Digging Deeper

Few companies have experienced digital transformation quite like Tastes of Chicago. The e-commerce brand within the Lou Malnati group of brands was almost an afterthought a few years ago. They sold Chicago-style pizza direct-to-consumer online.

Then COVID hit and business exploded. Now, Tastes of Chicago was a big revenue driver for the corporation and engineering the shift fell on the shoulders of Ahin Thomas.

He joined the company after years in the tech startup and investment space and was named chief revenue officer. His challenge was to help Tastes of Chicago latch on to the reigns the sudden boon in online sales presented and grow the brand.

We connected on Digging Deeper to find out more about the digital transformation of the e-commerce brand and see what the future holds for Ahin and Tastes of Chicago.

If you like this episode, please share it with a friend or colleague. Don't miss the video show each week by subscribing to our YouTube channel or our audio podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or Spotify. And we could use some reviews on each platform, so do give us a quick rating or review!

This episode of Digging Deeper is brought to you by PodchaserPro.

PodChaserPro is the professional version of Podchaser, which helps anyone find, manage, rate and follow podcasts. PodchaserPro, however, gives you access to that critical audience information you need for media planning and buying, or public relations or influencer outreach to podcasts.

If your brand or agency would like to find out more, go to PodchaserPro.com/falls. Sign up there and make your podcast outreach and media planning more effective!

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Does your brand have a grasp on measurement and analytics for earned media? Not many do. In fact, public relations and earned media have been some of the most difficult marketing outputs to quantify success with for decades.

The digital nature of both today should make it easier to know what you get out of your public relations efforts. But the combination of indirect or soft business goals (awareness, impressions, public opinion) and PR professionals lacking the analytics experience to translate those to business value has kept the return on earned media cloudy.

Kelsey Raymond has spent 10 years solving for this at Influence & Co., a content marketing and public relations firm based in Missouri. She joined Digging Deeper to talk about the challenge of earned media measurement and share her thoughts on how your brand can clear the water.

Some additional resources for the thinking include:

If you like this episode, please share it with a friend or colleague. Don't miss the video show each week by subscribing to our YouTube channel or our audio podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or Spotify. And we could use some reviews on each platform, so do give us a quick rating or review!

This episode of Digging Deeper is brought to you by PodchaserPro.

PodChaserPro is the professional version of Podchaser, which helps anyone find, manage, rate and follow podcasts. PodchaserPro, however, gives you access to that critical audience information you need for media planning and buying, or public relations or influencer outreach to podcasts.

If your brand or agency would like to find out more, go to PodchaserPro.com/falls. Sign up there and make your podcast outreach and media planning more effective!

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Few buzzwords have been as hot or used as "artificial intelligence" or "AI" and "machine learning" in the last few years. Marketers are pitched dozens of tools and approaches each month my martech companies promising this is how one or other other will revolutionize your business.

But the reactions to using AI for marketing are mixed. Some joyously say "yes" and dive in hoping they figure it out. Others are scared that it requires massive investments in staff and technology just to have a modest practice using AI.

Raj Venkatesan joined Digging Deeper to talk about his new book, The AI Marketing Canvas - A Five-Stage Road Map to Implementing Artificial Intelligence in Marketing, which is a how-to book for marketers and businesses looking to build smart AI strategies. The book is co-authored by Jim Lecinscki. Venkatesan is also the Ronald Trzcinski Professor of Business Administration in the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Virginia, and the co-author of the book Marketing Analytics.

He explained the difference in AI and machine learning, talked about neural networks and deep learning, then took us through the five stages of the AI Marketing Canvas.

If you like this episode, please share it with a friend or colleague. Don't miss the video show each week by subscribing to our YouTube channel or our audio podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or Spotify. And we could use some reviews on each platform, so do give us a quick rating or review!

This episode of Digging Deeper is brought to you by PodchaserPro.

PodChaserPro is the professional version of Podchaser, which helps anyone find, manage, rate and follow podcasts. PodchaserPro, however, gives you access to that critical audience information you need for media planning and buying, or public relations or influencer outreach to podcasts.

If your brand or agency would like to find out more, go to PodchaserPro.com/falls. Sign up there and make your podcast outreach and media planning more effective!

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Andrew Lee Miller knows all about startups. He’s even known as a prolific bootstrapped startup marketing expert. In the past 15 years, he has driven three venture capital-backed startup exists and dozens of successfully funded companies.

His new book The Startup Growth Guide is chock full of helpful advice for entrepreneurs to build their businesses without a marketing budget. He joined Digging Deeper to share those tips and tricks, help us know when to step up and create a marketing budget as you scale and more.

You can find his book at StartupGrowthBook.com and him on LinkedIn.

This episode of Digging Deeper is brought to you by PodchaserPro.

One hundred million Americans each month listen to podcasts. For your business, or if you’re at an agency, your client’s business, ignoring podcasts as a method to reach an audience is not smart. But podcasts are hard to find, hard to track and it’s nearly impossible to find reliable audience size and demographic information to know which podcasts to sponsor or to pitch right?

PodChaserPro is the professional version of Podchaser, which helps anyone find, manage, rate and follow podcasts. I think of it as an IMDB for podcasts. You don’t have to clutter your podcast app with a bunch of subscriptions you never listen to. Podchaser helps you find and manage them like you’re subscribing to blogs in one place.

PodchaserPro, however, gives you access to that critical audience information you need for media planning and buying, or public relations or influencer outreach to podcasts. You find a podcast, click on the Pro tab and see everything you need right there. If there’s a piece of information you don’t see or can’t find, PodchaserPro subscribers have a personal concierge. Just ask them to go find it and within a day or so, they get back to you.

We have used PodchaserPro to make recommendations for media buys and sponsorships to clients. We have also used it to prioritize podcasts for pitching guests and trying to be a part of the show itself. It’s a must-have tool for finding, prioritizing, targeting and tracking podcasts for your business or clients.

If your brand or agency would like to find out more, go to PodchaserPro.com/falls. Sign up there and make your podcast outreach and media planning more effective!

If you like this episode, please share it with a friend or colleague. Don't miss the video show each week by subscribing to our YouTube channel or our audio podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or Spotify. And we could use some reviews on each platform, so do give us a quick rating or review!

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

There are three types of retailers: Those that sell their own products exclusively, those that sell other's products and those that do both. If you're one that sells your own products, Emily Grey has some advice for you.

She not only owns her own clothing and gift store in Raleigh, North Carolina called The Flourish Market, which has a great story to tell, but she also moonlights helping makers and businesses get their products on the shelves at retailers by educating folks on approaches to wholesaling.

We talked to Emily about purpose-driven businesses, leveraging other retailers in your own business and building out wholesale business for your retail store.

Also, Twitter has announced another advertising-focused feature. Our own Jason Falls shares his typical contrarian rant about the resounding "meh" of the move.

This episode of Digging Deeper is brought to you by PodchaserPro. One hundred million Americans each month listen to podcasts. For your business, or if you’re at an agency, your client’s business, ignoring podcasts as a method to reach an audience is not smart. But podcasts are hard to find, hard to track and it’s nearly impossible to find reliable audience size and demographic information to know which podcasts to sponsor or to pitch right?

PodChaserPro is the professional version of Podchaser, which helps anyone find, manage, rate and follow podcasts. I think of it as an IMDB for podcasts. You don’t have to clutter your podcast app with a bunch of subscriptions you never listen to. Podchaser helps you find and manage them like you’re subscribing to blogs in one place.

PodchaserPro, however, gives you access to that critical audience information you need for media planning and buying, or public relations or influencer outreach to podcasts. You find a podcast, click on the Pro tab and see everything you need right there. If there’s a piece of information you don’t see or can’t find, PodchaserPro subscribers have a personal concierge. Just ask them to go find it and within a day or so, they get back to you.

We have used PodchaserPro to make recommendations for media buys and sponsorships to clients. We have also used it to prioritize podcasts for pitching guests and trying to be a part of the show itself. It’s a must-have tool for finding, prioritizing, targeting and tracking podcasts for your business or clients.

If your brand or agency would like to find out more, go to PodchaserPro.com/falls. Sign up there and make your podcast outreach and media planning more effective!

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

How much time do you spend thinking about or working on your customer’s experience? The guest on this episode of Digging Deeper would probably argue that if you’re not spending a good portion of your time there, you need to. Brad Cleveland is an expert on customer experience and the founding partner and former CEO of the International Customer Management Institute. He’s the author of the new book Leading the Customer Experience: How to Chart a Course and Deliver Outstanding Results.

He and host Jason Falls talk about the state of customer experience in a world that seems to be overrun with volatile customers and bad experiences. What does your brand need to know and do to address customer experience today? Give the episode a watch or listen and find out.

This episode of Digging Deeper is less sponsored by someone and more just presented by a new project Jason Falls has built he wants you to know about. Our friends at Get.Online, the domain name provider, along with Ryan Foland and Kim Garst have produced three online courses that combined, form the .Online Business Academy.

It’s a series of easy to follow online courses built to help you start your own business, make a business plan, build a website for your business and start driving revenue for that thing you’ve always wanted to launch. Ryan starts off the academy’s curriculum with a course on how to come up with a business idea that doesn’t suck. The course from Kim is how to write an online business plan you will actually use. And then Jason's course is how to set up and launch your business website to attract customers.

The .Online Business Academy is FREE! The lessons are broken up into short videos and activities, so you can do a little at a time. Or, of course you can dive in and complete the entire academy lessons all in one day.

So if you’ve been thinking about starting your own business or you or someone you know needs help to take that idea to the next level, The dot-Online Business Academy is live and waiting for you. Visit jason.online/academy right now.

If you like this episode, please share it with a friend or colleague. Don't miss the video show each week by subscribing to our YouTube channel or our audio podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or Spotify. And we could use some reviews on each platform, so do give us a quick rating or review!

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Mike Arnold has worked from home for 15 years. In fact, he calls himself a work-from-home entrepreneur. His careers has put him in consulting roles with some nice brands like Cox Automotive, Verizon Super Pages and several major finance companies. He’s boiled all that experience into a new book called Slacking Off: A Successful Way to Work From Home. As we settle into new work environs, he has some tips and ideas for the new post-COVID workforce.

Also on this episode, Jason reveals his top five word-of-mouth marketing books.

This episode of Digging Deeper is sponsored by Julius, the end-to-end influencer marketing solution. If you’ve read Jason Falls' book Winfluence - Reframing Influencer Marketing to Ignite Your Brand, you know he and Cornett have depended on Julius for influencer discovery and campaign management for some time. When we look for the right influencer for client projects, Julius allows us to search across Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, Twitch, Twitter, Pinterest, Blogs and more. When we click into an influencer’s profile, we see their audience demographics, what other networks they have reach through and quickly scan their recent posts to decide if they’re a right influencer for the client in question. All the pieces of campaign management are there, too. Julius allows you to reach out, document contracts, share and approve influencer content and, of course, measure the ROI of each campaign, influencer or post. You owe it to your brand or agency to do a demo of Julius today. Go to jason.online/julius and request one.

If you like this episode, please share it with a friend or colleague. Don't miss the video show each week by subscribing to our YouTube channel or our audio podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or Spotify. And we could use some reviews on each platform, so do give us a quick rating or review!

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Shockingly, a good portion of both marketers and businesses are not hip to the digital world. These laggards are in danger of falling behind, then falling off the ability to succeed in today's marketplace.

Eric Schwartzman wants to put an end to that and help those not yet in transition, or those who are finding the transition difficult. His new book The Digital Pivot is a blueprint for any business, owner, marketer or entrepreneur to not just understand all the facets of digital marketing, but excel in implementing them. He joined Digging Deeper to talk about the book, why some have fallen behind, and what they need to do to catch up.

This episode of Digging Deeper is sponsored by Julius, the end-to-end influencer marketing solution. If you’ve read Jason Falls' book Winfluence - Reframing Influencer Marketing to Ignite Your Brand, you know he and Cornett have depended on Julius for influencer discovery and campaign management for some time. When we look for the right influencer for client projects, Julius allows us to search across Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, Twitch, Twitter, Pinterest, Blogs and more. When we click into an influencer’s profile, we see their audience demographics, what other networks they have reach through and quickly scan their recent posts to decide if they’re a right influencer for the client in question. All the pieces of campaign management are there, too. Julius allows you to reach out, document contracts, share and approve influencer content and, of course, measure the ROI of each campaign, influencer or post. You owe it to your brand or agency to do a demo of Julius today. Go to jason.online/julius and request one.

If you like this episode, please share it with a friend or colleague. Don't miss the video show each week by subscribing to our YouTube channel or our audio podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or Spotify. And we could use some reviews on each platform, so do give us a quick rating or review!

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

There's a huge difference in a brand strategy and a content strategy. There's also a huge difference in brand messaging and the everyday, tactical social content that delivers it. But in order to be ultimately successful with all of the above, brands need to weave them all together into a cohesive execution. And most brands don't.

Tamsen Webster has studied this problem and has a solution in her new book Find Your Red Thread. She joined Jason Falls on Digging Deeper this week to explore how to execute on a messaging strategy in day-to-day social posts, how to connect your brand's voice and promise through the creative and strategic process to execute well and beyond.

The book is fantastic. Enjoy the interview, then go get your copy and Find Your Red Thread.

This episode of Digging Deeper is brought to you by MarcomGather. There is nothing worse than wasting countless hours looking for digital files on your intranet, shared drive, desktop, cloud storage, or excel files. Say goodbye to the days of overflowing, unorganized file storage, and hello to finding files with speed and clarity. MarcomGather, your new favorite digital asset management solution, empowers your team to stay organized, so you can get back to the parts of your job you enjoy. With MarcomGather you can quickly centralize assets, eliminate unorganized file storage, and best of all - never lose track of your files again. Experience MarcomGather free for 30 days at jason.online.marcom.

If you like this episode, please share it with a friend or colleague. Don't miss the video show each week by subscribing to our YouTube channel or our audio podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or Spotify. And we could use some reviews on each platform, so do give us a quick rating or review!

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

There's a trust gap between consumers and brands that has been growing for decades. For some, social media has helped close the gap, but only for those who truly understand the dynamics of social media. For others, the spray-and-pray, blast messages just push consumers farther away.

Margot Bloomstein is a well-known content marketing strategist who has written a new book about closing that gap. It's called Trustworthy. She joined us on Digging Deeper to help brands understand the gap, how to close it and how to ultimately earn trust from your audiences.

This episode of Digging Deeper is sponsored by Julius, the end-to-end influencer marketing solution. If you’ve read Jason Falls' book Winfluence - Reframing Influencer Marketing to Ignite Your Brand, you know he and Cornett have depended on Julius for influencer discovery and campaign management for some time. When we look for the right influencer for client projects, Julius allows us to search across Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, Twitch, Twitter, Pinterest, Blogs and more. When we click into an influencer’s profile, we see their audience demographics, what other networks they have reach through and quickly scan their recent posts to decide if they’re a right influencer for the client in question. All the pieces of campaign management are there, too. Julius allows you to reach out, document contracts, share and approve influencer content and, of course, measure the ROI of each campaign, influencer or post. You owe it to your brand or agency to do a demo of Julius today. Go to jason.online/julius and request one.

If you like this episode, please share it with a friend or colleague. Don't miss the video show each week by subscribing to our YouTube channel or our audio podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or Spotify. And we could use some reviews on each platform, so do give us a quick rating or review!

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.