A sales and marketing funnel is when people have an awareness of your brand and move closer to a buying decision. You want them to know, like, and trust you, so there is enough value for them to become your customer. What does your customer’s journey look like? 

Fortunately, today’s episode features Daniel McGaw, the founder of Effin Amazing and creator of UTM.io. Daniel is a conversion rate optimization and sales funnel expert. Find out about the magic you can get from links and how to increase Website and content conversions. What are the superpowers of what can be done with a link when shared online? 

Some of the highlights of the show include: 

• Urchin tracking module (UTM) tags are bits of code you can add to the end of any link; it’s the only universal tracking method available
• Daniel’s product offers presets for teams to keep tags consistent
• Most entrepreneurs think about business in the wrong way; they focus on the logo, brand, mission, and other factors before they acquire customers
• Daniel thinks of business this way: Where is the demand? Do we have a customer? If we have a customer, then we have a business.
• How Effin Amazing got its name and gets a lot of attention
• Don’t ask for tons of information; just get an email address to optimize for leads
• Funnel Anatomy: Awareness, top of funnel (TOFU), middle of funnel (MOFU), bottom of funnel (BOFU), and referrals of the funnel (ROFU)  
• Daniel’s company uses the Velocity/Impact/Confidence/Easy (VICE) framework to map a funnel, which includes documenting information, developing strategies, and building benchmarks
• Evaluate your team’s skills and abilities to augment VICE scores
• Most marketers and businesses go wrong when they expect people to buy too quickly; and do not get enough email addresses - email is king and the lynchpin to success
• Learn more about your customers during the funnel stages, and try to educate them

Links: 

• Daniel McGaw
• Effin Amazing
• UTM
• Trello
• RealtimeBoard
• AMP on iTunes - leave a review and send screenshot to podcast@coschedule.com

Successful marketing takes more than just running ads, publishing articles, and designing newsletters. With so many moving parts, running a successful marketing program can be elusive. So, use a thoughtful and simple framework to cut straight to the heart of what it means and what it looks like to get consistent results. 

Today, we’re talking to Michael Brenner, the CEO of Marketing Insider Group and co-author of The Content Formula. He shares his global perspective and the secret to success when it comes to content marketing. 

Some of the highlights of the show include: 

• Michael discovered that he had an aptitude for helping customers at scale
• Counter-intuitive nature of life applies to marketing; there’s a lot more to marketing than just advertising, which we hate and tune out
• We perceive marketing in the wrong way; it’s a two-way communication between a company and its customers
• What type of marketing works? Things that are not selfish, promotional, and interruptive, but aligned to what customers are wanting and what helps them
• Marketing starts with culture, and growth equates to the amount of empathy a company has for its customers, employees, and world
• Mission Statement: What is your purpose? Meaning? What do you achieve for the people you touch?
• Step 1: No matter what you are working on or what role you play in the company, always ask: What’s in it for the customers?
• Do less promotion in advertising and more content marketing or education
• Identify the amount of integration and interaction that occurs across the company
• Step 2: What’s in it for your colleagues? Marketing goes beyond the marketing department; it’s a collaborative and magical effort
• Step 3: What’s in it for the company? Conversions and ROI of content marketing
• Culture, empathy, and performance lead to effective and successful marketing
• Michael tries to do 2 things every day: Be thankful and show empathy (T & E)

Links: 

• Michael Brenner
• Michael Brenner on Twitter
• Marketing Insider Group
• The Content Formula
• Jim Stengel’s Grow
• AMP on iTunes - leave a review and send screenshot to podcast@coschedule.com

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, most valuable, and most frightening companies. 

Some of the highlights of the show include: 

• Skill of the century is the ability to cultivate focus
• Behavioral Design: Products that are most engaging and habit forming were 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,” which means 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
• Three types of variable rewards are: Rewards of the tribe, rewards of the hunt, and rewards 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 are ways to 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

How do you deliver traffic to your blog? How do you move from chasing an audience to attracting and keeping one? 

Today, we’re talking to Jeff Bullas, an internationally renowned speaker on digital marketing, including social media, blogging, and brand building. His mission is to help people win at business and life in the digital world through the art of storytelling. 

Some of the highlights of the show include: 

• Storytelling: If people forget what you told them, they won’t forget how you made them feel
• Marketers in different countries face the same problems; they all want more traffic and conversions
• How Jeff took a $10 investment to generate more than 25 million visitors
• Books and blogs that inspired Jeff
• Build credibility and create content
• Description of Jeff’s virtual team; how he avoids the office because it feels like work instead of fun
• Make your brand memorable
• Connection between storytelling, social media, and driving traffic to your blog
• Make your audience the hero of a journey; convince people that they are capable
• With traffic, you have to earn and own it to convert it to leads and sales
• Passion and purpose is not a destination, it’s a calling and journey
• Develop a daily routine that becomes a habit
• Where to start: Ask yourself, Why am I here? What’s my passionate purpose?

Links: 

• Jeff Bullas Website
• Jeff Bullas’ Blog
• Jeff Bullas on Twitter
• Jeff Bullas on YouTube
• The New Rules of Marketing and PR book
• Jeremy Epstein’s blog
• Tim Ferriss’ 4-Hour Workweek book
• HubSpot Blog
• Deep Work book
• Building a StoryBrand book
• Contently - The Storytelling Edge
• Todd Brown and Marketing Funnel Automation
• Gary Vaynerchuk
• AMP on iTunes - leave a review and send screenshot to podcast@coschedule.com

Does it feel like you are trying to herd cats? Managing your marketing that way is not strategic. Get organized to manage your time, help you predict how long projects will take, and plan ahead to get real results.

Today, we’re talking to Lindsay Scarpello, an organizational mastermind with a background in journalism. Marketers need to think like journalists. Learn organizational and time management skills, as well as how processes and workflows are imperative for success. 

Some of the highlights of the show include: 

• Lindsay’s role at OBI Creative, a research and communications advertising agency
• Lindsay’s employment background in journalism and marketing
• Build trust with customers through education and high-quality content
• Organizational skills needed for marketers to succeed
• Time Management: You can’t miss deadlines and must be willing to hustle
• Decipher and present data in a digestible way
• Find and implement tools to maximize your time; keep using what works for you
• Lindsay plans ahead to stay organized with her time
• Be aware of what’s going on by using To Do list apps, notebook, or other tools
• Build a foundation of organizational skills to boost results and be an investment
• Organization becomes a habit in your personal and professional life
• Spend time defining processes to be able to execute them
• Content Planning Process: Research, build strategy/create steps, receive feedback, and implement
• How to plan content ahead of time using rules of marketing
• Be tech savvy and have working knowledge of all Microsoft Office programs
• Know how your brain works and your company’s goals   

Links:

• Lindsay Scarpello
• OBI Creative
• Mary Ann O’Brien
• CoSchedule
• Wunderlist
• Evernote
• Microsoft Office
• Panda Planner
• HubSpot
• Buffer
• Flywheel
• AMP on iTunes - leave a review and send screenshot to podcast@coschedule.com