Actionable Marketing Podcast

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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