FIR Podcast Network

In this episode of AMP Up Your Digital Marketing, Glenn Gaudet speaks with Gaetano DiNardi, Director of Demand Generation for VoIP phone service provider Nextiva. Gaetano discusses the shift from old-school lead generation into the kind of role he plays as a growth marketer and why this change is vital for brands. You’ll learn:

* Traditional lead generation isn’t as useful as it once was. In its place, growth marketing helps you cultivate a trusted brand to bring prospects to you.

* Because of modern buyer behavior, owning your brand in search is the most important marketing investment you can make.

* Despite its trending popularity, account-based marketing isn’t right for every brand or product.

 

 

The meaning of “demand generation” is shifting.

Old-school lead generation — capturing top-of-funnel contacts and taking a spray-and-pray approach to cold outreach — is out. Well, it still exists, but it’s not the best use of your time. It’s inefficient and ineffective.

“Nowadays, it’s much more than just pure lead gen,” says Gaetano DiNardi, Director of Demand Generation at Arizona-based cloud communications company Nextiva.

Generating demand for your product or service now is about cultivating your brand and nurturing prospects. In a big way, it’s about simply being ready when buyers come to you.

Gaetano joined the AMP Up Your Digital Marketing podcast to discuss this modern approach to demand generation and how you can focus your marketing efforts for the best results.

How Growth Marketing Differs From Lead Generation

Gaetano has become skeptical of the term “lead generation,” because it elicits an image of scraping together a pipeline of unqualified leads to bother with your sales pitch.

Now, he says, “There is a familiarity and voice that comes with successful lead gen, and I think brand and customer experience are two huge differentiating factors. And I don’t think you can be successful at lead gen in the future without brands.”

Using “growth marketing” in place of “lead generation” speaks to that holistic, brand-centered approach to marketing and sales.

Unlike a lead gen role of a few years ago, which focused on grabbing as many top-of-funnel contacts as possible, Gaetano says a growth marketer has “all areas of the funnel covered.”

Source: Callbox

Where the lead gen of old might have been about capturing leads with a single display ad or piece of content, growth marketing is multi-touch. To reach prospects throughout the funnel, it involves strategies including content, social engagement, events and co-branding campaigns with trusted brands.

These initiatives help you stay top of mind with buyers organically.

Gaetano explains why this works better with the buying process than pure lead generation:

“Eventually there will be a pain, and I’ll ignore it probably for some time until it becomes so much of a pain that I can no longer ignore it. And then the day has come, and I finally need something…I’m going to think of those brands that have done a good job of remaining top of mind, sharing helpful and educational content.”

Through that ongoing engagement, he says, these brands will “have planted that seed of familiarity in my brain of who they are, what they do. They’re a trusted, credible, reliable source.”

Why You Should Embrace Inbound Marketing

People don’t shop the way they used to — for anything,

They have said millennials are the first generation ever to experience two global economic crises that will put them on a path to end up financially worse than their parents.

The Great Recession happened as they were graduating from college with the country’s highest unemployment rate in 80 years.

Now, as they’ve finally gotten jobs and begun to create some stability, they should be buying homes and stimulating the economy that way. Instead, we’re at the start of one of the worst economic crises the world has ever seen. 

During the Great Recession, I was in my early 30s. I had no business running a business nor managing a team of professionals. I was incredibly naive and a bit ignorant, too.

While I certainly had paid attention to what the economists were saying, I had NO IDEA how it would hit my business nor what it meant for the people I worked with.

Today, I’m a bit, um, wiser.

Not so naive to how this can (and will) damage my business. Not so ignorant to what it’ll do to my team.

I have all sorts of contingency plans in place—if this happens, I’ll do this. If this happens, I’ll do that. And if this happens, well…maybe I’ll start an online bakery or write that novel I’ve always talked about writing.

I’ve planned for the worst and now I’m hoping for the best.

Which is really all we can do. Plan for the worst. Hope for the best.

10 Mindset Shifts to Make During a Crisis

During the aforementioned Great Recession, Dan Sullivan, the founder of Strategic Coach, published an article titled, “The Scary Times Success Manual.”

At the time, he proposed 10 mindset shifts, which I think are as relevant in this moment as they were 10 years ago.

Forget about yourself. Focus on others.

Forget about your commodity. Focus on your relationships.

Forget about the sale. Focus on creating value.

Forget about your losses. Focus on your opportunities.

Forget about your difficulties. Focus on your progress.

Forget about the “future”. Focus on your today.

Forget about who you were. Focus on who you can be.

Forget about events. Focus on your responses.

Forget about what’s missing. Focus on what’s available.

Forget about your complaints. Focus on your gratitude.

In today’s podcast episode, we cover the first five mindset shifts, as they relate to communicators.

The last five will be covered on Spin Sucks (albeit in written, not audio form) tomorrow.

Have Your Say

If you are not already part of the Spin Sucks community and you need virtual human interaction and support from your peers, we are here for you. It’s free, it’s fun, and you’ll be surrounded by people who get you.

Make your book a success through effective marketing. This episode features #ThoughtLeader and #Expert Michael Stickler (http://aha.pub/MichaelStickler), book publisher at Leadership Books and Get Published. He is also a best-selling author, an entrepreneur, and a highly sought-after conference speaker.

Michael provides post-publication services for thought leaders and authors. He is focused on helping them build client engagement, while making their book successful with his effective marketing strategy.

If you want your book to be successful and need help with the #Marketing, consider reaching out to Michael Stickler by visiting his website at https://leadershipbooks.store/ or http://aha.pub/MichaelStickler.

Here are a couple of AHA messages from this episode:

* I help non-fiction authors successfully make an impact with their customers through their book. Once they have a conversation, they are ready to become a client. #Marketing https://leadershipbooks.store/ @BooksLeadership

* When an author comes to me, what they don’t realize is that having their book written is only about 10% of the job. The rest is #Marketing. https://leadershipbooks.store/ @BooksLeadership

* Making an impact on your readers and getting them to become your clients are the most meaningful things you can do with your book. #Marketing https://leadershipbooks.store/ @BooksLeadership

* People buy books online almost exclusively. But they will only buy a book if it’s recommended or is set in a community where people have like-mindedness. #Marketing https://leadershipbooks.store/ @BooksLeadership

* I developed a site where you can find your perfect customer and begin to sell them your books. As more sales happen, we scale up the advertising. #Marketing https://leadershipbooks.store/ @BooksLeadership

To learn more about Thought Leadership and how it can help you be successful, visit: https://thoughtleaderlife.com/.

Reach your target audience by polling people for statistically significant responses critical to your business decisions. This episode features #ThoughtLeader and #Expert Kelly Helmuth (https://aha.pub/KellyHelmuth), co-founder and CEO of Bestest, a mobile app that lets you poll the public and vote right from your phone. Prior to this, she spent five years in business innovation facilitating the cross-pollination of ideas between startups and multinational companies.

Kelly is an experienced chief operating officer with a demonstrated history of working in the management consulting industry and is highly skilled in business planning, sales, team building, media relations, and market research.

If you’re an entrepreneur who doesn’t have the budget to do what you need to do, consider reaching out to Kelly Helmuth by visiting her website, https://www.bestestpolls.com/, emailing [email protected], and going to https://aha.pub/KellyHelmuth.

Here are a few AHA messages from this episode:

* Entrepreneurs who ask only the people close to them for opinions about their product or service and need to ask their consumer base but do not have the resources to do so or how to do it should reach out to Kelly Helmuth. https://aha.pub/KellyHelmuth

* Big corporations already have their consumer base, while small companies and starting entrepreneurs don’t. My role is to help you have access to your #TargetMarket, critical to making a decision to move your business forward. https://www.bestestpolls.com/ @bestestpolls

* There is power in a crowd — the voice of your #TargetAudience. I can provide you with the technology to “poll the people” via an app that gives you the power to collect usable insights for your business. https://aha.pub/KellyHelmuth

* Does your business need a focus group to try and evaluate your products? I can make it easy for you with statistically significant responses from a tool where you don’t have to do the recruiting at all. #TargetAudience https://www.bestestpolls.com/ @bestestpolls

* With a database of over 75,000 questions that have already been asked on various topics and product categories, I can help you find something related to your business with critical data already available for you. #TargetMarket https://aha.pub/KellyHelmuth

To learn more about Thought Leadership and how it can help you be successful, visit https://thoughtleaderlife.com/.

The March episode of “The Hobson & Holtz Report” is a coronavirus communications special with Neville and Shel discussing these topics:

* How Shel and Neville’s respective organizations are communicating during the outbreak

* A study finds employers are the most credible source of coronavirus information for employees

* Snapchat, AI, VR, and LinkedIn are all playing their part

* Shelter-in-place orders could make work-from-home the new normal

* How brands are navigating marketing and social media during the crisis

* Zoombombing is now a thing in public Zoom sessions

* Dan York reports on the internet’s resiliency during the emergency and on the impending release of WordPress 5.4

We are hosting an FIR Communicators Coffee Break on Zoom this coming Thursday, March 26, at noon ET. Join us here. The password is 497764. Spread the word to your communications community.

Special thanks to Jay Moonah for the opening and closing music.

You can find the stories from which Shel’s FIR content is selected at Shel’s Link Blog.

The next episode of For Immediate Release will be posted on Monday, April 20.

Links from This Week’s Episode

* Employers Seen As Most Credible Sources Of Coronavirus Information

* Edelman: COVID-19 Demonstrates the Essential Role of the Private Sector

* Snapchat Might Be Best Positioned for the Coronavirus Outbreak

* White House’s 29,000 coronavirus papers will be fed to AI experts for analysis

* Free VRTL Academy Course

* LinkedIn’s coronavirus content builds a sense of community

* COVID-19 Could Cause a Permanent Shift Towards Home Working

* Farts, cats, naked bodies: People are failing hilariously at working from home

* Webcor CEO’s LinkedIn column on the possible future of work in the construction industry

* Twitter Provides Examples of Positive Brand Communications Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic

* How Brands Are Taking Extra Precaution to Avoid Coronavirus Insensitivities

* Why Every Brand You’ve Ever Bought From is Sending You Coronavirus Emails

* The Best, Worst, and Weirdest of the Random Coronavirus Emails We’re ...

Bosses: True Stories of the Good, the Bad and the Ugly is a candid and provocative new book in which communication and leadership expert Roger D’Aprix (also an IABC Fellow) asserts that many leaders are ignoring the proper selection, training, development, and ongoing support of the mid-level bosses they entrust to manage company talent.

Roger joined four IABC Fellows and moderator Shel Holtz on March 19 for a conversation about bosses, their communication role, and how organizational communicators can help improve the culture of management in their organizations.

In addition to Roger and Shel, Fellows participating in this conversation included Bish Mukherjee, Jim Shaffer, Angela Sinickas, and Stacy Wilson.

About the panel

Roger D’Aprix is an internationally known consultant, lecturer, and author who has helped scores of Fortune 500 companies develop more effective communication strategies, embrace cultural change and achieve better business results. His clients have included such organizations as Comcast, Cisco Systems, DuPont, Lucent Technologies, General Motors, Saturn Corporation, Hewlett-Packard, EDS, GE Capital Services, Marsh, Pfizer and others. Before joining ROI Communication’s Board of Advisors in 2005, Roger served as vice president and global practice leader for Towers Perrin’s human resource communication practice, and as a principal and service developer for Mercer Human Resource Consulting. Before that, he led employee communications for Xerox Corporation and held executive communication positions at General Electric and Bell and Howell. Roger has written several books on employee communication, including his best-selling Communicating for Change: Connecting the Workplace with the Marketplace and The Credible Company: Communicating with Today’s Skeptical Workforce.

Bish Mukherjee is an advisor in marketing, media, public relations, and branding. He is president of Misha Network. He did award-winning work for the Reserve Bank, BSES, Colgate-Palmolive, and Alstom. He has organized corporate events for the Queen of England, the British Prime Minister, and the French President. Bish has anchored a fortnightly TV show on Bombay TV. he was featured on Australia’s “Sixty Minutes.” Bish has taught advertising and PR. He is an executive board member of the Indo-Australian Chamber of Commerce and is a PRCI Hall of Fame inductee; he also serves on the board of advisors of the Public Relations Council of India, from which he received a lifetime achievement award in 2019.

Jim Shaffer is a business adviser, leadership coach, author, and speaker. As leader of the Jim Shaffer Group, he helps organizations accelerate results through superior strategy execution. The Jim Shaffer Group creates hard business results by translating the business strategy to the people who need to implement it, aligning systems, processes, and culture to make the gains sustainable. The firm has improved quality, service, sales, safety, turnover, productivity, speed and costs with some returns exceeding more than 1,600 percent. He designed and produced the IABC Academy courses, “Managing Communication to Drive Results and Value” and “How to Add Value as a Strategic Adviser”. Some of his clients have included: Hallmark, ConAgra Foods, FedEx, IBM, Marriott, Mayo Clinic, Verizon, Owens Corning, Pfizer, and Toyota.

Angela Sinickas is the founder of Sinickas Communications, which has worked with companies, organizations, and governments in 32 countries on six continents. Her clients include 25% of the Forbes Top 100 largest global companies. Before starting her own consulting firm, she held positions from editor to vice president in for-profit and gover...

Invest in productivity and elevate client experience with attention to detail, psychology, and technology. This episode features #ThoughtLeader and #Expert Angela Proffitt (https://aha.pub/AngelaProffitt), founder and GSD (Get Shit Done!) creative of AngelaProffitt.com, productivity and event consultant, and celebrity wedding planner and designer specializing in technology and communication using her background in psychology.

Angela is dedicated to sharing what she has learnedabout accomplishing business needs using psychology and technology, even from her early years of exposure in entrepreneurship. She hosts live events, has a regular podcast called “Business Unveiled,” has published eight books, teaches online classes, and offers one-on-one coaching and consulting.

If you’re an entrepreneur in the creative industry who needs to get shit done, consider reaching out to Angela Proffitt by visiting her website, http://www.GSDleader.com/, and going to https://aha.pub/AngelaProffitt.

Here are a couple of AHA messages from this episode:

* Entrepreneurs in the creative industry having trouble with #Productivity should reach out to Angela Proffitt by going to http://www.GSDleader.com/. @AngelaProffitt_

* There is no one-size-fits-all solution for creatives and the challenges you encounter along the way. My role is to help get shit done (GSD) for you by using the psychology and technology in starting and running your company. http://www.GSDleader.com/@AngelaProffitt_

* I can teach you how to apply the tools and technology that you already have or that I will provide for you to apply them yourself in your own brand. What areas in your business are you struggling to be productive with? https://aha.pub/AngelaProffitt

* My background in psychology, work, and life experiences has led to clients whom I have built lasting relationships with. This gives me the credibility to help you leverage your strengths to produce more business. https://aha.pub/AngelaProffitt

* Do you need your team to work more effectively? I can bring over nearly 2 decades of learning and teaching in the wedding and event industry that I have thrived in to fast-track your business more productively. http://www.GSDleader.com/ @AngelaProffitt_

To learn more about Thought Leadership and how it can help you be successful, visit https://thoughtleaderlife.com/.

Renew your life with constant and conscious self-care to get out of the burnout cycle. This episode features #ThoughtLeader and #Expert Whitney Gordon-Mead, MSc (https://aha.pub/WhitneyGordonMead), the CEO of Intuit Wisdom LLC, which is an empowerment coaching and spiritual counseling company; an international speaker; a certified life coach; and an ordained minister with three decades of experience researching personal growth and how we heal from within.

She has coached professional women, entrepreneurs, and business executives all over the world. Whitney has been published on Thrive Global, an Arianna Huffington site, and Tut.com, a Mike Dooley site. She writes a weekly blog and passionate about prioritizing self-love and self-care to create and live a balanced, healthy, and joyous life.

If you have a ton on your plate or are stressed out and need to get out of the burnout cycle, consider reaching out to Whitney Gordon-Mead. Visit her website, https://whitneygordon-mead.com, or go to https://aha.pub/WhitneyGordonMead.

Here are a couple of AHA messages from this episode:

* Overworked and overwhelmed women in the burnout cycle who want to get more in touch with themselves and learn how to listen to their bodies should reach out to Whitney Gordon-Mead. #RenewYourLife https://aha.pub/WhitneyGordonMead

* I can teach you how to listen to your body and engage in body, mind, and spirit practices to strengthen your foundation. This can help you heal yourself so you can move forward and #RenewYourLife. https://whitneygordon-mead.com/ @whitney_mead

* My role is to teach you how to love, value, and appreciate yourself just as much as you do your business, clients, family, and colleagues. How much care are you consciously giving yourself? #RenewYourLife https://aha.pub/WhitneyGordonMead

* Many people, especially women, are easily overwhelmed and overworked. They don’t give love to themselves the same way they give to others. Are you struggling in this area of your life? #RenewYourLife https://whitneygordon-mead.com/ @whitney_mead

* Are you someone who tends to overdo things in your life? I can guide you on how not to listen to that nagging need to prove yourself, which leads to burnout. #RenewYourLife https://whitneygordon-mead.com/ @whitney_mead

To learn more about Thought Leadership and how it can help you be successful, visit https://thoughtleaderlife.com/.

In this episode of AMP Up Your Digital Marketing, Glenn Gaudet speaks with Shahnoor Khan of KCS Technologies. They discuss the growing prevalence of data-driven marketing and how companies are using artificial intelligence to streamline and optimize campaigns. You’ll learn:

* AI marketing is simply a strategy that uses machine learning and data to automate, streamline and optimize your marketing efforts.

* “[AI is] being looked at as one of the fancy technologies, but we are all moving in that direction,” says Shahnoor Khan, VP Global Marketing for SaaS company KCS Technologies.

* Embracing simple tools that use artificial intelligence and machine learning to facilitate data-driven marketing can help you utilize the unprecedented amount of customer data your company has access to online.

Your company has access to an unprecedented amount of customer data, collected through their online activity. How most companies use that data barely scratches the surface of what’s possible.

Tools that use artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze that information can help you develop a data-driven marketing strategy by understanding who your customer is, what they want and how they’ll engage with your marketing and sales content.

AI marketing sounds like a promise of the future, but it’s already happening in most major companies. If you use Google or Facebook for digital marketing, you’re using it every day.

Shahnoor Khan, VP Global Marketing at SaaS company KCS Technologies, joined the AMP Up Your Digital Marketing podcast to pull back the curtain on AI and help you see how you could use the technologies in your marketing and sales efforts.

What is AI Marketing?

AI marketing isn’t a single tactic but, rather, it’s putting artificial intelligence or machine learning technology to use to streamline and improve your marketing strategy.

Digital marketers were likely first exposed to the concept of machine learning — often used interchangeably with the umbrella term “artificial intelligence” — through Google’s RankBrain. The system helps Google’s algorithm select search results by learning what people are looking for when they search.

“From a digital marketing perspective,” Shahnoor says, “[what] is most important right now is to predict the behavior of your customers.”

For example, in Google Ads, Google’s DoubleClick platform applies what it’s learned to recommend a campaign strategy based on how it predicts your target audience will behave — i.e. what will get them to click and convert.

“Google is getting better and better at knowing what is best for the user,” Shahnoor says. “That’s precisely because it has [access to] the world’s data, it knows everything.”

How do Companies Use AI?

Most of us don’t have access to the stores of data Google and Facebook have. But we can — and in many cases, already do — use AI in marketing.

“It’s being looked at as one of the fancy technologies,” Shahnoor says, “but we are all moving in that direction.”

Chatbots are a familiar example of AI in business and marketing. Shahnoor says two out of three consumers use them, many without even knowing they are AI and not live customer service employees.

Voice assistants are another prominent example, used by 97 percent of mobile users, Shahnoor notes.

Netflix uses AI to make personalized recommendations to its audience. The Washington Post uses an AI writer called Heliograf for sports coverage. Starbucks lets users place and 

It’s a crazy, crazy time to be alive right now. Things change pretty much every hour.

What’s happening our world feels eerily similar to 9/11. Of course, we didn’t have warning back then and I didn’t run a business nor have people’s livelihoods dependent on me. But the eerie feeling of everything stopping is very much the same.

If you aren’t used to working at home, let alone with kids around, we’re going to spend today talking about how to do it, how to make your life easier, and what to do when your cognitive energy is taxed.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 29 percent of Americans can work from home, including one in 20 service workers and more than half of information workers. So while servers are still manning the restaurants—at least as of this recording—the technology sector has effectively gone remote.

Even before the pandemic struck, remote work was accelerating in the U.S. The share of the labor force that works from home tripled in the past 15 years, according to the Federal Reserve.

Two of the accelerants are obvious: living costs in metros with the highest density of knowledge workers, and technology, such as Slack and Microsoft Teams, that moves collaboration and gossip online.

Work from Home Recommendations

Here are two recommendations to make working from home easier and more productive:

* Schedule specified working hours: at the end of your work day, shut off your computer and walk away;

* Designate an area to use only for work: it should not be in your bedroom or in front of the TV.

Two tools that facilitate working at home are Slack and Zoom. Use Slack to communicate and to share information, to check in, and to recreate the water cooler.

Videoconferencing with Zoom can replace face-to-face meetings, though not the same, they come pretty close.

There also are some practical ways to incorporate both tools into your daily work from home routine, as well as how to mitigate common challenges.

You’ll also find your stress level decreases—at least it will as far as work goes. It may not with what’s happening in the world and we all will need to fill our cognitive energy reserves when this is all said and done. But the mere fact that you don’t have to commute into an office is going to reduce your stress level.

You’ll get things done. You’ll be far more productive. And you’ll get results. Outside of needing human interaction, I’m willing to bet most organizations will create, at the very least, a flexible work schedule after all of this. That’s how productive everyone will be.

Have Your Say

Do you have more questions or comments about working at home? Share them in the Spin Sucks Community.