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:
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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.”
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:
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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.”
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:
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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.”
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:
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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.”
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:
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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.”
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:
Links:
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.”
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:
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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.”
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:
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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.”
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:
Links:
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.”
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:
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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.”
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:
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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.”
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:
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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.”
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:
Links:
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.”
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:
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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.”
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:
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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.”
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:
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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.”
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:
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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.”
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:
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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.”
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:
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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.”
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:
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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.”
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:
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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.”
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:
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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.”
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:
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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.”
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:
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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.”
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:
Links:
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.”