve SEO by helping audience accomplish tasks, and identifying and broadening link sources

Links:

• Rand Fishkin on Twitter
• SparkToro
• Lost and Founder
• Project Event Safe
• Moz
• SurveyMonkey Audience
• Nate Silver
• SimilarWeb Pro
• CoSchedule

Quotes by Rand Fishkin:

“If you’re looking at a social network profile, don’t just report on follower count, go look at the last 20 or 50 posts...report on how much engagement did each of those get.”

“Go out there, build a company, make mistakes, just don’t make exactly the same ones I did.”

“You get biased by your existing understanding of the field.”

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CoSchedule started the Actionable Marketing Podcast (AMP) in 2015 and has recorded and published more than 300 episodes. CoSchedule has worked with some of the smartest minds out there that share their stories with you through this podcast. This season, CoSchedule brings back some of the best of the best evergreen content.

Copywriting can happen anywhere - from blogs to cereal boxes. It includes the whole world of marketing words. Conversion copywriting helps businesses build their business. Conversion copywriting is about getting people to say “Yes” and generating more leads and buyers. It measures results to see if something converted or not.

Today, we’re talking to Joanna Wiebe, a conversion copywriter, creator of Copyhackers, and co-founder of Airstory. She is an absolute authority on copywriting and conversions.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• What makes people say, “Yes.” Whether it is clicking or trying something. There are different formulas you can use for this goal.
• Ask customers, “What was going on in your life that brought you to…” Then, you can identify their motivation.
• If you put a button on a Web page, people will click it because it is there. Lots of things will move people to click, but rarely lead to conversions.
• Stages of Awareness: Unaware, Pain Aware, Solution Aware, Product Aware, and Most Aware.
• Persuasion techniques are typically triggers used at the late stages in hope that you will make people buy.
• “Don’t put pressure on poor, little button.” It’s going to get clicked, but don’t put too many fancy marketing tricks within it.
• Where does it go? What will it say? Push the best people to the most highly optimized button.
• There’s buttons for Calls to Value or Calls to Action. A Call to Action button is to tell the user exactly what you want them to do. For example, Download Ebook or Complete Purchase.
• A Calls to Value button regards why a customer is performing an action and completes the phrase, “I want to…”
• Change your button approach depending on the type of medium you are using. It depends on the context for an action or engagement.
• Map out actions based on context and location - email, Website, blog, etc.
• Map Calls to Action to move customers to the next stage of awareness.

Links:

• 10X-Marketing Formula by Garrett Moon
• Copyhackers
• Airstory
• Google Analytics
• Breakthrough Advertising by Eugene Schwartz
• Intuit
• Aaron Orendorff
• Marketing Experiments
• Robert Cialdini’s Persuasion Techniques
• CoSchedule

Quotes by Joanna Wiebe:

“It wasn’t the digital atmosphere we have today in marketing where everything, everything gets measured.”

“The real thing is we want to convert. We want more leads and we want more buyers. That’s what conversion copywriting is about.”

“We can’t do a lot of motivating with copy, but you can take someone’s motivation and turn it into something.”

“People want to click things. Mostly because they just want to move through life and get their problems solved.”

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CoSchedule started the Actionable Marketing Podcast (AMP) in 2015 and has recorded and published more than 300 episodes. CoSchedule has worked with some of the smartest minds out there that share their stories with you through this podcast. This season, CoSchedule brings back some of the best of the best evergreen content.

CoSchedule’s blog and content engine generate more than 1 million views and 20,000 leads every month. How do we do it? Listen and learn.

Today’s guest is Leah DeKrey, content marketing strategist and blog manager at CoSchedule. To know that a million people read the blog posts she writes every month is terrifying, thrilling, and core to CoSchedule’s growth.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Reasons for Successful Blog:
  • Corporate and managerial buy-in
  • Standards of performance
• Blog Posts: Be different than the rest, as the best
• 4 Performance Pillars for Blog Posts:
  • Comprehensive; at least 3,000 words
  • Actionable
  • Relevant
  • Content upgrade/value-add included
• Keyword Domination Strategy: Drive content by Googling around to search and seek high-volume, low-difficulty keywords
• Measure Success of Content and Blog: Give it time because reaching the top doesn't happen overnight and takes patience
• What you know now: College system is ripe for disruption, real world is where you learn 90% of what you do
• Tools to Try: Ahrefs, Google Analytics, and KISSmetrics

Links:

• CoSchedule Blog
• 10X-Marketing Formula by Garrett Moon
• Ahrefs
• Google Analytics
• KISSmetrics
• What Is Mobilegeddon & The Google Mobile Friendly Update

Quotes from Leah DeKrey:

“The number one thing that got us kicked off on the right foot was having that executive and managerial buy-in.”

“We aim to be the most in-depth blog posts that you can find on any topic on the Internet.”

“How much is too much? How much time is too much time? You're not alone in wondering those things.”

“Finding those sweet spots of keywords is really important for your content strategy. Otherwise, it's not going to be justified spending so much time.”

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When it comes to content marketing, failing to plan is planning to fail. Why do some marketers struggle with content planning? It isn’t easy nor is it always properly valued. Sometimes, content planning gets overlooked. Today’s guest is Vassilena Valchanova, a digital strategist, trainer, speaker, and blogger. She talks about why it is important to plan content consistently with a repeatable and effective framework by sharing her blueprint for content planning.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Content Planning: Focus on the right things and follow a predefined structure
• Pros: Goal is to promote products and give people helpful information
• Cons: Without a clear process for planning content, promotional content fills gap
• Out of Necessity: Why Vissilena created content marketing blueprint/framework
• Purpose: Blueprint is a strategy document that helps with daily content planning
• Process: How Vissilena’s content blueprint strategy works from start to finish
• How to create your own content planning blueprint/framework for your company
• Compare/Contrast: Plan different content pieces across different channels

Links:

• Vassilena Valchanova
• Content Marketing Blueprint: a Building Block for Content Excellence [Content Marketing Plan Template]
• Andy Crestodina of Orbit Media Studios
• Animalz
• Wes Anderson
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes from Vassilena Valchanova:

“We don't spend enough time properly planning out what messages we’ll be sharing, what different types of content we’ll be promoting, and how we engage our audience in different channels and in different formats.”

“We start creating content that pretty much feels and looks the same because we're trying to push something out quicker and will go for just an image with a standardized template design rather than focusing on really creating something unique at that point.”

“What the content blueprint does is allow you to document that strategy in an easy-to-use format. ”

“The four different segments will be the mission statement, setting up the goals, channel plan, and topic plans.”

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Content distribution is important, but most marketers struggle to understand how to distribute content effectively and efficiently. They create, publish, and push content out only to move onto the next piece before promoting and distributing the last one.

Today’s guest is Sarah Colley, a content marketer. She shares how to get started with distributing content or improve your current content distribution practice. It's time to start making distribution a real part of content strategy from the beginning.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• What is content distribution and what works with content distribution right now?
• Repurposing: Seems to be everybody's standard definition of content distribution
• Sarah’s Definition: Creating the right content and giving it to the right people
• Content Distribution: If you don't have distribution, you don't get your content out
• Underinvestment: Creating tons of content, but not taking time to distribute it
• Follow Formula: Put article in a core distribution channel and places that share it
• Build Better Relationships: Get to know new people who can spread your content

Links:

• Sarah Colley on LinkedIn
• Write Destination Agency
• Help A Reporter (HARO)
• Fiverr
• HubSpot
• Google Analytics
• Bitly
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes from Sarah Colley:

“It's about building conversations around content. It looks a lot different. It's harder to implement, but when you do it right, it really works.”

“A lot of people focus on distribution in terms of traffic and getting seen by as many people as possible. I totally disagree.”

“You can do a lot of distribution for free, completely free, but it just comes down to time.”

“My best strategy is just developing relationships with people that have audiences and people that don't, people that may eventually have an audience.”

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The landscape for search engine optimization (SEO) changes constantly, so staying on top of trends is extremely important but not always easy for sustained success. Today’s guest is Georgios Chasiotis, Managing Director of MINUTTIA, about what to focus on with SEO in 2022. He shares insight into what SEO tactics should be used or are overused, especially when it comes to software as a service (SaaS).

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Past, Present, and Future: SEO and SaaS marketing trends and tactics
• Where are things at right now? Not multi-dimensional or complex
• Alternative/Comparison Pages: Not aligned with website identity, but abused
• Organic Search: Find more ways to be creative and bold about things
• 2021: What separated top SEO performers from struggling SaaS companies?
• More/Better Experience: Google rewards websites that are trustworthy
• Vanity Metrics: Not only way to measure success based on user experience
• COVID Impact: Were there any behavior changes? Higher expectations
• Future SEO Tactics: Which will become less important or effective in 2022?
• Guest Blogging: Is it effective for reciprocal linking? Georgios advises against it
• Content and Links: What most brands and websites compete against

Links:

• Georgios Chasiotis on LinkedIn
• MINUTTIA
• CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes from Georgios Chasiotis:

“Unfortunately, what I see is pretty much all websites are doing what every other website is doing.”

“Try new things, experiment, and fail a lot of times in the process of discovering new ways of generating interest and demand for our websites.”

“SaaS companies have struggled when it comes to organic search.”

“Everyone can play the content and backlinks game. Not everyone can build a brand and not everyone can create a wow moment for their website visitors.”

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When was the last time you saw an awesome online or social video ad? Did it impress you so much that you thought about buying the product or recommend it to someone? These days, a list of truly memorable video ads are few and far between.

Today’s guest is Matt Johnston with Guide Social, an agency that creates ads for all kinds of brands and products. Using and understanding the HERO System makes for memorable video ads that resonate.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Common Causes: Why most video ads fall flat or underperform
• HERO System: Content checklist for social video ads to gain traction
  • Hook
  • Empathy
  • Response
  • Over-deliver
• 4 Rs Process: Helps people work through video script to mirror customer journey
  • Relate
  • Rile
  • Reveal
  • Release
• Offer Opportunities: All businesses exist to solve problems
• Results: Warm leads and increased conversion rates create affinity/PR affect
• Social Video Ads: Brands that nailed it include Harmon Brothers, William Painter

Links:

• Guide Social
• Producing Empathy by Matt Johnston
• HERO System by Matt Johnston
• Matt Johnston on LinkedIn
• Hydroviv
• Shark Tank
• Harmon Brothers
• William Painter
• ClickFunnels by Russell Brunson
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes from Matt Johnston:

“The biggest mistake that people make is that they focus way too much on features and their product and things like that rather than focusing on the avatar and empathy and trying to connect with that person and tying it back to their pain.”

“The reason that someone will buy something from you or sign up to be a lead in your company is - it has everything to do with their own selfish needs and desires.”

“If you want to move them to act, you need to emotionally resonate with them.”

“Nobody cares about what you sell. They care about opportunities that are available to them to solve their problems.”

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Who do you believe more? A marketer, your best friend, or complete stranger who bought your product or service and offers an honest opinion? Good or bad—what customers say matters.

Today’s guest is Denise Blasevick from The S3 Agency. Denise explains how to generate more positive reviews and how to handle negative reviews (or if you should deal with them at all).

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• 4- vs. 5-Star Reviews: Set expectations to humanize real customers’ opinions
• Consumer Behavior Impact: More and more people read and trust reviews
• No Comparison: Brand sites with positive reviews get others to buy from you
• Negative Reviews: Unrealistic for companies to get none; acceptable for some
• 1-Star Reviews: Determine whether it’s worth trying to mollify bad review
• Legitimate Review: Try to do something about your product/service if you can
• Net Promoter Score (NPS): Contact biggest fans to review and recommend
• Don’t Nag or Beg: Mistakes made when marketers try to get more reviews
• Review Acquisition: Find natural points, cultivate journey, and reward randomly
• Authentic Incentives: Give people guidelines to personalize focus of reviews
• Metrics: Quantify and measure growth of impact with reviews of actual sales

Links:

• Denise Blasevick on LinkedIn
• Denise Blasevick on Twitter
• The S3 Agency
• Mike Michalowicz
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes from Denise Blasevick:

“Some people aren’t worth mollifying.”

“If they have a legitimate point, try to do something about it in terms of the way you deliver your product or service, if you can.”

“The volume has to be right. The kinds of reviews have to be right, and the stars have to be right.”

“Your sixth sense online is reviews.”

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Market consultants sometimes struggle to consistently meet expectations. Maybe it’s because they offer too many services in too many areas of expertise. The lack of focus leads to less differentiation in the crowded market and inability to set premium prices.

Today’s guest is Max Traylor, author of the Agency Survival Guide. Max talks about how consultants and agencies can avoid pitfalls by productizing their services. Get paid on perceived value.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Productized Consulting Services: Powerful way to package and sell services
• Productization: Means doing things in steps for marketing and sales consulting
• Consultants and Agencies: Consistency is not their middle name
• Results: Quality of work, mental health, business impact, price premiums suffer
• Strategy Over Implementation Services: Charge whatever, as much as you want
• Sans Management: Make more money with less effort via strategic focus
• Why productized approach? People experience two different sides of a business
• Limiting Belief: Doing of things out of fear and hunger gets marketers paid
• Imposter Syndrome: Are you good enough to sell your knowledge and process?
• Get Started: Charge for proposals to accelerate experience charging for strategy
• Advice: You can sell everything to anyone if you try 5 times; no need to be good
• Ideal Client: Who are you talking to and will pay most for what you’re good at
• Fulfillment: Limit sacrifices, simplify business by selling less, contributing more

Links:

• Max Traylor - Productized Consulting Services
• Max Traylor’s Agency Survival Guide
• BEERS with Max Podcast and Blog
• HubSpot
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes from Max Traylor:

“You use the same things and you go through the same steps so that you can set and meet expectations every time.”

“If there’s no consistency in what you do, you don’t experience price premiums. You’re never known for that one thing.”

“We spend a lot of time developing self-worth and an attachment to the thing that we’re doing.”

“Fill your calendar with conversations with people that will pay you the most for the thing that you are uniquely good at.”

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Freelance writers know that getting paid can be difficult, and managers of freelance writers know why processing those payments is difficult to get paid on time or at all. Some companies don’t have simple invoicing systems or solutions for fixing what’s wrong with their invoicing processes.

Today’s guest is Matt Saincome, Co-Founder and CEO of OutVoice and The Hard Times. OutVoice is a freelancer/writer invoicing platform that pays them with one click. Matt explains how to fix invoicing issues and get freelance writers paid on time.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Payment Problem: There has got to be a better way, and now there is one
• Publisher Problems: Tough business to make money, ad landscape has changed
• Revenue-based Solutions: People don’t update/upgrade their tools elsewhere
• Results: Businesses with inefficient tools, resources become rusted in place
• Clicks and Revenue: Relies on effectively paying and retaining freelance writers
• Mission: Waiting for check to pay rent? OutVoice positively impacts people’s lives
• Paid or not on purpose? Reason is ancient, not automated/tiered invoice systems

Links:

• OutVoice
• The Hard Times
• Matt Saincome’s Email
• Matt Saincome on Twitter
• Matt Saincome on LinkedIn
• Mailchimp
• Bill.com
• DoNotPay
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes from Matt Saincome:

“The problem is very clear. It’s the way that content creators are paid for freelance work is stone-age-level bullshit. It’s nonsense. It shouldn’t be done this way.”

“People don’t get around to upgrading their tools elsewhere, and there’s these really intense inefficiencies that fester in their businesses.”

“OutVoice uses automation, CMS integration, and a more purpose-built invoicing solution.”

“If you have better tools, you’re going to like your co-workers a little bit more. You’re going to like your job a little bit more.”

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Does your business have a presence on YouTube? Maybe it does not show much value or potential for it. YouTube may not be the best fit for the products and services that your business sells. How can you create content on YouTube to not miss opportunities to reach potential customers?

Today’s guest is Adrian Lurie from Dragonfruit Media, a video marketing agency that specializes in working with businesses and creators specifically on YouTube. He explains why your business should be on YouTube and how to drive measurable business growth from it.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• YouTube Marketing: How to drive real, meaningful business growth
• Still skeptical? Video content marketing proof:
  • 50% of Internet users look for videos on product/service before visiting store
  • Video is 50 times more likely to get organic page ranks than plain text
  • Landing pages with embedded videos have 20-30% higher conversion rates
• YouTube Statistics:
  • Second most visited web site (#1 is Google)
  • Third most visited search engine
  • Second largest social media site (#1 is Facebook)
• Roadblocks: Slow down, establish trust to drive measurable growth, make impact
• 3 Content Categories: Discoverable, community focused, conversion focused
• Engagement/Impression Metrics: Profitable action on YouTube to make purchase
• Why be on YouTube? To align video content with business goals from the start
• 4-step audience-focused content process:
  • Take persona view
  • Develop value proposition
  • Create content categories
  • Come up with video concept

Links:

• Dragonfruit Media
• Dragonfruit Media Email
• TubeBuddy
• BidIQ
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes from Adrian Lurie:

“Video is clearly a centerpiece of all online content and is becoming only more and more of such.”

“The nature of video is highly emotional and it engages more sensory perception than any other media.”

“Search your competitors on YouTube. At least one of them probably has a successful YouTube channel. They’re doing it and you’re not. They’re beating you.”

“Anyone can grow on YouTube. You have a million content marketers or SEO experts who all have hundreds of thousands of subscribers and they are all saying the same exact thing.”

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Marketers are creative people that tend to have a lot of ideas. So why is coming up with ideas when content creators, marketers, and problem solvers need them most is so difficult? There are a lot of reasons, but also a lot of simple solutions.

Today’s guest is Melanie Deziel, Director of Content at Foundation Inc. and author of The Content Fuel Framework. Melanie breaks down flawed assumptions about creativity in content and marketing and shares practical tips and processes to replace those assumptions to think more creatively and create better content.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Content Fuel Framework: System helps come up with creative content ideas
• Ideation: Why is it difficult for marketers to resolve problems, lack processes
• Creativity Constraints: Systems, guardrails, processes enable genius moments
• Step 1: Stop thinking of content idea as single thing that is completely undefined
• Step 2: Bring focus and format (i.e., article, video) to life and more organized
• Outcomes: Content ideas become renewable resource, not limited supply

Links:

• Melanie Deziel on Twitter
• Melanie Deziel on LinkedIn
• Storyfuel
• Foundation Inc.
• The Content Fuel Framework
• The Organized Mind
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes from Melanie Deziel:

“The Content Fuel Framework is essentially a system that you can use to tap into your creativity when you need to come up with content ideas.”

“We are much more creative, much more productive, and much more efficient when we have some level of organization around the way we approach coming up with content ideas.”

“Stop thinking of content idea as a single thing that is completely undefined. It has parameters.”

“Creativity just seems so inherently unstructured that it’s like sacrilege to suggest that we put some limitations on it to help us get there.”

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In 2011, Google introduced the term, Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT), also known as the moment that a consumer decides to research a product or service online before they enter a store or contact a business. A lot has changed since Google conducted that research and published the ZMOT ebook. Now, it’s normal behavior and what consumers do online before deciding to make a purchase.

Today’s guest is Paul Mackiewicz, CEO and Founder of #Smart Marketing. He talks about how to hack consumer behavior using ZMOT. Businesses and marketers often overlook small details in their overall online presence that add up to a big difference between who wins or loses. Stay on the winning side by understanding when and where ZMOT happens for your customers.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Ebook: Explains how increased access to information impacts buying decisions
• 3-Step Marketing Process: Awareness, experience, and compare product/service
• Business Directory/Review Management Systems: Convert eyeballs to invoices
• Control Messaging/Ratings: First impressions are everything in most industries
• ZMOT Concept: Who you choose based off your emotional reaction to info online
• Build Business Persona: If you could be any celebrity online, who would you be?
• Big Business Benefits: Foot traffic is less and people like to look and buy online
• Getting Started: Claim Google, Yelp business listings, and get pro pics and tools
• Future of Marketing: Know, like, and trust small businesses to do your marketing

Links:

• ZMOT Expert

• Smart Marketing

• Paul Mackiewicz on LinkedIn
• Google - Winning the Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT)
• Google Business Listing
• Yelp Business Listing
• Canva
• Hootsuite
• Buffer
• Paul Rudd
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes from Paul Mackiewicz:

“The best way really to conceptualize what ZMOT is, is just how our access to information through increased technology has changed how we get to that final decision-making process.”

“It’s very difficult to get eyeballs on your business, and what these directories and these review sites and social media allow you to do is quickly convert eyeballs to invoices.”

“Synergy - it’s a big thing with digital marketing, but I think a lot of marketing companies don’t talk about it enough and I think a lot of businesses don’t consider it enough.”

“It’s only going to become more and more important as foot traffic becomes less of a determiner - determination factor - for buying decisions.”

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What is and constitutes interactive content that resonates? Is interactive content part of your business strategy? It’s not something that every brand does, but it represents a way that content and sales enablement has been done in the past to create experiences that better serve potential customers than static content.

Today’s guest is Isabelle Papoulias, CMO/Vice President of Marketing at Mediafly, where she oversees all of Mediafly's marketing efforts and works with its sales and business development teams to ensure continuous growth. She shares insights on how to break the sales and marketing mold using interactive content.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Animated vs. Interactive: Mediafly makes clear distinction between two types
• Interactive Content: Navigation helps create constant customer experience
• Correct Content Usage: Helps marketers/sellers understand buyer behavior
• Common Content Types: Case studies, product demos, and success stories
• Site Analytics: Be better prepared for next interaction and serve relevant content
• Getting Started: Pick one content asset of huge strategic importance to company
• CLOSE Method: Challenge, Loss, Opportunity, Solution, Evidence for storytelling
• Scale Up: Improve, apply interactive content to other pieces, platforms, people
• Interactive Content Creation Tools: Mediafly, Reprise, and content agencies

Links:

• Isabelle Papoulias on LinkedIn
• Mediafly
• Presentify
• Mediafly’s Customers
• Reprise
• Netflix
• Forbes Expert Contribution: 10 Steps To Ensure Your Pitch Stands Out To Large Clients
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes from Isabelle Papoulias:

“Interactive content is content that allows for navigation that helps create a very constant experience for the buyer, ultimately.”

“It’s interactivity of the service of creating a highly engaging and custom consumption experience that really meets the needs of the buyer.”

“Not only does it make for a more enjoyable experience, but I think in a remote world especially, there is an aspect of edutainment.”

“So much of the buyer journey now is digital without a live person, without a rep that I know I’m definitely feeling the pressure of content needing to, call it, sell harder on its own.”

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When customers leave negative reviews or complain about a brand or business on the internet, they just want to be heard, express their frustration, and want some sort of resolution. Businesses that take the time to reach out to unsatisfied customers can make things right. But how can they do that consistently and at scale?

Today’s guest is Dave Lehman, President and COO at Birdeye, a platform that allows local businesses to collect reviews, run surveys, and get referrals to better engage with customers. Dave talks about how businesses should make online reputation management a top priority and do it the right way.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Birdeye Survey Guide - 2021 State of Experience Marketing:
  • 57% view reputation management as more important than advertisements
  • 88% believe there’s a direct connection between reputation and revenue
• Birdeye: Helps businesses grow, attract, and convert new/existing customers
• Buyer Behavior: Shift from content to trusting shared customer experiences
• Reputation Management: Ignoring it is missing out on customer opportunities
• What are you looking/searching for? Relevancy, distance, and prominence
• Automation and Democratization: Make it easy for everybody to leave a review
• Digital Connection: Engage, respond, and listen to people on preferred platforms
• Indicators: Set goals, select metrics, and measure progress to drive improvement
• Mistakes: Marketers avoid responding to reviews and don’t ask all for reviews

Links:

• Dave Lehman on LinkedIn
• Dave Lehman’s Email
• Birdeye
• Survey Finds 57% of Marketers Now Emphasize Online Reputation Management Over Advertising
• HubSpot
• Blaze Pizza
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes from Dave Lehman:

“Most people will skip the first three ads or whatever. It’s almost become default behavior.”

“When somebody lands on your site, again, what are the conversion rates like? Are they getting that first taste of a real good experience themself when they start engaging your brand?”

“If you’re looking for that prominence as a business, it’s all about two things - review count and review score.”

“It’s got to be super easy to engage with you as a business.”

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What do people say and think about your brand online? It carries much more weight with potential customers than your own marketing messaging. Always responding to negative comments and reviews are opportunities for service-based marketers to turn haters and detractors back into customers and brand loyalists.

Today’s guest is Michael Buzinski from Buzzworthy Integrated Marketing. He talks about why reputation management matters and how to make it right. The shortcut to good reputation management is awesome customer service. Under promise. Over deliver.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Reputation Management: Opinion of the general public about you/your company
• Reviews/Recommendations: Who do you trust - family members or strangers?
• Service-based Businesses: Getting new clients to know, like, trust is challenging
• Negative Comments/Complaints: Don’t take them personally, but seriously
• Same Situation, Different Opinion: Customer isn’t always right - understand why
• Positive Reviews: Systemize, automate, or incentivize reputation management
• Customer Scores: Do satisfaction, service, retention scores make an impact?
• Common Mistakes: Don’t be too zealous or pushy, or you lose loyalty, advocacy

Links:

• Michael Buzinski on LinkedIn
• Buzzworthy Integrated Marketing
• Buzzrep
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes from Michael Buzinski:

“What strangers have to say about you and your company literally has more weight than what your mom says about you.”

“People hire people. They don’t hire features. They don’t hire benefits. They hire the person to deliver those features and benefits.”

“Seven out of 10 people will complain before they praise.”

“The new way, one of the best ways to utilize reputation management is getting video testimonials on your website.”

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Setting aggressive marketing growth goals can be intimidating. Some marketers set the bar too low and try to achieve goals that seem impressive but decline year after year. Marketers want to help their organizations succeed but also set accurate expectations for stakeholders.

Today’s guest is Darrell Amy, author of Revenue Growth Engine. He talks about how marketers can easily set, accelerate, and achieve ambitious and aggressive marketing growth goals to succeed.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Darrell’s Elevator Pitch: Hit growth goals by aligning sales and marketing
• Revenue Growth: Make sure engine is firing on all cylinders to reach goals
• What drives revenue growth? Net new customers, revenue per customer
• Realistic Revenue Growth: Cross sell to reach aggressive 100% sold goal
• Business to Business (B2B): Know ideal client to know ideal prospects
• Outbound Marketing Mindset: What to do to get on radar, engage ideal prospects
• Aggressive Metric: Aim for 100% coverage for net new, cross sell engagement
• Marketing Automation System: How many, when, where did prospects engage?
• Ambitious vs. Achievable: Gauge overpromising, under delivering, playing it safe
• Onboarding Process: First 100 days sets relationship status within community
• Fail Forward: Explain what/why it happened and factors involved to fix outcomes
• Key Performance Indicators (KPIs): How are they connected to revenue?

Links:

• Darrell Amy on LinkedIn
• Revenue Growth Engine
• HubSpot
• Mark Hunter
• Seth Godin’s Blog - Permission Marketing
• Never Lose a Customer Again by Joey Coleman
• Pablo Giacopelli on Facebook
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes from Darrell Amy:

“I am passionate about helping companies hit their growth goals, specifically by aligning sales and marketing to achieve those goals.”

“When sales and marketing are not aligned, it really slows everything down.”

“You can drive a lot of revenue with an audience where you already have permission to communicate with them.”

“One of the most important cylinders in your revenue growth engine is really considering the onboarding process.”

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How can content marketing and product marketing teams have different goals and responsibilities, but still work together to achieve incredible results and help their companies grow?

Today’s guest is Yaag Ganesh from Avoma, a leading management, collaboration, and AI assistant platform. Yaag talks about how content and product marketing teams can best collaborate and work together toward shared objectives to drive top performance.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Roles and Responsibilities: Depends on size of organization
• Product Features: Ensure customer awareness and adoption
• Content Friction: Are you writing for the customer, prospect, or bot?
• Consequences: Content experience brings people closer or further from brand
• Brand Impact: What and whose problem are you solving? Seek and gain clarity
• Common Goals: Consider entire journey to fill in gaps, achieve cohesive results
• Team Sport: Speak same language to understand and align culture, purpose

Links:

• Yaag Ganesh on LinkedIn
• Yaag Ganesh’s Email
• Avoma
• The Juice
• HubSpot
• Ahrefs
• Semrush
• Salesforce
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes from Yaag Ganesh:

“As the companies grow bigger and you start scaling each of those functions, I think product marketing tends to take ownership of how you execute the positioning side of things.”

“It is still collective responsibility of both these teams to ensure that the communication - anything that goes on the website - is aligned to what the company stands for.”

“With every of these touchpoints, people are either coming towards your brand or they’re getting deflected away.”

“Your products can change. The problems that you’re solving can change, but the fundamental belief system needs to be aligned.”

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Great content marketing can come from great storytelling. Who better to tell great stories than journalists? Marketers can learn from journalists how to create content that resonates with people through the power of storytelling.

Today’s guest is Ben Worthen, CEO of Message Lab, which combines journalism, data, and design to help organizations create content that resonates with real people. Ben discusses valuable insights for anyone interested in creating content that matters by combining journalistic storytelling techniques with data and design.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Marketers: Be skilled storytellers to reach out to people about what matters most
• Modern Marketing: Takes advantage of times when people don't want to buy
• Storytelling Problems: Why content marketers miss the mark with storytelling
• People’s Patience: Half of them leave content piece before the 15-second mark
• Journalists vs. Marketers: You don't have to be a journalist to tell a great story
• Empathy, Sympathy, and Authenticity: What readers need from marketers
• What’s the problem? People care about the experience, not a company’s product
• Listen and Learn: Take time to talk about ideas with others to get their opinions
• Storytelling Skills: Uplevel by knowing data, information to make better decisions

Links:

• Ben Worthen on LinkedIn
• Message Lab
• The Wall Street Journal
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes from Ben Worthen:

“As there's so much choice about what you choose to pay attention to, what you don't want to pay attention to, when you want to pay attention to one thing, and when you get to pay attention to another, it's more important to be able to reach people with things that they care about.”

“People are biologically programmed to want to pay attention to a good story. It's something that goes back to when we all lived in caves and sat around the fire.”

“If you want to broaden your reach, if you want to have more influence, if you want to break out of a sales-only moment in time where you can have a meaningful interaction with someone, stories are the way to do it.”

“When we think about the coolest experiences that we've had, they tend to be experiences that someone has created for us. Those are things that we tend to share with people.”

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Great work starts with great workflows. How do the best product marketing teams structure their workflows?

Today’s guest is Sergey Sundukovskiy, Co-Founder, CTO, and Chief Product Officer (CPO) at Salesmsg. Sergey talks about how to develop successful product marketing workflows and processes.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Why product marketers should document, structure defined workflows/processes
• SalesMsg: How company views product marketing and management all together
• Product Management Stages: Ideation, collaboration, construction, and transition
• Repeatability: Work is always the same; improves orchestration between parties
• Product Marketing Debt: Things are just simply going to eventually slow down
• Too many tools? Use depends on purpose and internal/external communication
• Accountability: CPO is responsible for templates documenting workflow/process
• Outcome/Result: Software adopted by existing customers should be measured

Links:

• Sergey Sundukovskiy on LinkedIn
• Sergey Sundukovskiy’s Email
• SalesMsg
• AMP 245: Developing Editorial Workflows and Content Creation Processes That Make Awesome Content Possible With Justin Zimmerman From Salesmsg
• InVision
• TryMyUI
• HubSpot
• Intercom
• Jira
• Asana
• ClickUp
• Confluence
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes from Sergey Sundukovskiy:

“We look at product management in four stages. It’s the ideation, collaboration, construction, and transition.”

“The improvement in repeatability as well as the work orchestration between multiple parties is always the same.”

“At SalesMsg, product marketing is focused on existing customers, and marketing all together is focused on prospects and leads.”

“Execution on the product marketing side becomes a competitive advantage.”

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For SaaS companies, onboarding emails help establish long-term relationships with customers to understand and effectively use software tools. Yet, onboarding processes and email copy are often overlooked. The best way to learn what customers need is to talk to them.

Today’s guest is Samar Owais, SaaS and eCommerce email expert. She talks about everything you need to know to make onboarding emails an effective part of your customer acquisition and retention strategy. Samar’s advice on how to talk to customers and identify their pain points can apply to any marketer.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Why are onboarding emails important? Shows how to use tool to solve problem
• Onboarding Emails: Take pressure off customer support and set expectations
• Biggest Mistakes: Don’t hide branding, create copy that starts conversations
• Map Email Journey: What is the purpose of an onboarding email sequence?

Links:

• Samar Owais
• Canva
• Linktree
• ActiveCampaign
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes from Samar Owais:

“Until and unless your users are not using your app, it doesn't matter whether they're paying for it or not. You are failing at the one thing that you were set out to do, which is solve the problem.”

“We need to onboard with retention in mind.”

“Email is often used as a marketing tool, but it is a communication tool.”

“Email journey is an entire ecosystem. For SaaS companies, you need to map out every customer touch point and then just focus on them.”

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Marketers struggle with the fear of focusing on the right things and doing things the wrong way. However, there are ways to use, gather, and apply data to get on the right path to generate a return.

Today’s guest is Carolyn Lowe, Founder and CEO at ROI Swift and author of Business Growth Do’s and Absolute Don’ts. Carolyn talks about how to use the right data to make the right decisions.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Paid Platforms: Amazon, Facebook make a profit and ad dollars go up in flames
• Margins for Error: Marketers have more leeway at big businesses hiring experts
• Isolation vs. Network: Compare performance to know if you’re missing something
• Self-Doubt: Lack of confidence can corrode team’s ability to be successful
• eCommerce/Marketing Strategy: Test, iterate, tweak to measure and manage
• Business Growth Book: Get basics right and scale core values for positive path
• Brands: How are you different? Break through noise to sell a story, sell a product
• Quantitative/Qualitative Research: Get to know your customer base via surveys
• Best Metrics: Prove what marketers are doing is working or not to be profitable

Links:

• Carolyn Lowe on LinkedIn
• ROI Swift
• Business Growth Do’s and Absolute Don’ts
• Dell
• Chewy
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes from Carolyn Lowe:

“I like the idea of outsourcing the expertise when you’re small because you can’t know everything.”

“When you’re always self-doubting, it’s really hard to move forward. We used to always say, ‘If you can measure it, you can manage it.’”

“I’m all about test, iterate, and tweak.”

“It starts and ends with the customer.”

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What do marketing leaders and teams need to know about gender equity in the workplace? Make it a priority to be a great communicator, highly effective, and flexible to drive change.

Today’s guest is Ashley McManus, Senior Director of Global Marketing at Smart Eye. She is a tech startup marketing leader with extensive expertise in inbound marketing. Her thoughtful branding and organized approach to execution resulted in acquiring the tech startup, Affectiva.

Ashley is able to break down challenges, come up with creative solutions, and drive results quickly within budget. She combines strategic thinking with tactical execution, analyzing problems, and identifying steps to results by being adaptive and resourceful.

Also, Ashley designs strategies for tech companies to position them as industry thought leaders. She does this by deliberately creating high-quality content that resonates with their target audience and is in line with their vision.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Equity vs. Equality: What’s the difference and distinction between genders?
• Imbalances: Promote gender equality by empowering women to be equal
• COVID Impact: Why gender equity in the workplace is a concern for everyone
• Diversity of Views: Output isn’t as helpful when everyone looks/thinks same way
• Marketing Role: Customer targeting and company representation, reputation
• Positive Benefits and Negative Effects: People talk, culture misfits, and churn
• What can women do to get unstuck? Who do they talk to be hired and promoted?
• Gender equity from the ground up:
  • Create inclusive hiring practices
  • Simplify job requirements
  • Don’t ask for salary history
  • Candidates should meet diverse interview panel
  • Build enabling human resources department
  • Allow autonomy to be accountable (flexible hours, remote work, etc.)
  • Give recognition, encourage visibility, and advocate for yourself

Links:

• Ashley McManus on LinkedIn
• Smart Eye
• Affectiva
• Glassdoor
• Slack
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes from Ashley McManus:

“Equality between men and women, it doesn’t mean that men and women have to become the same. But it’s just that their rights, responsibilities, opportunities, they don’t depend on whether they are born male or female.”

“Gender equity - that means fairness. Fairness of treatment for men and women according to their respective needs.”

“Equity really leads to equality.”

“Women are responsible for, I think, 70 to 80 percent of customer purchasing.”

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It’s smart to organize content when you have a core piece of pillar content linked to several smaller pieces covering sub-topics around your main topic. Also, it’s about knowing what to include in a topic cluster and how to organize information within a hub-and-spoke content model.

Today’s guest is Skyler Reeves from Ardent Growth, a content intelligence consultancy. Building out topic clusters can be expensive, especially when mistakes are made. How much time and resources does it take to produce multiple pieces to make something like the hub-and-spoke model work the first time around?

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• How to use content intelligence to create better topic clusters
• Content Intelligence: Intersection between content strategy, business intelligence
• Marketers should care about topic modeling when building topic clusters
• Tedious Topic Process: Takes time if marketers don’t start with parent keywords
• Content Value: Where should marketers prioritize things to get the most value?
• Budget: Two ways to do things—do them right or do them again
• Data and Decisions: Go with gut feeling and/or accurate data to make decisions
• Current Constraints: Does business need more awareness? Sales material?
• Tools: There’s things they can't do that you want them to do, so create your own
• Conversion Data: Where it is going to take a minimal amount of effort to get ROI
• Problems: Avoid wasting time, energy, and budget by creating a bunch of content

Links:

• Skyler Reeves on LinkedIn
• Skyler Reeves on Twitter
• Ardent Growth
• Traffic Think Tank - Slack Community
• Superpath by Jimmy Daly from Animalz
• HubSpot
• Ahrefs
• ActiveCampaign
• QuickBooks
• Xero
• Keyword Insights
• SE Ranking
• Semrush
• Moz
• Keyword Cupid
• Mailchimp
• Constant Contact
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes from Skyler Reeves:

“Something we're constantly trying to do is figure out ways to simplify things for everyone with the way they do their work, so they can get it done faster and more accurately.”

“We want to know about the content before we actually go to make those decisions. You can think of it as a precursor or an overarching theme to content strategy and content marketing.”

“How do you know what the perfect hub is? How do you know when something needs to be part of hub A or part of hub B, especially when you're trying to rank these things on search engines?”

“One of the easiest, quick ways to solve cannibalization without having to rely on your gut - just go look at what Google's telling you.”

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Chief marketing officers (CMOs) typically only stay with a company for only 24-25 months. That type of turnover at the top level of marketing departments is not good for marketers in leadership roles or with leadership aspirations.

Today’s guest is Mark Donnigan, a marketing consultant. He talks about why CMOs need to think more like business strategists to better connect where marketing fits into the big picture within your organization rather than thinking about marketing as a set of tactics that are separate from what the rest of the business is doing.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Why marketing leaders need to understand the business objectives
• Gartner: Average buyer over 50% through buying journey before making contact
• MBA Playbook: Where CMOs go wrong by following a concrete buying cycle
• Solution: Spend time with CEO to connect with company’s strategy and revenue
• Attribution: Avoid ROI issues by shifting from cost center to revenue perspective
• Pitfalls: When marketing leaders focus more on building, not understanding skills
• No Excuses: Marketing leaders need to be business-aware, business-oriented

Links:

• Mark Donnigan - Growth Stage Marketing
• Mark Donnigan on LinkedIn
• Category Design Presentation
• Founders Marketing Playbook Presentation
• Gartner Global Research and Advisory Company
• Play Bigger by Christopher Lochhead
• The Qualified Sales Leader by John McMahon
• HubSpot
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes from Mark Donnigan:

“No longer is it sufficient in today’s fragmented buyer journey to just basically build your whole program around a nice funnel.”

“The average B2B buyer was...over 50% of the way through their buying journey before they even contacted the first vendor.”

“You have the marketing tools to execute. There’s no need to go to another marketing seminar, another martech seminar. Instead, spend time with the CEO.”

“To be able to contribute in a sales meeting, you better know about the business.”

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How well do most CMOs know their CIO or IT director? Not as well as they should. It’s important for marketers to build strong relationships with their technical teams to achieve marketing success.

Today’s guest is Theresa O’Neil, CMO of Zylo, a SaaS management platform. She talks about what and why CMOs and marketing leaders need to navigate side by side with IT to get the most from their technology, to make sure they're not bleeding their martech stack budget, and to ensure that they're collectively driving the most ROI possible.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Marketers: Use the right tools to get the right jobs done for the right people
• How many SaaS applications does the average company purchase? A lot
• How many of those SaaS applications are not actually being used? A lot
• Marketing creates pipelines so sales can close deals and generate revenue
• Win-Win: Marketing and IT team up to make people happy, effective, productive
• Shadow IT: Marketing and IT collaborate and crowdsource selected software
• Goals and Objectives: How to build a bridge between marketing and IT
• Technology is great when it works, but who fixes the problem when it doesn’t? IT
• Maintain and grow lifecycle mentality by putting technology, processes in place

Links:

• Theresa O’Neil on LinkedIn
• Zylo
• Coupa
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes from Theresa O’Neil:

“In marketing, to do a great job, you need the right tools, and it's never been more important than it is now.”

“The average company has over 600 SaaS applications. Most of them, IT doesn't know about.”

“38% of licenses go unused every month. Just think about it. If you could reclaim 38% of your tech budget, for a marketer, that could absolutely be found money that you could use for a new initiative, or program, or something else that can really help you meet your goals.”

“By partnering together and making those employees happy and productive, you're also making sure you're not wasting budget.”

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What does email automation look like, how does it work, and what are its benefits? Discover how to grow, scale, and mature by owning and not making the same mistakes.

Today’s guest is Jeremiah Utecht, Lead on Marketing Automation and Business Intelligence at CoSchedule. He takes the mystery out of marketing automation and makes it work.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Jeremiah’s Role: Build, maintain, and refine CoSchedule’s email marketing
• CoSchedule’s Mission: Send the right email to the right person at the right time
• Happy Anniversary! Marketing automation message triggered by attribute/context
• Marketing Automation Internally: Means most relevant content at relevant time
• Successful Multi-Channels: Website customization and email for CoSchedule
• Clever or sophisticated? Trial-and-error process for practices/platforms that work
• Automation Attributes: Anything is possible with simple and flexible forms
• Oops! Emails: Marketing automation at scale is an incredibly unforgiving practice
• Communication and Confidence: Freeze, validate, test, isolate, fix error, move on
• Data Manipulation: Start small, create email list, and capitalize on investment
• Benefits: Marketing automation is data driven, use tools to try and test emails

Links:

• Jeremiah Utecht on LinkedIn
• MailChimp
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes from Jeremiah Utecht:

“Marketing automation at CoSchedule seeks to always send the right email to the right person at the right time.”

“The irony of my job is that it’s more about not sending certain emails and saying, ‘No,’ a lot than it is actually blasting things out.”

“Marketing automation is triggering marketing content messaging based on an attribute, a context.”

“As a rule, being super clever almost always blows up in your face.”

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Do you create great content for an awesome business but still find it challenging to be found on the internet? Building relationships with the right partners can build your audience by getting in front of the audiences of others.

Today’s guest is Brett McGrath, Vice President of Marketing at The Juice, a content distribution platform for B2B content. It’s like Spotify, but for business content. Brett shares how to develop content partnerships to launch ambitious new companies.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Content Collaboration: Takes time and effort to work the correct way
• Priority #1: Meet people and have conversations with them
• Learn Two Things: If marketing messages resonate, what’s on marketers’ minds
• Podcast: Having a show helps build partnerships and talk about passion projects
• Mutual Benefits: Build relationships to create, present, share, and add value
• Mindset and Philosophy: Launch product and company with people
• Biggest Win: Streamlining content process to create content with social proof
• Where to Meet/What to Say: Be comfortable and confident in social communities
• Podcast Practice: Ask questions, facilitate feedback, and promote people/brands

Links:

• Brett McGrath on Twitter
• Brett McGrath on LinkedIn
• The Juice
• The 3C Podcast: Curating Content Creators
• Leah Friedman from Guru
• Jimmy Daly from Superpath
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes from Brett McGrath:

“When I joined The Juice, priority #1 was meet people and just have conversations.”

“Reach out to people and do it in a way that is authentic and natural in building partnerships.”

“We, as B2B marketers, need to move away from me-centered marketing or marketing for our own KPIs and our metrics or what our bosses want.”

“Find the places where people want to go and learn and are like-minded and find ways to engage.”

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Marketers understand the value of search engine optimization (SEO), but they need to clearly communicate why it matters to get buy-in from executives, stakeholders, and clients.

Today’s guest is Eli Schwartz, a consultant and growth advisor. Also, he is the author of Product-Led SEO, a new book that describes how to communicate the value of SEO and think strategically and philosophically about SEO to be successful.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• What motivated Eli to write the book? Explain to leaders how to do SEO sensibly
• Sweet Spot: Start SEO when spending at least $1-2 million on paid marketing
• Disparity: How much is your company spending on paid marketing versus SEO?
• Big Problem: SEO blackboxes things and mystifies it intentionally with metrics
• Metrics vs. Outcomes: SEO is about speaking the same language, not keywords
• Big Budget: Put money in to produce content, create product, and make a profit
• Big Consequence: Prioritize SEO or continue to fall behind business competitors
• SEO Do’s and Don’ts: Focus on content but not allocate enough resources
• Monetary Value: Clearly communicate what you need and why to impact ROI
• SEO Standpoint: Create content from a product perspective for user engagement
• Priorities: Base SEO on users, not search volume/traffic, to get biggest benefits
• Leaders don't need to understand SEO, but they need to know the outcomes
• Recipe for Success/Failure: Create product, product flops, and ideas don’t work

Links:

• Eli Schwartz on LinkedIn
• Eli Schwartz’s Website
• Eli Schwartz on Twitter
• Product-Led SEO
• SurveyMonkey
• Ahrefs
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes from Eli Schwartz:

“I am a huge fan of not creating any sort of content unless you know that there are users that will consume it, it makes sense for users, and it will end up converting.”

“If you don't do SEO, then your competitors move ahead of you. If you don't do the right SEO, you just lose your entire investment. But that's not the way most people think of it.”

“Social media is a little bit lower in the funnel. I think paid marketing is at the bottom of the funnel. Brand marketing is potentially higher in the funnel than SEO. Make them all work together and that's where SEO will be the most profitable.”

“They don't need to understand how SEO works. What they do need to understand are the outcomes, and the work that's going to be done, and of course, the investment that's going to be made.”

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Too much marketing is based on guesses not backed by data. Paid tactics, like pay-per-click (PPC) and social media advertising, can burn through your budget when guesses are wrong. How can you use data to make marketing more predictable to forecast performance and adjust to shifts in trends to increase your ROI?

Today’s guest is John Readman from BOSCO, a digital analytics and predictive modeling platform for retailers and eCommerce companies. He discusses what it takes for predictable marketing to be successful. It involves understanding historical data, performance, and trends across a client's channels.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• What is predictable marketing? Getting all data in one place on an ongoing basis
• Why should marketers make decisions driven by data, not gut instinct/intuition?
• Data and Decisions: Depend on volume, understanding data to base decisions
• Challenges: Digital marketing data is used to scale ROI in one particular channel
• COVID Comparisons: Causal effect of supply and demand during the pandemic
• BOSCO: Helps marketers predict future w/ machine learning, Bayesian statistics
• Out-of-Date Numbers: Forecasting runs scenarios, planning, and model analysis
• Different Data Sources: Connect platforms to quickly predict what could be done
• Wasted Budget? Run and identify data models that are hugely, scarily accurate
• Two Key Metrics: Cost per acquisition and understanding that by channel
• Clients/Conversations: People make decisions emotionally, justify them with data
• Control: People get nervous about not doing things the traditional way
• Predictive Analytics Platform/Practice: Get buy-in by leading conversation with potential results, starting small, and using data to quantify progress and success

Links:

• John Readman on LinkedIn
• BOSCO
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes from John Readman:

“If we've got the right data in the right format, and we understand what is going on around certain targets, what makes it predictable is understanding the metrics and the outputs we are trying to achieve.”

“Fundamentally, why do people need to make data-driven decisions to really explain where they're spending their money, where are they getting their ROI, and then how can they scale it?”

“It all starts with getting all your data organized in one place, then looking at what I am willing to pay to acquire a customer, and then maybe looking at customer lifetime value.”

“The thing to stand out will be a better proposition, a better product, and a better promotion, which is sort of the traditional marketing going around in a full circle.”

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Great content doesn't happen by accident. It's usually a byproduct of refined processes that help teams work together efficiently and effectively. However, planning editorial workflows and implementing content creation processes can be challenging.

Today’s guest is Justin Zimmerman from Salesmsg. Justin talks about how marketing teams can develop and implement editorial workflows and content creation processes to create better content.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Creative Control: Why marketers should create editorial workflows for content
• Four Cs: Collaboration, connection, creative control, and compensation
• Flow State: Focus on the process and the results will show up
• Neurological Map: Goal in world of workflow is to align teams for higher purpose
• State of Enjoyment: You have 3 places you live—work, home, and inside yourself
• Start Right: Avoid potential pitfalls, pain by having workflow process for outcomes
• Lessons Learned: Listen and do something to not repeat the same mistakes
• Continually Improve: You can't have a sense of progress without a process
• Content Team Roles: At minimum—a writer, designer, and project manager
• CoSchedule: Tool that separates chaos from clarity
• Person at the Helm: Make sure work gets done, but it doesn’t mean you do it
• Four Ps: Purpose, people, process, and product
• Context Switch: Too many tools, channels, and notifications lead to distraction
• Complicated vs. Simple: Basic elements of workflow/work management process
• Mistakes Made: Start small, take it slow; workflows are change and require change management

Links:

• Justin Zimmerman on LinkedIn
• Salesmsg
• Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
• Scrum
• Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug
• Jira
• Slack
• The Big Lebowski
• E. Deming
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes from Justin Zimmerman:

“Self-reflection and experience really allow me to look at the word process not as a dirty word, but as a way to align teams.”

“Flow state is, I think, the ultimate outcome of teams working together towards a common goal and feeling that sense of higher purpose.”

“I think words matter because they give an indication of the actions that follow them.”

“Workflow is the way that connects where we are today with the progress and results that we want.”

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Do you believe in the power of personal video in video outreach or do you remain skeptical? If a pitch for something isn’t interesting on its own, how will a video that takes longer to watch than reading a simple email grab your attention and sway your opinion?

Today’s guest is David Jay, founder of Warm Welcome, a personal video platform. Discover the value of video, how video can be used, and its full potential by making business communication that scales and creates personal conversations and human connections.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Use Cases: Supercharge outreach, make website welcoming, improve onboarding flows, lead generation, and sales
• Videos: Personalized versus personal - David describes the differences
• Do’s/Don’ts: How to make a video worth watching to solve someone’s problem
• Mindset: Business is built on trust, and trust is built through relationships
• Instant Video Connection: Talk to humans - nobody wants to talk to chatbots
• Emotion or Information? People buy and sell things online to other people
• Improve ROI: Measure and track customers’ loyalty, evangelism, engagement

Links:

• Warm Welcome
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes from David Jay:

“Video can be personalized or it can just be personal. There’s kind of different directions you can go with it.”

“There's a lot of ways to use video in our business.”

“The first thing not to do is don’t think of it selfishly. Don’t think of it as a way to get what you want. Every sales and marketer, we’re guilty of this.”

“I think business is built on trust, and trust is built through relationships.”

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Audience growth - whether in the context of social media followers, email list, podcast listeners, or YouTube subscribers - whatever the case may be, it's easy to believe that more is always better.

Today’s guest is Matt Johnson, author of MicroFamous: Become Famously Influential to the Right People. Also, Matt is the founder of a podcast PR agency, Pursuing Results, and host of the MicroFamous podcast. He talks about how to be micro-famous with the right people and learn to grow as an influencer within a given niche.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• MicroFamous: Be famously influential, but not to everyone, just the right people
• Focused Approach: Reorient strategy to grow smaller but better following
• Benefits: Expect to drive better results by attracting just the right people
• What People Want: To working with the #1 name that solve their problems
• Who’s the right person? Until you know, you don't know what content to create
• Audiences want clarity and focus; put content into the world without shouting
• Wave of the Future: Know who to talk to, identify correct niche to focus on
• Who are the right people? The most valuable, open-minded, and influential
• First or Only: Uncover clear, compelling idea that appeals to a given audience
• Three Stages of Influence: Get seen, get noticed, and get known
• Practice What You Preach: Share what you do, be featured, build name for self

Links:

• MicroFamous
• Pursuing Results
• MicroFamous Podcast
• Gary Vaynerchuk
• Ryan Deiss at Traffic & Conversion
• Tim Ferriss
• Marc Benioff of Salesforce
• Tony Robbins
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes from Matt Johnson:

“When I go to an industry conference, it's full of my ideal people. I absolutely want everybody there to know who I am. That's really what it means to be MicroFamous.”

“If you're not number one, you're facing an uphill battle.”

“You want to be famously influential, but not to everyone, just to the exact right people.”

“The thing that generated sales was delivering the exact right content that the right people cared deeply about and it resonated with them.”

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If you have a podcast, are you repurposing your content assets across other channels and formats? If not, then you are missing out on opportunities to reach potential listeners and customers.

Today’s guest is Holly Pels, Vice President of Marketing at Casted – a podcast platform for B2B marketers. Holly talks about how and why marketers should turn their podcast into a content creation engine to drive return on investment (ROI).

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• How and why marketers shouldn’t struggle to make the most of their assets
• How to turn things around to better distribute podcast content
• Benefits of sharing and repurposing podcast assets across platforms/channels
• Why marketers should pay attention to podcasting as a channel to use right now
• Experts at everything? Marketers are expert storytellers, not always SMEs
• Marketers fail to maximize assets by creating silos, producing one-off episodes
• Missed Opportunity: Plan to repurpose richer, better, and engaging content
• Repurpose/Repromote: Makes things easier, engaging, saves time, offers insight
• Getting Started:
  • Embed player on blog and website
  • Create certain amount of evergreen social assets
  • Schedule blog posts to highlight podcast content
  • Pull key information rather than listening to full episode

Links:

• Holly Pels on LinkedIn
• Casted
• OpenView
• Lumavate
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes from Holly Pels:

“Podcasting is a channel that is very authentic. It’s two people having a conversation versus what a brand necessarily wants you to hear.”

“Content planning is really important when it comes to podcasting, but this is much richer, better, engaging content than anything.”

“Traffic is great but conversion is better.”

“If it seems to be resonating with our audience, we want to make sure that we’re giving them more.”

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Old school press releases never get much hype. Usually, they are not interesting to write or read. Smart marketers and PR professionals know that well-written press releases are crucial to land press coverage and influencer relationships that build brand awareness and establish companies as the authority in their niche.

Today’s guest is Mickie Kennedy from eReleases, a press release distribution company. Mickie discusses how to get press releases right to get coverage from even the biggest media outlets.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Why have press releases as part of a successful marketing strategy? Leverage
• Strategic/Smart: Craft your news/announcements to do well with press releases
• Same Message: Safe press releases or contrarian quotes are reasons for failure
• Justify Expense: Press releases take time and money to reach their full potential
• People respond to surveys/polls; include odd questions to be picked up by press
• Newsworthy Criteria: When’s the right time to write and send a press release?
• Industry Coverage: Local media is most accessible and easiest media to get
• Improve Odds: Share press release with many people for implied endorsements
• Positive impact? Press releases are worst marketing tool to measure ROI metrics

Links:

• Mickie Kennedy on LinkedIn
• eReleases
• Free Master Class: How to Build a PR Campaign Designed to Get Massive Media Coverage
• Shark Tank Show
• SurveyMonkey
• Google Forms
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes from Mickie Kennedy:

“That leverage, you just can’t capture elsewhere in marketing. That’s the fun thing that you sit back and watch. When it works, it works well.”

“If you can be strategic with what you’re announcing and sort of craft your own news, you can really get out there and do really well with press releases.”

“I love working with startups. About a third of the people that go on Shark Tank use eReleases to announce their segment coming up when it airs.”

“Press releases are the worst marketing tool because it’s hard as heck to measure the ROI.”

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Brands are churning out more content now than ever before. Even though companies are paying more money to create more content to compete in a more crowded space, sometimes content falls flat and does not perform. The content doesn’t build business or drive results, rankings, or traffic. Is it time to prioritize quality over quantity?

Today’s guest is Gaetano DiNardi from Nextiva, a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) software company. Gaetano talks about what can go wrong from publishing too much content without a strategy. He discusses how to balance content quality with content quantity based on personal and professional experience.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Marketing Mistakes: Brands can’t buy ads to become a famous brand
• Common Content Problems:
  • Companies don’t think about distribution
  • Lacks subject matter expertise and authoritativeness
• Compounding Effects: Time, money, and effort spent on quantity over quality
• Content Cleanup: Audit current content to create new optimized, quality content
• Content Considerations:
  • Is the content good or not?
  • Does the content produce leads and signups?
  • Does the content educate and inform audiences?
  • Is content measured to evaluate effectiveness and engagement?
• Content Creation Process and Less is More Strategy:
  • Search Google for every topic before producing content
  • Compare rankings to create better quality, higher relevance, more value
  • Develop cornerstone pillars of content and associated pages to get results

Links:

• Gaetano DiNardi on LinkedIn
• Nextiva
• Monday.com
• Backlinko
• Rand Fishkin
• Salesforce
• HubSpot
• Ahrefs
• Gong
• NerdWallet
• Single Grain
• Leveling Up by Eric Siu
• Marketing Examples
• Saltbae
• Dave Ramsey
• John Barrows
• Peter Schiff
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes from Gaetano DiNardi:

“Companies don’t think about distribution. They just produce.”

“Most content actually lacks expertise, authoritativeness, and it doesn’t always seem like it’s coming from a subject matter expert because oftentimes, it’s not.”

“All this quantity, you have to keep maintaining it, and you have to keep it up to date.”

“These are assets that never die. They live forever if they are good quality.”

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The marketing industry is full of talented people who come from all kinds of educational and professional backgrounds. If you want to get into the industry, but you don’t have a directly relevant college degree or previous work experience, how do you break into marketing to succeed?

Today’s guest is Melissa Berrios from Melissa Berrios Consulting and Virtualmente Libre, where she helps consult six- and seven-figure entrepreneurs on how to grow their brands and audiences. Before being a marketing consultant, Melissa spent 13 years as a project engineer.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Unplanned Accident: How Melissa pivoted from engineering to marketing
• Corporate Roles: Engineers who climb the corporate ladder lose creativity
• Creative Outlets: Melissa got bit by the online world bug and started blogging
• Content Creation: How to run, manage, market, and promote blogs
• Decision Time: Severe depression forced Melissa to take time off and not return
• What can I do? Continue to blog and help clients grow blogs, brands, businesses
• Education: Melissa taught and coached herself marketing to coach clients
• Mindset and Skillset: Engineers are problem-solvers and figure things out
• Customer Service Skills: Marketers need to understand people, as well
• Feel like an imposter? If you are passionate about something, start to pivot

Links:

• Melissa Berrios Consulting
• Melissa Berrios on LinkedIn
• Unstoppable by Kelly Roach
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes from Melissa Berrios:

“I’ve always been a very creative person growing up and even when I was in engineering school, I was involved in a lot of the arts.”

“Working in engineering is something, it could be really a creative job, which it’s fine. But as you climb the corporate ladder and you climb into more of a management role, more of a corporate role, you lose that creativity aspect of engineering.”

“I was creating a lot of content, so content creation was very strong. I became very strong at it just because blogging required me to edit video, create graphics, and do all that stuff. I became really passionate about it.”

“If you really want to pivot and do something that you are really passionate about, you need to start.”

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Traditional public relations (PR) is still one of the most powerful and cost-effective tactics that brands use to get attention and build a business. It may not be the latest and greatest shiny object to chase after, but it is a proven and time-tested option.

Today’s guest is Megan Bennett, CEO of Light Years Ahead. She focuses on managing clients and exceeding their expectations. Megan has helped all kinds of clients get press coverage and measure effectiveness connected to sales and revenue.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Why do PR and media relations still matter? Best bang for marketing buck
• Why should you invest in such tactics? Puts product, brand, message into media
• Challenges: Self-promoting companies and cutting through competition clutter
• Affiliate Program: Incentivize the media to cover your brand, make a commission
• How do you find writers/editors who care? Stay in touch and stay current
• PR Promise: Megan can't guarantee ROI, but can guarantee brand awareness
• Case Study: How KC Cattle Company’s Wigya hot dog broke the Internet
• Don't have money to hire PR agency? Know your audience, subscribe to service
• Next Thing To Do: Write a really good email pitch with compelling subject line
• Maturing Media Relations: Reach Out and don’t take ‘no’ for an answer
• Scrubbing Lists: Target right reporters/editors by beat, geography - Google them
• Be persistent, not annoying or repeatedly pester people who aren’t a good target
• Keep pushing and sending pitches for more coverage from relevant targets
• How to write a pitch: Identify story and angle, then tailor it to your media contact
• PR Pressure: If hiring an agency, consider chemistry and feeling comfortable

Links:

• Megan Bennett on LinkedIn
• Light Years Ahead
• KC Cattle Company
• Wagyu Bacon Cheeseburger Bratwursts Have Arrived, and They're a Revelation
• Muck Rack
• Meltwater
• Cision
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes from Megan Bennett:

“Once you get one good media hit, it helps to build brand awareness, so that consumers know about you.”

“You have to find a way to make your brand stand out from the rest when you're telling a story to the media.”

“Keep shopping around until you find people that you feel are really going to be passionate about your brand and want to help grow with you, not just take your money.”

“Find ways to spread the word because that’s what’s going to give your brand the credibility to move forward is the public relations and the media reviews.”

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How can marketers leverage social media to influence search engine optimization (SEO) and boost their content? Social media does and does not influence organic search performance for content.

Today’s guest is Dmitry Dragilev is a public relations (PR) and SEO expert from Criminally Prolific. Dmitry talks about what he knows based on what Google does, what works in the industry, and what works for himself and his clients. He describes how to leverage social media to drive short- and long-term SEO gains and amplify your content through channels.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Remember: Social signals are not used by Google for ranking purposes
• Why? Too much volume/information to go through; Google can’t index everything
• What ranks? Getting your brand reputation and recognition on social media
• Google indexes social media content when assets are used to share information
• Simple Idea: Get people to share content w/ other people to find and link to it
• No Shortcuts: Google always keeps quality content at the top of search results
• Relationship Building: Help people bring value to people, then they will help you
• Two Things: To rank on Google, your need epic content with links and traffic

Links:

• Dmitry Dragilev on LinkedIn
• Dmitry Dragilev on Twitter
• Criminally Prolific
• PR That Converts Course
• StoreYa
• Best Alternative to WordStream
• Nextiva - Most Reliable VoIP Provider?
• Matt Cutts
• Matthew Woodward - Unhealthiest Foods
• Inspiyr
• How Many Users Does Clubhouse Have? 40+ Clubhouse Stats
• HubSpot
• Andrew Warner
• Nigel Stevens
• Google Page Insights
• Ahrefs
• How To Drive 10x More Traffic With This SEO Technique From Brian Dean Of Backlinko [AMP082]
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes from Dmitry Dragilev:

“Social signals are not used by Google for ranking purposes. I think that's really important to remember. If you are trying to think about that or trying to rank that Google will not use those social signals to rank you.”

“Your brand reputation, your brand recognition, and getting that out there via social media do indirectly impact your rankings.”

“Those assets, which are going to be linked to from many different pages, many different sites, and used in all these different posts, that's where I think the gold mine really lies with sharing information on social that people can use in all sorts of different avenues.”

“The name of the game should be spending time and money to create quality, engaging content. I think that is worth every penny. Whether it works well on social media or organically, it should probably be both.”

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Are you frustrated being on an in-house marketing team working with external agencies? And vice versa? Client and agency relationships can turn sour for several different reasons, such as unreasonable expectations, misaligned objectives, overselling capabilities, or poor communication of needs.

Today’s guest is Tyler Elliston, founder of Right Side Up. Tyler talks about how his company is structured to set up client relationships for mutual success using basic philosophical and strategic approaches. Actual measures and practical guidance can prevent and avoid problems from starting in the first place.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Right Side Up: What goes wrong and what should be done
• Both Sides: Tyler was a marketer and one of those difficult clients to work with
• Differentiators: Pricing, in-house staffing support, and indexing individual talent
• Wrong Workarounds: Use agencies as transactional vendors, hire/fire managers
• Control and Commitment: Lack of ownership mentality and product/market fit
• Radical Transparency: Figuring out frustration and honest about what’s needed
• Challenges: Starting business and building systems without sacrificing quality
• Solution: Hire great people to help solve problems and scale business
• Structure: If not aligned with client’s desires/interests, it’s not the individual’s fault
• Customer Satisfaction: Apply client mindset and treat business as if it’s your own
• Difficult to deal with?
  • Apply high standards
  • Set clear expectations
  • Deliver on and strive to exceed them
  • Treat people like people

Links:

• Tyler Elliston on LinkedIn
• Right Side Up
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes from Tyler Elliston:

“Ultimately, our goal is to help them build a best-in-class organization that consists of full-time people, agencies (not us - Right Side Up), whatever sort of makes sense for their business. So, we try to take a more kind of holistic approach to their success.”

“We really index on individual talent. We really believe that great marketing comes from great marketers.”

“I felt like I had relatively little control over the talent I was working with.”

“In a lot of cases, the problem is not the person. A lot of times, the problem is the structure that the person is in.”

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Diversity, equity, and inclusion, or the ‘DEI’ initiatives, have received increased attention for a wide variety of reasons. How and why should marketing leaders and teams implement effective DEI programs and strategies? The consequences for not understanding what DEI means does matter.

Today’s guest is Jimi Vaughn, a DEI consultant and expert. He talks about making a case for DEI by aiming for both the head and the heart of organizations’ decision makers and internal stakeholders.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• DEI: Diversity is state of things; Equity is fair treatment; Inclusion is belonging
• DEI Strategy: Communication and connecting with audience about business
• Bottom Line: Understand the $3.9-trillion buying power of minority groups
• Dismissing DEI: Incorrect belief of discrimination, exclusion is hatred, intention
• Default Assumption: Everyone’s norm is the same or close enough to yours
• Reality: We’re more alike than different, but we still have significant differences
• Decisions: Embrace, celebrate, recognize, understand, and realize impact
• Cultural Values: Who and how we value different people in different stages of life
• Resistant to change? Start the conversation to build a fact-based case
• Starting Steps for DEI Strategy:
  • Look internally at team to determine if and why perspectives are missing
  • Listen and engage by cultivating collaborative environment to contribute
  • Tie actions back to purpose and know the why to make better choices
  • Establish key performance indicators, benchmarks to measure success
• Cancel Culture:
  • Hold people accountable
  • Audience demands better
  • Recognize buying power
  • Key analytics tell a story
  • Utilize feedback and evidence

Links:

• Jimi Vaughn on Instagram
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes from Jimi Vaughn:

“When I talk about diversity, I’m really referencing the traits and characteristics that makes us all unique.”

“Equity is really about fair treatment, where equality is about the same treatment. Sometimes, equality isn’t necessarily fair.”

“I do believe that there’s an ethical responsibility for organizations and marketers and basically any business to be thinking about these types of things.”

“It would be foolish to not understand the buying power of minority groups.”

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How can smaller companies compete against bigger businesses? Agile marketing is a methodology that helps companies work more efficiently and effectively to produce better outcomes.

Today’s guest is Andrea Fryrear from AgileSherpas, an agile marketing consultancy. Andrea talks about how companies can leverage limited resources the right way by having a plan and path to follow and drive outsized outcomes.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• What is agile marketing? Focus on ideal customers to get value to them faster
• Key Benefits: Customer centricity and niche down for market share
• Starting Point: Get back to basics to identify and prioritize high-value work
• Dynamic Visibility: Take time to figure out and manage what’s important or not
• Disciplined Process: Set work-in-progress limits to avoid shiny object syndrome
• Generate Results: Get more done by doing less to accomplish goals
• Baseline: Implement agile to measure process improvements, marketing metrics
• Potential Problems: Lack of understanding, misconceptions of agility + marketing

Links:

• Andrea Fryrear on LinkedIn
• AgileSherpas
• 4th Annual State of Agile Marketing Report
• Spotify
• American Psychological Association
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes from Andrea Fryrear:

“If it’s not getting you anywhere, then that speed is just waste. It’s wasted energy.”

“Agile does all of its optimization and its speed and its waste reduction to deliver value to a customer faster.”

“What do we need in order to effectively identify the high-value work and prioritize the high-value work? We need to know everything that’s out there. Everything we are doing compared with everything we could be doing.”

“Agile is meant to apply holistically across all the work that a team does.”

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Are you a hiring manager responsible for building a marketing team? An internship program should not be an afterthought. Take the time to select candidates and support interns effectively to be productive team members and get a good start on their career.

Today’s guest is Owen Piehl, CoSchedule intern, who shares insights about how to get an internship for a specific role with limited experience. Owen talks about what college students and hiring managers need to know to make marketing internships successful.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Why CoSchedule? Company’s marketing mission, culture, values, and content
• Company Research: Is it what you want to do? Submit application, interview prep
• Skills: Highlight strengths, not weaknesses to workaround lack of experience
• Other Opportunities: Networking led to Congress and newspaper connections
• High Standards: Learn to accept edits and feedback; don’t take it personally
• Fear of Failure: Believe in abilities/skills and go for things to make them happen
• Right Decision: Do what’s right, build trust, allow room to make mistakes, grow
• Onboarding: Broad overview to gain understanding of role and responsibilities

Links:

• Owen Piehl on LinkedIn
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes:

“I started out as the social media intern. That’s what I got hired on as with little social media experience, I might add, and then now I’ve made the transfer over to the content editor intern.” Owen Piehl

“I was looking for something where I could get into marketing a little bit, learn a little more about just how marketing teams work. As I was researching, I saw a few openings for CoSchedule, and I did some research on the company.” Owen Piehl

“(Owen) You chose to focus on how your skills fit the role, rather than how your experience fit the description.” Ben Sailer

“Ask yourself what skills you have right now that might transfer. Combine that with a dedication to never stop learning, and you just might surprise yourself with what you can achieve.” Ben Sailer

“One thing I really appreciate about CoSchedule is it’s very results oriented.” Owen Piehl

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Data and thought leadership are two things that work better together, especially in public relations and content marketing.

Today’s guest is Amy Littleton, Executive Vice President of Public Relations and Content at KemperLesnik. Amy talks about how to make thought leadership more accurate and authoritative to land massive PR wins. She knows what it takes to use data-backed insights to tell stories that earn media attention.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Thought Leadership: Common reasons it fails and doesn’t produce results
• Good and Bad News: Search for and find information that is right, not wrong
• Authenticity and Credibility: Marketing agenda vs. thoughtful data-driven advisory
• Proof Points: Always better to have examples and information you need to know
• Research Resources: Surveys are simple to complex and everything in between
• Content Length: Consumed on multiple channels, equipment, and platforms
• Curiosity: Gives info to get customers to care, explore new things, drive results
• Inputs In/Out: Fill your brain to produce better ideas and make better decisions

Links:

• Amy Littleton on LinkedIn
• KemperLesnik
• LinkedIn Polls
• SurveyMonkey
• Omnibus Survey
• The Harris Poll
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes from Amy Littleton:

“Even the way that we search for news and information in our personal lives, in business, you’re looking for news and information, and you can get that from multiple sources.”

“The first thing you would do is lose trust with your audience if you put out crappy content. You’re not going to get people to want to come back to you for information if the information you put out is really a marketing piece disguised as thought leadership.”

“Data can come from anywhere. I think your own curated data, third-party data, information that you’ve found that is already publicly available, and any combination of that, can help you to inform a thought leadership piece.”

“It’s about credibility. You want your piece to have credibility.”

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How ethical is your marketing practice? Imagine describing your job to your best non-marketing friend. What’s your response if they think your work is ethically gray or morally suspect?

Today’s guest is Robin Cangie from The Empowered Freelancer. Robin talks about how to do work that’s radically effective and ethical, where marketers avoid ethical shortcuts by focusing on work that is genuinely helpful for leads, prospects, and customers.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• The Empowered Freelancer: Real, raw talk about being self-employed
• Radically Ethical Marketing: Honesty, transparency, and genuine helpfulness
• What isn’t radically ethical?
  • Retargeting ads without permission from customers
  • Copy designed to deceive rather than inform
  • Goal is to get users to convert rather than help them see product value
• Why should marketers choose tactics or structure strategy? Right thing to do
• Quit or speak up? Figure out your threshold, values, and what you can do
• What is a smart way to do good and better without the approach backfiring?
• Marketers/Leaders: Think about how negative perceptions harm the business
• Valid but Risky: Raising ethical concerns takes a tremendous amount of courage
• Beloved Brands: Wonderful products/services and messaging tone aligns values

Links:

• Robin Cangie on LinkedIn
• The Empowered Freelancer
• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
• California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes from Robin Cangie:

“Radically Ethical Marketing is simply marketing that puts honesty, transparency, and genuine helpfulness at its center.”

“People are becoming more wise to ways that marketers try to manipulate their perceptions, use their data to get them to buy as much stuff as possible.”

“Being radically ethical is a more sustainable long-term choice.”

“Truth be told, it was a matter of needing to look in the mirror every morning and feel good about the work that I was doing. That is something that’s very important to me.”

“You may have more power than you realize to effect change.”

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As a marketer, do you need to create content that applies insights derived from data and research? If so, pay attention to the right data and apply it the right way to produce the most effective work possible.

Today’s guest is Anastasia Leng from CreativeX. She talks about where marketers get misled with data and how to merge data and creativity to create content that connects with customers.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Data-backed Content: Objective way to understand what’s in each content piece
• Performance: After putting piece of content out, what has happened as a result?
• Views/Variables: Marketers should move away from biases and assumptions
• Trust gut or data? Marketers want to be right; get comfortable with being wrong
• CreativeX’s Mission: Enhance and elevate creativity expression through data
• Consistent Content: Number of clicks vs. what reflects brand and audience
• Best Practices: Creative quality and distinctive brand assets to increase sales
• Cheat Sheet for Content:
  • What should your definition of creative quality incorporate?
  • Brand right away; marketers have 2-3 seconds to make impression
  • Don’t waste money by running same piece of content across channels
  • Get around brevities

Links:

• Anastasia Leng on LinkedIn
• CreativeX
• Think with Google
• Distinctive Brand Assets by Jenni Romaniuk
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes from Anastasia Leng:

“It’s really about having a common language for evaluating every piece of content that we create.”

“Understand what is the long-term metric that really matters, and how can you start to get creative and whatever that KPI is closer together so you can understand the relationship and the journey these two things take together.”

“Analyze content more objectively so that we’re not letting our own biases drive our understanding of what is working and what is not working in our content strategy.”

“If you’re not even aware of these things, how can you truly be a good marketer? How can you truly put out great content if you’re not actually able to really look deeply within it?”

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Too often, content marketing strategies follow one of two paths: Keyword driven or driven based on what the writer thinks makes an interesting topic. The path to success is somewhere in between those two strategies.

Today’s guest is Brad Smith from Wordable, Codeless, and uSERP. He talks about how to create data-backed and ROI-driven content strategies that blend both approaches for maximum results.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Problems: Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) are incredibly competitive
• Affiliate Space: 70% of revenue comes from two or three keywords
• Temporary Approach: Create great content to find an audience
• Referral Traffic: Completely relying on what other people find interesting
• Ads: Companies turn to other channels that are less profitable, more competitive
• Game Plan: What components/expectations will move content and keywords?
• Marketers don’t need more or better ideas—but test and execute them better
• Decision-Making Process: Do it or be grounded in reality to produce best results
• Wordable: Format, optimize, upload, and publish content in minutes for clients

Links:

• Brad Smith on LinkedIn
• Wordable
• Codeless
• uSERP
• Seth Godin
• HubSpot
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes from Brad Smith:

“If you’re relatively small, relatively new, not well-funded, don’t have a name for yourself or brand yet, that kind of excludes like 70 percent of the good stuff from a keyword perspective that you’d want to write for, ultimately, that’s going to bring in ROI.”

“When you’re following this method of let’s just create ‘good’ content, you’re completely 100 percent relying on what other people find interesting.”

“Social things are going to be a lot more beneficial shorter term. Over the long term, it’s just about scale.”

“The whole ranking thing is like the chicken and the egg. I can’t rank for big keywords until I’m big, but I’m not going to be big until I rank for some keywords.”

“Marketers don’t need more ideas. They don’t need better ideas. They just need to execute better, and executing better comes from processes and boring systems and operations.”

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CoSchedule started as an editorial calendar WordPress plugin created by an agency that co-founders, Garrett Moon and Justin Walsh, ran called Todaymade. Since then, CoSchedule has grown. Not only has the core content calendar gone through a lot of changes, but so has the company.

Today’s guest is Nathan Ellering, Head of Marketing at CoSchedule, which now offers multiple different product lines under one brand name. Nathan explains how CoSchedule made pivots and tackled some risks and challenges. His advice will help you navigate from being one company that makes one product and expand to one company that makes four products.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Product Positioning: How to funnel people in and say the right things
• Marketing Automation: Where to build out those funnels and nurture people
• Marketing Design: Make sure everything published is visually built and modern
• Customer Service: Incorporate customer service much more with marketing
• History of CoSchedule: How core marketing calendar software evolved
• Company Philosophy: Start where you're at with a smaller test product
• Marketing Work Management Software: Organize everything in one place
• Content Calendars: Meet deadlines and manage work effectively, efficiently
• Agile Marketing Tools: Hire product to finish work, deliver projects, prove value
• Current Products: Marketing Calendar/Suite, Headline Analyzer, Headline Studio
• Academy: Marketing education platform for marketers to understand, build skills
• Mission Statement: CoSchedule wants to help every marketer do amazing work
• CoSchedule Experience: Get the right messaging to get them into a product
• True Tenants of Agile: Where to ship, measure, learn, iterate, and begin
• Testing Culture: Launch something new with other people’s market research

Links:

• Headline Analyzer
• Headline Studio
• Marketing Calendar
• Marketing Suite
• CoSchedule Academy
• Marketing Strategy Guide
• Nathan Ellering on LinkedIn
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes from Nathan Ellering:

“We're aiming to create experiences that help out people who really are being marketed to...from a customer service perspective. That's been really fun so far.”

”We were working a lot with bloggers and we discovered many years ago that marketers are starting to turn to blogging as a great way to do content marketing.”

“We identified the need that they had to just organize everything in one place. We say those words all the time. They really resonate with people.”

“We want every experience at CoSchedule to be a positive one and one that lasts a lifetime of you being a marketer.”

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Why are marketers good at content production, but not so great at content distribution? They are judged based on how much work they get done, rather than the actual results that they produce. Also, content promotion with traditional channels is harder to do.

Today’s guest is Jonathan Gandolf from The Juice. He talks about a better way for content marketers to produce and distribute value. Curation is actually more powerful than creation.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• The Juice: A startup that aspires to be the Spotify of B2B content
• Beta Program: Marketers distribute curated content and consumers discover it
• Content Distribution: Same channels, same audience equals diminishing returns
• Keyword Salad: Who are we creating content for? Algorithms or humans?
• Talk to Consumers: Understand why quality content is not producing returns
• The Right Content: Prospects want solutions to problems, not more content
• B2B Buyer’s Journey: Map out funnel and map content to it
• Down the Drain: 59% content isn’t read, 23% budget applied to content creation
• Forms: Don’t expect good things from content consumers with such deliverables
• Safe Space: Create platform to be anonymous, no contact, or generate leads
• Marketers: Slow down and curate content for consumers at right time and place

Links:

• The Juice
• Jonathan Gandolf on LinkedIn
• Jonathan Gandolf on Twitter
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes from Jonathan Gandolf:

”What ends up happening is we create really compelling content, but then we end up going to the same channels and the same audience over and over and over again.”

“You hit this law of diminishing returns. You’re getting less returns out of that same audience. The only way to get more returns is to create more content. You end up on this hamster wheel of content creation.”

“Nobody, right now, is looking for more content. They’re just looking for the right content.”

“Curation is actually more powerful than creation.”

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Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT-3) and artificial intelligence (AI) first made their way into the marketing industry last year. There's been a lot of talk about whether or not robots will take over content marketers’ jobs. Probably not, as long as they’re doing quality work. Machines like a degree of certainty.

Today’s guest is Jeff Coyle, co-founder and chief strategy officer at MarketMuse, an AI-driven content planning and strategy platform. He knows how AI is and will affect content marketing by making our jobs easier and our work better. What do content marketers need to know to prepare for the inevitable future?

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Horizon Scanning: What are we going to be doing a year from now?
• MarketMuse: Sets the standards for content quality by investing in clients
• Hype Cycle: AI’s influence on writers’ jobs isn’t going away, but ramping up
• MarketMuse’s Mission: Improve content quality on the Internet
• Content: AI is making writers more efficient and giving more time to be creative
• Cost of Content: Two-order disconnect to value and revenue
• AI: Takes guesswork out of things that drive anxiety, figures out quick wins
• Stage One: Experts have blind spots and forget stuff
• Stage Two: Create content briefs
• Stage Three: Insight is personalized prioritization of content
• AI Branches: Natural language processing provides insights and editing lens
• Competitive Analysis: Publish page on concept, don’t copy or make good enough
• What comprehensiveness means? Creating dice-roll content by copying others
• Wisdom: Knowing what was regurgitated, commonly used, and SME aspects
• Correlation Hangover: Susceptible to competitive risk
• Content Efficiency: Do you know it? Document processes, post-publish tuning

Links:

• Jeff Coyle on LinkedIn
• Jeff Coyle on Twitter
• Jeff Coyle’s Email
• MarketMuse
• Grammarly
• Hemingway
• Amazon Echo
• Copyscape
• Garrett Moon on LinkedIn
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes from Jeff Coyle:

”Focus on the client and focus on our audience, even if they're not clients. How can they ensure that they're getting the most out of their investments in content?”

“The various aspects of artificial intelligence that influence writers’ jobs isn’t going away. It's only going to ramp up. But is it coming for their jobs? Not really.”

“Content already in many businesses has a two-order disconnect to value and revenue. Some people don't have the real value of content. They don't understand the true cost of content. They don't understand how it connects directly to revenue.”

“That's what AI can do. It can figure out those quick wins versus those infrastructure pieces, versus those risk avoidance pieces. It can actually help to define why you're writing.”

“if you go copy those people, you're sorely mistaken. That is one of the biggest pitfalls, and one of the biggest misconceptions of search engine optimization.”

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Some marketers have side hustles to learn new skills, explore their passion projects, and make a little extra cash. Are you a marketer struggling to overcome challenges to be successful outside of your day job?

Today’s guest is John Bonini of Databox, a business analytics platform, and his side hustle, Some Good Content, a subscription-based marketing education product. John offers advice on how to find balance and avoid burnout with content marketing.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Why start a side hustle? Two reasons:
  • Passionate about a specific subject and can’t not talk about it
  • Accelerates learning by creating content and building a community
• Why you shouldn’t start a side hustle: Motivated to get rich quick, make money
• Some Good Content: Advice, education, training should be helpful, not general
• Content Marketers: Expectations over their heads to drive traffic, generate leads
• Launch to Learn: Do something to get started, solicit feedback, feel productive
• Emotional Experience: Short-term setbacks and long-term mindset for side jobs
• Busy Work: Start quickly and don’t doubt yourself or get lost in the details
• Side Hustle Scope: Growth goals vs. supplemental time and money boundaries

Links:

• John Bonini on LinkedIn
• Databox
• Some Good Content
• The 7 Day Startup: You Don't Learn Until You Launch by Dan Norris
• HubSpot
• Drip
• G2
• Help Scout
• Animalz
• Gong
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes from John Bonini:

“You really enjoy and/or are passionate about a specific subject and you can’t not talk about it.”

“You get to play founder with none of the risk.”

“Most content advice, most content education, most content training is often too general to be helpful.”

“I just saw this gap between people wanting to get better at content and the content out there not really existing to help them do that.”

“When you start to get lost in those thoughts of, ‘I don’t know if this is viable,’ what you end up doing is, you start defaulting to busy work.”

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When you’re in a leadership position, sometimes it’s hard to know who to ask or where to look when you need answers to questions and solutions to problems—especially because others expect you to have all the answers and solutions.

Today’s guest is Simon Berg, CEO at Ceros, an experiential content creation platform that empowers marketers and designers to create engaging, interactive, and immersive content experiences. Simon talks about what to do when forced to use your own critical-thinking and problem-solving skills instead of a paint-by-numbers playbook. Creativity matters!

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• COVID vs. Conventional Wisdom: Layoff people during global catastrophe?
• 2020: Incredibly difficult year of suffering, fear, desperation, anxiety, uncertainty
• Real Life: Other feelings of presence, pause, introspection, reflection, unity
• Adversity and Constraint: Ceros chooses opportunity for growth and creativity
• Big Deal: Happy Birthday, Mr. Berg; time to get drunk because the deal is dead
• Creativity in Captivity: Takes transparency, compassion, doubt, experiences
• Survive and Thrive: Commit to not touch salaries/jobs, if you support each other
• Best Year Ever: Build confidence and grow by believing in yourself and others
• Advice to Leaders: Stop looking in the book, instead look up and in front of you
• I can’t…What can you do? Only thing that you can truly control is yourself
• Reminder: Opportunities and problems are never easy, but hard to do
• Leadership Playbook Police: Break free from constraints by reframing goals

Links:

• Simon Berg on LinkedIn
• Ceros
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes from Simon Berg:

“There’s a lot of feelings involved. Feelings of the people that you lead, and feelings as the leader.”

“I attempted to lead through, predominantly authenticity, being authentically myself, and then also, trying very hard to make sure that I was at the right time in the right ways leading through vulnerability.”

“Every single person in a position of leadership, or otherwise, is a human being, and human beings are fundamentally flawed.”

“Step forward and fight for what I believe made sense and have the courage to do the difficult thing.”

“You won’t find a chapter that says, ‘how to run a company in a global pandemic with civil unrest, economic crisis, and an insane president. It’s not in the book.”

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Data problems are probably lurking somewhere inside of your marketing stack. Don’t freak out, just yet. Most analytics packages and marketing software services that deal with data have some gaps or inaccuracies.

Today’s guest is Dan McGaw, CEO and founder of McGaw.io, a marketing technology and marketing analytics consulting company. Dan talks about how to make better marketing decisions—identify and fix deeper issues to avoid data disasters. He explains everything you need to know to keep your data clean and metrics moving.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Why is data cleanliness important? Analytics + Bad Data = Bad Decisions
• Directional: Data is not meant to be perfect, the goal is to grow and take action
• Data Spectrums: Everybody has unreliable data—how bad is it?
• Marketing Stacks: Different problems stem from data issues
• Taxonomy: Common problem is not having consistent or connecting names
• Be Intentional: Set up and configure marketing tech, or set yourself up for failure
• Audit: You know there’s a problem, but you don’t know what it is, where to begin
• Solution: Plan and be more proactive by understanding how data flows in
• Best Practices: Urchin tracking parameters (UTM) are culprits of bad data
• How to Build Cool Sh*t: Take it slow, take your time, don’t try to rush projects

Links:

• Dan McGaw on LinkedIn
• Mcgaw.io
• McGaw.io Downloads and Resources
• How to Build Cool Sh*t by Dan McGaw
• UTM.io
• KissMetrics
• Pluralsight - Code School
• BrowserStack
• Segment
• Tag Inspector
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes from Dan McGaw:

“If you have analytics and your analytics have bad data that means your analytics are wrong, which means that you’re naturally going to be making bad decisions.”

“Companies that are typically growing the fastest, are the ones who are less focused on definitive and more focused on how do we get directional data that’s going to tell us which way is growth and let’s start moving and let’s make action.”

“If you take the quality time to do taxonomy right, you see really, really good outcomes. Trying to make sure that taxonomy works across the stack I think is where you get the best outcomes, as well.”

“The best way to audit is really to build good rigor around your analytics, understand how that data flows in, and use the auditing tools to be able to do that.”

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How does design happen, and how do designers and marketers collaborate? As a common courtesy, provide details to get more work done better and faster. CoSchedule is consistently committed to quality design and creative output.

Today’s guest is Tim Walker, visual designer at CoSchedule. Tim talks about how he infuses brand with individual style that is distinctly CoSchedule. Discover how to replicate CoSchedule’s processes and philosophies.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Onboarding: Intimidating, exciting, and challenging to integrate individual style
• Standards and Guidelines: Set and define them to have fun within them
• Design Playground: Time and place to test new ideas, styles, and color palettes
• Collaboration Challenge: Communicate clearly about team/department needs
• What Works, What Doesn’t: Specificity, purpose vs. vagueness, no direction
• Intent: Good design doesn’t happen by accident, it takes thoughtful planning
• Investment: Don’t cut corners—good aesthetics authenticate your brand
• Inspiration: Collect designs from Pinterest, Dribble, Ehance, and Instagram

Links:

• Tim Walker on LinkedIn
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes from Tim Walker:

“Every designer has their own style. A lot of designers can do a lot of things, but I think each designer kind of has their own unique kind of signature. Integrating that into the brand, that’s always a fun little challenge.”

“It’s really important to kind of have those standards set in place and well-defined, and then you can kind of have some fun within those. It was enjoyable to try to meld my own style with the existing guidelines.”

“Everyone’s really great at communicating exactly what they need from design and the purpose of the design, too, and what we’re trying to achieve with it.”

“If you have valuable content to share, why not give it some great clothes to wear?”

“Humans are visual creatures. When we see images, our brains store the details verbally and visually. If you want people to pay attention to your content, and recognize your brand, or buy your product, share your posts, you need to have strong design or you’ll be forgotten and ignored.”

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In a single sentence, describe your ideal customer. Where do they hang out online? What are their biggest problems? How often do you talk to them? Don’t rely on assumptions. Consciously focus on your customers by creating content that serves their needs and beats the competition.

Today’s guest is Shondell Varcianna from Varci Media, a content writing company for financial institutions, about how to get to know your audience. She shares effective and easy-to-follow advice to improve audience research without extra time and resources.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Reach Real Customers: You can’t offer something to someone you don’t know
• Real Problems: Sell your product or service as a solution for your customers
• Relationships: Are you the right person to serve your audience at highest level?
• Recommendations: Know who to target, where they are, and what they want
• Website Content: Match with searched keywords and make it resonate
• Communities: Wherever your target audience is, is where you want to be
• Ask Audience for Answers: What do you do for fun? Where do you hang out?
• Social Media Connections: Meet strangers and don’t take ‘no’ personally
• Know, Like, and Trust: Offer consistent content that informs, educates, inspires
• Content Strategy: Videos, podcasts, posts—get creative when creating content
• Authenticity: Where it all begins to get your audience what they (and you) want

Links:

• Shondell Varcianna on LinkedIn
• Varci Media
• Facebook Groups
• LinkedIn Sales Navigator
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes from Shondell Varcianna:

“If I know of you, but I don’t know you, how can I offer you anything because I don’t really know what you want.”

“Wherever your target audience is, is where you want to be. You’ll have to find out where they are, and then you just need to show up where they are, consistently.”

“Everyone is accessible on social media. Everybody. I connect with strangers every single day on social media.”

“Content that speaks to everyone is content that speaks to no one.”

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High-profile data breaches at big-name companies have become an all-too-common pitfall that creates negative press. Marketers need to protect their company and customers by knowing how to prevent a cybersecurity attack or security lapse.

Today’s guest is Gary S. Chan from Alfizo Security Solutions. Gary is a cybersecurity expert and helps organizations make sure software and systems are safe and secure. Avoid being the next victim and consider the cost of inaction.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Why should marketers care about cybersecurity? To stay safe and do a better job
• Best Practices: Proper messaging, deliverability, and documentation gets clients
• Settings: Configure SPF and other security options for recipients to receive email
• Security Defense: Stop bad things from happening to you and your customers
• Remote Security: Technical services and tools to prevent serious problems
• Privacy Policies: Read terms and conditions to understand intended use of data
• Repeatable Software: Always use what others use, not something unfamiliar
• Security Certifications: ISO/IEC 27001 and Soc 2; clarify certifications
• Free Software: Money is being made somehow, so make sure it’s secure
• Collaborative Communication: Increase understanding and measure success
• Risks and Consequences: Takes only one event to close business, cause chaos
• Security Benefits: Leverage good security hygiene for peace of mind
• Google not only ranks content, but offers higher rating for better Website security
• Advice for Marketers: Follow guidance, use strong passwords, report suspicious activity, and attend security training

Links:

• Gary S. Chan on LinkedIn
• Alfizo Security Solutions
• Security Awareness Training
• ISO/IEC 27001 Certification
• Soc 2 Certification
• CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes from Gary S. Chan:

“I help businesses improve their sales, meet compliance, and stay safe.”

“Larger clients tend to care about buying from companies with good security.”

“If you don’t configure things properly, a lot of your emails will go to Spam boxes, which means that your recipients don’t read them.”

“You’re going to lose customer data, you’re going to lose intellectual property, you’re going to lose time, you’re going to lose money, and you’re going to lose some of your reputation.”

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Are you familiar with the dark mode? About 92% of those with smartphones use dark mode on at least one app. The increased use of dark mode with various email services and clients present challenges. How do email marketers make sure that emails are easy to read in dark mode?

Today’s guest is Melissa Sargeant, Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) at Litmus, a well-known email marketing software company. She explains exactly why dark mode matters for marketers, and what they can do to make sure their emails look their best. Melissa provides insights into why this is important for marketers to understand, test, and optimize.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• App Developers: Dark mode makes type and visuals lighter on dark backgrounds
• Functional Trend: People use dark mode to read content; easier on their eyes
• Benefits: Reduce screen brightness to preserve battery; accessibility preference
• Email Clients: Apple, Samsung, Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo offer dark mode
• Problems: Prioritize dark mode for subscriber preference, different email clients
• Cost: Sending email versus potential cost of not optimizing email to be visible
• Tips and Tricks: Settings, assets, code, examples, and guide to dark mode
• Do More with Less: Build, test, and analyze emails, then send them for review
• Email Analytics/Insights: It doesn't end with send; use data to make better email
• Test every email, every time to deliver an experience that exceeds expectations

Links:

• Melissa Sargeant on LinkedIn
• Litmus
• Litmus Blog
• The Ultimate Guide to Dark Mode for Email Marketers
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes from Melissa Sargeant:

“The reason why a lot of people are viewing things in dark mode—we talk a lot in email marketing about accessibility to your emails—for some folks, it's just easier on their eyes. It’s an easier way for them to read content.”

“We think about email as a channel. It’s truly this one-to-one connection that you have with your subscribers. If they are showing a preference for how they want to view their content, it's a good idea to honor that and respect that and do the best you can to deliver them their content the way they want to read it.”

“If you are using an email optimization platform, you can do all this building and testing across all these devices and ensure end clients that when that email goes out the door, you'll know with certainty that people who are viewing in dark mode are able to view it in dark mode.”

“Efficiency and the email workflow process is super important.”

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What does it take to write a great headline? A simple, yet effective tool that makes marketers more confident when writing headlines. Take the guesswork out of improving headlines.

Today’s guest is LaRissa Hendricks from CoSchedule’s product marketing team. She introduces Headline Studio, CoSchedule’s new premium headline testing platform that takes your headline writing to the next level.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Differences between CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer and Headline Studio
• Headline Data: Leads to more engagement, traffic, clicks, higher rankings
• Challenge: Know what to write to get people’s attention, click to read content?
• Familiar and New Features/Functions:
  • Word/character count
  • Headline feedback and suggestions
  • History of past headlines
  • Headline and SEO scores
  • Word banks (power, emotional, common, and uncommon)
  • Full thesaurus
  • Free browser extension
  • Search competition

Links:

• CoSchedule’s Headline Studio
• CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer
• LaRissa Hendricks on LinkedIn
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes from LaRissa Hendricks:

“Writing headlines can feel very vague.”

“How are you even supposed to know what to write for your headline? How are you supposed to know what’s actually going to catch people’s attention? What’s actually going to make them click and read your content? That’s a huge challenge.”

“With over four million headlines, we have a very good idea of what works and what doesn’t.”

“Headline Studio is like a super fun playground for your headlines.”

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What's the problem with doing what everybody else is doing? Marketers are expected to come up with something wildly innovative or creative. Dare to be different and get unstuck by presenting interesting or authentic ideas in a meaningful way.

Today’s guest is Mike Poznansky, founder and managing partner at Neato—a full-service marketing agency that helps brands connect with young audiences, including college students and Gen Z. Mike explains how to break out of a rut and do work that reflects you and your brand. What makes you uniquely valuable, instead of someone simply following the leader of the pack?

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Neato: Uncovers insights, develops strategies, and creates marketing programs
• Turnkey Tactics: Marketers observe how successful brands market themselves
• Thoughtful: Put time, energy, and effort into effectively identifying ‘why’ or ‘how’
• Copy-and-Paste Marketing: Don’t expect the same results by mimicking tactics
• College Culture: People's needs, pain points, aspirations are always changing
• Human-Centered Approach: Understand brand, organization, accomplishments
• Iterative Process: People on the ground and prototypes represent audiences
• Authenticity: Be yourself, know who you are, what resources/assets are available
• Failures: Try to do something for the sake of evolving and learning

Links:

• Mike Poznansky on LinkedIn
• Neato
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes from Mike Poznansky:

“Prototype it, and then get out there and try stuff, and show up. Be a part of that experience or that event, and see how people respond, and talk to people afterwards. Then, refine it. It's an iterative process.”

“Everyone acknowledges in some capacity, the need to build a genuine and meaningful relationship with the segment in order to get them to care about your brand. It's critical for brands to show up in an authentic way.”

“Stay invested, stay involved, continue to refine that approach, continue to learn, continue to listen to your segment, assess the results, and figure out how you can improve and make it better.”

“Fear of failure or fear of sounding stupid or uninformed, those are real creativity killers in businesses and in the agency-client dynamics.”

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How do marketers bring customers back to maximize revenue? Loyalty programs build customer devotion and retention by incentivizing repeat business. Buying becomes a habit.

Today’s guest is Matt Baglia, co-founder and CEO of SlickText, an SMS marketing platform. If a loyalty program makes sense for your business, Matt talks about what it takes to make a loyalty program work as a growth lever.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Why loyalty programs matter? 20% of company’s customers make 80% revenue
• Brand Champions: Pay attention to their interests, what they’re buying or not
• What is a loyalty program? Distinct difference w/two purposes—register, rewards
• Customer Behavior: Value-add messages give customers a reason to return
• Getting Started with a Loyalty Program:
  • Step 1: Understand clientele
  • Step 2: Incentivize customers
  • Step 3: Talk and listen to customers
  • Step 4: Select a loyalty service
• Growing a Loyalty Program:
  • Interaction: Ask, are you a member of our loyalty program yet?
  • Incentivize: Join loyalty program by providing value
  • Integration: Plugin pop-ups and other online opportunities for information
• Marketing Metrics: Subscription velocity, click-thru links, opt-out rates, check-ins
• Do’s/Don’ts: Get permission to send messages, or face legal ramifications

Links:

• Matt Baglia on LinkedIn
• SlickText
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes:

“Research shows that 20 percent of a company’s customers will typically make up about 80 percent of their revenue.” Ben Sailer

“You have a small cohort of your best customers, and it’s really important that we’re paying attention to what they’re doing, what their interests are, what they’re buying, what they’re not buying, how they’re buying, and make sure that we communicate and market to them appropriately.” Matt Baglia

“When we think, loyalty program, we actually think, ‘Register for our loyalty program and earn points towards rewards’.” Matt Baglia

“The value is very, very simple. For us, it serves two purposes. One, we need to get people to come back, and in order to do that, we need to give them a reason to come back.” Matt Baglia

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How can marketers retain an engaged audience? Treat content like a carousel by getting people to come back for unique value from you and your brand.

Today’s guest is Lindsay Tjepkema, CEO and co-founder of Casted—the first and only B2B marketing platform for brand podcasts. Lindsay knows what it takes to build, grow, and retain an audience.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Podcast: Opportunity to connect with audience and sales by providing content
• Marketing Channels: Leverage content for podcast business to amplify voices
• Content Challenges: Underwhelming access to software and experts
• Actionable Advice: Be the change you wish to see, and practice what you preach
• Casted: Create, publish, syndicate, and leverage show content across channels
• Content Carousel: What is it, who’s it for, how will you continue to serve them?
• Good or bad thing? Customers stop coming once they get what they came for
• Audit Audience Trends: Downloads, listens, and other signs people stay or leave
• CRM Capabilities: Engagement and retention rates—who listens and when?
• Advocate for Seasons: Make and compare changes, but don’t change audience
• Repurpose content and re-order ingredients to re-engage audience

Links:

• Lindsay Tjepkema on LinkedIn
• Casted
• Creating a Content Carousel for Your Podcast with OpenView's Meg Johnson
• HubSpot
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes by Lindsay Tjepkema:

“Is it a bad thing if people aren’t listening or consuming that content anymore? Are they advancing onto the next step? Then, it’s not a bad thing, as long as you keep filling that funnel.”

“If it is a bad thing, and you’re losing people for the wrong reasons, how can you just go back to the basics? How can you better understand your audience and give them more of what they are looking for?”

“Repurpose your content. You put a lot of effort into it. If it’s good, it’s good, especially if it’s evergreen.”

“An expert is someone who knows a lot about the subject matter that your audience cares about.”

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What strategies can marketers learn from nonprofits about building brand advocacy? Successful nonprofits know what it takes to get people to rally behind a belief or cause. Brands that turn their best customers into advocates build brand loyalty and drive sales.

Today’s guest is Spencer Brooks from Brooks Digital, an agency that helps health-focused nonprofits grow a digital presence and turn patients into advocates.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• What is an advocate? Highly engaged customer doing work on brand’s behalf
• Passive to Active Promoters: How to turn customers into brand advocates
• Why do brands need advocates? Free marketing saves time and money
• How? Gift products and provide positive referrals, reviews, recommendations
• What makes nonprofits effective? Fewer resources rely on constituents
• Meaningful Why: Nonprofits use emotional storytelling to create advocates
• Company values solve some philosophical problems when things are done right
• Foundational Concept: Brand advocacy resonates product/service with identity

Links:

• Spencer Brooks on LinkedIn
• Brooks Digital
• Building a StoryBrand by Donald Miller
• Traction by Gino Wickman
• Lean Customer Development: Building Products Your Customers Will Buy by Cindy Alvarez
• Why Digital Marketing Tactics Are a Waste of Time for Nonprofits
• Actionable Marketing Podcast: Free Resources From Ben & Spencer’s Interview
• Squatch
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes by Spencer Brooks:

“It’s this push from passive to active that I think really represents turning a customer into an advocate.”

“Advocates are important because they provide a leverage point. They are doing, a lot of times, free marketing for you.”

“Creating advocates is work, and you have to recognize when that is an appropriate strategy to be using.”

“Nonprofits are really good about using emotional storytelling to turn people into advocates.”

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What are the best ways for brands to make a difference during times of crisis? Connect customers with solutions to their problems.

Today’s guest is Richard Lau, founder of Logo and executive director at Water School. Richard discusses how to build a business and brand. Find the right balance between being genuinely helpful and useful while driving sales and revenue.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Donations: Time, money, and network covers clean water project costs
• NamesCon: Purpose of conference and partnerships to raise awareness
• Sun, not Son: Women and girls are burdened with getting clean water
• Colon Cancer Crisis: How it changed Richard’s perspective on life and business
• Doctor’s Orders: Required workaholic to rollback on number of hours worked
• Life Goals and Lifestyle: Borrowed or gifted time where life is about relationships
• Compliment: Create a culture where everyone feels like more than a paycheck
• COVID: Companies can better serve customers, employees, and communities
• How to help other people? Prayer and passion; publicity is not the goal
• Change Management: Invite and support others to do something—small or big
• Pay It Forward: How are you, each and every day, a hero in your own life?

Links:

• Richard Lau on LinkedIn
• Logo
• Water School
• NamesCon
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes by Richard Lau:

“We use the sun as the main focus. The sun is what disinfects the water, rather than using chlorine or wood.”

“Life is about relationships. It’s not about money.”

“Life is too short to work for a bad boss.”

“There’s no better remedy for self-motivation than for helping someone in need.”

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The belief that being empathetic means being emotional is not actually very empathetic. Marketers often misunderstand customers when crafting messaging and marketing content. How can marketers be genuinely empathetic?

Today’s guest is Megan Thudium from MTC - The Content Agency. Megan discusses how to adjust, adapt, and authentically understand the needs of customers from different cultures and countries.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• MTC: Berlin-based B2B organic content marketing agency w/empathetic mindset
• COVID and Cultural Barriers: Stay connected and relevant during tough times
• Empathy Marketing: Long-term gain emphasized now when emotions are high
• Empathy: Them to you, not you to them process for messaging and marketing
• Worst-case Scenario: Miss the marketing message? Lose customers
• Bottom Line for Business: Make messaging more empathetic for direct impact
• Marketing Evolution: People want authentic, engaging, empathetic conversations
• Consequences: Failing to do right messaging or following cookie-cutter structure
• Practical Takeaways: Connect with and talk to customers/teams to get feedback
• Back to Basics: Marketing should be empathetic; put buyer personas into action

Links:

• Megan Thudium on LinkedIn
• MTC - The Content Agency
• Patagonia
• Slack
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes by Megan Thudium:

“Empathy marketing is a long-term gain.”

“Empathy is understanding your audience at a level that has a deeper understanding of what they need.”

“You’re going to isolate your audience. They’re going to step away from you. They’re going to disconnect, which is the worst thing that we want in marketing because then we lose customers.”

“Depending on your specific audience, there might be specific needs.”

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Consumer behavior is always changing. Even with COVID-19 affecting people’s lives and how businesses operate, it will never be the same. How can businesses better serve customers by staying ahead of changes and trends? Data.

Today’s guest is Jonathan Silver from Affinity Solutions, a data intelligence platform with access to consumer data. Jonathan talks about how businesses need to collect data, know how to interpret that data, and turn it into action to succeed.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Affinity Solutions: Access to unique data around people’s purchasing habits
• Permission and Participation: Banks provide businesses with consumer data
• Business Benefits: Use data to build relationships and grow, retain market share
• Consumer Benefits: Use data to improve people’s lives to get what they want
• Shifts: COVID changes behavior with price sensitivity, personalized experiences
• Trends: Parallel reality where physical environments change with technologies
• Predictions: Colder weather will spike COVID cases, continue habit to buy online
• Data Types: Understand and adapt to consumer behavior with purchasing info
• Regulatory and Privacy Trends: Personal data cloud and operating system
• Survive and Thrive: Expand to include external data to redefine competition
• Insight into Action: Distinguishes successful businesses and drives returns
• Data Platform: Artificial intelligence/machine learning make directed decisions
• Downward to Upward: Use data-driven tools, dashboards during difficult times

Links:

• Jonathan Silver on LinkedIn
• Affinity Solutions
• Consumer Electronics Show (CES)
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes by Jonathan Silver:

“We have a ton of unique data around people’s purchasing habits.”

“Businesses build deeper relationships with consumers, with their customers and prospects, so that they can grow and retain their market share.”

“(Parallel reality and personalized experiences) where physical environments are changing with these different technologies is going to become a norm.”

“The best predictor of future purchase behavior is what you’ve done in the past.”

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Two things are true about marketing—saturation across digital channels makes it difficult to be different and using direct mail is a unique option to reach customers at home where they are spending most of their time these days.

Today’s guest is Nick Runyon from PFL. The software company makes tools that help marketers bridge the gap between digital and direct mail marketing using Tactile Marketing Automation (TMA). Go beyond the send!

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• PFL: Orchestrates digital difference between TMA and direct mail marketing
• Pandemic vs. Marketing Plans: Collectively, society remains pessimistic, fearful
• Consumption and Conversion: Cut through digital clutter for direct mail comfort
• CRM Mishaps: Direct mail data mashed together from multiple people, places
• TMA: Enables direct mail to be triggered to send based on digital intent signals
• Getting Started:
  • What’s the overall experience that you want to deliver?
  • What business objectives do you want to move with that experience?
• Sales Process Sequence: Experience value proposition via opt-in engagement
• Bottom Line: Direct mail is popular right now but more expensive without TMA
• Advanced Tactics: Accelerate value with TMA software through PFL

Links:

• Nick Runyon on LinkedIn
• PFL
• AMP 205: Cutting Through the Noise By Integrating Direct Mail With Digital Marketing With Ryan Cote From Ballantine
• The Lean Startup by Eric Ries
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes by Nick Runyon:

“When I think about direct mail and I think about Tactile Marketing Automation, the difference between those two is that we’ve taken direct mail into really the digital environment.”

“Tactile Marketing Automation is really the orchestration of an overall multichannel customer journey.”

“One of the challenges that marketers are facing now with this increase in digital consumption is really cutting through the clutter and making an impact and gaining a moment of attention from our customers and our prospects.”

“Reasons why direct mail is overall resurging: It’s comfortable, it’s familiar, it also monopolizes my attention whenever direct mail is in my hand.”

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Marketers have access to more data than ever before that enables them to offer better customer experiences—if they make use of that data. Don’t struggle to find and apply the right information.

Today’s guest is Michael Loban, Chief Growth Officer at InfoTrust. Also, Michael is the co-author of Crawl, Walk, Run, a new book on advancing marketing analytics maturity. He describes how to level up your analytics progress with consistent practice.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Crawl, Walk, Run: How organizations progress through digital analytics maturity
• Target Audience: Every marketer with every level of analytics experience
• Three Industries: Direct-to-consumer, consumer packaged goods, news/media
• Marketers, Pay Attention: Change is inevitable, but progress is optional
• Missing Skills: Being data driven makes some marketers fail to be successful
• Google Marketing Platform: Helps marketing teams keep pace with changes
• Google Optimize: Test hypothesis by reviewing analytics to improve experience
• Data-driven Daily Practices: Marketers need to change or adapt to be effective
• Metrics: Maximize data to generate greatest ROI/revenue for business

Links:

• InfoTrust
• Crawl, Walk, Run by Michael Loban
• Michael Loban on LinkedIn
• Google Marketing Platform
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes by Michael Loban:

“The idea of Crawl, Walk, Run is to demonstrate how organizations tend to progress through certain subject matter.”

“Just like with data, if you know what you are looking for, you will find some help in this book.”

“Change is inevitable, but progress is optional.”

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Research shows that 73% of consumers expect brands to personalize and tailor online experiences to meet their needs. It feels weird when websites don’t give people what they want and expect. Personalization matters for your business, even in difficult times.

Today’s guest is Amey Shivapurkar, an experienced optimization SME at Avionos. Amey helps clients create data-driven experiences that deliver business outcomes. He talks about how personalization isn’t always easy, but worth considering for marketers to maximize CRO, create meaningful results, and drive user experiences.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Personalization: Relevant products, services, content based on previous visits
• Key Investment Benefits: Improves customer loyalty, engagement, vanity metrics
• Steps to Start: Crawl, walk, and run to get to end product
  • Define measurement framework that tracks customer’s journey
  • Identify best opportunities/skills for personalization to improve bottom line
  • Experiment and iterate personalization to build and grow business
• Best Practices: Excel personalization by solidifying available data to automate
• Complex Learning Curve: How can personalization increase conversion rates?
• Personalization Pitfalls: Know purpose/intention and provide time to run results

Links:

• Amey Shivapurkar on LinkedIn
• Avionos
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes by Amey Shivapurkar:

“Customers are really looking for brands to give an experience based off of previous interactions that they’ve done.”

“It’s really about providing the most relevant content at the right time.”

“Bad experiences will lead to bad personalization.”

“Personalization is one of those things where a lot of people...they think it’s a nice-to-have. Personally, I think it’s kind of a must.”

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Former professional boxer Mike Tyson wisely stated, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.” Unexpected blows, such as a global pandemic and recession, have marketers evaluating their strategies to learn how to change, respond, and adapt during times of crisis.

Today’s guest is Tony Guarnaccia, a brand consultant, founder, and author. He knows how to turn businesses around and out of tailspins. If you don’t know what you don’t know about how to grow a business, you and your business will fail.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Bakery 2.0: Bounce back by studying marketing, business, and entrepreneurship
• 10-Year Journey: If you don’t know, follow those that do to grow a business
• Resources, Strategies, Tools: Learn what you don’t know; teach what you learn
• Right or wrong decision? Reduce marketing budget when revenue drops
• Rules to Follow:
  • Make business sustainable and maintain profitability
  • Maintain advertising spend in marketing; make cuts elsewhere
  • Expand market share due to less competition and lower acquisition costs
• Red Flags: Results that can or can’t be controlled to drive growth
• Results Loop Framework:
  • What markets are you serving? Be in the right niche
  • What are your offerings? Identify products/services that create traction
  • How do you grow revenue? Create trust, value, and loyalty
• Pain Points: Problems clients experience are opportunities to sell, provide value
• Supply and Demand: Trigger events and money are available, but shift and pivot

Links:

• Tony Guarnaccia’s Website
• Tony Guarnaccia on LinkedIn
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes by Tony Guarnaccia:

“You want to make sure you are sustainable.If you don’t have a sustainable business and it’s not profitable, then you don’t have a business. You’re going to go out.”

“Now is the greatest time to expand your market share.”

“The problems that your customers or clients are experiencing are the opportunities for you to sell.”

“I’m a believer that money is always there, it just shifts.”

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Do you spend too much time and money creating content from scratch every time you need to publish a piece, launch a video, or ship a campaign? Create a year's worth of content in one day for a specific channel through the power of repurposing.

Today’s guest is Shaina Weisinger from Repurpose House. Shaina talks about how to make the most of your time and resources, while using less effort to make your ROI go through the roof.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Purpose of Repurpose House: Help those struggling with repurposing content
• Savvy Digital Marketing Strategy: Video production at same time in same place
• Pain Points and Pieces: Changes to content takes too much time and effort
• Repurposing Content vs. Creating New Assets: Cost- and time-saving benefits
• Chasing Content: Creating content that’s impossible to keep up with every day
• Content Map: Be in better place before making content and measurable results
• Where to start? Go through content that crushed it to start finding small snippets
• Cutting Corners: Avoid sacrificing quality for speed when repurposing content
• Headlines: Make them catchy and include a number whenever possible
• Data: Go with your gut, trends, and results from studies to spread the word

Links:

• Shaina Weisinger on LinkedIn
• Repurpose House
• Headliner
• HubSpot
• Infusionsoft
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes by Shaina Weisinger:

“If you can map all of that out before you sit down and make content just to make content, I think that you're in a much better place.”

“You want to know what your strategy looks like and why the content you're putting up there matters.”

“It's absolutely doable. If you take the time to sit down and really create the strategy, it's a no brainer. You can supplement your social media calendar with other things.”

“if you have a library of content...that's how you're going to fill your calendar and you don't even have to create new content.”

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Email inboxes, social media feeds, and internet experiences are filled with marketing messages. However, what’s old is new again in marketing. Direct mail can be an effective way to cut through the noise and grab people's attention.

Today’s guest is Ryan Cote, Director of Digital Services and Partner at Ballantine. Ryan talks about how to make the most out of direct mail by integrating it with digital strategies and tactics.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Two Things: Ballantine’s transition has combined direct mail and digital marketing
• High Demand: Direct mail isn’t dead, but has changed print marketing
• Mail vs. Email: Printed mail is less competitive than congested inboxes
• Print and Digital Tactics: Complement and work together for integrated campaign
• Informed Delivery. Find out from USPS what’s in your physical mailbox
• Direct or Digital? Determine which makes more sense for your brand
• Direct mail is expensive, so start with something simple and cheaper
• Mailing List: Stay specific and targeted to add value and get/keep clients
• Partners: Find broker/production company to help with printing plan
• Measure ROI Impact:
  • Put trackable phone number on mail
  • Set up special landing page
  • Some mail can't be tracked
• Two Data Types: In-house and rented to create mailing lists, fix discrepancies

Links:

• Ryan Cote on LinkedIn
• Ballantine
• USPS Informed Delivery
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes:

“Print is definitely not dead. It's just changing like anything, like SEO, like any digital channel. It just changes. We've had to change with the times.”

“It's usually less competitive in a mailbox. If you think about your inbox—how much email you get. Email is still very important, but it's just very congested.”

“They're basically just using direct mail and digital to fully blanket their customer because you don't know where you're going to get them to respond.”

“If you have the budget to do both print and digital, that's always the best-case scenario because you're getting multiple touchpoints.”

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Does your business rely on revenue from selling tickets for live events? To stay in business due to COVID-19, you may need to turn to other options for profits.

Today’s guest is Jim McCarthy, CEO and co-founder of Goldstar. With more live shows, concerts, and other events going digital, Goldstar quickly created Stellar. Within just a few months, the new streaming and ticket platform launched to help organizations continue to make money.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• New Normal? Pandemic shutdown forced switch from live to online events
• Stellar Solution: Learning curve to what does/doesn’t work with digital events
• Live vs. Digital Events: Either, neither, all, or nothing, which will people prefer?
• Goldmine for Goldstar? Make, film, stream new forms of online entertainment
• Pros and Cons: More people and money, different expectations and experiences
• Getting Started, Going Digital:
  • Commit to quality not money to build/market product or service
  • Make thoughtful and aggressive use of assets (i.e., mailing lists)
  • Utilize existing audiences/fans plus geo target platforms
  • Promote partnerships and other distribution channels

Links:

• Jim McCarthy on LinkedIn
• Goldstar
• Stellar Tickets
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

Quotes:

“This toolset, some other knowledge, and some marketing skills can really enable them to use online events to their great advantage.”

“We just want everybody to be able to survive the crisis and thrive by learning how to make online events that are great.”

“I don’t know about you, but I'm ready to get out a little bit more and go have some fun.”

“For every one person you successfully get in the door to enjoy the show or the event, there's 99 or maybe even 999 people who would be there if they could, if they knew about it, or if it was available to them. This is just a huge marketing opportunity.”

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Do you have something to say and share with others? Start a podcast, but don’t sell yourself short when trying to get your dream guests on the show. It takes connections.

Today’s guest is Stephanie Cox, vice president of sales and marketing at Lumavate. She hosts the company’s Real Marketers Podcast and has talked to guests from the world’s biggest companies. What did she do to make it happen, and how can you do the same with your own podcast?

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Lumavate: Platform enables marketers to build mobile apps without code
• Real Marketers: Authentic conversations that ask forgiveness, not permission
• Strategic Networking: Who and what you know, and who and what they know
• Podcast Launch: First few episodes feature big names to build credibility
• Timeline: Four weeks post-launch of podcast to regularly land high-profile guests
• Dream ‘Guest’ List: Goals to get ultimate brands/names (Google’s Alex Russell)
• What’s the worst that could happen? All you have to do is ask and outreach
• Missing Pieces: What stories do you want to tell and best people to tell them?
• Success Rate: Love what you do and be a passionate thought leader

Links:

• Stephanie Cox on LinkedIn
• Lumavate
• Real Marketers Podcast
• Progressive Web Apps: The Future of Mobile Web, Episode 11 with Alex Russell, Senior Staff Engineer at Google
• Progressive Web Apps: The Future of Mobile Web (Part Two), Episode 12 with Alex Russell, Senior Staff Software Engineer at Google
• Calendly
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

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Are your emails failing to reach and resonate with readers? Maybe, you’re asking for too much information without offering enough value. Every time someone opens their inbox, they’re flooded with people asking them to do something. What do they get in return?

Today’s guest is Brendan Hufford from SEO for the Rest of Us. Brendan emailed thousands of subscribers to ask: What frustrates them the most about SEO? As promised, Brendan followed up by sending every person who replied a custom video response. Was all his hard work worth the thoughtful effort?

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Stay in School: Transition from being a teacher to helping clients learn SEO
• Bright Idea: Utilize unique video content on what people care about
• Incentive: How to get people to reply to emails and build relationships
• Numbers Game: Subscribers in traffic are costs; make money on sales
• Timeline: About 50 videos made, each taking 10 minutes equals 500 minutes
• Replies and Responses: Quantify what it’s worth by understanding content
• Primary Pain Points:
  • People are struggling, whether they're in-house or with clients
  • Begging for backlinks, whether you're on the giving or receiving end
  • Creating solid content strategy, not repurpose copycat content
• Free Time/Money: Resources are free, and there are no secrets to SEO writing
• SEO Framework: Intent, Asset, and Medium (IAM)
• SEO Roadmap: Build foundation and structure
• Value Proposition: Suffering from email fatigue, due to lack of human contact?
• Results: Immediate engagement and affinity with people on your email list

Links:

• Brendan Hufford
• SEO for the Rest of Us
• Flipped Lifestyle with Shane and Jocelyn Sams
• Miles Beckler
• Ahrefs
• Loom
• CloudApp
• SEMrush
• Podia
• Joel Klettke (Copywriter)
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

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The ad tech industry—specifically, Facebook—continues to create privacy consent concerns and public discontent. How much do people trust social networks and the brands that advertise on them?

Today’s guest is Richard Jones, chief marketing officer (CMO) for Cheetah Digital. If you rely on social advertising to promote your business, Richard talks about what you need to know to prevent or handle damage to your brand’s reputation.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Ethics: What problems does ad tech introduce into social marketing?
• Digital Footprint: Personal information gets presented without permission
• Under the Knife: Invasion of privacy when bombarded with ads on Facebook
• Stop Hate for Profit: Campaign to curb hate speech and put people before profit
• Money or Morality? Ad pressure makes it okay to break up with social media
• For Sale: Personal data creates polarization of society, dangerous environment
• Algorithms: People’s inability to curate truth, not simply sort shared information
• Social Media Alternatives: How to shut off highly effective or targeted ad spend?
• End of Era: Fast and loose data powering third-party advertising economy is over
• Trust Economy: Why trust is most impactful economic power over data privacy
• COVID Impact: Expect increase in promotions and people looking for value

Links:

• Richard Jones on LinkedIn
• Cheetah Digital
• Stop Hate for Profit
• Econsultancy
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

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Is a picture still worth a 1,000 words? What about videos? Any business or organization can use the power of video content to build its brand and promote its products. However, it’s not always cheap to do or get it right to make a difference.

Today’s guest is Doug Scott from Tectonic. He describes how nonprofits with small budgets, but big aspirations, maximize their impact with video marketing.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Film School Dropout: Doug’s dream to make movies wasn’t his reality
• Newfound Desire: Passion for storytelling led to helping nonprofits
• Why Video? Efficient, engaging, and preferred form of communication
• Challenges: Level of clarity to quantify cost for return on investment
• SMART Goals: Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Relevant, and Time-bound
• SMART Metrics: Benchmarking, baseline, and big strategic objectives
• Mindset Shift: Video versus any content created based on outcome, not output
• Change Management: Provide data, demonstrate impact, and make progress
• Ethics: Offer marketing messages with simplicity, positivity, and compellingness
• Promotion: Gain exposure with compelling videos that the press can't ignore
• Social Media: Most engaging are user-generated single-shot videos

Links:

• Tectonic
• Nonprofit Video Index
• Mutual Rescue
• Heads Up: Health Awareness for Concussion Prevention
• TeachAids
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

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When looking to get ahead in marketing, business, or life, the black community faces challenges and structural issues. What should white people consider to be effective allies to black colleagues, friends, and neighbors?

Today’s guest is Muyinza Kasirye from APRT Media in Los Angeles. Muyinza immigrated from Uganda to Toronto and relocated to Boston after his mother’s death due to cancer. Muyinza grew up with little money or privileges but worked his way up. He shares his perspective on challenges that black marketers and business owners experience.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Black Entrepreneur Challenges:
  • Don’t know about or denied initial money to start a business
  • Higher barrier of proof required to get work
  • Fair distribution for work, investment, and positions of real power
• Negative Consequences: Economy isn’t achieving its true potential
• Equal Opportunities: Different approaches equal different outcomes
• Status Quo: Drive positive change in the direction it is needed
• What white people need to know and do to dismantle barriers to success?
  • Help when and where you can
  • Start investing in black individuals to move forward
• Listen, not Lecture: Wherever white people are on spectrum of understanding

Links:

• APRT Media
• APRT Media on Instagram
• Muyinza Kasirye on LinkedIn
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

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Doing social media marketing in a regulated industry isn’t easy. Legal considerations, regulatory red tape, and compliance restrictions can make your job more difficult.

Today’s guest is Regina DeMars, Director of Content Marketing and Social Media Strategy at First National Bank of Omaha (FNBO). How can financial services marketers make friends with compliance and win at social media? Get creative with solutions to problems.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Content: Create financial advice/guidance that existing/potential customers want
• Common Problems: Marketers face ever-changing regulatory space and timeline
• Top Tactics: Urgent requests, audits, and procedures eliminate potential issues
• Social Media Channels: Monitor and archive online brand reputation, compliance
• Relationships Matter: Identify those interested in and active on social media
• Collaborative Compliance: Mitigate risk, accomplish goals, and stay compliant
• Organic Messaging: Focus on educational, inspirational, and entertaining content
• Paid Perspective: Focus on awareness, consideration, and conversion content
• Other Options: Social selling, influencer marketing, and employee ambassadors
• Make the Case: Do content marketing work that matters with more resources
• Mistakes Happen: Ensure everyone’s following processes, procedures, policies

Links:

• Regina DeMars on LinkedIn
• First National Bank of Omaha (FNBO)
• FNBO’s Dollar Belles on YouTube
• FNBO’s Cashology Facebook Group
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

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Does adding new martech tools always tackle problems and challenges for marketers? What matters most is finding the best technology solutions to solve the right problems at the right times for you, your team, and your organization.

Today’s guest is Sean Doyle, co-founder, principal, and director of strategy at FitzMartin. Sean applies the science of behavior change to the art of sales and marketing. Rather than only choosing to make decisions based on thoughts and emotions, choose to use the power of data.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Reason Behind Sean’s Book: Change how B2B marketers are respected or not
• FitzMartin: Modern marketing/sales that demonstrates ability to provide products
• Point of View: Comes from behavioral science—how people change
• Changing for Good: Book on transtheoretical theory of behavioral science
• Firings/Failures: Focus framework on capital and commitment to measurement
• Martech: Why it continues to expand? Measurable and customer-focused
• Vanity Metrics: Meaningful when understood by peers, clients, or customers
• Problem: Takes talent to read data, view analytics, and communicate effectively
• Martech Behavioral Science Categories:
  • Demand generation
  • Sales enablement
  • Customer success
• Simplify Scale: Ease of use wins over powerful and sophisticated martech
• Sales Barrier/Gap Analysis: Audit of all sales and marketing efforts
• Subjective Theory of Value: Three ways people buy
  • Revenue gain
  • Cost reduction
  • Emotional and strategic contribution

Links:

• Sean Doyle’s Email
• Shift: 19 Practical, Business-driven Ideas for an Executive in Charge of Marketing but not Trained for the Task by Sean M. Doyle
• FitzMartin
• Sean Doyle on LinkedIn
• Changing for Good by James O. Prochaska, John Norcross, and Carlo DiClemente
• Web Analytics by Avinash Kaushik
• Google Ads
• HubSpot
• AdRoll
• Ignitium
• Salesforce
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

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It may be a cliche, but it remains true that nothing is certain for business right now and in the future due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Brand building is a long-term sport with no finish line.

Today’s guest is David Lemley, a brand strategist with Retail Voodoo. He has worked with beloved brands, including Starbucks, REI, and KIND. David describes what steps to take to future-proof business and brands to thrive and survive for sustained success.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Branding’s Value: More than a logo—develop a truly authentic brand built to last
• Past Background: Branding used to be all about making marks and doing things
• Present and Future Branding: Promises you make, keep, and feel
• New Things: Help food, beverage, wellness, and fitness brands win market share
• Future-proof Brand: Plan to survive and thrive during unforeseen circumstances
• Consequences: Loss of market share and impacts partner/customer relationships
• Essential Component: Data and research from brightest minds erodes resistance
• Future-Proof Process: Understand core audience to anticipate changing needs
• Building Blocks: People view brands as personal identity with values and morals
• Tasks, Tactics, and Tips: Read David’s book, Beloved and Dominant Brands
• Vectors: Ingredient/technology, consumer preferences, worldwide, and relevance

Links:

• Retail Voodoo
• David Lemley on LinkedIn
• Beloved and Dominant Brands by David Lemley
• Essential Water
• LesserEvil
• Managing The Professional Service Firm by David Maister
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

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How can you make remote work actually work? The right technology stack and the right processes to work from home on a distributed team.

Today’s guest is Lars Helgeson from GreenRope. Based on Lars’ two decades of 100% remote work experience, he offers simple and practical advice to pair technology with processes that establish a solid, remote-working foundation.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• GreenRope: CRM/marketing automation software in single, unified platform
• Simplify Complexity: Successfully scale company by shifting toward remote work
• Advantages: Freedom and flexibility to work when and where you want
• Disadvantages: Not ideal for those needing space, structure, and office/cubicle
• Remote Work Necessities: Internet connection and quiet workspace
• Focus: What do you need to get work done? Requirements and right tools
• Data: How to create and distribute it to hold people accountable?
• Processes: Manage, control, understand, and document how people do things
• Structure: People need to have structure and know what they’re working toward
• Key to Success: Solid CRM that has all data fully integrated, built into platform
• Work-from-Home Policies: Mistakes made due to lack of structure and planning

Links:

• GreenRope
• Zoom
• FaceTime
• GoToMeeting
• Microsoft Teams
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

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How can businesses and marketers adapt to rapidly changing circumstances, such as COVID-19? Seek reassurance and practical advice to move forward when there’s no clear end in sight. Not only survive, but thrive.

Today’s guest is David Schneider, CEO of Shortlist.io, a digital marketing agency. David understands how to handle challenges that affect businesses, marketers, and clients.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Challenges: Budget cuts, resource constraints, adjusting KPIs, building network
• Networking Concept: Recognize importance of recession-proof buffer for career
• Human Connection: Reach out to others and acknowledge/recognize importance
• Cultivate Relationships: Who do you admire/follow on social media channels?
• Natural Ice Breaker: Start a conversation by checking in; still happy and healthy?
• Marketing Copy and Conversion: Pivot messaging away from content cliches
• Growth: Despite less money and resources, work more efficiently and effectively

Links:

• David Schneider on LinkedIn
• Shortlist.io
• NinjaOutreach
• Ben Sailer on LinkedIn
• CoSchedule

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What does it take to make sponsorships successfully work? Turn one-off transactions into powerful, long-term relationships between brands by picking the best partners and proving ROI.

Today’s guest is Ken Ungar, founder and president of CHARGE, a sponsorship marketing agency. Also, Ken’s a former chief executive for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and author of Ahead of the Game: What Every Athlete Needs to Know About Sports in Business.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Take CHARGE: Unlock power of sponsorship to accomplish business objectives
• Third-Party Validation: Marketers convince consumers, sponsors transfer affect
• Partners and Collaborators: Choose wisely to create a positive relationship
• Potential Sponsors: Know/share audiences; identify brand/property reputation
• Pitch Perspectives: Create win-win attitude when attracting or selling sponsors
• Relationship Results: Both sides benefit; if nothing’s invested, nothing’s gained
• Strategy, Plan, Work: Leverage and activate relationship to make it mutually beneficial
• Mindful Mistakes:
  • Understand audiences via discussions, surveys, and data
  • Activate sponsorship to advertise benefits
  • Measure success or plan to fail
• Stakeholder Sponsorship Skepticism: Convince with case studies, testimonials

Links:

• CHARGE
• CHARGE Sponsorship Insights
• Ahead of the Game: What Every Athlete Needs to Know About Sports in Business
• SurveyMonkey
• CoSchedule

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Everyone knows the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted sales, marketing, and businesses worldwide. Uncertain times call for empathy to best serve others.    

Today’s guest is Jim Benton from Chorus.ai, a conversation intelligence platform. Early on, Jim and his data science team recognized the need to crunch and record a lot of numbers to analyze how customer bases are adapting and adjusting to changes.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Daily Briefing: Share unique and empowering productivity, sales, business data
• Weekly Briefing: Bring rich data and best practices to market to adjust/reopen
• Why bring CFOs into sales calls? Rationalize numbers and reduce friction
• Extreme/Outsized ROI: Present with clarity, rigor, and above-the-line selling
• Human Side of Problem Solving: Challenging events create massive change
• Leadership: From chaos to sanity through data-driven coaching to grow people
• Intimidating Interactions: Team effort, roles to play, and desired outcomes
• Collaboration: Offer equal access to rich data, come together to solve problems
• Future Trends: Dealing with even bigger issues, not related to COVID

Links:

• ai
• CoSchedule

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How do you build long-lasting, mutually beneficial relationships with your best customers? Treat influencer marketing more like relationship building and less like a cash transaction.

Today’s guest is Magda Houalla, Director of Marketing Strategy at AspireIQ. She describes how to elevate influencer marketing beyond clichés to achieve results.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Influential Evolution: Find influencers, manage relationships, analyze results
• What it means to be influential? Focus on product for community building
• Who is influential? Customers, enthusiasts, subject matter experts, employees
• Business Objectives: Self-serve access to technology and relevant information
• Where to begin? When overwhelmed with possibilities, focus on personalization
• Fan of Brand: Target audience, customer personas, and values-first approach
• Start with a Story: Value-focused pitch and communication are key elements
• Building-type Mindset: Engage and approach people with more of a relationship
• ROI: Exponentially greater over long-term than waving money in someone’s face
• Next Step: Provide value beyond money and products via experiences
• No Fear: Don’t be afraid to amicably end a partnership with people
• Marketing Mistakes: Everyone in community is an extension of your business

Links:

• AspireIQ
• CoSchedule

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Good content with bad design equals bad content. Good design can be expensive and hard to scale, but the value of quality graphic design can’t be overstated.

Today’s guest is Russ Perry from Design Pickle, a flat-rate creative services platform. What’s the catch? Never pay more than a monthly subscription. Get help with your branding and design without breaking the bank, or settling for below-average work.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Scale investment by allocating design resources without cutting corners
• Challenges: Find good talent, attract customers, take competitive advantage
• Brand: More than just a logo; communicate through visuals and creativity
• Mistakes and Excuses: No time, money, or understanding of good vs. bad design
• When design needs outpace resources: Narrow niche, segment needs, and select specialists
• Trolls: Trigger reversal by providing help and proving your value to haters
• Create/Update: Communicate confidence to reflect niche, audience, and value
• FreshStock: Stock asset library of templates and visuals save time and money
• Fix, Revise, Grow: Nothing’s going to break in the world, if you just start creating

Links:

• Design Pickle
• FreshStock
• CoSchedule

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Some apps skyrocket, while others fly under the radar and fade away. Apps that succeed apply simple, yet effective tactics that drive rapid growth and sustain revenue.

Today’s guest is Sean Casto, founder and CEO of PreApps. Sean’s #1 app marketing agency in the United States offers proven strategies and techniques to achieve launch, download, and other goals for apps.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• 10X Revenue Model: Sean’s straightforward framework for building, scaling apps
  • Step 1: Increase sales conversions
  • Step 2: Increase prices and premium offers
  • Step 3: Increase frequency of sales per user
  • Step 4: Increase product offerings
• App Stats:
  • 90% of marketplace apps make less than $500 per month
  • 80% of app’s revenue comes from 20% of app’s customers
• Roadmap: Begin with end in mind without reinventing wheel, getting distracted

Links:

• PreApps
• Sean Casto
• Sean Casto on LinkedIn
• App Marketing Secrets Podcast
• Gartner
• CoSchedule

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Stuck in a rut at work? Bored beyond belief? If you’re thinking about or wanting to change jobs and careers, consider the following: How long will it take to learn new skills? Will it affect your income? Are jobs available? Will it make you happy?

Today’s guest is Kevin Urrutia, a former software programmer at Mint that now runs the Voy Media marketing agency in New York City. Kevin knows exactly how some of you feel. He shares useful insights and nuggets of career development wisdom.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Why change careers? Curiosity, necessity, and desire to do what you do best
• Mindset Shift: From tech hackathons to marketing startup and SEO skills
• Facebook Advertising: Learn by doing to grow in marketing industry
• Career Advice and Questions to Ask: What do you enjoy, even in tough times?
• Strategies: How to do Facebook ads, SEO, Amazon—instead, start from scratch
• Stay Connected: Keep up with what people are saying via social groups
• Mistakes Made: Courses/coaches accelerate learning; avoid imposter syndrome

Links:

• Kevin Urrutia on LinkedIn
• Voy Media
• Mint
• Zaarly
• Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA)
• Google Analytics
• TechCrunch
• Stack Overflow
• Moz SEO Software
• Search Engine Land
• Twitter
• Facebook Groups
• com by Ryan Deiss
• CoSchedule

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Collaborative ideation isn't always easy because everyone has ideas and opinions. You can’t execute every idea all the time, but need to narrow the list and make sure input is heard and time is respected. So, how do you filter and service only the best ones?

Today’s guest is Sean Ironside, global brand director for EGYM. He describes how to develop a sound process when creativity and ideation are at odds. It just needs to be consistent to workout for everyone and everywhere.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• EGYM: Global provider of fitness hardware and software
• Responsibilities: Coordinate branding efforts across departments, teams, offices
• Ideation Process: Creative, collaborative, and effective consistently
• Replicate Remote Process: Successful solution⁠—no matter the size
• Disconnected Differences: Process/platform meets maturity, needs, and culture
• Step-by-Step:
  • Create or modify existing idea
  • Identify subject matter experts (SMEs)
  • Identify group to ideate
  • Share knowledge of past and future possibilities
  • Perform design dash with all kinds of people from different disciplines
  • Onboard by adding information that shapes knowledge of problem
  • Identify and advocate solutions to follow or further develop
• Challenges: Overcome communication, physicality, priorities, and timelines
• Healthy ways to accept and provide criticism or feedback
• Get Unstuck: Unblock, walk away, and leverage resources

Links:

• Sean Ironside on LinkedIn
• EGYM
• Google Hangouts
• Slack
• Zoom
• CoSchedule

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How can you grow your marketing career with just a few years of experience? Through the power of personal branding. But you better get started now—just ask an accomplished and successful 24-year-old entrepreneur from down under.

Today’s guest is Lachlan Kirkwood, a digital marketing and conversions specialist who established ClickThrough, a startup that connects marketing talent with some of the biggest brands in the world.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Personal Branding: Why it matters for marketers to add value
• Sole Intention: Build blog to practice digital marketing skills, not to build business
• Personal Brand Portfolio: Know, engage, leverage audience to iterate content
• Personal Brand Benefits: Agencies serve as source to attract new clients
• Distribution Channel: Personal branding and team members remain active
• How to get started on personal branding? Start small and set low expectations
• Biggest Barriers: Being a perfectionist and fear that your opinions aren’t valuable
• Highs and Lows: Personal branding should be based around storytelling
• Consistency and Persistence: Forget performance metrics, results will happen
• Life is Business: Common mistakes marketers make with personal branding

Links:

• Lachlan Kirkwood
• ClickThrough
• Lachlan Kirkwood’s Blog
• Lachlan Kirkwood on LinkedIn
• Google Analytics
• CoSchedule

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Is your company looking for ways to cut costs? Whenever there’s a steep economic downturn, marketers’ budgets tend to suffer. To survive, learn to do more with less.

Today’s guest is Naira Perez from SpringHill Digital. She describes how to maximize marketing results with a minimal budget. Bigger budgets do not mean better results.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Why? Company isn’t doing well and economic environment is in downturn
• Communicate Bottom Line: Convince company that cutting marketing costs more
• Cost vs. Resource Center: Marketing can adapt to changing consumer behaviors
• Bigger Budgets: Does lack of budget inhibit marketers’ success?
• Audience Acquisition: Who are you talking to, and what are you telling them?
• What can you get for less? Consider existing clients and user-generated content
• Outsource: Need to do same amount of work with fewer people, hire freelancers
• Resources: Prioritize people over software due to irreplaceable knowledge/value
• Research and Reflect: Look at yourself and company—what can be done better?
• Recommendations: Find low-cost, high-impact tactics to prioritize opportunities

Links:

• Naira Perez on LinkedIn
• SpringHill Digital
• Quora
• CoSchedule

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How can a startup's revenue double in six months? By creating content that's authentic and based on personal experience. Authenticity isn’t just a marketing buzzword.

Today’s guest is Jason Quey from Growth Ramp. He provides guidance on how to infuse authenticity into content marketing because it’s easier said than done.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Mission: Assist 1,000 entrepreneurs go from idea to scale to get 1,000 customers
• What is authenticity in marketing? Advertising equals salesmanship times print
• Cite own experience or duplicate others’ research by borrowing credibility
• What is your value proposition? Unique selling proposition?
• Problems and Solutions: Talk to customers to understand outcomes to achieve
• Brand Messaging: Customers talk about the same problem using different words
• Experience: Bring own ideas, values, and language that others easily understand
• Teardown Analysis: Create content authenticate to you that’s valuable to others
• Prioritize content creation for buyer types (most aware, product aware, solution aware, problem aware, and unaware customers)

Links:

• Free 14-day Product Marketing Email Course
• Jason Quey
• Growth Ramp
• 1000 True Fans by Kevin Kelly
• John E. Kennedy
• Rosser Reeves
• Claude Hopkins
• David Ogilvy
• Blake Mycoskie (TOMS)
• Decibite
• Hiten Shah (KISSmetrics)
• Eugene Schwartz
• Hootsuite
• GoDaddy
• CoSchedule

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Do you need a prescription for fixing what’s wrong with marketing in the manufacturing space? It’s not a dose of flashy trends or tactics, but philosophical and foundational ways of thinking differently.

Today’s guest is James Soto from Industrial Strength Marketing, an agency dedicated to helping industrial manufacturers make marketing the strength of their business to meet customers’ needs.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Family Business: Manufacturing experience through analog, digital, cell transition
• Bluetooth Backbone: Visual reality momentum on standards and sources
• Promise to practice being better marketers and sellers of products and services
• Critical Component: Make way of living life and doing business obsolete
• Top Tenets: Change, plan, communicate, respond, and measure success
• Marketers’ Mindset: Change should not mean doing, making, or writing stuff
• Clarity: Who are we? Where’re we going? How do we get there?
• Communication: Persistently create engaging, useful, and actionable content
• Excellence in Execution: Being who you are and being the industrial-est
• Marketing Readiness Assessment: What should be the next steps?

Links:

• James Soto on LinkedIn
• Industrial Strength Marketing
• Get Marketing Ready
• Harvard Business Review
• Elon Musk of SpaceX
• CoSchedule

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Everyone’s on social media, right? It may sound crazy, but that’s not exactly true. Some people delete personal and/or professional profiles to simplify marketing and grow their business.

Today’s guest is John Meese from Platform University. John is one of few marketers and entrepreneurs without personal social media profiles. Why? He has his reasons.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Social Media Marketing Strategy: No personal accounts, only business channels
• Platform University: Simplify online tactics by focusing on what generates results
• Training: Take expertise online via blogs, podcasts, or YouTube channel
• Social Media: Like it or not, or like it too much?
• Professional vs. Personal: What does this do for my business? For myself?
• Digital Detox: Focus on what you should be doing and what needs to change
• Social Media Accounts: Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO)?
• Delete by Default: Evaluate social media channels to know if they grow business
• Why use social media to grow business? Most visible, but not most effective tool
• Competitors: Correlation into causality doesn’t always lead to business success
• People vs. Platforms: Create real solutions to real problems for real people
• Coffee Shop Metaphor: Be different, relatable, and caring to create connections

Links:

• Platform University
• Teach it Forward Newsletter
• CoWork Columbia
• Google Analytics
• ConvertKit
• HubSpot
• Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport
• CoSchedule

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While staying at home and practicing social distancing due to the COVID-19 pandemic, why not learn a new skill? Translate your marketing content for international audiences. If more people can read your content, more will understand your mission and buy your products/services.

Today’s guest is Adrian Cohn, Brand Strategy and Communications Director at Smartling. If you want your content to be translated accurately and resonate with customers, focus on localization.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Translation and Localization: What’s the difference?
• Localized Experience: Where’s the best pizza or hot dog? New York or Chicago?
• Multiple Markets: Localize content if operating in different regions
• Content Localization: Speak the language to embrace local culture on product
• Mistakes/Myths: Scale of problem, language translators, and searchable content
• Audience: Who they are, what they need, where they reside, language they speak
• Top 3 Tips:
  • Understand your business goals
  • Identify staff resources to enable process
  • Measure and communicate results with team

Links:

• Adrian Cohn
• Smartling
• Lyft
• Slack
• Shopify
• CoSchedule

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Sad but true, some marketing agencies try to sell services to clients based on what’s best and most important for the agency, not their client. When and how do you know that you’ve made the mistake of partnering with the wrong agency for the wrong reasons based on what seemed like a solid sales pitch?

Today’s guest is John Bertino, founder and CEO of The Agency Guy (TAG), a marketing consultancy that connects clients with agencies. John knows what it takes to create a successful client/agency relationship, and what businesses and marketers need to consider when shopping for an agency.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• TAG’s Model: Consult with brands of all sizes to demystify marketing channels
• Top Problems: Too many marketing teams, specialties, and biased advice
• Issues: Growing fast by sacrificing fundamental factors of business operations
• Inexperience and Inexpensive: You get what you pay for
• Education and Expectations: Talk in a transparent way, not over people's heads
• How to be a better client? Be willing and ready to learn
• How to choose an agency? Consider personality, services, and teamwork
• Best Practices: Slow, controlled, methodical growth; put clients first
• Hiring Process: Prioritize communication
• 4 Steps to Worry-free Marketing:
• • Start a conversation with a brand
  • Create a high-level custom strategy
  • Connect with a vetted, proven partner
  • Measure performance to produce results

Links:

• The Agency Guy
• CoSchedule

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Struggling to work from home? Not sure how to adjust to a remote working lifestyle? Do you need some timely and helpful tips to stay positive and productive?

Today’s guest is Timur Valishev, co-founder and CEO of JivoChat, a simple yet comprehensive messaging chat app. Timur’s company has talented staff all over the world, so he has extensive experience with remote working and managing remote teams. Bottom Line: It works. Manage to stay alive and grow.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• JivoChat: Messenger for teams to communicate with clients across all channels
• JivoChat’s Goal: Be more effective at handling multiple inquiries, calls, reminders
• Why remote staff and physical office? Temporary option turned permanent perk
• Competing for Talent: Option to work remotely is main way to hire the best staff
• Marketing in Local Markets: Working in America, Asia, Africa, and India for ROI
• U.S. Market: Primary source of revenue internationally, but burns more cash
• Lessons Learned: Conduct as many trial-and-error experiments as possible
• Most Common Fear: Remote staff is not working, but doing everything else
• Remote Work: Not for everyone; requires self-motivation and discipline
• What are outcomes of work, rather than maintaining the illusion of being busy?
• Scouting Talent: Find and accommodate remote freelancers via specific sites
• Misconception: Money is not always saved working remotely or by paying less

Links:

• JivoChat
• Zoom
• Slack
• Asana
• CoSchedule

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How can marketers make their content go beyond Google and Facebook for audience research to be a competitive advantage? The duopoly may monopolize your attention and saturate SEO and social media channels, but it doesn’t own Web and search marketing.

Today’s guest is Rand Fishkin from SparkToro. He describes problems and solutions related to audience research. Rand’s insight continues to be inspirational and instrumental in many marketers’ careers.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• SparkToro’s Solutions: Pay-to-play frustration? Alternative channels are available
• Broaden, Don’t Abandon Scope: Turbocharge marketing without spending much
• Find the Right People: Scrape and scroll through shares on social platforms
• Speak the Language: In-jokes and memes won’t work, don’t make assumptions
• Avoid Potential Pitfalls: Know, understand, measure, audit competitive landscape
• Event Attendance for Audience Research: Don’t limit learning and consumption
• Formalized Practice: Turn intelligence into product features, data, and positioning
• What it takes to win? Position product’s story, language, and solutions
• Product Content: Influencers earn amplification, engagement, and awareness
• Narrow Niche: From reachable audience to ideal customers
• Purchasing Decisions: What makes qualified customers buy or not buy products?

Links:

• SparkToro
• Moz
• SEMrush
• Ahrefs
• Obviously Awesome by April Dunford
• Making Websites Win by Ben Jesson and Karl Blanks
• AMP081: How To Do Remarkable Customer Research With Rand Fishkin From SparkToro
• CoSchedule

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Influencer marketing is a multi-billion-dollar industry that continues to grow and shows no signs of slowing down. It’s a direct line to your customer base to grow your brand and gain insight about your products.

Today’s guest is Jamie Lieberman, owner and founder of Hashtag Legal. Jamie describes specific do’s and don’ts of influencer marketing to avoid conflict with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Stay ethical and legal!

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Big Business: Influencer marketing shifted from blogs and brands to billions
• All Parties Involved: Transactions include influencers, agencies, and brands
• Misconceptions: Influencers take any sponsored content and focus only on ROI
• Best Practices: Quality over quantity, metrics, and analytics of sponsored content
• Worst Tactics: FTC disclosures defeat trust between influencers and brands
• Getting Started: Conduct research, learn from others, and find influencers
• Do’s: Build authentic relationships and form true partnerships

Links:

• Jamie Lieberman’s Email
• Jamie Lieberman’s Phone: 973-419-5854
• Hashtag Legal
• Federal Trade Commission (FTC)
• Influencer Marketing Association
• CoSchedule

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Why should content marketers start a podcast? How are podcasts different from other content mediums? What does it take to make podcasts possible and sustain success?

Today’s guest is Craig Hewitt from Podcast Motor and Castos. From first-hand experience, Craig understands how painful podcasting can be. It takes time, skills, and effort. He helps others get started to understand the value of podcasts.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Biggest Challenges: How brands position content and podcast presence
• Plan Ahead: Purpose of podcast, types of content, and brand positioning
• Podcast Popularity: Effective content, earning potential, and making connections
• Branded Content vs. Content for a Brand: What’s the difference?
• Podcast Perseverance: Be different to be successful or die in a sea of sameness
• Audience Podcast Series: How to start a podcast? How to grow an audience?
• Podcast Skepticism: Is it worth the investment? Why? Marketing toolbelt asset
• Recommended Gear: Microphone, headphones, and pop filter
• Measuring and Monitoring ROI Metrics: Depends on brand and podcast

Links:

• Podcast Motor
• Castos
• How To Start A Podcast: Your 2020 Step-By-Step Guide
• Audience Podcast
• Audio Technica ATR2100 Microphone
• Sony MDR7506 Headphones
• PEMOTech Microphone Pop Filter
• Wondery
• Gimlet Media Podcasts
• National Public Radio (NPR) Podcasts
• Seth Godin
• Joe Rogan
• CoSchedule

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How can marketers create successful social media video ads that go viral and generate intentional results via an iterative approach? There are no bad ideas!

Today’s guest is Travis Chambers of Chamber Media. He describes how to infuse social media video ads by using quantitative creativity. Why? What works is usually not what you think is going to work.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Chamber Media: Creates high-production social ads to 5X brand revenue growth
• Chamber Media’s Secret Sauce: Create different types of profitable video ads
• Chambers’s Career Choice: Writing on the wall that journalism was dead and TV was too competitive; decided on digital marketing
• Creative Ideation Process: 7 key foundational categories for ad types
• Formulaic Output and Focus Group Feedback: Hook, problem, solution, social proof, testimonials, reviews, calls to action, and then testing, testing, testing
• Ad Campaign Workflow: Customer, problem, solution, product, and conversion
• Creative is Creative: Randomness, less predictability consistently increase sales
• Main Mistake: Novice creatives come up with one good idea, cling to it, and refuse to let go

Links:

• Chamber Media
• Made to Stick by Heath Brothers
• Facebook Campaign Budget Optimization (CBO)
• Lindsey Stirling
• Devin Graham (aka devinsupertramp)
• Dollar Shave Club
• Old Spice
• Seinfeld
• CoSchedule

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What is most content marketers’ biggest concern? Not getting enough traffic. The struggle is real. Why? Declining organic reach on social media and increased search competition.

Today’s guest is Nadya Khoja, Chief Growth Officer at Venngage. Nadya developed a simple yet effective process known as the Goals, Research, Authority, and Promotion (GRAP) Framework. Venngage uses it consistently to create and promote content that boosts Website traffic and delivers results.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• GRAP Framework: What it is and how it works
• Goals: Grow faster, get more links, and create better content for conversions
• Research: What is search engine optimization (SEO)? What content gets best conversion rates, drives traffic? What keywords rank?
• Authority: Brand mentions from credible sources, quality press links, and data-driven, unique, and compelling content
• Promotion: Outreach, optimization strategies, content clusters, and backlinks
• Company Culture: Tie in themes and trends (i.e., Harry Potter and Game of Thrones) to give data a narrative
• EAT: Google’s take on ranking content customers want to consume should include expertise, authority, and trust

Links:

• Venngage
• Nadya Khoja - Drunk Entrepreneurs
• GRAP Framework: How to Increase Web Traffic Without a Huge Budget
• EAT and SEO
• Tony Robbins
• Jeff Bezos
• CoSchedule

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Do you dread going to work? Does it impact your productivity? How can companies improve their culture? It’s not about putting ping pong tables, napping pods, and laundry services in the workplace.

Today’s guest is Wayne Mullins, founder of Ugly Mug Marketing. Wayne has consulted on some of the world’s biggest brands. He has gone from being a culture skeptic to a firm believer in the power of creating self-accountable cultures to help companies achieve their full potential and productivity. Wayne provides a rational and practical way to think about company culture.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Old School Approach: Results-focused marketing that goes back to the basics
• Components of Self-accountable Culture:
• • Activity and accomplishment are two different things
  • Accountability flows from within, not from the top down
  • Each individual’s ability to quickly and easily assess their goals
• Quantity vs. Quality: Improving company culture, improves company’s marketing campaign results for clients
• Aptitude and Attitude: How marketing managers can accurately assess potential hires for culture fit
• Culture Matters: How is it working for you? Are you constantly having to micromanage and fix mistakes?
• Consistency Creates Miracles: Culture is misunderstood as end thing to pursue instead of byproduct of components put in place
• Lead by Example: Foundation conversation around trust versus suspicion
• If unintentional about building a high-performance, self-accountable culture, then you’re intentional about building a low-performance, non-accountable culture
• Three steps to get started: Self-evaluation, scoreboard, and rhythms of accountability

Links:

• Ugly Mug Marketing
• Work Rules!
• RightFit Profile
• CoSchedule