Destroy Digital

In this special GAME SHOW edition of Destroy Digital – your host Chris Asher grills our guest Mark Chen. Listen to Chris spring on Mark, a field of rapid-fire questions on digital marketing…things. Hear Mark up the ante and ramp the difficulty level to ‘certifiable’ as he attempts this…blindfolded.

This week’s episode takes a direct path to the answers by asking the horse’s mouth. Using a simple format of matching a Marketing Activity (eg email marketing, persona work, user journeys etc) with an Industry or Profession (eg florists, interior decorators, digital agencies, accountants etc), we get some spitballed content off the top of our heads.

Unrehearsed and unresearched, Mark will run his mouth with solutions that could or could not work. It was Chris’ idea. Whatever was he thinking?

Who will win in this contest of wills? Will it be Chris as he tries to get a straight answer? Or will it be Mark as he tries to follow his own train of logic?

Listen for the bell.

Warning: Do not try this at home. We are professionals in our field and have signed an all-inclusive waiver that allows us to attempt this sort of professional suicide. If you do have any questions you need (or want) answered, use this contact form. We put our reputations on the line, so you don’t have to. Chris and Mark neither endorse nor warranty the answers in this particular episode. Employ them at your peril or advantage.

The post #076 – DESTROY DIGITAL – The GAME SHOW appeared first on A Digital Marketing Podcast - Destroy Digital.

No one’s going to care about your content. So, you have to keep making content. Crazy right? Not really. The key here is that you have to be in it to win it. If you’re making content, then keep making content. No matter what. And make sure you cover your bases with Paid, Owned and Earned media.

And don’t get caught in the weeds. Good content is independent of production values. You really want to avoid the proverbial ‘lipstick on a pig’ scenario when it comes to online content.

Take a leaf out of the content making book of Vanessa Dolan from Creative Recruiters. She makes content on her phone. Every single day. And it works. They’re ranked by Linkedin as Asia Pacific’s Most Socially Engaged Creative Recruitment Agency.

Now that you’ve made that content where do you put it? Well, there are THREE types of media. In THREE different places. There are THREE. THREE is the number…after two and before four.

The first is Paid Media. Frankly…it has almost no cred with consumers. Very few people these days will buy or convert off the back of a paid post. But they will do their research or dig deeper if your content is intriguing enough.

Some of the above paid-media will funnel audiences to our next level of media. Owned Media. It is more credible than Paid Media and is usually used to build affinity and to demonstrate expertise. They come in the form of a blog, a podcast, a newsletter and even a youtube channel. You as a brand will have complete control and the initiative. Cue Carol Camoen‘s episode on taking charge of your brand narrative.

Earned Media. Unbiased. Pure. Real. It could go either way. Could be negative or could be positive. You have no control over it. This is akin to UGC or User Generated Content.

Think of independent reviews like on Google and Facebook. Users really put a lot of trust in them. Why? Because it’s earned.

Good or bad, you’ve earned it. Especially if the person creating that content in relation to your brand is highly trusted and credible. This has the highest value.

Now this means that getting negative feedback is also not the end of the world. Anytime you get feedback it is an opportunity for you to reach out to increase your credibility.

If you get negative reviews, reach out to the reviewer and ask for them work with you fix the issues. Co-opt them into the process. Then have them report on the process as you go about demonstrating how serious you are about your users and how you totally do not take your customers for granted.

Then watch your brand loyalty go through the roof. This is not speculation. This is proven.

In short, keep making content to get good Earned media. You should have Paid Media and Owned media working in conjunction to give your audience a reference point to your offering to help you get Earned Media.

And so, the wheels of the bus go round and round…

Finally a shoutout to Bronwyn Clee. If you’re ready to “…to turn the shit in your life into fertiliser.” Here’s where you go. She’s the very best at what she does and she’s got the IQ and EQ to get you where you need to be in life.

Image Credits: Tom Margie

The post #075 – Keep Making Content. appeared first on A Digital Marketing Podcast - Destroy Digital.

There are e-Commerce sites and there are e-Commerce sites. Some are good and some are terrible. If you’re building an e-Commerce website, you need to be very clear about your objectives and also make sure the User Experience is spot on. Don’t overestimate your customers desire to access your offering. Too much friction and they’re out of there like a shot.

The major takeaway here is to successfully map your customer’s User Journey. Make sure you take the time to test this, preferably with actual users and focus groups. Reduce friction and increase ease of use.

If you’re selling internationally there are a few things to take into account. Currency conversion is one. Shipping costs and handling is another.

Selling online will also show up any weaknesses in your inventory management. From unique identifiers, such as SKU’s (Stock Keeping Units), barcoding and even warehousing.

Listen on for other things to look out for when you’re trying to sell online, be it physical products or online downloads.

So, if you’re building an e-commerce website, here’re other episodes that cover other aspects on web builds.

Episode #066 – Top WooCommerce Plugins
Episode #024 – Good Web Development – Buyer Beware

Here’s an AUSPOST Business page about shipping.

The post #074 – Building an e-Commerce website? appeared first on A Digital Marketing Podcast - Destroy Digital.

The last time we spoke to Kaley, she’d just published a book – 100 Lunches with Strangers. And now, she’s a bona fide keynote speaker – with a national speaking gig under her belt with a rapidly filling schedule heading towards the end of the year. And now Kaley Chu needs a website.

Since we last had Kaley on here (6 months ago), she’s been invited to speak at quite a few corporate events and conduct workshops. In September, she did her first national gig at the Choice National Conference–sharing the stage with the likes of Anh Do, Shane Jacobson and Jordan Nguyen. Amazing.

What’s even more amazing is that’s she’s now picking up bookings for next year…and frankly, it’s time to upgrade her website. Like most startups, it was built on the fly and on a shoestring budget. This is way more common than you’d think.

So, now that Kaley Chu needs a website, what should she be looking out for her new web build? What does the site need to accomplish? What will it do? How will it do it? How will it be built? So many questions…

But have no fear, Chris is here and he’s got his checklist. Yes. The Oink Digital website builder questionnaire that goes out to every client that wants a new website.

So listen in as we go through it. One question at a time.

*Disclosure – Mark is a shareholder in Kaley’s speaking company – Kaley Chu Enterprises.

To listen to our episode with Kaley click here – 100 Lunches with Strangers.
To ‘Do yourself a favour’ – Click here.

To see Kaley’s website or buy her book – this is the link you want.

If you’re looking for good copywriters – check out Avion communications – ask for Shaun.

And finally, if search marketing is your thing go to Nelson O’Neill but DON’T ask for Sea-ren (pronounced Sharon). It’s either Sean or Karen you want.

The post #073 – Kaley Chu needs a website appeared first on A Digital Marketing Podcast - Destroy Digital.

How do you make sure your local business is top of mind? This episode we have a look the Little Hope Eatery and recommend a few simple ideas to leverage all that goodness that is already available on the Interwebs.

Most café owners are too busy being café owners to be social media content creators. And that’s a fair all. It used to be that online directories were how your local businesses were found. Not anymore.

The Little Hope Eatery is a really vibrant and energetic local café on Hope Street in Brunswick, Victoria. Ever since it’s been taken over by new management, the vibe has been awesome. The new owner, Dom has put a lot of energy into it and it shows.

Your Google My Business page is now a MUST HAVE for your local business. More and more, your customers will be googling you and ‘boom’ you show up in the map listings. Or for example, customers google ‘best local cafés near me’ and your café will show up in a list of local cafés with ratings and reviews. Investing in content specifically for the Google directory is a very good use of your time.

User-Generated Content is another key to spreading the word. Using Instagram for cafés is a no brainer. Aside from asking your customers to post pics of your yummy food and hash-tagging you, try to create campaigns that give them a reason to do so. Image-based contests or giveaways are a good way.

Here’s a previous episode where we talk about location optimisation.

And another episode that talks about making platform-specific content.

The post #072 – Little Hope Eatery appeared first on A Digital Marketing Podcast - Destroy Digital.

A favour is not a favour if no one knows you’re doing them a favour. A good way to manage client expectations is to be upfront when you go above and beyond. When you go beyond the project scope, make sure to tell your clients. You might be surprised when they stop taking you for granted.

Do you feel taken for granted by your clients? Do you feel that they don’t value your time? Do you just say ‘yes’ every time they ask you to do something, even if it’s beyond the project scope and the budget’s run out?

You know it’s not their fault, right? If you keep allowing your clients to undervalue you, then you will be undervalued.

One other common scenario is that one particular low-budget client that keeps adding to the scope (but not the budget) with last-minute requests. Tell us if this sounds familiar.

To diplomatically reduce their demands, you just quickly do it and try to move on. But you can’t move on because the client comes back saying that what you did was not quite right and asks you to redo it. Just to get them off your back, you do it. They then come back and ask for more tweaks, saying ‘if you did it right the first time, you wouldn’t have to do it again’. Now you’re ready to tear your hair out…

Avoid all that angst. How? Simple. NEVER DO FAVOURS without telling them that you are. Do it before you start. Even better put a dollar figure to it and tell them what that is.

Never be taken for granted again.

The post #071 – Do Yourself a Favour appeared first on A Digital Marketing Podcast - Destroy Digital.

Have you heard of the YouTube Adpocalypse? How about Likes being hidden on Instagram? It doesn’t affect the majority of users but it does adversely affect those who use social media platforms to make a living. Those guys are usually just seen as collateral damage.

Make no mistake. Most social media channels make their revenue from selling ads. Yep. Which means they are beholden to their advertisers. This means having advertiser-friendly content. Which is interesting, because most of these platforms DON’T make their own content.

These platforms are almost entirely reliant on crowd-sourced or user-generated. This is the major source of audience eyeballs. Meaning, we make this content, upload it to a platform and WE go to this platform to consume this content. Now the sneaky bit is that these platforms sell ads on OUR content and reap in the profits.

In the case of YouTube, their ad revenue is shared with the creators. Which funds the making of this content. However, YouTube is demonetizing videos without telling the creators why. It’s like being asked to play tennis without being told about rule changes and having the court makings hidden from the players.

Find out more about this here and here.

With Instagram, this a lot more straight-forward. Instagram was never designed as an e-commerce or business platform. It started life as a simple photo-sharing app that now has a billion monthly users. Millions of people and thousands of businesses use it to make money and sales.

The issue is that Instagram has recently started hiding Post Likes in some countries as a trial to shift user behaviour. Consequently, influencers who are using Instagram to make money from their sponsors or from endorsements are feeling the pinch. It was already a precarious situation and now they are having to change their business model. Collateral damage.

Find out more about this here and here.

This has led to the rise of new platforms that are specifically for people to actually transact and do business. Etsy is one. Another being developed for the fashion industry is called RubySODA. Collectively, they’re known as social-commerce platforms.

Note: Mark is the CEO of RubySODA and he promises that it will fundamentally change the way fashion is bought online.

Image Credits: Today Testing (for derivative) [CC BY-SA 4.0]

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It’s only taken us 60 episodes and 24 beers to finally get Morry Morgan from the School of Hard Knock Knocks to come into the studio. In this episode, we catch up from where we last left off a year ago. We yak about making content, getting it out there and also an easy low-cost way to get your business found on Google search.

Would love to write a stack here about what a great guest Morry was and how a simple face to face meeting has turned into one of our most informative episodes so far.

Would also love to list all the stuff we talked about in a…list that is easy to navigate and read.

But that really isn’t going to happen.

The methodical success that is the School of Hard Knock Knocks is too big to fit into these show notes. It started as a simple standup comedy class in Melbourne to a legit school with a nationwide footprint.

If you’re a business owner looking to learn how to properly market yourself on the internet, listen on.

To get more context, here’s our original episode on the School of Hard Knock Knocks.

And here’s where to sign up for some stand up comedy lessons.

The post #069 – GUEST – Morry Morgan appeared first on A Digital Marketing Podcast - Destroy Digital.

Bill is in the business of corporate happiness. He is a pioneer in the space of using happiness as a corporate KPI. He is also a tourism consultant, film location guy, business coach and production house etc. That’s a lot of stuff. The key to personal branding is all about honing in on the one thing you want to be known for. Kapow!

As talent and expertise go, Bill Zammit is one of those guys that seems to be able to do-it-all. Those multi-skilled types that seem to be able to succeed at everything they touch or give it a red hot go. Great upside.

The downside is what do you tell people that Bill does? Especially if you’re trying to get cut-through? What is Bill’s elevator statement?

We had a go at explaining what Bill does for a living and we got a bit hung up on all the cool stuff he and his partner have done or are doing.

So, we just starting calling Bill, the ‘happiness’ guy. And it worked. It was the ‘easy-in’ that allowed us to introduce his philosophy and then when we had people hooked – we could expand on all the other stuff he does.

If you’re happy and you know it – just ZAMMIT! down to Bill’s website to get him to bring some happiness to your organisation.

Here’s the episode with Jack the Bear, who’s also building a personal brand.

The post #068 – Meet Bill Zammit appeared first on A Digital Marketing Podcast - Destroy Digital.

Digital agencies gone bad are a sad fact of the landscape, make sure you protect yourself. Everyone has heard of someone who’s had a digital service provider who’s gone rogue. While everything is going fine and Dand-y, great. Until you decide to take your business elsewhere or when they go under.

To be perfectly frank, hearing this really makes Mark upset. This rant was his idea. As an ex-owner of an agency, he’s completely mortified that any agency owner will hold his clients to ransom by withholding their login details.

Here’re some things you need to make sure you have when dealing with ANY digital agency. Access to all YOUR online assets and also make sure you own your domain name and have your own account with your hosting service. This way you minimise your exposure to shonky operators.

Also, hear from Chris about what best practice looks like in this space.

Don’t get held over a barrel – protect your assets and assert your rights. You should own your data and your website.

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