We're nearly a year into a global pandemic and economic downtown, but has consumer behavior changed? What about customer expectations?

In this episode, Chris Casale and Ryan Smith take a look at the latest digital marketing data and trends, as well as the consumer confidence index, to analyze what you need to know to reach your customers during this holiday season.

In a recent survey, 19% of organizations reported they are still not measuring the results of their content marketing. What?! More people are consuming content than ever before.

Are you one of them? If you are measuring your results, are you using the right metrics?

In this episode, Chris Casale and Ryan Smith discuss different methods for measuring your content marketing and which metrics are best for each stage of the marketing funnel.

· If you're not taking the time to measure it, how do you know if you're producing the right content?

· How do you know if you're reaching your audience?

· How do you know if you're achieving your goals?

Make sure your metrics are aligned with your goals.

Btw, brand awareness alone is not a goal…it’s an objective (we'll explain). However, there are metrics you can use to measure brand awareness effectiveness.

When you go to evaluate your content marketing performance, ask yourself these 3 questions:

1. Are people consuming your content?

2. Are they sharing your content?

3. Does your content lead to conversions (i.e. Leads)?

Is email marketing a relevant communication medium in 2020? Have privacy laws such as GDPR, CASL, and CCPA had an impact on email marketing? What does it mean to personalize and segment an email list?

In this episode, Chris Casale and Ryan Smith break down the third pillar of digital marketing - email, where they discuss why it's still important, how to cultivate a strong subscriber list, and how to build campaigns that generate results.

Let's be clear up front...email marketing is certainly NOT dead!

Not only is email marketing one of the most effective tools to increase revenue, but it's practically in every single industry - we all use email. And for those who always say, you know, email is dead, how much you want to bet they have at least one email app on their phone and they probably use it.

· In fact, email is more than 40x more effective for acquiring new customers than either Facebook or Twitter (source: eMarketer).

· A message is 5x more likely (on avg) to be seen in an email than an organic Facebook post (source: Campaign Monitor).

· The DMA reports that email marketing drives more conversions (66%) than any other channel, including social media, online search, and direct mail.

You can’t just email for the sake of emailing. Implement a plan where you promote content that solves a problem and adds value to emails.

Part of that strategy should include segmentation and personalization. Mass email communication does not return the kind of results as segmented and personalized emails do.

“Don't be selfish with your marketing. Focus on your customers' needs, personalize and segment effectively.” - Christopher Casale

Social media has been important for the last decade, but heading into 2021, it may be the most important pillar of digital marketing. In this episode, Chris Casale and Ryan Smith break down the second pillar of digital marketing - social media, where they discuss the demographics of each social network and the best way to engage with your audience on your chosen platforms.

You must put the social back in social media!

What is your plan? Do you have a plan?

Use the social media platforms where your audience lives, but don’t spray them with non-stop promotion posts. There’s a time to hard sell – don’t do it in the DM.

Step 1 – Know your audience

Step 2 – Post and reach out to them with nuggets of helpful info

Step 3 – Stay consistent and stay engaged

Tips:

· Make them social,

· add value,

· engage with your audience,

· and don't just be so selfish that you don't engage with other people,

Visit their social media profiles - engage with them, Like their content, share their content, comment on them because that is what makes social media so great.

Why is posting content essential? Is search engine optimization still important? What role does voice search (Siri, Google, Cortana) play today?

In this episode, Chris Casale and Ryan Smith break down the first pillar of digital marketing - search, where they discuss why search is still relevant, the many facets of search, and how you can help your business get found.

Content marketing stats:

· The average buyer consults 5.1 sources of info along their path to purchase.

· 93% of U.S. traffic comes from Google search, Google Images, & Google Maps.

· SEO drives 1000%+ more traffic than organic social media.

· 76% of people who search on their smartphones for something nearby visit a business within a day.

Don’t create content for the sake of content. Have a strategy and a goal to measure your success against.

Know who your audience is, understand their problem, and create content that tells them how to solve that problem

Finally, be patient.

SEO is a marathon, it is not a sprint!

There are so many reasons why the first pillar of digital marketing is Search.

In a pandemic induced digital transformation for many SMBs, SEO has never been more important.

Do you know who your ideal customer is? Is your focus too broad? What marketing strategy do you use to attract new customers? In this episode, Chris Casale and Ryan Smith chat with Jason Osborn about the RETHINK formula and how businesses are applying it to find their niche and supercharge their results.

How many of you have a documented marketing strategy?

Have you found your marketing strategy is not providing the kind of results you had planned?

Even if your plan got turned upside down in 2020, you still need to have a plan. It may be time to RETHINK your marketing strategy process.

Jason gives a detailed formula to follow when crafting your plan and provides great examples so you can create your next marketing strategy.

He proves any business, no matter your size or industry, can easily put together a winning marketing plan.

For many SMBs and Entrepreneurs, the thought of marketing automation can be overwhelming. Where do you start? Which tools are right? What if you make a mistake?

In this episode, Chris Casale and Ryan Smith offer three tips for simplifying your marketing automation putting you on the path to successful digital transformation for your business.

How do you simplify your everyday tasks in order to put more time into what is getting your business results? Two words: Marketing automation.

To sum it up, marketing automation is simply streamlining your marketing activities.

Whether it’s scheduling out your social media posts on a platform like Buffer, creating an email lead nurturing sequence through a platform like HubSpot or lead tracking within a CRM, these are all everyday examples of marketing automation.

You created that content, you posted it on social channels, you crossed your fingers, lit a candle and said a prayer - is it actually working? Check your analytics!

How do you know which data points to look at? Not all metrics are created equal and it's important to know which ones are the most important. I

n this episode, Chris Casale and Ryan Smith walk through the different ways to use analytics to measure how your content is performing.

Do you look at website traffic, conversions, leads, sales, etc.?

After you have defined your goals, you will have a clear understanding of what to look at when evaluating what piece of content on your website is working and what is not.

Is a lot of traffic to a blog good even though there are no conversions? Depends.

For example, if you want leads, but you’re driving content to a high funnel content piece with no call to action, you probably won’t get the desired outcome. In this case, conversions might not be the best metric.

However, do you know how to evaluate if that piece of content brought a new user to your website, and then at another time they came back and converted? We’ll show you how to use the Model Comparison Tool to evaluate what’s working and what’s not.

Chris and Ryan share a few tips to evaluate how to judge whether or not your content marketing is working for you and dispel some content marketing metric misnomers.

Check out how to evaluate your content marketing with analytics.

You've put a lot of effort into developing your content to get it 'just right.' Now, what do you do? Abandon it and move on to the next piece of content? No, repurpose it!

In this episode, Chris Casale and Ryan Smith discuss some of the best strategies and tactics, including free tools you can use, for repurposing your content to achieve the best content marketing results.

Work smarter, not harder!

The rule of seven simply says that the prospective buyer should hear or see your marketing message at least seven times before they're going to buy from you.

You work so hard on content creation, but many fall short on efficiently repurposing that content.

You need to be where your audience lives and repurposing your content to fit on the various media is crucial.

An important key is to not just copy and paste your original content, but tailor it to the platform when you’re repurposing (e.g. sharing a blog post on Facebook will be slightly different from the post copy you use when you share it on Twitter).

Learn to take one epic piece of content (e.g. blog post, video, podcast, etc.), and slice and dice to fit other platforms where your audience lives.

Chris and Ryan discuss some of the best strategies and tactics, including free tools you can use, that have worked for us in repurposing content to achieve the best content marketing results.

You already know that content and content marketing is vital to build awareness and drive leads. However, with customers all at different stages in their buying journey, how do you know which content is right for each stage? In this episode, Chris Casale and Ryan Smith dissect the marketing funnel (read: marketing flywheel) to analyze which types of content are right for each stage to help your customers with their decision making.

While the funnel has evolved over the years, the basic premise of the funnel is still very relevant in today’s digital marketing age.

Top of Funnel - Awareness Stage (Flywheel: Attract)

Where people looking for answers, resources, education, research data, opinions, and insight.

Middle of Funnel - Consideration Stage (Flywheel: Engage)

Where people are doing heavy research on whether or not your product or service is a good fit for them.

Bottom of Funnel - Decision Stage (Flywheel: Delight)

Where people are figuring out exactly what it would take to become a customer.