Actionable Marketing Podcast

Marketers spend a lot of time, energy, and money building their social networks to connect with, engage, and share information with followers. How much should you invest in a platform and measure what you’re getting out of it?

Today, my guest is Shonali Burke, founder and leading instructor of Social PR Virtuosa and president and CEO of Shonali Burke Consulting. She encourages marketers to think about their social networks as a social community and shares how to connect with your social community to add value and meaning to your network, product, or service. 

Some of the highlights of the show include: 

• Plan, Paine, and MySpace: Community being generated through social space
• Is traditional public relations (PR) dead? Perception and transformation of PR
• Putting people back into public relations; getting to the heart of who somebody is and what’s important to them
• Trend of natural marriage between social media and PR; companies taking initiative and making changes to company culture
• Purpose and Mission: How to use and leverage social media to grow authentic communities and make people’s lives better, easier, and more fun
• Two places to find stories: Customers and Company
• First step to building and activating audience; what you’re asking them to do, why
• How to measure ROI; depends on goals and data
• Most common mistake made by PR professionals and strategists

Links: 

• Shonali Burke Consulting Inc.
• Social PR Virtuoso
• Social Media Day at Minnesota State University Moorhead
• Katie Delahaye Paine
• Putting the Public Back in Public Relations by Deirdre Breakenridge and Brian Solis
• Public Relations Society of America (PRSA)
• Jon Ferrara (founder of Nimble)
• Andy Crestodina
• Social Media Metrics by Jim Sterne
• Write a review on iTunes and send a screenshot of it to receive a cool CoSchedule swag bag!  

When you were younger, who did you go to when you had a tough question? Your single source of truth - your dad. These days, when people have questions, they ask a search engine. They go to Alexa!

There are big questions that companies are afraid to answer. As marketers, are you listening to questions your customers are asking? Are you answering the right questions? Today, my guest is Marcus Sheridan, author of They Ask You Answer. 

Some of the highlights of the show include: 

• Premise of Book: Business philosophy of how buyers think, questions they ask, and how they want to learn and buy
• Elements of Success: Seen as a teacher and trusted voice in your space
• Many of us think and speak like marketers; be honest when creating content
• Big 5 subjects that determine what people buy and companies don’t want to address; cost-based, negative/problems, comparison, best of, and reviews
• Let customers learn from you, not someone else; consumer ignorance is no longer a viable sales and marketing strategy
• Stop mindset of digital marketing as an expense and sales team as revenue
• Get leadership to understand concepts/results of sales and marketing initiative
• Marketer Psychology: Prophet to world, but no one listens to you in hometown
• Why are you producing content? For marketing or sales? Falsehood of too much
• Emails should include education; refuse to be average  

Links: 

• They Ask You Answer
• Marcus Sheridan
• Marcus Sheridan on LinkedIn
• Marcus Sheridan’s Email
• Marcus Sheridan on Twitter
• The Sales Lion Blog
• Amazon Alexa
• Angie’s List
• Seth Godin
• Who and what would you like to hear about and from? Send me your feedback!

Which mentors and managers helped shape and influence you the most  through the years? Who made you a better person and marketing professional? Are most of them smart, talented women? According to the Association of National Advertisers, 67% of the marketing industry is female.

Today, my guest is Jodi Duncan, president of Flint Group. We discuss the current climate and ecosystem for women in marketing and business. What are some of the current challenges and opportunities that women face? 

Some of the highlights of the show include: 

• Marketing agency trends and adapting to them - biggest challenge is the digital movement; expectations and pressure related to measuring ROI and spending
• How to evaluate, identify, and implement tools and technologies for clients; don’t overlook the client’s objective and what they’re trying to do
• Creating content and related messages, then effectively communicating content through multiple channels that have different parameters
• Challenges of creating authentic content experiences; voice should match brand
• Flint’s best strategies to do high-quality work for clients and be a place where people want to work; communication is critical
• Progress needs to be made regarding concept of women in leadership and business; Women in Business blog series shares lessons and accomplishments
• Are you a good bitch, or a bad bitch? Women don’t always support each other; difficult for women to get leadership position and not be branded a bitch
• Show support and make an impact via direct conversations to address issues
• Men just need to ask women to participate, include them, and offer opportunities to express their opinions
• Women entering the workforce need to pay attention, watch, learn, ask questions, and speak up

Links: 

• Flint Group
• Women in Business Blog Series by Jodi Duncan
• A Diversity Report for the Advertising/Marketing Industry — And A Call to Action
• Skype
• Sheryl Sandberg
• Write a review on iTunes and send a screenshot of it to receive a cool CoSchedule swag bag!

Marketers are in the business of creating content. They’re modern-day publishers. However, up to 70% of content that they create goes unused.  

Today, my guest is Randy Frisch, author of the new book, F#ck Content Marketing: Focus on Content Experience to Drive Demand, Revenue, & Relationships. Also, he’s the co-founder, president, and CMO of Uberflip. He identifies how to break bad content marketing habits and adapt personalization to marketing. 

Some of the highlights of the show include: 

• Content is at the core of marketing strategies; Uberflip empowers marketers to take control of created content assets and mesh them into their marketing efforts
• Randy’s book is not meant to throw shade at content marketers, but capture his passion and take on the “broken” status of the content marketing industry  
• What is unused content? Content that’s created and posted, but never leveraged on a day-to-day basis in marketing
• Definition of content marketing to create content to attract a clearly defined audience and drive profitable customer action is too narrowly focused
• Content marketers need to start putting the right content in front of the right people for that encounter to be a great experience   
• Real-life examples of what content marketers are doing right and wrong; tell a story that connects with customers
• Content marketers feel pressured to produce content, but they’re not the only ones responsible for customer experience
• Tactics and tools for the personalization of content and marketing at scale
• Content Experience Framework: Centralize, organize, personalize, distribute, and generate results
• Evolution of Content: People who want to go beyond content creation and think more strategically by teaming up with colleagues

Links: 

• Randy Frisch
• F#ck Content Marketing by Randy Frisch on Amazon
• F#ck Content Marketing—Focus on the Content Experience (Blog Post)
• Uberflip
• AMP123: Why Every Content Marketer Should Think Like a Publisher
• Content Marketing World
• Robert Rose
• Joe Pulizzi
• Content Marketing Institute
• Spotify
• Netflix
• Snowflake
• Sigstr
• Terminus
• Eloqua

Write a review on iTunes and send a screenshot of it to receive a cool CoSchedule swag bag!

What did 447 marketers identify as the top benefits of an agile marketing approach? Helps team change gears quickly; provides better visibility into status of projects; finds roadblocks sooner; and produces higher quality work.  

Today, my guest is Andrea Fryrear, AgileSherpas co-founder and agile marketing consultant. We’re revealing the results of the 2nd Annual State of Agile Marketing Report.   

Some of the highlights of the show include: 

• Agile Marketing: Transitioning from traditional marketing pieces to short-term, high-quality, flexible work delivered rapidly and focused on the customer
• Emphasis put on experimentation and validated learning through small, empowered, autonomous marketing teams
• Marketers moving to agile framework to increase productivity, improve prioritization, and allow time to be innovative and creative
• Common practices include daily stand-ups and using tools to visualize work  
• One-third of respondents are agile marketers; 50% are traditional marketers; and 15% are ad-hoc marketers
• 50% of traditional marketers want to implement agile marketing approach in 2019
• 54% of agile teams use a hybrid approach
• Agile aids interpersonal issues; creates better colleagues and work/life balance
• Processes, project management tools, and education assist agile adoption
• Overcoming agile skepticism; process of change is less painful than status quo
• Favorite shifts between 2018 and 2019 reports; marketers are getting educated and thinking for themselves
• Andrea’s Advice on Agile Approach: If you can’t fix it, make it visible

Links: 

• AgileSherpas
• AgileSherpas Training & Services
• 2nd Annual State of Agile Marketing Report
• Why You Should Shred Your 2019 Marketing Plan and Do This Instead by Garrett Moon
• Scrum Guide

Do you suffer from shiny object syndrome? It’s difficult to not become enamoured with the latest marketing tactics, trends, and technologies. We are distracted by them because they may offer hope or promise 10X-ing marketing results. Instead, stay focused on helping your business grow to generate revenue!

Today, my guest is Kieran Flanagan, vice president of marketing and growth at HubSpot. Kieran uses traditional marketing methods to help HubSpot and other brands generate additional traffic and revenue. We discuss how to create predictable and product-driven growth. 

Some of the highlights of the show include: 

• Challenge to sustain growth is more difficult as a business gets bigger
• Find new ways from existing channels or brand new channels to grow from
• People, products, and businesses change; adapt marketing sales plans
• Strategic Growth: Think logically about how to grow into being a big company by providing good products and customer experience
• Develop scalable distribution plan and use search engines to find right product fit
• 3 Stages of Fit: Product market, product channel, and ROI
• Growth Power Law: 60-70% of growth comes from one or two channels
• Build out next 12 months of growth, and predict where it’ll come from
• Keyword Search: What product does and solves
• How to choose best acquisition channel and strategy for scalability
• Establish and measure goals and expectations for different channels
• Develop work culture that embraces failure; experiment by taking small risks
• Keep remote team engaged, focused, and motivated by being clear on goals and proactive with communication  

Links: 

• Kieran Flanagan
• HubSpot
• Brian Balfour
• Loom
• Wistia Soapbox
• Write a review on iTunes and send a screenshot of it to receive a cool CoSchedule swag bag!

Are you a millennial? Do you work with millennials? According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor, millennials are expected to make up half of the workforce by 2020 and 75% by 2030. So, it’s important to  figure out ways to understand these smart and talented millennials working at your company. Are there any idiosyncrasies with this generation that may be helpful to marketers?

Today, my guest is Garrett Mehrguth. He’s the CEO and co-founder of Directive, a growing digital agency that employs several millennials. Fortunately, Garrett has found unique ways to keep them engaged and motivated.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Garrett’s Motto: Learn, Engage, Create
• Lesson Learned from First Consulting Client: Ask clients to pay you upfront
• Never use your power as a leader to manipulate anyone to make a decision
• Attract millennials by investing in social media to create a positive work culture
• Utilize recruiting tools to find the most talented millennials
• Best Defense for Bad Reviews: Demonstrate importance of sharing experiences and showing reviews to everyone involved to continue to grow and retain talent
• Millennials are the same as everyone else, but treated differently, alienated, and made to feel demotivated and devalued by others
• Directive offers a meritocracy and culture where people can grow in the company based on how they perform, not how long they’ve been with the company
• One of the simplest ways to create a structure for success and motivate millennials is to help them prioritize their tasks and goals
• 99.9% of millennial performance issues are related to time management and communication, or under-developed professional expertise
• Millennials are motivated when being a part of something larger; they want to feel like what they’re doing is contributing to something
• Directive supports career-driven millennials who want to be paid what they’re worth in an environment that accelerates their development professionally
• Offer benefits that serve your team, not ones that attract talent; Directive’s coolest benefit is mental health support
• Millennials want to learn, and Directive stresses its importance to be successful by requiring each employee to create a piece of content every quarter
• Be a leader for millennials by holding yourself accountable and taking an authentic look at and fixing everything that’s wrong in your organization

Links:

• Directive
• Garrett Mehrguth’s Email
• Fiverr
• Moz
• WordStream
• Distilled
• Marketing Land
• Search Engine Land
• Glassdoor
• JazzHR
• Workable
• G2 Crowd
• Buffer
• 37signals
• Basecamp
• Torch.io
• Marketo
• Agile Marketing Guide: How to Get Started with Agile Marketing and Do Your Best Work

Quotes by Garrett Mehrguth:

“If you could learn, engage, and create, you could always be better tomorrow...because you never take your foot off the gas.”

“We had this thought process that if we can’t attribute something to revenue, it’s not valuable, and that couldn’t be further from the truth.”

“Your brand dictates the type of talent you acquire or it dictates the success of your organization.”

“Millennials want authentic leadership and want an authentic team and an authentic culture that’s doing things for them, not to attract them.”

When someone says, “chatbot,” do shivers go down your spine? Or, does a big grin cover your face? If chatbots are annoying and an invasion of privacy, why are so many people engaging with this technology? More than 25% of the world’s population is using message apps, and 71% of people use messaging apps for customer assistance. People want their problems solved quickly via personal experience. Enter chatbots.

Exit traditional, one-way marketing, such as email, landing pages for Web forms, and blog posts. At least that’s what today’s guest believes. Larry Kim is the CEO of MobileMonkey, a messenger marketing platform. He describes chatbots, their benefits to marketers, and ways to utilize them. He shares how such technology will alter how we think about content creation, calls to action, and customer experiences.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Chatbot Definition: Forget Siri or Alexa; think about chatbots as the top of the funnel, marketing, lead acquisition, nurturing, and conversion technology
• Chat marketing lets you push notifications to collect emails addresses to send newsletters and other content; get people to subscribe to your channel
• Messages vs. Emails: Differences include lack of response and interaction
• Typical open rate for emails is 5-10%, so 90-95% of people aren’t engaging; open rates for chat marketing are 70-80%, and click rates are 10-20%
• Use advertising to get people to click on an ad that takes them into a chat session, not to your Website
• Marketers should change how they engage with customers; create personalized experiences where chatbots come in to help with back-and-forth interactions
• Conventional marketing is based on assumptions made about the audience; chat removes assumptions by asking questions
• Companies doing online advertising should use Click-to-Messenger Ads; customer clicks the button to subscribe to messaging with your company
• Website chat where a box in the corner pops up to offer help is not new; most companies fail using it because it’s hard to have someone on-call to chat
• Chatbots offer Tier 1 support to handle certain questions and respond with user-provided content; create chat content and assign keyword triggers
• Reciprocal Concessions: If customer believes you’re being helpful to them, they’re more likely to buy from you
• Identify information customers want; post stories or declarative content, then post a conversation starter to spark them to share their opinions and thoughts

Links:

• MobileMonkey
• Larry Kim on Twitter
• Larry Kim on Ink
• BI Intelligence
• HubSpot
• WordStream
• MailChimp
• Marketo
• Autopilot
• AdWords
• WhatsApp
• Messenger
• Instagram
• Write a review on iTunes and send a screenshot of it to receive a cool CoSchedule swag bag!

Quotes by Larry Kim:

“I truly believe that messaging is the future. People already overwhelmingly prefer messaging for communication, but yet businesses haven’t figured this out.”

“What you should be thinking about when you think chatbots is it’s the top of the funnel, marketing, lead acquisition, nurturing, and conversion technology.”

“But the messages aren’t just emails. Emails are stupid. You can’t respond to them. They’re not very interactive.”

“Users are okay with and actually covet communications with the companies and brands that they care about through messaging.”

How do you create content? Plan for it? Identify what will resonate with your audience? Marketers need to think of themselves as content producers and publishers. They’re all trying to come up with a story that has an angle and narrative to provide insight or leadership.

Today, we’re talking to Clint Schaff, vice president of strategy and research at the Los Angeles Times. Clint is a dynamic marketer and journalist who offers his perspective on marketers as content creators and publishers, and journalists and media storytellers as marketers. He shares processes around content planning, creation, and promotion.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Doing social good by transforming relationships between consumers and brands; content creation is meant to serve an advocacy for communications
• Content to cover involves complicated collaboration, stories consistent with brand, and commercial viability
• Feedback from influencers and data on your audience help determine content
• Editorial calendar serves as a way to plan and manage content
• Return on investment (ROI) and generating revenue from content
• Create unique, exclusive content experiences through experimentation
• Leverage different mediums and promote content through social media, paid advertising, and other ways to get more content and generate attention
• Write weekly summary of what you did and what you’re going to do to make sure everyone on your team is moving in the same direction
• Be a better marketer by making a list of the most surprising things you could do to move toward your objective

Links:

• Los Angeles Times
• Dirty John Podcast
• Chartbeat
• LA Times Festival of the Books

• What topics and guests do you want on the Actionable Marketing Podcast? Send me your suggestions!

Quotes by Clint Schaff:

“It’s about content creation that’s meant to serve an advocacy for something. Advocacy for communications, whether that’d be for a brand or a cause or an idea or story.”

“If you create amazing, impeccable journalism, but no one reads it, and you haven’t figured out how to meet a need in the market, well, that’s not a very good business.”

“Our whole brand is based on credibility and trust.”

“We’re turning on the dials, trying every possible way to get eyeballs on our content that people need to see.”

Is the future of voice search happening as we speak? Are we really in the middle of a voice search revolution? Are you part of the 41% of adults or 55% of teenagers who use voice search daily? By 2020, at least 50% of all Internet searches will be through images or speech.

Today, we’re talking to Jeremiah Smith, founder and CEO of SimpleTiger. He breaks down how voice searches will impact SEO, algorithms, keywords, and research. Also, he shares how marketers can optimize their content in a voice search world.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Pulse and perspective on current state of voice search
• Search Categories: General and transactional
• What’s the intent of voice search? Good answers, no advertising
• Indirect Commercial Intent: Customers become comfortable with and trust voice devices enough to conduct commercial searches to buy something
• Search engines using artificially intelligent rules and inputs to deduce output
• User engagement metrics trumping every other ranking metric in Google
• Google: Changing from a search engine to an answer engine?
• Evolution of old vs. new types of search; people need to rethink how they search
• Conversational marketing created to address surge of conversational searches
• Optimize content for voice search by answering searcher’s intent for any keyword
• Prepare for voice search by keeping things the same, read SEO documentation

Links:

• SimpleTiger
• Google Study
• Comscore's Presentation on Future of Voice
• Amazon’s Alexa
• Apple’s Siri
• Google Assistant
• Bing
• Write a review on iTunes and send a screenshot of it to receive a CoSchedule swag package!

Quotes by Jeremiah Smith:

“Market domination, in terms of voice search as an interface, belongs to Amazon.”

“I don’t think we need to be nervous and be scared because this artificially intelligent engine, at the end of the day, is doing something to produce a result for a company.”

“Your SEO schemes aren’t going to work any more. Your need to actually start pleasing your customers. It’s a much more blunt game that were playing now.”

“The way that we search for things also says a lot about the type of result that ought to occur.”