Inbound Success Podcast

Want to get better results from your webinar? Elias Zepeda has developed a webinar funnel that generates big ROI for his small business clients.

This week on The Inbound Success Podcast, Need Clients Now founder Elias Zepeda breaks down the webinar marketing strategy he has used time and time again to generate new leads and revenue for his clients.

What makes Elias's webinar strategy so successful is his omnichannel approach that incorporates more than just email and pay per click marketing.

Check out the full episode, or read the transcript below, to get all the details on the strategy and learn how you, too, can get better results from webinars.

Resources from this episode:

• Visit the Need Clients Now website
• Email Elias at [email protected]

Kathleen (00:00): Welcome back to the Inbound Success Podcast. I'm your host Kathleen Booth. And this week, my guest is Elias Zepeda from Need Clients Now. Welcome to the podcast Elias.

Elias (00:22): Thank you so much. So happy to be here, looking forward to it.

Kathleen (00:25): Yeah, this should be fun. I'm excited to chat with you about some of the different ways you help your clients get better inbound marketing results. But before we get into that, tell my audience a little bit about you and your story and how you wound up doing what you're doing today and what Need Clients Now does.

Elias (00:45): Awesome. Happy to do so. I started my agency at a very young age. I was 20, 21 years old. And I I happened to just get into it by luck. I was initially first working as a manager for a marketing company and we were doing a marketing for a large newspaper newspaper conglomerate and the West coast. And and I was worked as a manager for nine months at a very young age. And by luck the contractor, our client offered me my own contract to become a contractor. And so what that entailed, I had to hire, train and develop a marketing slash sales team to sell newspaper subscriptions. And this is quite some time ago, of course, but that was my first entry into, into the marketing world. And I, and I did that for four years.

Elias (01:42): I had that contract for about three years and I learned so much because what we did is we set up booths and we had a sales team that was giving away offers and incentives in exchange for getting people to, to subscribe to the newspaper. So we had a lot of promotions, giveaways, incentives, and, and that type of stuff. And so that was kind of my first entry into, into the marketing world and through that contract, because we had our activations at football games, basketball games all different types of expos. So we were essentially representing, you know, the newspapers. So we had the ability to do a lot of media trades. We would we would give out, you know, 10, 20, 30, $50,000 worth of ads and exchange of having a booth depending how long of, you know, of an event it was, if it was a fair, if it was a multi-day expo, if it was a season for the football or basketball game and so forth.

Elias (02:41): And so that was my first client many, many moons ago, and through networking and through being at so many events, that's how I, I spiraled into my second client and third client and fourth client just by actively networking because I was out and about at all times, managing the teams. And so we initially started as an experiential event marketing company and, and then we transitioned into digital marketing. So when I would tell you know, business owners, friends, colleagues, clients, that we were a marketing company you know, this is around the time that newspapers started losing its popularity and digital marketing, social media started being introduced into the world. And so they would ask you know, do you do any Google ads or, you know, how can you do leads or, you know what else can you offer? And so I essentially immersed myself into, into the world of digital marketing, into the world of inbound marketing.

Elias (03:39): And, and that's essentially when we started pivoting from an experiential agency into, into a, an inbound agency. And that's kind of how, how it all started. And so today you know, need clients. Now, what we do is we build sales funnels for, for small and medium-sized businesses, and that's what we do. And so what that entails is a fully done for you service, where we're generating the lead we're advertising on social media, and we are essentially building the whole a done for you aspect of the customer journey. And that's really what we're doing. And I'm extremely passionate about it, especially now that we're working with smaller businesses because it truly makes a difference when you produce the right customer journey, the right strategy. It makes a really big difference in the lives of the business and the business owner. And so that's kind of where we're at today.

Kathleen (04:29): Yeah, for sure. This is a tough time for a lot of small business owners. And I know you work with some businesses and some industries that are, have been hit particularly hard by the things that have been going on in the last year. And you know, that's one of the reasons I was excited to talk to you because it's easy to host a podcast like this and talk to a lot of marketers, have really big budgets and are from big companies that are venture capital backed. It's entirely another thing to be a marketer at, or for a company that has a smaller budget. That's really struggling, you know, and for whom these kinds of increases in sales really are meaningful on a personal level. And I was a small business owner, and so I have a soft spot in my heart for anybody who has the guts and the work ethic to start and run a business of their own.

Kathleen (05:27): So very, it's an issue very close to my heart. And I think with COVID, it's really just underscored how important it is for us to all support small businesses. So that was one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you because you ha you do just that you help smaller businesses fill their sales pipelines and you do it in a way that doesn't require a tremendous budget. You know, or lots of fancy tools. I think from what I've heard, it's very accessible. It's very doable and it's very repeatable for anybody out there who's listening. And so I'm going to think of this episode as my gift to small business owners out there who are looking for a way to try some new tactics in order to bring business in the door. Now with that as the kind of table setting for our conversation, I should say one of the strategies that you've used successfully to do just that is webinars.

Kathleen (06:21): And I feel like people hear the word webinar these days and they roll their eyes because they're like, Oh, webinars. We're also tired of them. We spend all of our life on zoom. Nobody wants to go to another webinar. Webinars are so like 1990s, you know there's a lot of poo-pooing around webinars, but the reality is they can still work if done well, and they are working for you. And you have a webinar funnel that you've used with a number of clients successfully. So I would love it if you could just maybe start by explaining the types of clients you work with and where webinars fit in their overall strategy.

Elias (07:07): Absolutely. Right now we work with a handful of, of industries and niches. And one of those industries is beauty academies. You know, which is quite interesting because that's not absolutely these are academies. These are institutions and organizations that train others. It's, you know, it's a business and they train others on learning the craft so that they can essentially start their own business. So when it comes to the beauty industry, you have your service providers, these, your lash artists, you're microblading artists, you're microneedling, and many, many dozens of beauty procedures that are out there in today's you know, marketplace. And then you have the academies, those that teach the individuals so that they start their own business. And that's one of the industries that we specialize in is working with these beauty academies and, you know, back to the whole COVID thing.

Elias (07:57): You know, most of the academies, we have a lot of clients on the West coast. And you know, COVID, you know, hit that area specifically in Southern California very hard. And so our clients at that time, they were, they were quite scared because they weren't able to hold classes. They weren't able to, to fulfill the service and, and this specific funnel that we're going to dive right into, it made a huge impact because they were still able to, to generate revenue when collect deposits for future dates. And so it's something I'm very proud, proud of because our clients were scared. You know, these are these, these are small local businesses and they didn't know what was going to happen. And they didn't know how long of a pause they needed to take and how they were going to continue paying their employees.

Elias (08:44): It was a scary time for them. And so I'm very proud that we were able to successfully execute this webinar campaign for them. And, and you're right, you know, we have done webinars, we've attended webinars and we see it all out there, but you'd be surprised. There are so many industries where to them, they have never attended a webinar. They have never produced a webinar. And so for them, it's a whole different ball game of like, understanding how was this delivered? How can I generate revenue and so forth? And so I'm sure many of the listeners here are familiar with a webinar, but for maybe a small percentage that are not really familiar, it's an incredible opportunity for you to really deliver your message. And so for those complex industries where you can't really just get the message across and just, you know, a minute or five minutes, you really need a longer time to really get out the benefits and explain how it works and present your offer.

Elias (09:45): That's when the webinar works extremely, extremely well for, you know, and so the biz-op industry career ops and, and the beauty industry is it's a perfect campaign because the people that are getting into the industry, they have lots of questions. And on the webinar, you have the opportunity specifically live webinars. We prefer live webinars over prerecorded. But you have the ability to really present your personality. You have the ability to, to answer questions and then take the attendees through, you know, through a journey that explains the benefit of what you're doing and, and essentially indoctrinates them. And towards the end of the webinar, those that are really interested are able to take action and they're able to, to, you know, to take the next step. And so for, for these academies, it's, it's something that works extremely extremely well. And I'm happy to share some numbers.

Kathleen (10:36): Yeah. And you have a, like a true Omni channel approach to webinar marketing. I think a lot of the companies and marketers I talk to often rely heavily on a combination of like email and maybe pay-per-click advertising or organic social to draw in their webinar attendees, but I think you've taken it, you know, a step or two further. So I'm excited to, to hear more about that.

Elias (11:00): Absolutely. Some of these clients have a very small list, less than 20,000, less than 10,000. And so what we do for top of funnel is we're advertising. And so for that particular industry, Instagram and Facebook work extremely well for top of funnel. So that's, that's the top of funnel is we are putting out an ad that says register now to learn XYZ, right? So that's an example of one of our creatives with a nice image and so forth. So that's top of funnel, people are browsing. Our target audience that we're targeting is, is spending time on social media, many hours a day that we've seen,

Kathleen (11:37): And this is really a B2C webinar, right? Like you're going after sort of the individual person who would, might sign up and come, which is interesting because that's the other thing that's different is that I think every other time we've talked about webinars on this podcast, it's been B2B.

Elias (11:51): Yeah, absolutely. These are, these are consumers. These are nurses, you know these are, these are you know, professionals. These are primarily women that get into this, into this specific industry. But these are consumers that see an ad on Instagram and and they're registering for, for, you know, for the webinar to learn a little more of, of, of the industry and, and, and just learning a little more about it. So that's the top of funnel. And so our first kind of KPI is seeing how many, you know, registrations were able to get. And so for some of these local academies, and we do work with academies as well, they have multi locations and different cities across the country, but let's use a local Academy as an example. We're able to get hundreds of registrations through Facebook or Instagram ads. And that works extremely well. On average, our cost per registration is between four and $6. And so we're able to get you know, hundreds, depending on the client's budget, you know, but we're able to get people to register for the webinar. So that's our first KPIs.

Kathleen (12:57): And how are you, how are you targeting those ads? Because like, I imagine you could theoretically go out to a very broad audience.

Elias (13:05): Absolutely. So we target based off of all the parameters that Facebook and Instagram allow. So pages you know, pages that they follow those that are interested in beauty, interested in the specific procedure. So so our media buying team essentially goes from either general or, or, or really segmented a bunch. It depends on the city. So some, a city like Los Angeles, Orange County is going to have more interest than, than a smaller city. And, you know, toll says that example. So, so yeah, we're targeting off of pages they follow and just general interests based off of the, the procedure that we're presenting. So that's top of funnel. And then our second KPI, once we get those registrations is the objective is to get as many people to attend, right? So we want a lot of people to listen to the message, because we know that those that listened to the message, a percentage of them are going to be interested in converting.

Kathleen (14:11): That's a good point because that is, that does tend to be the real problem with webinars is lots of people register, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're going to show up. And so how you get them to actually show up is where the magic happens. I think

Elias (14:26): Absolutely. It's, it's very important. You'd be surprised, lots of marketers. They strictly just rely on email, but as we know, email on a good day, depending on your industry is going to generate maybe 20, 30% on a good day open rate. Right. but so what we do is in terms of the omni-channel approach is we want to not only send an email reminder of course, but we also want to send a text message reminder, of course, these are opting in, of course, and then we also want to send a ringless voicemail. So having those three different, different touch points of sending them reminders of when the webinar is, is really important, we take it a step further too. So not only are we sending reminders immediately once they register, they get a message and then a day before, and then the morning of, and then a message 10 minutes before the webinars.

Elias (15:18): So we have found that that's the sweet spot. It doesn't really annoy people because they really want to attend. They're registering for it voluntarily, and they want to show up. And so these reminders are incredibly helpful and having the text message and having the ringless voicemail, it's so important because, you know, you can't just rely on email. You need to have those multiple touch points and the different platforms to, to remind the audience. And so that's, that's our second KPI is what percentage are going to be attending. And right now we're seeing between 30 and 40% you know, attendance from cold traffic, which, which is good.

Kathleen (15:56): Yeah. Now what platform do you use for texting and ringless voicemail?

Elias (16:04): We use Twilio. So it integrates with a lot of the CRMs that our clients are using. So the, for, for these local businesses, the CRM that we're implementing is called go high level. And it's, it's really has been increasing in popularity over the past couple of years and the industry that, that we're in. And we like it because it has the ability to control all of the messaging within the CRM. We're able to listen to the call recordings, we're able to see the Facebook messages and the emails and everything is just bundled in, in that platform. So we use Twilio to connect it and then for ringless voicemails I will have to get back to you.

Kathleen (16:46): Oh, that's okay. I'm always just curious about these things.

Elias (16:50): It's very inexpensive. And that's a great part. So on a, on a local campaign you know, I mentioned the, the webinar registration you know, four to six dollars, but the, when it comes to the ringless voicemails, it's so inexpensive a client will spend less than like $30. It's like 0.0, zero, zero 6 cents. And so it's, it's very minimal cost for you to have the opportunity for someone to get a voicemail that says, Hey, you know, just a reminder, we have this webinar today that you registered for. I'm really excited to have you there. Right? So it's also about the messaging as well, has to be really positive. And you have to show that excitement through, through the email, through the text message or through the voicemail. And that's the, that's the difference on the voicemail. You're actually hearing their voice. So you can, you can really implement that tonality and little things like that. They really make a difference.

Kathleen (17:37): And so a couple of questions on that. Do you have your clients record the voicemail? So that it's the same person they're going to be hearing from on the webinar? Basically

Elias (17:45): Very important. Absolutely. Absolutely. We help them out. We write a script or we'll write an outline you know, and these, these voicemails, they're, you know, they're 45 seconds or a minute max, right? People don't want to listen to a long voicemail, especially if it's sent directly to their phone, that's what a ringless voicemail is. It's, you don't get a call or just send directly to your voicemail. So these messages are recorded by the person presenting, and that's very important cause that's that's typically most of the time, the people that are in them that they're buying from. So, and then that the same person that they're seeing deliver the presentation. So it's more you know, more of the face touch points that, that the, that the prospect is able to see, but the client is delivering the voicemail of course

Kathleen (18:32): Way. And this might be a dumb question. But is there any way to get any analytics back on ringless voicemail? Like, well, you know, if somebody listened to it?

Elias (18:43): Yeah, and most of these platforms they provide they provide analytics. So they'll show the delivery rate, right? Sometimes as we all know, with, when it comes to advertising on social media people, there's a percentage of people that are giving, you know, fake numbers and so forth. And so there are analytics that show you know, the delivery rate. And then also sometimes you're able to also assess if that person ends up calling back that number. And so what happens if they call back? Well, it depends on the platform that you're using, but it can connect directly to a call that you afforded. So so it depends on the platform.

Kathleen (19:23): Oh, that's smart. So you send out all these reminders you have about between 30 and 40% of people who show up and then talk to me about what the actual webinar itself is like, because this is the other area where I feel like there's, it's like ripe for screwing up. If you're, if you're too salesy, it can be a huge turnoff. But you obviously, especially in the case of, you're talking about you, you want to have some kind of a pitch because you're trying to turn this into business. So how do you coach your clients and work with them on structuring the webinars so that it, it gets the results you're looking for, but also delivers value to the attendee?

Elias (20:03): Absolutely. So it's, there's a formula, you know, you're, you have to deliver value on these webinars. No one wants to attend a webinar where it's entirely just a pitch, a pitch. That's not fun for people, right? And so obviously there has to be some congruency between what the ad is saying, what they're registering for and so forth. But the formula that we adapt really encompasses providing as much value as possible. And that formula includes edifying the, the speaker, you know, so, so there's a couple slides that, that, that give background on the speaker, her training, his, or her training and you know, results that they've generated. So there's a whole formula to it. It really is 90 value. And then I mentioned that these are live webinars, so there's questions, there's engagement, and that's what makes the webinars fun because they're live.

Elias (20:56): So you can ask questions like, Hey, where are you? You know, where are, you know, coming in from, or press one. Like, those are the best webinars when you're really engaging with the audience. And that's why live webinars convert more than prerecorded ones, but, you know, the formula entails edifying, the speaker providing value, and that value is so helpful because it also demonstrate your demonstrates your knowledge of the, of the industry and also demonstrates your expertise, right? And so a lot of value that we're presenting and teaching something, right. Teaching the benefits of the industry we're going to sprinkle in testimonials. That's obviously very important to show you know, to, to show social proof. And then so I'd say 90% value driven and information driven. And then towards the end of the webinar, there's going to be an irresistible offer, right?

Elias (21:46): And so that's how it works. There has to be a true irresistible offer that is only offered to the people that are, that are really making the time investment to join on the webinars. So there's a special discount. There are bonuses offered, but that's how we're able to get people to convert is by taking them through that journey. And this journey is about an hour long. And sometimes depending on how many questions the audience has, it can be an hour 20, an hour, 30 minutes long, but we've found that an hour is kind of the sweet spot for this particular industry. But that's typically the framework of how the webinar works. You have to provide as much value, edify the speaker, sprinkle in testimonials, teach and demonstrate your expertise and your authority, and then present you know, the irresistible offer and have people take action.

Elias (22:32): And that's, and that's how these clients are able to generate revenue. So let's look at the numbers on a high level. If we are getting, let's say a hundred you know, attendees you know, Oh, a hundred attendees, and let's say we have 40 40% show up rate. So that's 40 people that are showing up. We typically see a 10% conversion. And these offers from these clients we're working with are three, four, $5,000 for three, four or five day events. So it's very lucrative for these small businesses. And so if we're doing the math okay directly, we have, you know, 40, 40 people that are attending and, you know, 10% of that, that's, you know, that's for, you know, conversions you know, initially from the webinar and if it's you know four or $5,000 a course, right, we're talking about 20, $20,000. And so that may not seem like a lot for, for, for large, large budget, but for these small businesses based off of their, their student acquisition costs and based off of their numbers and their marketing budgets, it's a game changer. And what we do is we repeat the process. We can do two live webinars per month, three live webinars. And so that type of revenue that you're bringing in it makes a huge impact.

Kathleen (23:53): So let's talk about a couple of the nitty gritty details on the webinars. Do you have your clients use slides? Is it just a person talking? What does that look like? What is that experience like?

Elias (24:06): We are designing the slides for them. And so we have found that, that, especially in this industry, it's a very aesthetic based industry. You know, having high quality design makes a big impact, and it's a lot of work. It's labor intensiveness where my design team, because some of these presentations can be 80, 90 pages. And so we're designing each page, we're customizing each page and then we're also helping them out with the script. And so it's a, it's a PDF or a PowerPoint that they're presenting and they're going page by page by page. And then in certain areas within the webinar, they're answering questions and engaging and so forth, but that's typically how it works. It's a, it's a nicely designed professionally designed presentation. And how long did the webinars last about an hour? We've seen the sweet spot be an hour and that can, you know, that's give or take some of them depending on the number of questions. If you have a larger audience, we have done webinars. We've had hundreds, you know, and over a thousand people attend the webinars. And so depending on the number of questions that you're allocating you know, the webinars can be much longer than that. It can be an hour and a half. It can be an hour 40 minutes an hour, 20 minutes, but we, we, we found that an hour is kind of the sweet spot for, for really getting the message across and, and really presenting the offer strategically and carefully.

Kathleen (25:27): And what platform webinar platform are you using with them?

Elias (25:32): The one, the webinar platform of choice for using is Click Meeting. And there's so many, you know, we're, we're vendor agnostic. So the reason we like this one it's, it's it's low price. And also what's most important in what we're doing is being able to obviously have analytics, but also we have the ability to drop the link. That's how we're getting people to actually click during the last 10% of the webinar. When, when they're presenting an offer, we're dropping a link, right, where we're showing it, and they're, the prospects are clicking that link to the sales page that has, you know, the countdown, it has the headline, the call to action, and it essentially illustrates all that they're getting with that irresistible offer that we talked about. And so that's just the platform that we're using, but there are so many that, that, that have similar features.

Kathleen (26:21): Yeah. There definitely are a lot now you're working with these clients, I'm assuming in many cases, you know, these are businesses that up until recently probably did everything in person, you know, or, or, you know, they sent mail or they used the phone, but they're not, these are not businesses that typically do webinars. So for many of these people, it's going to be their first time running one. How do you coach them on, you know, what it means to be a good webinar host? Like I assume that many of them are nervous, right?

Elias (26:54): Absolutely. Some of them, some of them are very nervous and we do rehearsals. We have them send you know, after the coaching, we have them send us videos. So they're rehearsing to me and my team, and they're sending us prerecorded videos. We have them practice with their friends and family before the live webinar. So it depends some of these clients, because they're in a, in the industry in the beauty industry, they're very comfortable being on camera and they've, some of them have had many speaking engagements. So it depends, some clients are more nervous than others, but we're going to help coach them. And then really the presentation is really helping them as much as possible. They're really talking about themselves, they're sharing their story, they're sharing about something that, that they have lots of experience with. So that part's easy. You know, the hard part for some of these clients is really the pitch going into how do you, how do you get people to actually sign up and how do you, you know,

Kathleen (27:50): Yeah. What makes for an irresistible offer because you used that term a few times. So I'd love to hear kind of in your mind, what's the formula for that?

Elias (27:59): Well, people love discounts, right? So that, that, that's, that's, you know, topic number one. So if, if this course is, let's say, you know, $5,000 and they're able to get it for 45 or 4,300 of they're able to save 500, 700 or even a thousand dollars, that's, that's, that's a huge part of the irresistible offer. So a price discount, that's really going to motivate people to take action now. And then scarcity too, this is only limited for the first 15 people that take action. So scarcity, and then the bonuses that, that makes a huge difference as well. So some of these bonuses can be, you're going to get a one-on-one with me, or you're going to get this, this, this course, you know, so we work directly with the client to, to really understand what is this target audience want? How can we make it an irresistible offer and what can we add to sweeten the deal? And that's how you're able to take people and to get people to convert the discount, the scarcity, the the whole webinar format, and then the, the bonuses. That's really what makes people you know, triggers or impulse.

Kathleen (29:05): Yeah. Yeah. Well, I love that. So, so talk me through, if I'm listening to this and I'm a small business and I'm thinking, gosh, I don't know if I could do this. Like, it sounds expensive. Well, talk me through, like, what kind of a budget do I need to have to do something like this? Cause you've mentioned a few tools and then the fact that there are low cost, but like, what does it really take to pull this off?

Elias (29:27): Yeah. Well, first of all you need to assess is, is a webinar, really the right type of strategy for my business, right? So if you're selling, let's say, t-shirts, it's not going to work. What are you going to talk about for an hour show a t-shirt right. Get people to purchase. And it's, so it has to be you know, the right, the right type of client, it has to, it has to be a product or a service. That's thousands of dollars. If it's less than a thousand dollars, it's not going to be worth your time, putting all the effort and, you know, presenting that offer to too many people. And, and that's kind of the game changer with these clients is like previously, before they start working with us, they're, they're, they're pitching one to one, like you said, you know, they're working with referrals, they may have done some ads before.

Elias (30:10): Right. But they're still having to them or their team. They're having to contact these individuals on a one-to-one basis. And the webinar, the reason it's so amazing. And we love it is because you're, you're, you're presenting one too many. And so that's a big game changer. So those that are considering doing a webinar, they have to have the right price point. So the sweet spot that we've found is, you know, two to $5,000, anything higher than that is going to be a longer sales cycle and anything lower than that just doesn't make fiscal sense. Right. and then and then in terms of dialing in your numbers, when you're running ads for that industry, like I said, we see four to six you know, our, our, our cost per registration, but in a different industry, it may be a lot higher than that, depending on the competitiveness to it. So you need to first first gauge you know, the level of interest from, from that audience and then the topic. And there are so many factors that go into it, but you know, these, these clients that the ROI that they're generating is pretty significant they're spending you know, they're spending less than $2,500 in ad costs and then softwares and tools. And many of them are making you know, 20, 30, 30, $5,000 per webinars. So it's a, it's a huge ROI.

Kathleen (31:24): Great. And are the tools that you're using. I mean, some people who listened to this might be like, I want to hire Elias and his firm to do this for me. And others might be like, I want to do this for myself. So the tools that you use are they easy enough for anyone to, to use, to program, to set up or do you really need specialized expertise?

Elias (31:45): Most of these tools are very, they're very user-friendly. I think it's, it's, it's, it's certainly very possible for you to go out and try your first webinar. One of my recommendations would be you don't need to have a platform. You can test out a webinar. Why don't you test it out on a Facebook live or Instagram live, that's a mini webinar. Right. And right now people are talking about what's that app, that clubhouse that's right. That's right. Everybody's addicted to it. Right. House. And, and they're saying like, some of these people are really leveraging clubhouse because it's kind of like an audio webinar. And so I know some of these people that are on it that are getting lots of coaching and consulting clients by delivering value and that's, you know, similar to webinars. So you don't need to have those tools specifically just to get started. And I think that'd be a great practice for you to go on to Facebook, live Instagram live, and and then present, you know, present your offer, present your story. And that's kinda what it, what it's all about.

Kathleen (32:46): Yeah. That's great. I mean, you're right. There are so many platforms where you can test these things and like at no cost and clubhouse certainly is the wild West right now. So a worth a shot if you have an invite and if you have an iPhone, because it does not currently work on Android, although they're working on that, I hear

Elias (33:01): I was on an earlier vanilla ice was on yesterday, like Tiffany you know, hot dish and, and like, you have all these it is like the wild wild West, but right now is a really interesting time because you know, it hasn't been like broken in yet right now. It's still very new and it's really interesting. And if you joined the right room, you can get a lot of Valley from men. So it's really interesting.

Kathleen (33:26): That's great. Well let's shift gears for a minute and there's two questions. I always ask all of my guests. And I'm curious to hear what you have to say. The first is, of course, we talk all about inbound marketing on this podcast, and I'm curious if there's a particular company or individual that you think is really knocking it out of the park when it comes to inbound.

Elias (33:46): I think HubSpot does a phenomenal job. And you know, I, I, when I get their emails, they're always interesting to me as a marketer because I'm their target audience, you know, they, they but I think in my opinion, they're kind of, you know, the Kings of inbound specifically their content the way that they frame their content just makes me specifically want to download. And even though I'm already on their lists, you know, it really makes me want to want to consume the content. So I think whoever's responsible for their content or the team has been doing a great job at really understanding their target audience. But

Kathleen (34:24): Yeah, they, they undoubtedly set a very high bar. Second question is, you know, the pain point I hear from a lot of marketers is that digital marketing changes so quickly. And it's really tough to keep up with all of it. So how do you personally keep up to date?

Elias (34:45): I'm always learning, I'm always learning. So in, in the beginning of my career, I was, I was, I immersed myself and, and joining webinars and forums at the time and so forth. And that really hasn't stopped. You know, I'm a lapsed subscriber to digitalmarketer.com. I'm a big fan of, of the movement that they have in the community that they've built. But, you know, it can be from subscriptions and courses that I purchased or it can be something like clubhouse that we were just talking about. Right. You can get some value from it, depending on the room and the topic and so forth. And so I think it's very important to, to, to really, you know, stay on trend and to always be a student, essentially.

Kathleen (35:27): Yeah, absolutely. Any particular places other than digital marketer that you like to get your information

Elias (35:34): Well, HubSpot you know, HubSpot again, Digital Marketer you know, one of, one of my favorite, you know, marketers is the founder of Click Funnels and he has a great community in Facebook groups is, is amazing another amazing research and social platform. So I, I think it's undervalued as far as, you know, Facebook groups are concerned, but you can join a group that's specific to sales, marketing inbound, right? And so if the group is being curated and managed correctly, you can get a lot of value from it. So so really I get my info from various different platforms in different organizations.

Kathleen (36:13): That's great. Well, I totally agree about groups. Both Facebook and Slack groups, I get a tremendous amount of value out of all right. Well, that brings us to the end of our time. And so before we wrap up, if somebody wants to learn more about Need Clients Now, or wants to connect with you, or has a question about what you talked about today, what is the best way for them to do that?

Elias (36:33): You can visit our website, it's www.needclientsnow.com. You can also email me. It's Elias, [email protected] or you can message them on Instagram. I love talking to fellow marketers and I love answering questions. And if you want to join one of our webinars for one of our clients, I'm happy to invite you to that as well.

Kathleen (36:54): Oh, I love that. That's a great offer. Well, you know, I just want to say before we finish that, I appreciate the work you're doing, because like we said, in the very beginning, it's so important right now for us to support small businesses and to do whatever we can do, whether that's as marketers or as, you know, consumers who go out and shop and use our shop and spend our dollars, you know, with, with local businesses, et cetera. It's so, so important so that when we hopefully come out of this pandemic, that has felt like it has lasted forever. All of those businesses that we love will still be there. And so thank you for, for doing what you do.

Elias (37:29): Oh, you're welcome. This has been a pleasure. Thanks for the opportunity.

Kathleen (37:33): And if you're listening and you enjoyed this episode, or you learned something new, I would love it if you would head to Apple podcasts or the platform of your choice and leave the podcast a review. That's how we get found by more listeners. And of course, if you know someone else who's doing amazing inbound marketing work, tweet me at @workmommywork because I would love to make them my next guest. Thank you so much, Elias. This was great.

Elias (37:58): Thank you.

What do you do, as a new head of marketing, when your marketing budget is zeroed out, but your lead generation goals remain unchanged?

This week on The Inbound Success Podcast, David Kirkdorffer talks about creating a "campaign in a box" and, together with his sales team, using it to drive new pipeline and new closed won deals at a time when his marketing budget had been eliminated. 

David's approach is one that any marketing leader can use, whether they have a big budget or none at all, to drive greater alignment with sales and increase pipeline opportunities from an existing database.

Check out the full episode, or read the transcript below, for details.

Resources from this episode:

• Connect with David on LinkedIn
• Learn more about Josh Braun, Chris Walker, and Andy Raskin

Kathleen (00:00): Welcome back to the Inbound Success Podcast. I'm your host Kathleen Booth. And this week, my guest is David Kirkdorffer. David is an experienced marketing leader who has helped a number of companies grow and exit through acquisition. He is also currently advising a number of companies as an outsourced CMO. And David, I know you're looking for your next gig. So I have a feeling you will not be available for long. I was excited to talk to you because I've gotten to know you through a number of the CMO groups that I'm involved with and you shared some great stories of getting pretty big results on not a big budget, which is always one of my favorite things to talk about because that I think is a situation that plagues a lot of marketers. But before we jump into it, maybe you could give my listeners a little sense of who you are, what your background is and, hey, why not share what you're looking forward to doing next in case somebody is listening?

David (01:37): Kathleen it's a pleasure to be with you here talking and to everyone in the audience. I hope the conversation that you're about to hear is going to be helpful to you. Yes, as Kathleen mentioned, I've been doing software marketing for a number of years. In fact, my career has almost followed the history of software in so many ways where it used to be on prem, and then moving to the cloud and all the different technologies that have been enabling along the way. I enjoyed being in the marketing side of the software companies and oftentimes I'm on the side of marketing that's closest to sales. I've always had a demand gen remit and as my career has advanced of course, then my remit has expanded to include other things like positioning, and messaging, and PR and AR, and so forth. But there's always been the core needs to, to satisfy the hungry mouths of the sales team to keep them satisfied and smiling.

Kathleen (02:31): I love that you look at it that way. I've always said that sales is one of my biggest customers as a marketer and not every marketer thinks that way.

David (02:42): My function, you know, most of the time it's, it's really very much been that way. I've worked in, many times they're like, series B or series A and a half type of companies. And so naturally the situation there is how do we find you customers. But also when I'm working in larger, at one point I was working at CA and obviously that's, as I said, largely yet almost right. Again, it was entirely focused on trying to provide leads or as we were calling them then, inquiries. We were very early adopters of the Sirious Decisions, waterfall language back in 2006, which is awesome language by the way, just as a side note. So it's always been around keeping the sales teams and the sales managers happy.

Kathleen (03:29): Now to that point you know, it's one thing to come in as head of marketing and be given a big budget and then be told to go out and make it rain. It's entirely another thing to be thrown into a situation where company leadership is expecting big results and they're not giving you a big budget or any budget. It's true. I know you found yourself in that situation from time to time and you've figured out a great way of approaching that and, and being able to still show ROI in that situation. So maybe give us some background on that and let's start to break down what you did.

David (04:17): So I joined a cybersecurity as a service company a number of years ago. I was brought in by the VCs to restart marketing. The company had a number of years of history and installed customer base. And soon after I arrived, the VC organization started a hostile process to oust the existing Founder/CEO. And while that was going on, the marketing budget that had been promised went to zero because that process turned out to be rather expensive. So my goals didn't change and the VP of sales who also came in at the same time, his goals didn't change. So I'm like, what are we going to do?

Kathleen (04:58): Oh my God. That's like the nightmare for every marketing and sales leader. We're keeping your goals the same, but we're eliminating your budget.

David (05:07): Right. so, and it was unknown how long this process was going to play out because it's a legal process. And, and so those things kind of, it's always unexpected situations in that. Now every company situation is different, the resources available, the existing database, the market you're going into, you know, are you a brand new brand into a brand new category. That's a different context of marketing than here is a, here's a technology and a category that's somewhat well-established. Your competition is oftentimes more based around price rather than unique new capabilities, right? Because the market has matured and there's a lot of sameness across the market. So in this particular company, there was a bit of that. There's an established category, this software as a service category, targeting small and medium size organizations across North America primarily the USA.

David (06:05): So at this company, I, of course like any good marketing person you try to see what's in the company database right? That HubSpot, that Pardot, that CRM, whatever. And you try and do an emailing delicately because you never know what kind of SPAM traps might be awaiting you. And so my typical technique is to break out that one dataset into four separate emailings. And I use the first letter of of the person's email address so that I don't by accident knock out all of the employees at a particular company by sorting by company or by geography. But I might knock out all of the Adams, so trying to mitigate my risk factor there, I found that that particular dataset was really not re-performed at all. In fact, I did get caught on a spam trap and I had to subscribe or apply to see if they would want to resubscribe one quarter of the dataset because my vendor.

David (07:02): At the time, HubSpot of course appropriately put me through a process to try and verify it. And this is because this company had been existing for 10, 15 plus years. And so there were many email addresses that had obviously turned over and so forth. So if you're familiar with any of that emailing type of scenario, you're going to understand that story. So what I did know, or what I did put together, was what I call the campaign in a box. And in this particular scenario, I had access to a large data set about 250,000 records that had found its way into Salesforce and about nine sales rep, SDR individuals who working in teams and kind of playing a little bit underneath the CAN-SPAM rules. I know that those SDRs leveraging Outreach, which the company also had, could send a certain amount of emails every day.

David (07:53): And indeed they had been and they were seeing poorer and poorer results. There was a bit of a spray and pray kind of mentality. How many names can I find in Discover.org? Can I bring in those records into Salesforce? Can I then put together an email or two that I blast out to my territory, right? They were geographically based. And if you're listening to this, you might find your company and your teams might be doing something similar, right. Because when you don't have a budget, this is a way to be able to communicate with an audience. And sales is taking its fate into its own hands this way. There's oftentimes that scenario where sales does these things, because it feels as if marketing isn't really supporting them. And perhaps that's a whole other conversation for another day.

David (08:43): So what I say is this process can work, but can we do this in a more targeted, more refined manner? And the first step in any kind of emailing is who are you sending to? So I spoke with the VP of sales and said, I proposed an idea and we spoke to two of his sales directors. And I said, what about this campaign in the box idea? What that means is I would put together a list for your teams. I would provide targeted emails by industry. It turns out in the security world, the drivers of security at a legal firm are very different than the drivers of security at a university or a credit union. They have different compliance situations. They have different user populations. There are different challenges in securing those environments. Ultimately they all want the same security.

David (09:36): So you talk to the message better. So we talked about the message, tried to say what if we did this in sprints? So all the team is working together for that kind of you know, Viking shield wall approach of like, let's all do it and we can all learn together. And then let me put together some training on each of these industries some of the team has experience with, with, you know, industry X or interest you, why some of them don't. So let's level up and share what we know and add some information into the training so that you can have a better conversation when you did reach out and speak to someone. So that was high level. That's what I proposed.

Kathleen (10:10): I love it. I just want to pause there because I really love that you took it upon yourself to train the sales team. I think you know, as marketers, we're all taught to create personas. And hopefully, you know, we're doing that in some way, shape or form, or at least profiling our target customer, you know, creating an ICP. And but I, I don't know that all marketers necessarily go that extra step to really teach the sales team about what they've learned. I feel like, I feel like a lot of marketers actually do the reverse where they're like sales, I need you to tell me what you're hearing. And there's a lot of like one way, like, tell me what questions you're getting, tell me what pushback you're getting, you know, give me all this information sales so that I marketing can create content around. It can create messaging around it, but there's not a lot of like, Hey, we, as marketing are going to come in and tell you all the things that we know about the customer.

David (11:09): I think you're absolutely right. And, and all those questions that marketing asks of sales are still great questions to ask, but there's an opportunity to also bring something to the table. Here's something that we have learned that we are aware of. And many times that kind of teaching happens under the radar in collateral that's created. So you said marketing might create certain collateral that has that educational elements to it, if you will, or captures the the synthesis of that education. And it gets put into a website page or a, an industry note or something which is great, which is not bad, but the personable let's walk through it. Let me extract the points that are interesting. I'm curious why this is useful kind of, and being available to answer questions about that learning is going the next step. So maybe what this means is that the content team who might be, if you have, if you, if you're lucky enough to have a content team, right. Okay. especially the startups can, can provide like notes that go with the document in some capacity, or perhaps a kickoff I'm kicking off this particular piece of content and live or recorded, provide some kind of extra color around that learning. Cause I think you're absolutely right. There's more going on. That's understood by marketing than sales ever gets to hear of. And it shouldn't be that way.

Kathleen (12:37): Well, and it's an opportunity because, you know, if I had a dollar for every time I heard a marketer talk about the challenges of sales and marketing alignment, I would be retired and living in some sort of tropical Island somewhere in a palace. You know, and so obviously that's a challenge. And I think looking for these opportunities, as you say, to give something back is a great way to build bridges, to demonstrate that it's a two-way relationship and to really form great relationships with your sales team.

David (13:08): It definitely is. It makes my life easier. Right. I remember when I was interviewing at one particular security company, a number of years ago, they said I was one of those situations where I'm in the room and all the different people I'm supposed to meet with come by one by one. And everything went very nicely and every single one of them was saying, we're looking for connective tissue. We want connective tissue. So obviously that had to become a conversation point and, and I felt well, okay, this is what I am. I'm supposed to be connective tissue. And, and that's, that's been the challenge. How do you connect the two groups? And it's not just sales, right. And, and, and, and kind of demand gen marketing, but it's product as well. Right. and sometimes it means even connecting finance, but that's a, that's another conversation, but yes, it's all about this kind of understanding what we're all working on.

David (14:01): Having trust that what we're working on is meaningful to each other, right. That sales can trust marketing is actually working on something worthy of time that will enable and facilitate penetrating accounts and advancing accounts through opportunity cycles. And it's that trust and the trust is it's, it's given kind of cautiously when you first arrive. There's always a lot of pent up demand when a new marketer arrives. You don't just arrive and look, we're now trying to find things for you to do is typically a long stack of things that they'd like you to be getting to finally you're here. So and then you have to keep earning the trust, right. Campaign by campaign. And if you're a marketer who's reporting up through sales, that's an interesting and challenging environment because you can find yourself a bit more on the tactical trying to meet tactical needs that are quantifiable in various ways.

David (14:58): And you might find yourself trapped in the chase for MQLs, as opposed to trying to build something a bit more sustaining, less tactical, more strategic that brings traffic to your website, which is kind of a different approach. But I can dive into some of the details on this campaign in the box if you'd like that. So the first trick, as, you know, as in real estate, it's location, location, location. So yeah, with email or direct mail it's list list list. So for each industry, I'd go through Salesforce and see what records do we currently already have. And in some industry categories and these categories, I was looking at where like legal, law, credit unions, manufacturing, banks, special campaigns targeting CFOs and small to medium business because they often a lot of that decision and universities and colleges, those are the industries.

David (15:58): So for each industry we said, well, what do we have already in this great big database of 250,000 names? And I saw there were lots and lots of records in some categories and very few in others. So we went category by category, because it just made it easier to kind of get something out of the gate and I would aim to have as small a list as I could put together that would give each of the team members enough coverage in each of their geographies. So in some industries, I would go back to Demandbase myself and say, Oh, I just need some more people in the Southwest because we don't have, for some reason, anyone, you know, the right way. And then I would limit very strictly by job title, the types of people we would go after. And if I had an abundance of names, which sometimes happened, for example, in the banking, smaller, medium size, I would avoid the major football cities.

David (16:49): I would avoid the major metropolitan areas and go more to the rural areas. Why is that? So two reasons. One, this isn't the time pre COVID when people actually could travel as sales reps, right? So take New York state, for example. Manhattan. Huge, huge market for this type of thing, right? And all the sales reps are often based in the city and really don't want to go to Rochester. They don't want to drive to Syracuse and meet a customer. So those customers in those rural States are less visited and receive less targeting. So that's one side of it. The other side of it, which is true in the cybersecurity space and probably generalizably true to all types of IT environments is talent leaves those areas, those rural areas, and moves to the big city where the bigger companies are.

David (17:43): And those bigger companies are attractive because they pay better. You have an opportunity to work with better technologies. There is more opportunity to move from one job to another. So if you're a great basketball player in your college you want to go play for the Boston Celtics, of course, right. Or perhaps the Lakers, I suppose, as the second time you don't want to go play for the Wooster bees or the you know, the San Jose, I don't know who they are. You want to go play where the best coaches are, the best facilities are. It's the same thing with tech people. They want to go to those. So, so by targeting the companies that are headquartered out of the smallest cities, I'm with my cyber security as a service offering more attractive because they have a greater need because they lack the skills, they lack the available staff. And so the service that we're offering becomes a much better proposition for them because they have, they have a bigger void to fill.

Kathleen (18:48): Do you think that that still holds true now with COVID and everybody kind of being able to be anywhere?

David (18:55): Probably. Yes. So perhaps to a lesser degree because I, because companies, software companies and sales teams are, we're creatures of habit, and we want to go where it's easiest and where it's easiest often seems to be where we've gone before. And so we have this history of going to the bigger cities and the bigger companies, perhaps this, I learned this, I kind of was introduced to this notion of going to the boonies, if you will, from another Boston based company called Toast, POS, they are in the point of sale systems business. They provide technology for mom and pop bakeries and coffee shops and so forth. And in chatting with a friend working over there, he kind of said, well, we were doing this because there's this untapped market of, of, of coffee shops that no one is approaching. And so that's great. Let us be the guy. And so Toast is a big success story. They've grown a lot. Absolutely. So it was like, huh, that's really insightful. And as we all do, we borrow and steal,

Kathleen (20:06): Oh my gosh, yes. I just did a LinkedIn post on this as a marketer. Don't try and reinvent the wheel, just copy what the successful people are doing and make it your own.

David (20:16): That's exactly right. And great artists. You can find quotations by great artists who say the exact same thing. So if it's okay for Picasso it's okay for me. Right.

Kathleen (20:23): And it's like the same thing with writers, there are no new stories. You know, all of them are just some version of the Hero's Journey that Joseph Campbell wrote about.

David (20:33): And Joseph Campbell, if you're not familiar with him, is a phenomenal read that's fully worth checking out. So, so we started with the list. Okay. So if I had too many, I was always targeting by job title. So for your business, you might want to kind of think about what that would mean. Right. and keeping each of these lists to small numbers. I maxed out at a thousand per SDR. They were paired up for their entire territory messaging. Okay. So as I said, each of these industries has got different kinds of drivers as to what is causing their security requirements, different compliance mandates, perhaps different types of customers, different kinds of user populations. And so I did my research. You know, what is it that, what are the issues that drive a law firm versus what are the issues that drive a university and, you know, spend a day or two in the you know, the library, on the internet called Google, you'll find law written on, on various topics trying to help you understand, you know, in security space.

David (21:43): There are periodicals that are, you know, the, the law review every now and again, there's an article on securing your law firm that type of thing. So I capture all this knowledge, put it into you know, documents, try and synthesize it sort in my mind, kind of playing professor, if you will, what is this a marketing, you know, program manager put together some draft emails. And I would, my approach to drafting emails is I try and tap into the three or four themes. Maybe it's compliance, maybe it's security, maybe it's cutting costs, whatever you will, themes are right. The planks of your messaging. And then write lots of emails around those. Kind of work through my demons. It's a creative process wiggling the wording. And then I would go to sales with my top three or four and say, what do you think? You've been doing this longer than I have after all. I've just joined this organization. You sales directors have been here for a year or two, right. What do you think? What can I improve? I'm trying to get their buy-in.

Kathleen (22:47): Yeah. I was going to say, because not all sales teams were, would necessarily be receptive to marketing coming in and saying, here's what I want you to email.

David (22:55): That's exactly right. Right. I want, the more, what's more important to me is the big picture on the overall refinement that the process is going to give me rather than any one particular element of the process going my way. Right. that's not the point. I was really trying to steer a bigger picture here. I've got this resource. I have no budget. The sales teams can be executing these emails using outreach, which is just as sophisticated as HubSpot, as far as managing cadences and who opens and who clicked and all of that. But I wanted to improve the message, improve the timing and improve the intensity of the team doing work together. And the individual components were less important to the big picture game. So I get some refinement on positioning, so on the messaging, excuse me.

David (23:44): And indeed, when I targeted credit unions, they had messaging they wanted me to use because the company had a history of success with, with certain messages. And I was like, that's great. Excellent. Thank you very much. Right. So, so this is, this is good. The next part was to kind of organize coordination. And I, I tried to work with these two week arcs and the kickoff would be, I I'd agree with the sales managers, when is a good time to kick off this particular campaign in the box. And the arc of the campaign started with a training session. So I I'm in marketing. I put together a PowerPoint presentation, surprise, surprise, and the team moved into the conference room for two hours. For one campaign it was particularly long training. Other times it was more like an hour 90 minutes.

David (24:29): We would walk through here's what's important. Here's the training. Here's the lists that I've put together for you. Here are all the materials to support this particular campaign. And I'll get into some of that. But we start out with this opportunity for everyone to talk with each other and across to each other. I sold this to this company. These are the things that were important because you had some junior team members and some more senior team members. And so this is a way to kind of create this old talking together because ironically, while everyone's working in an open floor space every day, they go to their desks and do the same thing and sometimes don't even talk across the room to each other as they're trying to keep up with, you know, their day. So this is an opportunity to kind of come together as a team.

David (25:14): And so that's how we kicked things off. The formal kickoff, if you will, would be we chose a date to send emails. I worked with someone who was on my team, who put together the individual sales team lists. So after we had the master list, then that person went through and broke it out for each team. So that all the person, the team needed to do was select the report that had already been built for them so that they can load in the records into their Outlook sorry, Outreach environment. So it was all taken care of who to mail to. There were three emailings or four emailings in each two week arc. They could choose as a team which second and third emails would be sent, but the first ones were sent the same time for that sense of we're all doing it together. And they found much better open rates and click-through rates because I also kind of gave them subject lines. We had AB testing on the subject lines too, right. As you can do you know, Outreach provides SDRs the same campaign management tools and capabilities as 25 years ago, Bank of America was paying a million dollars a year for

Kathleen (26:31): Isn't that crazy though? I mean, it really is interesting too, to think about like how much technology has enabled us to, to do these very sophisticated experiments to optimize what we're working and to just do it all seamlessly and automatically for a very low price.

David (26:48): I was at a company in the nineties that sold campaign management software. So I'm kind of innately familiar with this and it, you know, you can do more with outreach than we could do back then. As far as if then else type of cadence conditioning or condition trees and so forth, it's, it's, it is very true. However, while the mechanics have become simpler, what you say and how you say it and the message that's never been simpler, that's gotten much more complicated actually. And so that's the, that was the principle point of this is trying to put together the messaging so that they didn't kind of, so you didn't do silly things quickly.

David (27:35): So we'd kick off these emails. Are they sort of much better open rates? I think we were seeing open rates in the, in the kind of 25, 30% range, which was like phenomenal. And we could learn campaign in the box to campaign in a box what kinds of subject lines were resonating? Right. So we can kind of make the next campaign slightly better because we would have incremental learning, which is always what we do. And I never asked or, or, or suggested, or I purposely said, I'm not asking you to call all of these people. You've just mailed to, I don't think that's appropriate. Maybe you'd want to call the ones who you think are appropriate to call. It's follow up. And here's a voicemail by the way that I would propose that you could use very similar to the emails. I think I would take a very different tack today on, on voicemails provided. Because I think I've learned a few things since then.

Kathleen (28:35): Oh, I would love to know what, you know, what you would change.

David (28:39): Since doing those campaigns, I've been much more active on LinkedIn as perhaps many of us have in the last year or so. LinkedIn seems to have just blossomed as a great place to go for information. And I have always enjoyed reading what Josh Braun has to say. If you're not familiar with Josh Braun, he's somebody who perhaps you might want to follow. Ironically, I first met him in 2007 when I was at CA and he was just another company and he was trying to sell me some technology, which I quite liked by the way, but the rest of the team didn't think it was a good idea at the time. But Josh makes a practice of introducing ideas and ways of thinking to help AEs and SDRs penetrate accounts.

David (29:30): And do quality discovery in a way that doesn't leave you feeling or leave you as an SDR or an AE feeling kind of dirty, right. So as a marketer and as a person in marketing this very close to sales, while I, I started my career as an SDR, I'm not an SDR now, but it's very informative for me to read what they are thinking, what they are learning, what the current techniques, current, current best practices are. And I look at what Josh does as a source of great great best practices for me. So that's good.

Kathleen (30:06): Great resource for people to check out who are listening. I'll put a link in the show notes to his LinkedIn profile.

David (30:15): So that's fine. I'm a big fan of Josh. Too many SDRs are quite young in their career, and so he he provides a great insight in a way that makes me feel like, wow, I can do this. Yeah. I can do that. That's great. That's I feel so much better than what I think I'm supposed to be doing, because somehow that's what I've been told, but this, this sounds better. Yeah. People are having success with it. So I would, I would adopt some of my my voicemails around some of the things that he's he's.

Kathleen (30:47): So you wouldn't necessarily stop voice mailing or like you wouldn't change the channel. It's more about the message in the chat.

David (30:53): Absolutely. It's the form, not the, not the medium. Got it. Definitely I am of the, there are some people who would suggest don't leave a voicemail. Wait until you get them alive on the phone. And I'm like, well, you just went through all the time and energy to find the phone.

Kathleen (31:09): And the reality is, people right now, I mean, I will use myself as an example. I have robo killer installed on my phone. You can't get through to me unless you're already in my contacts. So the only way you're going to get through to me is if you leave a voicemail and I will, you know, I'll get those, I'm also a big fan of ringless voicemail. You know, cause it's even less obtrusive, but yeah, I think there's going to be more and more people like I am, who just have apps in place that flat out will block any call that isn't a known contact.

David (31:38): I do the same. And there are technologies of course, now that will transcribe the voicemail for you so you can read it. So that speaks to the importance then of having something quite clear in your mind to say so that the sentences are whole and complete as it's been written. And that's a different type of skill. That's a different kind of style to, to speaking. So anyway, definitely folks were asked, choose who you leave voicemails with. Perhaps it's the people who click on the, on the, the resources we provide them. Perhaps it's the people who open, perhaps they didn't open at all, but you know, that they're the right person because of previous history. You know, these people in this territory, it's not like all of them are new to you. Right. so that was the, the idea was to be an enabler, not a driver of what you're supposed to do.

David (32:28): And at the end of the first week, we'd have you know beers and debrief. Well, it was, for me, it was a debrief. For them it was beers. Get them talking, how did it go? What did you like? What did we hear? What did you learn and share across the team? So it was all part of this. We're all doing this together factor. One of the other things that this campaign kind of data is aside as a side note was really helped raise morale. And this is something that I didn't, I didn't think of starting this, but became very important to me as this process went on. You can imagine you're a young sales professional and your company's CEO is getting fired by your VCs. What does it mean? Are we going out of business?

David (33:21): Lots of unanswered questions because people don't necessarily have good answers and catastrophizing and, you know, we can kind of get together and talk about what does this mean? So this process was successful and it was successful on two fronts. Really one, nobody in marketing had ever done this for sales before. And I put together all this stuff and, and what this stuff, I should say where there wasn't already a web page dedicated to a particular vertical and our cybersecurity as a service capabilities for that vertical, we created one where they didn't already exist. It is a kind of a data sheet note for that vertical. We created one where there might have been resources around case studies or videos or other information. We captured that and made it very easily accessible so that all of a sudden the sales team was like, wow, I didn't realize that we had all this stuff to do with cybersecurity as a service firms.

David (34:28): And I'm thinking of law firms, just because you know, that, that, that stands out in that particular market. And look, we're not talking to the biggest law firms because they're kind of out of our league. They're not in our SMB space and we're not targeting the small one to four person law firms. Here are the law firms that are really in our sweet spot, as far as the firmographics go. And here are the job titles. And so, and marketing was putting this all together so that it was like, Oh, and it will seem so obvious when you look back in hindsight why weren't people doing this? Well, they might have been two years ago, but then those people who were holding it together and doing it were not there. So you, so by doing this process, sales was feeling supported, failed sales was feeling enabled and they were finding better open rates and their conversations and voicemails were receiving better replies. And so this was, this was great. And they were getting meetings and dental opportunities and you pipeline was added

Kathleen (35:31): Talk about this, cause this is like, this is my favorite part of these conversations. You know, everybody talks about, Oh, I got great results, but like, I want to hear, I want to hear the details.

David (35:45): In the first six weeks of running these campaigns in the box. So that would represent perhaps three campaigns in a box because we went on two week sprints, we'd been switched to another industry. The sales team added one about $1 million in new pipeline opportunity value, if you will, for a solution that had an average sales price of $40,000.

Kathleen (36:06): Wow. That's great.

David (36:08): So part of it is because this was an opportunity to, in an organized way, go back to where they previously had maybe had conversations part of it because it opened brand new conversations that they'd never gone to before. Never had never had that success. So that was, that was a real plus. And within that same six weeks, they won over $300,000 in actual business closed.

Kathleen (36:31): That's good.

David (36:31): This is a tremendous shot in the arm, right. If you do something that's new and you find success.

Kathleen (36:35): Wow, that's great.

David (36:39): And you know, for the morale factor, and then as a, as a practice, as a process, so after we'd done one or two of these, they were like, well, when's the next one coming? And what's the next industry. So that's where I go back to the sales directors and say, what industry do you think we should do next? What date would you like to do the kickoff on it? Because it's continuously organizing and coordinating with them where next and so forth. And they pick a date and they say, okay now I've got to create this material. If we, what we do and don't have, what do we have? Okay. you know, manufacturing, do we have, do we have a manufacturing note? You know and, and, you know, these notes that I talking about, they're like data sheets essentially, where 30% of it is unique to the individual industry. And 60% is kind of the same service. Just maybe tweaking a word here or there and change a couple of images. So it doesn't look like a bank.

David (37:32): And we just cycle through these. And it was a great, it was a great kind of feeling of like, wow, this is, this is going to be possible because of course, it's the marketer with no marketing budget, with a marketing number to get, and the sales VP with a marketing person who has no budget, not do any marketing where we're looking at each other across the table, like, what are we going to do? And I, I very much remember sitting in our little kitchenette with the sales VP there, like, I think this is going to work.

Kathleen (38:01): Now, you mentioned, you mentioned in the first six weeks adding a million dollars in new pipeline. And I think it was $300,000 in new closed won. How did that, and I don't know if you have this at the tip of your fingers, but how did that compare let's say to the six weeks prior? In other words, like what factor of growth did that represent?

David (38:19): So that's a great question. We found that there was on average, 20% increase in deal size that went along with this and that they had a 37% increase in close rate.

Kathleen (38:36): Wow. That's huge. Both huge, right? Yeah. so, you know, so what part of this is me? What part is the team I'm just enabling?

Kathleen (38:49): I don't think it even matters honestly. Like that is something that I rant about a lot, which is that marketer, this is a problem in, this is why we have the sales and marketing enablement problem is that there's too much like siloing and, and organizations put in place incentives for sales and marketing leaders to try and claim sole credit for something, when really we're all on the same team, trying to get more revenue. And so if we're all comped on revenue, if we're all incentivized on revenue, then it doesn't matter. Right. That's, what's good for the organization.

David (39:28): It's very true. And, and you want to think carefully about how you compensate or what dials and OKRs you put in front of people, because people will bend their behavior to meet that need right? So if I was giving them an MQL number, I have to fight for years not to create MQLs. And I want to lower the bar on what an MQL might be. Give me an MQL number, give me a ratio number, give me a ratio of how many inquiries I've provided that turn into opportunities. The better the ratio, the better I'm doing. So it incents me to, instead of adding 10,000 inquiries to a system, which is just noise, downstream noise, what do you do with 10,000 inquiries? Whether you're trying to filter through them, if you only put in a hundred, but they each had 10 times better chance of closing. Your sales teams are happier.

David (40:22): Bunch of people it's like, wow, okay. The ratio of my phone calls to something meaningful happening goes up. So incent on quality would be my advice and then try and scale how you get that quality. You know, one of the things I mentioned earlier is, depending on what kind of company you're working in, is it early stage? Is it in an established category? Are you a new category? You need, you have different challenges. And I have increased, over the years, increasingly come of the opinion that having a brand makes it a lot of help to everything down pike.

Kathleen (41:04): Oh, 100%. I say that I'm a big believer that, you know, you can have a great product. You can have a great marketing strategy and still not do well because brand is what generally gets you what I would term as at-bats right. Brand gets you a seat at the table. Then is when you need to have the great product and the great messaging and the great sales product. But if you don't even get an at-bat you're, you're out of the running, well, even if you do give the at-bats, they're not ready, right?

David (41:34): So interestingly, at that company where I was asked to be connective tissue, also the other term that came up or some at-bats, we, if we got more at bats, we do better. After six months of doing, you know, leaves for this company seen, we had doubled the number of at-bats, but the number of deals that we're advancing, were getting stuck at that 30% kind of point in the opportunity cycle, why that company was targeting larger enterprises with a new category of technology that was proven, absolutely working because we had an installed customer base who was doing it, but larger companies take a longer time to cycle through the, is this a good idea? It is a good idea. Let's move forward with this good idea and displace what we have now for this new thing. It's just a longer cycle. So if you're early with a new technology and a new capability, you might generate great leads that in two years, we'll close it. Doesn't do your, this quarter numbers. Very good, which is, which is again, why it comes back to an industry challenge. If you're reporting up through a sales kind of you know, management line, they want this quarter type of results. And sometimes that's possible depends on the category. Sometimes all the best marketing in the world can only get you at the table. It can't make your clients change their plan.

Kathleen (43:02): Yeah, absolutely. Well, I could talk to you about this all day, David. Both because it's fascinating and I love hearing your take on it. And also because I love your accent and I could listen to it all the time. You have a very, it's almost, it reminds me of Sean Connery, even though it's not the same accent. That is what your voice sounds like to me.

David (43:24): My wife would be thrilled and delighted if she believed that.

Kathleen (43:31): I think it's great. I love it. Sounds great. Thank you very much. No, no, no. Of course. Well, I want to make sure we leave a little bit of time because I always like to ask my guests two questions at the end of our conversation. One is, of course the podcast is all about inbound marketing. And so is there a particular company or an individual that right now you think is, is setting the standard for what it looks like to be a great inbound marketing?

David (43:56): So that's, that's a great question. And it's one that I like to find the answer to. We don't, I don't, I don't hear from other in-company folks as much as I wish. So I'm going to provide two answers, but there are agencies, which is a little different, right? So I'm on the East coast. Refine Labs and Chris Walker. I came to him through LinkedIn. Again about a year and a half ago.

Kathleen (44:32): He has a strong LinkedIn presence.

David (44:32): He has a strong voice. He has strong opinions. He backs them up. He's entertaining. He's energetic and dynamic. And he has found a truth that works for him, right. And it's a particular kind of play to drive traffic to your website, very specific kinds of traffic. And his, his arguments. I hope I'll get this right. You know, for the audience is basically you want the leads that will close, that your sales team will enjoy the most are the people who were saying, contact me, I'd like a demo, or they're looking at the pricing page. He's not about trying to sell whitepaper downloads, right? He's looking for people who are closer to intent who have actual interest. Certain research we read says that 3% of the overall market in your particular category is in a buy now mode and 97% are not.

Kathleen (45:26): And they don't want you to contact them, which is why they have things like robo killer on their phone.

David (45:31): Exactly. Right now they're interested in learning, right? Many of them go through a long learning cycle. They know they'd like to do this, but they're in a contract. They can't do something. They're not in a position to make a change right now. So you know, I've, I've suggested to people change your CTAs. Make your, the button that you press at the bottom of the page to get free information that's not gated because I believe in the non gated world, right. Make the button say something like, you know, I'm learning about this. This is interesting. Thanks. Or I need to make sense of all of this. And I know about this already, but now I need to make sense of it. And now I need to make sense of it. I've learned about this stuff. I already kind of know about it, but now I need to do something right. But I haven't said, call me, or I want a demo.

Kathleen (46:22): A whitepaper does not equal call me on my phone.

David (46:25): That's right. However, it does happen when you are trying to, actually, now I need to, I've known about this category. I've been on your nurture list for the last year and a half, but now I actually need to do something. Right. That's what we're always trying to figure out. Right.

Kathleen (46:38): Well, I love Chris Walker. He has a great presence on LinkedIn. And if people haven't checked them out, they definitely should.

David (46:46): He has a weekly Tuesday night, or Tuesday afternoon depending on what coast you're on, demand generation live show. So his presence, you can find him on the West coast. Similarly, there's a company called Directive and the CEO Garrett Mehrguth.

Kathleen (47:02): Who I have interviewed on my podcast.

David (47:05): Who, who that similar kind of idea. Right. And the trick is to, you know, obviously they're not going to know your product as well. They know the mechanics of how to kind of turn a crank, but they're going to rely on you for the creative though. They can also provide creative, both of these organizations, but you need to know your market. They can just help you with the mechanics of what to do and how to do it. Yeah. so those are two kind of leading lights, if you will, for me that I go to. I mentioned Josh Braun. If anyone's in the marketing side of things, if you're doing positioning, if you're doing campaigns, even though you're not an SDR or an AE, I think he's got great insight to share. And understanding what the SDR and AE world is, is, is vitally important to, to demand gen folks in marketing and the other person, maybe most of the managers, marketing managers is Andy Raskin.

David (48:05): Andy Raskin, based in California, speaks about the strategic narrative. And he works almost exclusively with CEOs of large and small companies in a variety of industries. But the way he frames how to message, who you are, what you do, why you exist is different. And when, when successful, makes demand generation so much easier because if you're, take the hero section of your website, you are doing research on some new category. You go to a bunch of websites and doing some research. If you can't understand what they are, what this website is saying to you, in 10 seconds before the chat bot pops up, or before the invitation to an event that you didn't want to really go to pops up, or before all these other pop-ups get in the way, if you can't understand what these guys do and how it can help you, you move on.

David (49:12): So crafting the end, if I have spent all this marketing money, trying to drive you to my website, and I've done a great job of driving a lot of traffic, but no one's clicking on anything. It's because the message isn't resonating. And so I'm getting that, that strategic narrative at a company level or at a product level is something demand gen side of world doesn't always get to control, right? That's out of there. But if you can have a, if you're in a company that's small enough, where you could, Andy Raskin and his approach is old way, new way way of trying to create compelling need is something to think about, because I think it will change how you're writing the email. It'll change, how you do a presentation, change how you create content. And that is how you get people to decide, I want to talk to you and that's the goal we're after.

Kathleen (50:12): I like those suggestions. Yeah. And I, so this is funny because now my second question that I always ask, I think I might know the answer to based on what you just said, but we'll see, which is that marketers very often say that trying to keep up with the changing world of digital marketing is like drinking from a fire hose. So how do you personally stay up to date and keep yourself educated?

David (50:31): Well, that's a, that's a really yes, I have to challenge just like everybody else. So LinkedIn has become my library.

Kathleen (50:38): That's what I thought you were going to say.

David (50:40): It's become my university. Yeah. you can learn a lot quickly. The trick is to figure out who to follow. It makes sense to you and then interact with them. Yeah. If they, if, if you, for example, Kathleen, you, you write on LinkedIn and you're there every, you know, once or twice a week, you, you propose an idea. And if I understand it, I'll say, well, I think this is great. Or if I don't, I said, can you explain better?

Kathleen (51:06): Well, and that's really how we got to know each other. That's what led to this conversation.

David (51:09): That's exactly right. So what's nice about the LinkedIn process is if you discover someone who's, who's, you know, an idea from someone you can ask them about it, and it's a good chance that they will answer your question perhaps, or expand on the idea if you will. And then there's the opportunity to meet with them, have a conversation. So that's definitely a great resource. And if you're, if you're not active on LinkedIn, and I think the statistics show that less than 1% of LinkedIn members are active on LinkedIn posting any content. So there's a lot of people who don't post anything for all sorts of cultural and business reasons, they might be holding back, which is not for me to say it's right or wrong, but you can read. And so if you find some people and you can ask questions, you can ask it's a huge opportunity for sure.

David (51:55): Very much. The other place that I would suggest is there are, you know, in the last year that sprouted up like weeds various types of communities. I mean Revenue Collective, for example that's a great resource for sales and marketing professionals to investigate. There are local chapters and within these communities, Rev Genius, there's a CMO group. There are many of these groups. You have an opportunity to ask questions of peers, which is great because especially in the marketing side, unlike sales, many times in marketing, you're the only guy or gal doing what you do. And if you've done 10 years of marketing, you've seen what you learn from books. You read agencies, you've had the opportunity to work with right managers and or teams that you've worked with, but it's a pretty small group of people, especially if you're in a startup, which has always kind of, you know, resource constrained.

David (52:53): So there might be 15 people across five or 10 years that you've had a chance to really interact with, with these communities. Now, many of them have Slack environments. You can ask a question because they're seeking that kind of interaction. Hi, I'm interested in learning about category of technology or campaign approach. Does anyone have any experience with this? And now you can tap into a resource of hundreds of individuals and the, and the, the these environments are very collectively helpful. So people want to help say, Oh, I did this, I've done that. Well, I can lead you to this reference. So this has always existed when you went to lunch with your friends and so forth and so on, but this is so much easier now. And so much more effective because it's not just limited to your geography. It's, you've got for literally the country or perhaps even the world.

Kathleen (53:49): Yeah. I've had the same experience with Slack groups and I've spoken before in the podcast about what a fan I am of Revenue Collective in particular. That's a big one for me. So I totally agree. Well, I think we're at the top of our hour. So if anyone has listened and wants to reach out and speak with you, ask a question, connect with you online, what is the best way for them to do that?

David (54:12): Well, actually, LinkedIn. I think I've discovered I'm the only David Kirkdorffer on the planet, so I'm easy enough to find. So that's a great place to kind of reach out to, and try and connect. And have you had dialogues and conversations with anyone?

Kathleen (54:28): Fantastic. Well, I will put the link to your LinkedIn profile in the show notes. So if you're listening, if you want to connect with David and if you listened to this episode, you've enjoyed it, you learned something new, I would very much appreciate it if you would take a moment and head to Apple podcasts or the platform of your choice and leave the podcast a review. That is how we get more listeners. And of course, if you know someone who's doing amazing inbound marketing work, I would love it if you would tweet me at @workmommywork and let me know so that I can invite them to be my next guest. Thank you so much, David.

David (55:02): Thank you. Kathleen has been a pleasure and an honor.

Most marketers know that personalization can improve conversions. But how do you implement personalization at scale?

This week on The Inbound Success Podcast, McGaw.io founder Dan McGaw digs into the details of how companies large and small are building marketing technology stacks that allow them to create highly personalized experiences throughout the customer journey.

Considered "one of the original growth hackers," Dan specializes in building tech stacks that drive results at the middle and bottom of the funnel.

In this episode, he discusses how companies can build and leverage Amazon-like automation without the need for expensive back end developer resources, and how to do it without seeming creepy to your audience.

Check out the full episode, or read the transcript below, for details.

Resources from this episode:

• Visit McGaw.io to learn more about Dan and his work advising companies on their marketing tech stacks
• Text "creepy" to (415) 915-9011 to experience Dan's personalization test
• Watch Dan's webinar on How to Build a Martech Stack
• Visit UTM.io and enter your email to get in touch with Dan
• Connect with Dan on LinkedIn

Kathleen (00:00): Welcome back to the Inbound Success Podcast. I'm your host, Kathleen Booth and this week, my guest is Dan McGaw, who is the founder of Mcgaw.io. Welcome to the podcast, Dan.

Dan (00:23): Hey, how are you today?

Kathleen (00:26): I am awesome. How are you?

Dan (00:29): I'm doing amazing. Thanks for having me here.

Kathleen (00:31): Yeah. I am excited to have you here because we get to talk about some nerdy marketing stuff having to do with e-commerce, which is currently a favorite topic of mine. And I say nerdy and I put myself first in line of the list of nerds who care about these things. But before we dig into this topic could you just tell my listeners a little bit about yourself and Mcgaw.io?

Dan (00:56): Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, I'm Dan, I'm the CEO and founder of Mcgaw.io. But I've been in the marketing tech space for over 20 years. So I got my start in 1998, sending mass emails since, before there was even mass emails. So as I like to say to people, I just kind of have seen some I've been around for a long period of time. but some people recognize me for when I was the head of marketing at Kissmetrics. I replaced Neil Patel as the head of marketing at that company. Before that I was head of growth another company called Codeschool.com. We were one of the pioneers in the online education space for developers. So some people know of Codecademy or Team Treehouse, Code School. We took the early exit. We sold out to Pluralsite, which is the publicly traded company in that space.

Dan (01:36): So as you might imagine, I'm very technical. I'm also very analytical, but I'm also understand marketing and sales really well. And some random things about me. I was coined as one of the original growth hackers, which is kind of terrifying. Somebody called me that one time. And then it kind of caught fire. And I've just been involved with MarTech for a long time, but with Mcgaw.io right, like we're a marketing technology and marketing analytics agency, but it's like, what the hell does that mean? Right. That's just difficult to say in general. We help companies with two main problems. Either they lack of visibility in the customer journey, or they lack the ability to engage in the customer journey. So we help companies choose their tools, integrate their tools, operate those tools, and always are focused on trying to make the money.

Dan (02:14): But the big focus for us is that we are not a marketing agency because we don't do PPC, SEO, content marketing, as we would say that TOFU, Top of funnel stuff. All of our work is on the middle and bottom of funnel, leveraging technology. So when you think about that, that nerd that you wish you had on your marketing team, that's probably our team, right? When you think about that developer, you want on your team, that's us. But we do a lot of work with Marketo, Amplitude, Salesforce, but we're tool agnostic. So you can come to us with any stack and we'll help you build your stack. And that's really what our niche is, is the marketing stack.

Kathleen (02:45): There is such a huge need for what you're doing in the marketing world right now. And I say this as a marketer who does not come with a highly technical background. I mean, I was like a political science major. Don't ask me how I wound up in marketing. That's a whole story that we don't have time for. But you know, it's interesting because I've worked with a lot of different marketers over the years and some of the best marketers I know do have unusually technical backgrounds. Like one in particular that I'm thinking of who I've worked with for many years, she has a computer science engineering undergrad, and a marketing MBA. And I was like, man, are you the perfect combination of skillsets? So I love that. That's what your team, you know, that's sort of the profile of your team and what they work on.

Kathleen (03:34): One of the reasons I was really excited to talk to you, as I said, is because of the work you do in e-commerce. You know, if people regularly listen to the podcast, they may or may not know that in my day job, I'm head of marketing for a company that is selling into the e-commerce space. And it's been really interesting for me because I've been in marketing for a long time. I own an agency. I've worked with a lot of different companies, but I hadn't necessarily done a ton in e-commerce. And it's been fascinating to me to learn just, like, the level of performance marketing that is required to do well in e-commerce. I mean, you know, it stands to reason, but I think from my experience that I've had so far, the e-commerce marketers I've met are the most data-driven marketers I've come across in my career, hands down by a long shot.

Kathleen (04:26): And I guess, you know, it's because it's sink or swim, right? All their, all of their revenue is coming through digital as opposed to, you know, other types of companies that can get by, on, you know, business development and events and, you know, pressing the flesh at in-person networking things when those come back. You can't do that in e-commerce. So anyway, I'm going on and on, I will stop, but I'm fascinated by this because it really does take, you need to have a very data-driven mindset and you need to have the right stack in place in order to do it well. So I just want to kind of like turn it over to you to react to that. And, and I'm curious if you found the same thing in terms of e-commerce marketers tending to be more kind of technical and data-driven performance marketers than marketers in other spaces.

Dan (05:13): Yeah. And, you know, I think our views of the world maybe are slightly different. Cause I tend to see one of the things that, and it depends of course, on the type of e-commerce business, whether it's B2B or B2C. But what we have seen historically, and there's a joke inside of our company that B2C marketers, e-commerce is what we're talking about, are fighting basically with sticks and stones. And then when you talk to a B2B marketer, typically not going to be e-commerce right, but typically fighting with machine guns and crossbows and all kinds of stuff, which are really intimidating. So I, what I will say is I, while I am saying somewhat I disagree with you, I actually do agree with you on the data-driven part heavily. And the reason why I say that is in B2B companies, when you have this larger transaction, that's a sale through Salesforce, you lose track of that, the time that it becomes a lead, right?

Dan (05:58): Like it becomes a lead and then its in Salesforce and like, okay, well that's sales's problem. So there's hence why there's a little bit of that separation there. And then same in SaaS, like there's that first purchase, but then there's this subscription, right. Which they don't really track, but in e-commerce right, the marketer is heavily responsible, even more so than in any other company for the purchase, which is the only thing there is now, the marketer is also responsible for the repeat purchase, which is usually what marketers are not responsible for in any of those other situations. So I will agree with you in an e-commerce there's this innate focus on performance marketing, and then as well as the purchases, because that performance marketing, paid media, whatever it may be in there is so directly connected to their success and failure that it's just, they're, they're extremely focused on that.

Dan (06:42): And I think performance marketers in general are very, very data-driven on that that spectrum of what they're looking at, but it's also a shorter cycle. Like I think about, so one of our clients is Hydro, right? Hydro is the Peloton of rowing. And they are super focused on paid media because that's where all their stuff comes from. So we are constantly analyzing their data and looking at that tiny little funnel. So there's definitely a big data-driven focus, but the way that they look at that data compared to like some of my SaaS companies or my B2B companies, very, very different. And I'm not saying anything is lesser or more on either side. I'm just saying the way that they look at the data and what they're looking at of course is very, very different.

Kathleen (07:19): You make some really good points and I should actually append my comment to say that there's, it's impossible to make sweeping statements about quote unquote e-commerce because that is a very, very large basket of companies. And I think the companies that we've started to deal with tend to be maybe on the mid market side, as opposed to the micro side, there are, it's a lot of teeny tiny mom and pop e-commerce businesses that I'm certain are not employing you know, world-class growth marketers. So I should clarify those comments that I made.

Dan (07:51): I mean, I have to say so, and we, we have very fortunate to work with hundreds of clients at this point. Some of the biggest companies that we've worked with, like, and I'm not going to say their names, but like large companies, their marketers were, we were like, how do you guys even sell this stuff? Like, how did you, but then you realize, okay, well, not everybody wants to work at a large company. Like in the mid market, that's where you see some of the bad-ass people cause everybody, and especially with millennials and even more so now gen Z, they want to make an impact and they want to see growth. So at a big company, they can't make an impact. There's just, it's just too, what am I going to do? I'm going to make one thousandth of a percent of a difference? Like I don't care. So I think the mid market where you're talking about for sure, you're going to see a lot more of that like, let's get this. So yeah, I think some of the best marketers I meet are at small companies and they're just so smart that their company is small because of it. So it goes both ways. It goes both ways.

Kathleen (08:46): Great point. Well, one of the things that I think is interesting is you've done some work on the concept of personalization and how marketers can use that through the customer journey in order to improve outcomes. Tell me a little bit more about what you're doing there.

Dan (09:04): Yeah. So personalization to me is amazing, right? Like I love being able to personalize every single thing to the individual we're interacting with, whether that's online or offline. So I definitely like to be able to consume as much data as we can. And we've done everything from personalization, like hardcore personalization and direct mail to obviously retargeting programs, email things SMS, every single channel you can imagine we've been able to do really, really hardcore personalization. And just as a, as a fun test, and I don't I don't know how well your audience is, is it okay that I have an SMS test and show everybody something to test out? So in, in marketing naturally, there's the ability to do data enrichment. So what we did is we felt that we would try to make people aware with just your email. We can kind of come up with some creepy information.

Dan (09:47): So what I want ever to do is pull out your cell phone and I'm going to tell you to text the word creepy to this phone number. And if you do this, and you're well known on the internet, it tells you everything we found out about you on the internet.

Kathleen (10:03): Oh can I do it as we're talking?

Dan (10:03): Absolutely. And it's about your company and it's about you and things like that. Now, I haven't tested this service out. We made this for a conference and it did very well, but the phone number is (415) 915-9011. So I'll say that again. (415) 915-9011 and text "creepy" to it. When you text creepy to it, give it a little bit, it will text you back and it should ask you for your email. Now, if it doesn't email you back and if it doesn't text you back and ask for your email, shoot me an email at [email protected] because I want to know why it's not working. But that being said, you should get a text back in a little bit. That then says, Hey, tell me your email. When you get that email, give it your email and go through the process. And then we'll come back to this conversation later.

Kathleen (10:48): I am super interested to see what this turns up, especially because like, side note, I can definitely be found on the internet, but it's really funny. I got a Google alert for my name. This was several months back. And it was an article that was written saying that I was one of the top 10 women in computer science. And I was like, what the heck is going on here? And there's a famous woman named Kathleen Booth who invented like computer programming language, who I don't even think he's alive anymore. And Google was pulling my picture for her Wikipedia entry. And so when people were writing this article, they like tagged my Twitter account and put my picture.

Kathleen (11:25): I was like, really? Wow. I wish I could take credit for all that, but I can not.

Dan (11:30): Use your corporate address when it does ask you for your email, but it takes a few minutes for it to respond back. It's doing some backwards math right now. So, but use your corporate address that way and also give you your company email. But for us, when we think about any one of our clients or anybody out there doing personalization is there's all these other places to get information from. So with just an email address, you can ping full contact com. It will give you all kinds of demographic information. You can ping clearbit.com. It'll give you firmographic, demographic and technographic information. You could ping builtwith and just get technographic. You can ping Tower Data. You could be super expensive and go to Melissa Data or Experian. The creepiest thing that I ever got was I wanted to test out Experian data. They have it on their website. I don't know where, but you can put in anybody's email and they'll tell you what they know about that person. And I put in my wife's email Meredith at amazing corps.com. It told me that she has kids, she's into soccer, she's into baseball, she drives a large SUV, like, and it gave me like 35 attributes. And I was like, Oh my gosh, this is so creepy. But that's, that's the truth.

Kathleen (12:31): Use your powers for good and not evil.

Dan (12:34): Yeah, it's totally. But like I've done some crazy stuff in personalization. We learned this from OkCupid. There's a, when we know where you are from your IP, we know exactly where you are, your lat, longitude. We know where you are basically within a hundred miles guaranteed. And if we ask you for your zip code, we know where you are within usually five miles, right? So if we know the weather, we can change the experience that you're going to have on our website or in an email or in a text message because it's now raining. So as an example, and I can't say the client's name, unfortunately, but just imagine you're Banana Republic, right? Very, very large company. They have the budget to do this. And you go to their website because you're trapped inside because it's rainy. And as soon as you come to the website, you start seeing people in rain attire.

Dan (13:16): Well, you were immediately connected to that experience. There there's, there's a one-to-one match. You're going to be engaged. Now, if it's sunny outside, you can make it so there's a sunny experience. You're going to be engaged. So by simply knowing the local weather, you can, you can engage the consumer at a much better way and optimize their experience and sell more products. And this is done, even like Burger King. Burger King is the best. I think they, they did the best thing. If you're within 500 yards of a McDonald's, we will give you a free Whopper. Just download the Burger King app and we'll prove it to you. You would drive within 500 yards of a McDonald's and you would get a notification. You have five minutes to claim your free Whopper, go to a Burger King now.

Kathleen (13:58): That's genius. I have not heard about that one before, but Burger King has such good marketing. I mean, so good.

Dan (14:05): Because of their stack, they bought a contract with mParticle and Radar, and they, they built this amazing stack to do these cool things and the campaign crushed it. Like, just so those are the types of personalization, things that like, I get super focused and excited about because you're starting to take into consideration all the things that maybe people aren't telling you as well.

Kathleen (14:24): So I have a lot of questions, but before I get to them about, specifically about the stack and about personalization, the one that immediately prings to mind when I hear something like this is like, is this the kind of thing that smaller companies can do? Or do you have to be like Burger King or Banana Republic? Or what have you.

Dan (14:43): Great question. And for me, yes, as a small company, you can do these things. It is going to take a little bit of elbow grease, not going to lie. It is going to take some work, but you can definitely do it. So in my book, so I wrote the book Build Cool Shit. Really, really short book, about 125 pages. It's got color pictures in. It makes it nice and easy to read. What I always struggled with is I've worked with some of the, I mean, I've worked with some of the best companies out there and I get to work with some of the smallest companies. I always feel bad because they're not playing at the same playing field, right? Like, so in my book, if you went to mcgaw.io, my book is offered for free in the top of the headline.

Dan (15:17): You can definitely go there and do it and get a free copy of it. And the whole point is about talking about how do you break down the stack to make this easy for a small business to understand, and then also hook them up with the tools which are going to be free for them to use. So, as an example, we love using Segment to implement our stacks because it makes integration easy. Well, Segment is free for most small businesses. Maybe it's a hundred dollars a month, right? Maybe it's a hundred bucks. That's not that much of a cost for the value that you're going to get in return out of it. If you set things up correctly, you then have Autopilot, which is the marketing automation tool that we recommend. You can get Autopilot for less than a hundred dollars a month, but it does a lot of powerful stuff.

Dan (15:51): You can build SMS bots with it. You can do direct mail directly through the product. You can do email marketing, you can do on site pop-ups, it does pretty much everything. And it's extremely easy for a small business use. You just have to invest the time to learn it. I'm actually staring at my Autopilot dashboard right now, waiting for your text message to come in, which it just pinged the system. So you should get a text back in just a second, by the way. Naturally Autopilot is easy, but if you then set up Amplitude, don't get me wrong, it's not the easiest platform in the world is set up but you can do it. Just hire somebody on Upwork, you know, have amazing marketing analytics and amazing way to pass your customer data and an amazing way to do marketing automation and engagement. So you can do these things. It just takes some, some elbow grease. It's not going to be easy, right. But a small business can afford it. And a small business can definitely do it.

Kathleen (16:36): So Segment, Autopilot and Amplitude are the ones that you've just mentioned is that right?

Dan (16:42): Yep. Segment, Autopilot, Amplitude would be the three easy tools to get set up. So you can have interesting superpowers.

Kathleen (16:47): And I, I'm not familiar with Amplitude. What does that one do?

Dan (16:50): Yeah, so Amplitude. So you have Google analytics, which tells you kind of what's happening on your site, but it tells you more about traffic and channels. Amplitude is going to enable you to be able to see much more of the behavior that somebody is using and then track what an individual user is doing. So as somebody who's using your website, you can of course, track who that person is, see what pages they visit to see what's going on and better understand their analytics. Amplitude is a little bit more advanced, but it is going to give you the ability to track your e-commerce funnel. It's going to give you better ability to track repeat purchase rate. As you might be familiar, Google analytics doesn't track repeat purchase rate. It also doesn't track revenue per customer. Amplitude is going to be able to give you those features.

Kathleen (17:27): Oh, shoot. I just responded to your text with the creepy experiment and my phone auto corrected my email address. Just something different. So can I still send the correct one or is that, is it now not going to work?

Dan (17:40): It's not going to work.

Kathleen (17:41): Okay. I'm going to start it over.

Dan (17:45): So you cannot. Let's look the logic, so to see what happens, it is going to take your email. Oh, you're, you're, you're so trapped in it.

Kathleen (17:57): I'm so sad now because I was really excited about that. Darn autocorrect!

Dan (18:01): Wait five minutes and then it should correct itself.

Kathleen (18:07): So I can resend the creepy?

New Speaker (18:11): It has a five minute delay, so that at the end of five minutes, it will kick you out of the journey and you can start it over again. So we'll try it again in five minutes.

Kathleen (18:18): Cool. I'm like so bummed out. All right. So, so it's accessible to small businesses. Let's talk about as the, as the business gets larger, what other tools are in the toolbox? And like, talk to me about like really, how does this play out in terms of how this information is used in the customer journey? Because my one thing about personalization is like, I get that you can use it a million different ways, but I do feel like there are some things you can do that, like they're fun and they're novel, but are you really going to see anything from them? You know what I mean? Like is the juice worth, the squeeze kind of thing.

Dan (18:55): Yeah. And that's definitely a big one is a lot of companies don't understand which juice is worth squeezing. Right. So, cause if you squeeze lime juice, like naturally nobody cares. So it would totally agree with you there. I think the biggest thing that we have to focus on is one, how do we as part of the customer experience, tailor that experience, so they're going to purchase more, right? Just because you can create magic doesn't mean that you should. And I think a lot of companies where this really goes awry, just because you can create automation, they create a ton of it. And just because you have automation doesn't mean you should know the hell out of me. Like if you sat in a restaurant, somebody leaned over your shoulder and was like, Hey, you want to buy the glass of wine.

Dan (19:28): You'd be like, I'm good. But if they did that every 35 minutes, right, while you're at the restaurant, you're like, I'm never coming back to here again. Right. So you make sure that you do it ethically and kind of with a right frame of mind to get them to purchase. But when you think about trying to like, keep it really, really simple in regards to like personalization, try to help people pick up where they left off. Right? So we worked with a company called Carolina Designs Realty out of the Outer Banks. They're one of the largest vacation rental realtor companies. When you go to the Outer Banks. So they have like 300 something homes all over the place. They're like the premier vendor, great company. One of the things that we did to help them really be able to maximize their revenue was is that when people basically came in to check out houses, we set it up so that every single time they looked at a house, their marketing automation tool would save the URL of the previous house that they were at.

Dan (20:17): So as they're going through the website, they also have the ability to save a listing. So they would hit save a listing. It would save that listing, save it in marketing automation, send them an email with their saved listing. Great. We saved their listing. We sent that on. Now that wasn't rocket science to build, but it really helped get people back into the process. So having the ability to favorite something in an e-commerce store and then saving that, and then emailing it to them, that's personalization, that's still personalizing their experience. Now what you need to do to make that even more effective is that when you then send your newsletter or your thing, the bottom of the email, add a little spot that says pick up where you left off. Show an image of the product that they last looked at, the name of the product and anything on it, and then offer them a 10% discount on it, right?

Dan (20:58): Like, come back, pick up where you left off, we'll offer you 10% off. Just use this promo code. Building those systems, while it sounds really difficult, really isn't that hard? Yes. If you need help, email me, [email protected]. I'll send you to the exact webinar where we show you how to do this. I talk about it in my book as well, but that kind of little personalization is how you get people back into the funnel. Right. And that's what a lot of this stuff needs to be focused on is how do we get them back to purchasing, but making it more personalized to them.

Kathleen (21:27): So I will, if you send me the link, I will definitely include the link to that webinar in the show notes to make it easy for people to find it. Cause I do think that that would be interesting. When does personalization, speaking of your earlier experiment, get creepy? Because there is a little bit of a big brother aspect to it. Just because you can doesn't mean you should, there's the annoyance factor, but then there's also the creep out factor,

Dan (21:55): Super, super creep out factor. Right. So definitely happens, not gonna lie. So I have a talk that I did called When Personalization Gets Creepy and How Not To Do It Wrong. And that's where this whole automation came from is this whole creepy request. Right? So either way, there's definitely times when it goes wrong. So, and I'll use just a couple simple examples. I mean, Target, as an example, got really, really creepy back in the early two thousands. Target can predict with 85% accuracy that you're pregnant.

Kathleen (22:27): Oh, I heard these stories.

Dan (22:28): Yeah. And they sent a mailer, a direct mailer to a 16 year old girl who was pregnant based upon her loyalty card usage. And the father lost his mind. The father then had to apologize. He went to the news, complained. He then had to apologize because come to find out his daughter was pregnant. Now that's pushing it too far. Now Target made a mistake. It is what it is. Like, whatever.

Kathleen (22:48): They also did similar things and targeted women who had just had miscarriages, which didn't go over really well.

Dan (22:55): Yeah. That doesn't go off well. Pinterest did the same things with brides. Just because you're looking at wedding dresses doesn't mean that you're going to have a wedding. It just means you like the dress. So that was super hysterical. And then Shutterstock had a snafu with baby pictures, people looking at baby pictures, congratulations on your new baby. And it's like, this is not my baby. So, so people, we always make mistakes and sometimes you have to understand like whatever, like we're going to make a mistake. And I think sometimes we get too worried about being crazy. But there are times that you shouldn't be telling people, Hey, we know where you are like, Oh, like, you don't need to tell me that. So like there's definitely ways that you can kind of push that line. But the thing that we always try to tell people is like, don't use their images and stuff. Like try not to sound if it sounds creepy, like just, just put that little bit on there.

Kathleen (23:51): It's so funny. Cause as you're saying this, it's reminding me of that little, like song about Santa. He knows when you've been sleeping, he knows when you're awake. And I'm like, Santa sounds really creepy now.

Dan (24:03): I totally agree with you on that one. Right. So Santa can sound really, really creepy sometimes. Yeah, I would agree. But yeah, just don't be creepy is the big one.

Kathleen (24:13): So talk me through, if you would some actual examples of companies or customers and you can anonymize them if you need to, but like use personalization as part of their marketing and like what really have the results been. Because again, I think there's many ways you can use this. Not all of them will actually produce results. So I'm curious to know like what kind of a lift does it give you?

Dan (24:38): Yeah, great question. So we worked with an easy story that I can think about is we worked with a large vegan company. So their job was to sell vegan products. Vegan softwares, vegan stuff. And people really, really know of them in this market. So people would come to their website because they found a vegan recipe or because they found them through their content or something like that. And they would, they would download a recipe, right? They'd type in their email. Here's your vegan recipe. We sent you an email with that recipe. Check it out. Now with that email, we would also ask the question, Hey, where are you at in your vegan transition? Because if you don't know, most people who are looking at vegan recipes, aren't vegan. They're trying to become vegan. They're vegan, curious as we might say. So we had to understand where were they at in that buyer's journey to make sure that we could deliver the right products to them at the right time.

Dan (25:28): And this was the best type of personalization. If you're vegan, you probably liked our dressings or our grain kits. If you're not vegan and you're trying to become vegan and failing, you probably need access to our cooking school or our meal planning service or something else. You needed more help there. So the first email you would get would ask you, where are you at in your vegan journey? Are you just vegan curious? Are you trying to become vegan and struggling? Are you currently crushing it and need more help? Or are you completely vegan and you don't need us for anything? People would click on that button. It would have a UTM parameter, which you know what a UTM is right. So click on that. They go back to the website, the website would know the UTM parameters. We now see that in Google analytics, which was great. Our automation tool would save that and then bucket all of those users into the right journey.

Dan (26:11): So with that being said, the user would now their next email would be focused on products which of course would be better able to serve them. So as an example, if I'm vegan curious, and I don't know what it is, I'm going to be sent information. This is why you should become vegan. Maybe you should look at your heart. Maybe you should look at your diabetes. Maybe you should look at these things. What we're able to do, what our major metric was, is you don't want to look at purchase rate cause sometimes that can be a little skewed based upon the people you're getting. What we looked at, what we were most focused on, was the average lifetime value of a customer. Could we get a customer from spending $25 to spending $50 or spending more? And then we track each one of those cohorts of users.

Dan (26:47): So the users who were already vegan, we weren't making any money on them because we kept sending them stuff saying, why don't you sign up for our cooking class or sign up for a meal planning class. They don't need that. They're already vegan. Well, because we started sending them the things they would actually use, like grain kits or something like that, or cereal, something that they could actually eat. We're actually able to double their lifetime value in a very, very short period of time because now they're actually being served stuff that they care about. That's the easiest personalization you can do. I mean, that's list segmentation. So that type of stuff makes a massive impact. But going back to leveraging Segment, leveraging a good marketing automation tool, having Amplitude, I had Amplitude in that case. So I could actually see those metrics. I could see those cohorts. I could see the amount of money I made for each one of those cohorts because I had the analytics. I could really track that stuff.

Kathleen (27:31): That's cool.

Dan (27:34): So, okay. So I got a notification. I hate to text. You can text creepy. You've been kicked out of the journey. I do know that you're I did get some facts about you, which have already been populated into the system.

Kathleen (27:45): Is it the right me?

Dan (27:47): Well [email protected].

Kathleen (27:50): Yeah. It's missing the o. Auto-correct removed it.

Dan (27:53): I got you. I got your your address. So from the mistake, is the company in Annapolis?

Kathleen (28:00): Nope, that's my home.

Dan (28:02): Oh, see, look at that. Right. I got your zip code and Annapolis already. Don't even have the correct email. I apologize to interject with the creepy thing again.

Kathleen (28:13): That's good. I love this. I love that we're doing this real time. It's awesome.

Dan (28:17): The segmentation is huge. So we did the same thing in my book. If you, if you check out the book, we use a company called realthread.com. They're actually a company. They make t-shirts.

Kathleen (28:27): I know Real Thread. I used to be head of marketing for a company and they, we had a partnership with them and they did all of our t-shirts for our conferences and they would actually send a team to the event and like screen print on the shirts live.

Dan (28:42): I loved it. Yeah. Oh, that's awesome. So Real Thread has been a client of ours for five years. Like they've been around since like the beginning. I'm buddies with the founder and stuff like that. Now we did the same thing when people signed up for their email list because they have multiple different personas. So, Hey, thanks for joining our email list. We just want to make sure that we don't send you crappy email. Are you a designer, a business owner, a t-shirt a marketer, like, what are these things? People click on the button, we then change their experience. So now when we send our newsletter, instead of sending business owners, you should choose the right Pantone for the inks that you put on your shirt. The CEO doesn't care about pantones. If you don't know what pantones are, those are colors. Some. Very rarely, right. So this same thing is in my book, it talks about how you can create that system to make it so you can segment your list. And I think that's what most people really, they don't ask enough questions. They make assumptions. And it's like, your customers are nine times out of 10 willing to give you the information. If you phrase it in a way that's going to make their experience. Everybody uses Facebook, even though they know their data is being sold because they know it makes their experience better. Right? Like tell we're going to make your experience better. And they'll tell you information. Yeah.

Kathleen (29:44): It's the whole principle behind like, choose your own adventure. You know, and I love the idea of years ago I spoke to somebody at HubSpot. It was a woman who ran their email strategy and they, they made a change along these lines where after you first converted on something they would put you into this, this nurturing sequence that was like the first immersion I think they called it. And the first email you got was exactly like what you're talking about. And it was sort of like, which of these problems are you trying to solve? And depending upon which one you clicked, that would then determine the rest of the nurturing sequence, which makes all the sense in the world. So choose your own adventure. Definitely works. And that, that kind of like leads me to what my next question was going to be, which is, you know, we're talking about how to use it in e-commerce and it's so clear to me as a buyer, just the value in having like reminders about things I've looked at or favorited and customized product recommendations. But how do you apply this in B2B?

Dan (30:46): Yeah, so B2B. You perfectly teed up my next story, which is great. So this is hysterical that you asked that question. So I'll use the email example because this is really, really simple. And I can't talk about the company name, but they are very large video hosting company. So I can say that. So this video hosting company basically sells a high-end video player that you can put on your website, right? And when you come to their site, let's say, [email protected], I sign up at that moment in time. We ping a service called Builtwith and Builtwith knows every technology that's on every website on the internet. So we hit Builtwith.com. Builtwith then spits back a payload of all the technologies that are on that website. So very easily, we now know that the company is using Marketo. Hey, we know they have money, right.

Dan (31:30): So that's great. But with, they also get all the video streaming they're using. So YouTube is on there. Vimeo was on there, things like that. So when that happens, our marketing automation tool, which was HubSpot, interestingly enough, HubSpot then knows in their first email, after their welcome email, we now need to focus on the value props we have over Vimeo. What do we do that Vimeo does not? What do we do that YouTube does not? And then when that email would go, and it would explain our value props in an order where we knew we were strong and where we knew they were weak, right. So we can actually compete with that. We never once said the creepy, this is where people get wrong with the creepy. We never once said, we know you have Vimeo.

Kathleen (32:08): We notice upon stalking your site.

Dan (32:12): Yeah. Now in an automated email, you don't want to say that. Now in a sales email not so bad. Right? Cause we automated sales emails.

Kathleen (32:20): That just means you've done your homework.

Dan (32:21): We didn't do our homework. They were automated. You just thought a person did their homework.

Kathleen (32:24): I mean, like when you send a sales email it means you as the sales person have done your homework, if you say, I noticed on your website, X, Y, and Z, like fine. Yeah.

Dan (32:32): That's totally fine. Even though automation may have happened. So either way this, these emails were sent out and we were able to increase engagement of the emails. Now, I can't remember, this is nearly five years ago. I don't remember the exact statistics on that, but I do know that we have very good lift on the engagement of those new emails. And then of course, being able to get people to stay involved in the email sequence. And that is a very stereotypical way to get people's attention, leveraging that data enrichment once again, to better personalize, better segment that email for that person. And we were able to get much better engagement out of those emails. And of course, turning into purchases.

Kathleen (33:06): It sounds like you could easily get into a territory where you're using a lot of different tools to put these kinds of programs together. And in doing so, data is moving between many different platforms. I mean, like, you know, you talked about using HubSpot and my company, for example, we have HubSpot and Salesforce and those are, you know, just enough work to keep those two systems of record in sync. Do you find that when you get into these areas of, of cobbling together, different systems that you need to put like a customer data platform in place? Or or are you finding that the tools are getting sophisticated enough that they can all talk to each other in a way that keeps them in sync?

Dan (33:55): Yeah, really, really good question. So I definitely think so, going back to, I definitely think companies should start out with the right CDP. So a customer data platform is really helpful. And I think the reason why a customer data platform is helpful is not what usually people were thinking of. Segment as an example, which is the biggest CDP in the market. The primary value that Segment started with is that you basically send all of your data to one thing and it distributes that data to everything else. This is a great reduction in developer time, right? So instead of spending five hours implementing this new tracking event or this new thing, I only have to spend maybe a half an hour because I only have to write the code once compared to having to write it 16 times for all these different tools. So that's the, the real initial value of where like the CDP kind of came into place is distribution of that, that stuff.

Dan (34:40): Now they do help with integration, but at the same time, you're not going to replace HubSpot and Salesforce's integration. You're still going to need that. A customer data platform does not solve that problem necessarily. It can, but it, it now you're working with some really, really big, expensive CDPs, which just are usually pricing a lot of people, a lot of people out of the market. So in that case, when you're trying to keep two systems up to date, one, a CDP is helpful. Segment is of course going to help us so that you have a live stream of data getting in there, but that's going to be really where you start getting into the place of where you're leveraging tools like Zapier, right? Zapier is going to help keep that stuff together. And there's, there's more enterprise competitors, Zapier like Tray.io or Workado that are becoming really popular.

Dan (35:20): If there's also a technology called hull.io and they're beta basically a data orchestration tool. And then if you get super crazy, you leverage tools like Fiveran or funnel.io or Stitch data. These are going to manage large, large, large datasets, but for most people, right, HubSpot and Salesforce, they have a great integration. Right. And just make sure it doesn't break. And then when you're trying to make data get into all these tools, cleanly, that's where a CDP really comes in. But the CDP I would say is higher up the funnel compared to like, where I would say, HubSpot and Salesforce is kind of in the middle. And I would say Zapier is below the funnel. It's interesting. I have an online course, which I always forget that I have this course. Kind of embarrassing.

Dan (36:04): I have an online course at cxl.com. So CXLInstitute.com. It's how to build a MarTech stack in like class three, which is also a free webinar on my website. You don't have to buy my course. You can go to my website and get the webinar. We talk about the three types of integration. You have platform side integration, you have service side integration. You have clients that integration, it's important to understand those three and how you build things out as marketers. We're more so using the platform side integration, HubSpot, Salesforce, Zapier, and for anybody out there who says Zapier is Zapier.

Kathleen (36:34): That is the GIF v JIF debate of the data world.

Dan (36:38): Yeah. When you go talk to the founders and you're talking about it, they're like Zapier makes you happier. And I was like, totally get it. So, I'm doing my service to help them out and get the right name out there. So I always recommend Zapier to try to hook all the things together because you can do some really, really cool stuff with Zapier.

Kathleen (36:55): I do feel like though, and I agree with you. I love Zapier. And I've interviewed, I've had a couple of interviews with people like big, big company marketers, but also like teeny tiny dot com company marketers doing unbelievable things with Zapier. Like I interviewed one guy who was pretty much a solopreneur attorney who does his own marketing for his own solo practice. And that guy has like built marketing automation out of Zapier. Like he's, he runs his entire business on it. And the only thing that makes me nervous when I hear stories like that is, I'm like one thing breaks and the whole house of cards comes crumbling down. It's that, that makes me so nervous.

Dan (37:33): No, I, I can totally understand that. And that makes me nervous as well. Right? Not going to lie with like running everything through Zapier, but at the same time, I mean, I have over 50, 50 zaps right now, but most of my zaps are like automating my calendar, adding my zoom link to my emails and my Gmails and like my favorite use for Zapier in our company. So when we win a deal, we have to create a Trello board, create a Harvest project, create a Slack channel, inform the sales team. And for the services team, all our sales rep has to do, is move the opportunity to closed won, and everything is automatically created. Everything's handled. And our assistant just goes in and does some polish and it's all automated. So to me, that's really the use case of Zapier is a lot more workflow automation.

Kathleen (38:16): Yeah. I would agree with you. All right, well, we're going to switch gears because we could talk about this forever, but we do not have forever? So I want to ask you the two questions I always ask all of my guests. The first one you know, the podcast is all about inbound marketing. Who do you think, either a company or an individual, is really doing great work in the inbound marketing world?

Dan (38:39): Yeah. So I thought about this twice, right? So like I had to have two answers, one, I think Segment.com. I know we've talked about them a lot, but Segment has some of the best content on the internet and they do a great job with their inbound stuff. I think they really, really focus on helping people. And it's less on trying to be a it's more altruistic than like, Oh, come to my site so I can hit you with 55 pop-ups. And they just, they really have great content and they cover a lot of different people and it really drives a lot of traffic. And I have to say it, even though I don't want to. So I was the head of marketing at Kissmetrics and I learned a lot about content marketing while at Kissmetrics. I mean, we were the number one digital marketing blog for a long time.

Dan (39:16): And we drove a ton of traffic and Sean Work who worked with me. I love that guy, cause he ran the blog for me and did a great job. But Neil Patel, man, I used to work with that guy. Very, very smart, smart gentlemen. He has really figured out the content marketing inbound marketing game, even though sometimes he can be a little slimy and a little creepy, I guess, because he's super pushy. He's a great guy, like personally, like, I know Neil. Like he's one of the only people that I still see at conference circuits. How's your wife, how the kids, right? Like just such a, I don't know, maybe I'm on his good side, but he's a good guy, but he's just really, really talented at inbound marketing. And the Neil Patel blog just sucks up the internet. Like just honestly sucks up the internet, whether you want to get there or not. If you search for anything in marketing, you're going to wind up with the Neil Patel blog posts in the top page, like on the first page. So I've got to hand it to him.

Kathleen (40:05): Yeah. It's it's funny. Neil Patel is one of those marketers that, that I feel like is polarizing in an interesting way because people either love his stuff or they really, really don't. Like when I ask this question, I've had a lot of people say, you know, Neil Patel, but then I've also interviewed people who, who are like, not Neil Patel. Yeah. I mean, but I, I think that's great. Like I've always said, if everybody loves you, you're definitely doing something wrong because you're not like, you're not putting your stake in the ground hard enough.

Dan (40:36): His company LLC is I'm a big deal LLC. Right? So like, just gives you an idea of his character. And I have no room to talk at all because Neil and I got along great. My company name before it was Mcgaw.io Was called F'in Amazing right. Because that's just me,

Kathleen (40:54): Which I love. I, when I saw that on your your bio, I was like, Oh, I really liked that name.

Dan (41:00): Yeah. And I'm bummed that we had to change it, but Oh man, since we changed the company name and we've doubled in size, like it's just, we should have changed years ago. But at the end of the day Neil has his persona. He lives his persona. And I mean, he's making millions of dollars. Right? So like that for him, you don't have to like Ian Lopez or whatever that guy is that's on YouTube making $400 million a year, but he's making, I should say 400 billion a year. I think his networks is like 400 million or something now. You don't have to like him. Take the money.

Kathleen (41:34): That's great. All right. Second question. And particularly interested in your answer because of what you do. A lot of the marketers I talked to express that one of their challenges is that the world of digital marketing is changing so quickly that it's like, you know, keeping up with the pace of technological change in particular, it's like trying to drink from a fire hose. You are very immersed in marketing technology. So how do you keep up with all of it?

Dan (42:02): Yeah. I I'm so bummed for the answer that I have to give here. Cause I am like the last person to do innovation. Right. So I am against the hipsters. Right. So everybody's like, let's sign up for Webflow and I'm like, no, like I'll wait three more years. I'm good with WordPress. Like I don't need to change my solution.

Kathleen (42:17): You're not the guy camping out in front of the Apple store when the new iPhone comes out.

Dan (42:22): Hell no, I didn't get it. I wasn't. I was like the last person that I knew that was on Facebook. Now, when I think about like, I'm using, I've been using Segment for nine years, so naturally I'm on the bleeding edge of some technologies, but it's very, very rare that that really happens. And I actually did not become a fan boy of Segment until about four years ago. Like I advise my clients against it until about four years ago. And I wait, I'm the early majority. When you think about Crossing the Chasm, but where do I get my information? That's what really, what we wanted to ask first, LinkedIn, I get probably 75 to 85% of my stuff from my LinkedIn. I follow everybody. I don't use Twitter too much. My feed is really from LinkedIn. I follow a lot of really, really important people.

Dan (43:02): I connect with everybody. I mean, I have 25,000 connections, but I follow a lot of smart people. So I get their updates and then that's going to be where I get most of my news. That being said my team keeps me probably up to date with a lot of the crazy technologies because they're interfacing with our clients and our clients are actually the ones that exposed me the most to new tech. Now what's sad is I have to tell most of my clients, no, we're not doing that. Like that's just too hipster, bro. And for every one of my clients now that has Webflow, I always tickle them and make fun of them and tell them you're a hipster. Let me get you those new glasses. So like I always push back on brand new technology because the internet doesn't work with it.

Dan (43:41): And the key example that I always try to, if anybody has ever worked with a single page application, a Spa app, anything that's React, Angular or whatever, the other JavaScript technology. And you had your website built today. When everybody started doing those things, they lost all their SEO. They lost all of their analytics. They lost all of their tracking. They lost all of the things and they all of a sudden had to go my, Oh my God, Oh my God, nothing works. Dan, let me give you 50 grand to fix this. And I was like, sure, I'll take your money. Right. But why did you have to move to the single page application? Because you were a hipster. If you would've stuck with the, the legacy stuff that would've worked just fine, you would have saved yourself a bunch of money. So I just pushed back and say, sometimes I don't care about staying on the cutting edge. I actually like being old and lame.

Kathleen (44:23): I'm right there with ya. You stick with what works, right.

Dan (44:27): If it's not broke, just maintain it.

Kathleen (44:32): All right, well that brings us to the end of the interview. So before we wrap up, if somebody is listening and they want to learn more about you or connect with you, ask a question, check out some of the resources you've mentioned, what's the best way for them to do that?

Dan (44:48): Yeah. So what I would recommend is you're going to want to go to this website called utm.io, right? Go to utm.io, sign up for a free account. And I'm going to personally email you and say, what's up. And then you can directly communicate back with me. Now I tell you this because I'm of course shamelessly plugging my product, UTM dot IO. And I want to talk to you about how you use UTMs. But that is definitely one of the best ways, I'm on LinkedIn. Follow me on LinkedIn. That's usually where everybody hangs out with me is on LinkedIn, but I don't want to miss out. We messed up this whole creepy text thing.

Kathleen (45:18): Well, we're waiting for the second.

Dan (45:20): We'll text you. There's a, there's now a, it used to say, it will not text you again in one minute, but now the rule has been changed to one hour. So I got an error notification saying someone with this number tried to text in and we can't text them back because it happened, the same message we sent to them one hour ago.

Kathleen (45:39): So tonight I'm going to send one. There you go. I'm going to make this work.

Dan (45:45): And in your next podcast, you're going to update everybody. So you've got to not only listen to this podcast, but the next one to find out.

Kathleen (45:50): Right. Stay tuned for part two. I love it. I love it. And if you're listening, make sure that when you test it, you put a space after your email address to see if your phone is going to auto-correct your address before you hit send. I did not do that, which caused the entire problem. So user error, you can't, you know, there's nothing you can do about that. All right, well, thank you so much for joining me, Dan. This is awesome. We are wrapping up now and if you're listening and you liked this episode, enjoyed what you heard, learned something new, I would love it if you would head to Apple Podcasts or the platform of your choice and leave the podcast a review. That is how other people find us. And if you know somebody else who's doing amazing inbound marketing work, tweet me at @workmommywork, because I'd love to make them my next guest. That's it for this week. Thank you so much, Dan.

Dan (46:41): Thank you for having me. Great to meet everybody.

How do the world's top Google ads experts develop their Google ads strategies and budgets?

This week on The Inbound Success Podcast, WebSavvy founder Mike Rhodes breaks down his approach to helping his clients getting the most profit out of their Google ads strategies.

Mike says it's at the margins where you make the most money from Google ads, and that means understanding how to measure incremental profits and incremental CPAs.

He uses the concept of a profit curve to demonstrate this, and shares specific examples to illustrate his point that sometimes, higher CPAs are actually better for hitting your overall business goals. He also explains how to use Google Performance Planner to develop your plan.

Check out the full episode, or read the transcript below, for details.

Resources from this episode:

• Read Mike's blog post about the profit curve
• Get free access to the Google Ads Fundamentals course by AgencySavvy (use code PODCASTFUN for 100% off)
• Visit the WebSavvy and AgencySavvy websites
• Email Mike at [email protected] 

Kathleen (00:00): Welcome back to the Inbound Success Podcast. I'm your host Kathleen Booth. And this week, my guest is Mike Rhodes, who is the founder and CEO of WebSavvy. Welcome to the podcast, Mike.

Mike (00:41): Thank you, Kathleen. Lovely to be here.

Kathleen (00:43): I'm excited to have you, and you're coming all the way from Australia. So I am winding my day down getting ready for happy hour. And you are just waking up over there. It's awesome to have you. You are a Google expert. In fact, I think if I'm not wrong, your Twitter handle is @theGoogleguy. Is that right?

Mike (01:06): It is. Yeah. All my clients used to call me that back when I actually used Twitter back near for the last decade or the decade before that. Actually I think it probably was 2007ish. So yeah, just went with that and Google haven't asked for it back yet.

Kathleen (01:22): I love it. It's a great Twitter handle. So speaking of Google and, and things related to it, maybe you could tell my listeners a little bit about yourself and what you do and also what WebSavvy is.

Mike (01:35): Yeah. I've always loved the business of business. I've always loved growing businesses. I always knew I was never going to do the corporate thing. I guess, as kids we decide fairly early on we're either going to be just like our parents or the exact opposite of our parents. My dad did the corporate thing for 25 years and I think I worked out as an 11 year old, I ain't going to do that. I wanted to be a helicopter pilot, actually there's a whole tangent we could wander off down there. At six years old, I must have seen something on TV. Decided I wanted to fly helicopters. I actually went down that road. I learned to fly helicopters in Hawaii.

Kathleen (02:14): That's like Magnum PI.

Mike (02:16): Funnily enough, my boss was the pilot for Magnum PI.

Kathleen (02:22): Stop it! No!

Mike (02:22): So we would fly around Oahu and I learned to fly in the canyons of Kauai and flying around the volcanoes on Molokai. And when we would go around the Island one day, he took me to Higgins' ranch and we landed on the end of the pier. But it was in that thing where Higgins lived. I'm like, Oh my god!

Kathleen (02:40): That is so Epic. I love that story. I was a big Magnum PI fan.

Mike (02:46): Oh yes. For different reasons I'm guessing. I liked the helicopters. You liked the mustache. But it was, it was a good shot.

Kathleen (02:51): I mean, all of it. I watched it with my brother. It was one of the shows that appealed to both of us. So that is a really cool story.

Mike (03:00): I was still at uni at the time I went back to the UK. I grew up in the UK, if you haven't figured out the dodgy accent yet. And I ended up working for the most prestigious helicopter company in the UK. We had clients like, you know, the queen Bill Gates, Michael Schumacher, boy bands, all kinds of stuff. But I figured out right really quickly from talking to the guys and sadly, they were all men, all ex-military and they all could not wait to retire. And I thought, I do not want to spend the rest of my life in an industry, surrounded by people that can't wait to get out. So I left the UK, I headed for Australia. I went to New Zealand for three weeks. I stayed for three years and I started my first business there. A mate handed me two books as I was starting that business, the cashflow quadrant from Robert Kiyosaki and the E-Myth by Michael Gerber.

Mike (03:53): And those two books changed my life. I built that business up over 18 months. I worked in the business for 12 days of the 18 months, sold it for a chunk of change. I moved to Sydney thinking, well, I'm not sure doing the helicopter thing. I've got a chunk of change. I thought I was semi retired. I started playing lots of bad golf. And I went to a Tony Robbins seminar. Gosh, I won't give you the whole story. Cause I could really wander off on a huge tangent here. But I came out of Tony Robbins seminar hair on fire. I wrote a letter to Gerber saying, you know, your book changed my life, yada, yada yada. And I'm a bit stuck. I love helping businesses. I don't know what to do next. And I got a phone call from him six weeks later from actually from his PA saying Michael is just walking out of a meeting.

Mike (04:40): He'd love a chat. I'm like, Oh, this is the Michael Gerber, a hero of mine at the time. Long story short, he invited me to go to California and train with his team. That was Friday morning. He said, if you can be in California by Tuesday, we can get going. So I said, yes. And I jumped on a plane, flew to California. This is a month after nine 11. So fairly empty plane. America was a very interesting time, obviously back then. And ended up licensing the name E-Myth, being an E-Myth coach and consultant helping businesses grow. And I sucked at it. Because I would walk into these businesses. You know, here I am, this young guy. I've sold one business. I've had one business and I thought I was going to go in and systemize all of these businesses. And I'd get there and we'd start chatting.

Mike (05:37): And, and they'd say, mate I just need more customers. I just need more patients. I just need, you know, more covers in the restaurant. When do we get to more customers bit? Well, you're lucky. It's good. But it's a system, you know, there are seven modules and that's module five. Okay. When do we get the module? Is that like day five week five. I'm like, Oh, most businesses month 10. Get out, get out. Like, I just want to buy a module five. Well you can't, it's a system. I'm not allowed to sell you module five. We've got to go. Cause you had to go through a mindset and building a team and systems and all of that stuff, which in hindsight was actually genius. But it wasn't what all of these businesses wanted.

Kathleen (06:21): It's sort of like Maslow's hierarchy of needs, you know, like safety and things like that first. And that's why I think when people look at you, they're like, you just need to deliver more revenue. And then we can do the rest.

Mike (06:32): Most businesses. If you went into most businesses and doubled the number of leads tomorrow, they would break. Those businesses would break something. And those businesses would break. So you kind of had to prepare for that before the leads. But of course, every business thinks that's the magic solution. If you just had more leads coming in the door, the dog wouldn't have died. The wife wouldn't have left. Like they wouldn't have fallen over and failed. So I sucked at it. And then I saw this guy, Perry Marshall, speak about Google ads. This is really, really early days in Google ads, 2004, excuse me. Google had only been around a couple of years. And I was just blown away. Like, what? You mean you only show ads to people that are searching for the exact thing that you sell? And you only pay if they're interested enough to click on your little ad and come to your website? And back then, you know, all the clicks were about five or 10 cents.

Mike (07:29): It didn't really, you could do it quite badly and still make a lot of money. Oh my God, this is exactly what all of these businesses that I've been talking to. This is what they want and need. Sorry, Mr. Gilbert, not paying you any more money. I'm dropping all of that. And I pretty much started the agency then and there. I started trying to teach anybody. I came across about Google ads. I went back to my mastermind group hair on fire, like telling everybody about this thing. I would meet people at conferences and tell them about this new thing. And you know what, nine out of 10 people said mate, I don't care how it bloody works. Just do it for me, would you? Just do it for me. And so, yeah, that was really the genesis of WebSavvy. So that's what we do.

Mike (08:16): We do it for brands all around the world, mostly Australia and the US. We're pretty much half and half between the two. We started with Google ads and an all of those things around Google ads, like Google analytics, you know, the data that runs everything, Google shopping, YouTube ads, that's all part of the Google system. And we also do a fair amount of Facebook ads these days for our clients as well. But we've really stuck to our leader. You know, we, we don't do SEO. We don't build websites or apps. We don't create content. We've stuck to our, our lane, which is acquisition. We, solved that problem that everybody told me they had 20 years ago. I just need customers. That's what we deliver for our customers.

Kathleen (08:58): I love it. Mike, I got to say, you seem like the kind of person that I would really like to sit down and have a beer with because your stories are so good. What an interesting journey. Yeah, it's great. And I mean, I think I I'm so attracted to it because in some ways it's like mine, I've had an interesting career that's, it's almost like three careers in one where I started out working in international development consulting after college. And I did that for 10 years and I loved it and I was passionate about it. But then for various reasons, it didn't make sense anymore. And so I shifted gears and I opened my own marketing agency, which I had for 11 years. And then after 11 years, I sold that and now I'm working in-house as a marketer. Like they're just completely different paths and at every juncture, you know, you get excited about the next thing.

Mike (09:53): And isn't it amazing though, at the time, if you had had to draw the path forward, it would be impossible. But when you look back all the dots line up and it makes complete sense that you are where you are. It was obvious that that led to that led to that led to that, but you could never have picked it go back 20, 25 years. You could never pick where you be now and what you end up doing, but all of those things that you learn along the way, help that next jump and that next decision. And, Oh, what's this over here. That looks interesting. And it's wonderful.

Kathleen (10:27): Yep. You, and you have, you have to have done all those steps to wind up in this. It's so true. So true. So again, so let's talk about Google because this is, you know, anybody who's ever listened to this podcast knows that the question I ask at the end, which I will be asking you at the end is, you know, marketers are always saying that, that trying to keep up with the changing landscape of digital marketing is like drinking from a fire hose. And I always ask people how they do it. And I just think Google is a really interesting example of this because it is constantly changing. You know, you literally can make a full-time job out of just tracking algorithm updates and changes. And you know, and I, I'm a little obsessed with it. I, I, I heard a couple of sources that I follow for information on that.

Kathleen (11:24): But you know, it is, it is a very constantly changing landscape and yes, it's very easy to check the box and do Google ads and probably do them very poorly. But unlike when you first started, I feel like today you can be flushing a lot of money down the toilet. If you do that. Whereas if you know what you're doing there, isn't, there is an opportunity, but, but there's a lot of intricacy to it. It seems to me you know, when you and I first spoke, I know I told you, my audience is pretty sophisticated. So this conversation is not going to be Google ads, one Oh one. I'm going to assume that most people listening, know the basics about Google ads. What I want to understand is if you are somebody who is relatively proficient in Google ads, you know, what are some of the things that you're seeing that work well that really can help those people level up.

Mike (12:15): Great. Great. I love that because the fundamentals, if you haven't got those by now, you're probably not the least bit interested in getting online.

Kathleen (12:26): You get them in a 40 minute podcast.

Mike (12:30): I've, I've got a three hour course that I'm more than happy to give it to the listeners. That's what they want, but I don't think that's what we want here,

Kathleen (12:38): Which by the way, we, I can include the link to that in the show notes. So if you want, yeah. Multitask.

Mike (12:44): Yeah. So I being a pilot, I liken it to Google ads back in the day was like the cockpit of a Cessna, which if you've never been in a Cessna is a bit like being in your car, but there's even less instruments. It's basically a car that goes up and down a bit. There's, there's maybe three or four things that you need to keep an eye on. Google ads these days is like the cockpit of a 747, which none of us have been in either, but we can picture how complicated that must be with dials on the ceiling and surrounding. There was a lot of stuff going on and it really is, as you say, that last 10%, that makes all the difference. Google ads is, is pretty easy to do the first 50, maybe even 80%, it's pretty easy to get going.

Mike (13:28): And as you say, tick the box, I'm doing Google ads, but are you squeezing the most profit out of it? And it's not really your fault if you're listening and that's where you're at, because Google are making it harder and harder for you to understand where your money's going, which bits are profitable, which bits aren't, they would love you to just to focus on the average, what's the average return I'm getting from this. And I have to say we may be forced into that world, right? With the cookie pocalypse that's coming and, and our tracking isn't going to be as perfect. Not that it ever was perfect, but it isn't going to be as, as granular and detailed as it has been over the past little while, we're going to have to be marketers again, which is fabulous for us marketers. It's a little scary for the, all the people that hide behind their spreadsheets and think they can optimize absolutely everything to the nth degree and somehow be successful.

Mike (14:31): So there's that what I think we can dive into is, is incremental profit, an incremental CPA, because it's at the, at the margins where you really make the most money. So I've been thinking a lot since we first chatted a week or two ago, about how best to explain this without a whiteboard, a flip chart. So you're going to keep the numbers really, really simple, but I think it does help to have some numbers to illustrate this as we go through. So luckily you've got a really sophisticated audience, so we don't have to start with the basics. We understand what a break even point is. We understand how hard maximizing profit really can be. But we also understand that the different types of business, right, there are some businesses that absolutely need to make a profit on that very first sale. They think of marketing as a cost and they, they want to maximize the profit from that initial sale, even if they have a recurring business.

Mike (15:33): So they're not selling one-off products like garage doors or coffins that's a one-off product. If you sell those, you need to make a profit on that first sale. But many of us are in businesses where some of our customers, not all, but some of our customers will come back and buy again. They'll refer us to other people. We need to think about lifetime value. And I know that's such a loaded phrase. And what do you mean by lifetime is that lifetime is that three years is that 90 days? Are we talking revenue? Are we talking profit? But the point is smart. Marketers like your audience listening, understand investing in marketing. It's not a cost. We're not spending, we are investing. We are acquiring leads because we know that if we build it, they won't come. You know, I'm sure you saw this a lot too.

Mike (16:25): People would spend all of their money on the letterhead and the office and making everything look perfect. And then this big shiny website, and they wouldn't leave any leftover for marketing. There wouldn't be an investment left. So we need to invest to get more customers. So the way I would explain it is to say, let's take two situations, right? You've got this agency that you went to and they got you leads for $70. And he thought that seems a bit expensive to me. I'll fire them. I'll go to this other agency and they can get me leads for 30 bucks, which is best. Well, obviously we don't have enough data. We don't have enough information to make the right call yet because we don't understand what the breakeven is yet. We don't know anything about the business. What are the businesses goals? Well, okay.

Mike (17:20): If we now say that the break even point is, let's say 150 bucks. So if you're getting me leads for 70, then you're making $80. Let's just, just for the sake of argument and let's say $80 profit on each lead. And if you're getting me leads for 30 bucks, there's 120 bucks left between 30 and one 50. So now it comes down to volume. How many leads were they getting at $70? The first agency, how many leads they get you, maybe they got you 200 leads a month. And then this other month, you moved to them and said, I need it to be cheaper. I have to get my cost per lead down because I'm thinking about this as a cost, but now they can only get you 50 leads a month. They could, they, they managed to get that $30 target, but there's a lot less leads.

Mike (18:09): Well, total profit, obviously, is a combination of the two, how much profit are we making per lead? And what's the volume of leads. So without throwing more numbers at you, which I know is very difficult when you're just listening to this driving and trying to picture all these numbers in your head or working out or walking the dog picture a curve, right? So that curve starts at zero, zero on our X and Y axis. We starting at zero zero. If we don't pay anything but lead, we're not going to get any leads. So there's no profit at zero. I said, our breakeven was 150 bucks. So you can picture a curve that goes up, comes down and crosses this X axis. The X axis here is the CPA that the cost we are paying for each lead. If our average CPA is the same as our breakeven, then we're not making any money.

Mike (18:59): So at a CPA of 150, we go from making a little bit to losing a little bit of money. Is that sort of clear so far?

Kathleen (19:08): Yes. That makes sense.

Mike (19:09): Beautiful. So at some point then in between zero and 150, we must be making money. So we've got a curve. It could take any kind of shape, but let's just picture a hill in between those two points and anything higher than 150, we're losing money. It doesn't matter how many leads we get. It could be a huge volume of leads, but we're losing every money. Every time we run an ad. Now, so the game then becomes depending on what your business goals are, a smart business might choose to grow at break even because the more leads I can get through the business, the faster I can grow. You know, I get more volume of leads.

Mike (19:44): My website testing speeds up my email testing speeds up. I get more referrals. The value of my business increases. Assuming of course, that your business can handle that volume of leads. But let's back it up a bit for a second. Let's say, let's assume you do need to make a little bit of profit because most businesses do. Most businesses can't keep investing. Can't keep throwing money into their marketing with the hope that they're going to get a return on that a year down the track, or even six months down the track, they need to see that it's working. Quote, unquote. Note to self, don't drink fizzy kombucha just before jumping on podcasts.

Kathleen (20:23): That's so funny. Cause I'm a big kombucha drinker too.

Mike (20:31): It's lovely. And it's, it's cured my addiction to the other rubbish I used to drink. But.

Kathleen (20:36): Yeah.

Mike (20:38): So there's a point somewhere in between zero and 150 here where we're going to maximize our profit and the reality that, that trying to find the tippy top of that curve, that the absolute top of that Hill is actually really, really hard. And we live in a messy world. It's, it's not a nice smooth curve that we can draw and stick a pin in the map and go, yep. Okay, we'll go after that. So if we, if we chop the top of that Hill off, so if you can picture that a Hill and you chop the top off, so it's nice flat on the top. It's a plateau exactly. Tabletop mountain in Cape town. And you've now got this range and anywhere within that range. And I said, break even was 150. So let's just say for the sake of argument, $80 on the low side, $120 on the high side. They're the two edges of our plateau. Love that fact.

Mike (21:33): So anywhere in there, we're making a really good amount of profit. Maybe we didn't get right to the top of the Hill, but we got really, really close. Anywhere in there we're making money. Now, if you're still with me, well done, first of all. But if I now say to you, which would you rather, would you rather get leads for $80 or $120? Almost everybody, really smart marketers included, will say 80 bucks. And it's the wrong answer for two massive reasons. Now, remember this is the same total profit at 80 and 120. The first reason is your customer. Isn't your customer, your first customer, these days in the world we live in is not the human being on the other end of the screen. Your first customer is the Google algorithm or the Facebook algorithm. You need to make the algorithm like you and make the algorithm want to show more and more of your ads so that the human beings on the other side, even get a chance to see your ads.

Mike (22:39): Now, if you're offering 80 bucks and people in your market are offering 120, who does the machine want to give the traffic to the machine is going to take the 120 every single time. Remember it's the same total profit to your business, 80 or 120. So you must go the 120, otherwise you're just not going to get the leads. The second one is a little, so that's a bit more obvious once you, once you think about it, the second, one's a bit more counter-intuitive. And that is that if it's the same total profit, remember total profit is that, that gap, you know, the profit per lead, the gap between what we're paying 80 and the break even point, 150 multiplied by the total number of leads. So at $80, what's that gap, 70 bucks. And at 120, the gap is 30. I must be doing at least double the number, at least double the volume at 120 to end up with the same total profit, right? Ish. Yes.

Kathleen (23:46): That makes sense. I'm terrible at math, but I'm actually following. So you're doing a good job.

Mike (23:51): It sound like it would be because it just feels we've been taught that, you know, low numbers are good. High numbers are bad, it doesn't feel quite right. And yet if you draw the Hill and you chop the top off, you look at that plateau and that Hill represents profit. Then two points. There are the across the top of the plateau, it's all the same total profit. So I must be doing a lot more volume at one 20. And it's that volume. That's the kicker that speeds everything up. Assuming that your business can cope with that extra volume. All those things we've mentioned before, your website, your CRO testing, your email, split testing, the volume of referrals, the case studies and the testimonials that you're going to get the training opportunities for your team. Everything now proves your business value because you've got two, two and a half times the volume coming in. You've built the machine and that's what a lot of people buy when they buy your business. They're buying the machine that can drive more and more leads into your business like clockwork. So now everything is so much better now. Okay. Got it. Mike, maximize profit, not quite. Come down a little bit, find a plateau, find a range, pick the high end of the range.

Mike (25:05): Awesome. How the hell do I do that?

Mike (25:09): Back in the day, the only way to do that was testing. And you'd run some ads and you'd run some campaigns and you would test different CPA amounts and see what happened to volume. And yet all the time we'll hear from new prospects mate, you know, I'm getting leads for a hundred bucks, but I need them to be cheaper. To which our first answer is well, do you? Let's think about this? Let's really understand what the goal of your marketing is. Let's understand how you think about this cost or is it an investment? Let's think about what your break even point is and where you need to be. And now let's test around that. So that was the old way. Now Google has this wonderful, hidden, hardly used tool inside the Google ads machine. Now you do need to have a Google ads account running to use this, and the more data that you have, the more campaigns that you're actually running, the better. This will work, but I'm going to assume for a minute that your listener is running some Google ads, but like many agencies out there they've never heard of this tool.

Mike (26:18): It's called the performance planner. So if you go up to the there's a little wrench icon up in the top, right of Google ads. When you get back to your computer and you're going to click on tools and then under tools, you'll find a list of about 20 different things in there. One of them is called the performance planner. And this has been around for about a year for search campaigns, but they just made it available to shopping campaigns as well. It's not available for display and video yet just for search and shopping. And when you fire up this tool you'll say to the machine, basically predict what's going to happen next month for this campaign or this group of campaigns. And the machine will draw you a nice curve that goes up into the right, and it looks like the more money you spend, the better you're going to do, but what it doesn't do it doesn't talk about profit.

Mike (27:08): So we've built a little tool that will pull all of that data down out of Google, stick it into a spreadsheet for you. And now you can start playing with different scenarios and you can say what would happen if my breakeven was one 50? What if my breakeven was 200? What if my breakeven was a hundred and it will draw the profit curve for you? See Google are always going to give you that cumulative curve. It always goes up into the right. And it's very, very hard to tell from that what your incremental profits going to be, what the next bit you're going to gain is going to be. You can kind of do it. I'll give you the easy way first, which is it'll put a dot on that curve. And I'll say, here's where you are right now. But obviously we suggest you spend more money.

Mike (27:53): If you wiggle that little dot around, you'll be able to see what happens to your number. So it'll say, you know, right now you're spending 50 grand and you're making 5,000 sales. And if you roll that dot up to the next point on the curve, it will say, if you spend 60 grand, you'll make 5,003 sales or whatever those numbers are going to be. And if you're really good at mass, you can kind of do that quickly in your head. And you'll be amazed at what this thing shows you, because it will tell you your average CPA, your average cost per lead, or your average sale price is whatever it is. And when you move that little dot and you start spending more money, the average barely changes. I was looking at one the other day. And the average went from something like $72 to $73.

Mike (28:41): You go, well, that's okay. It doesn't seem like much. And yet when you do the math, you work out that those extra leads are costing you four or 500 bucks. And that probably isn't profitable. The business is aiming at 70, $80 a lead because that's profitable for the business. Maybe we can go up to a hundred, maybe 120, the four or 500 bucks a lead. You may use this tool and go, what the hell? Where are we spending all this money? And I think the reason that Google shows it this way is that if more advertisers knew about this tool and understood what it was really showing, they'd probably back off their spend a little bit. They're probably way past that, that plateau and heading down the other side of the Hill, sliding towards the big, nasty bit at the bottom, which is you are losing money.

Mike (29:33): Every time you run an ad. And Google obviously are not going to make that obvious. They don't talk about profit on this, on this tool. They don't ask you what your break even point. They just say, your average just went from 72 to 73. How bad can it be? But if you start looking at some of the points, okay, so picture a curve that sort of goes up and flattens off. Then obviously, you know, you're getting diminishing returns at this point. You're, you're getting to the point where yes, you could spend more money and the machine will happily take your money. Don't don't, you know, Google made, what was it? 135 billion last year, Meghan, to take your cash. Same as we talked about before to advertisers, one offers 120, one offers, 80 who's the machine gonna reward. But if some numpty offers the machine 250, Google's going to take their money too. And you probably have some competitors in your market like that.

Mike (30:30): Hopefully they won't be around too long. Hopefully they won't be able to run those ads all day, every day. And in a couple of months, they'll realize, Oh, we're going backwards quite quickly. We should probably stop that now. So you must, must must know your numbers, obviously all smart marketers. Do we understand lifetime value? We understand breakeven, but this, this tool makes it so easy. Now, if you know where to look to start to think about that incremental cost versus the incremental gain. And I think that's something that we all have to get better at as marketers. It used to be very, very complicated maths and very, very hard to do and a whole lot of testing. But now that this tool exists and I've spoken to the the product manager of the tool at Google, and they have absolutely no plans for this data to be available via the API.

Mike (31:23): Anytime soon, it is not on the roadmap for the next year, at least. So they're not going to make it easy. I want to make it easy to pull all of that data out of there, stick it in a Google sheet, visualize it in data studio, however you prefer to work, but at least understand if I spend an extra 10 grand, what do I get for that? And what's my incremental gain. Is it really worth that extra spend? Or could I find somewhere else to go spend that? Do I take that over to my Facebook ads? Do I Chuck it into the new shiny toy, whatever it is this month insert shiny object here, or do I save it and tip it into something else and tip it into a surprising and delighting by clients or, or training my teams or something else? Sorry, I've done a lot of talking

Kathleen (32:13): So interesting though, because I mean, you've, you're, I have a lot of thoughts that are kind of swimming around in my head right now, the first going back to the earlier part where you talked about like, if you could do it for 80 or 120 and both had the same thing, which would you do? And of course I would, I would have said 80. But then as you started talking about the, the value of volume, that was really interesting to me. And then it also got me thinking, what does, does that volume then become a springboard for growth in other channels, like referrals and word of mouth, you know, is it, is it like a snowball effect where you get more volume through your pay-per-click ads, campaigns, and that's just more customers. And as you said, assuming you're able to handle that volume and you're able to serve it well and delight your customers. Will they then not go and tell, you know, their friends and then you have the best kind of business, which is the word of mouth business, where your cost of acquisition is very, very low seeking you out. So that, that was interesting. And I've never thought about it that way before.

Mike (33:19): Well, you did right? The value of volume. I'm going to steal that phrase. Thank you. I like that. Well, it just, it sums the whole thing up. But yeah, this is just the cost of that initial lead. And when we haven't started talking about lifetime value yet, or, or 90 day return or anything like that, or even the benefit of just having all of those people on your site, I mean, the social proof of the reviews that they're going to leave, because you have a program in place to grab reviews, and whether that's on your Google, my business page, or Product Hunt, or wherever you're collecting those reviews, the testimonials, the case studies. Your remarketing lists. I mean, okay, remarketing is going to change with third party cookies going away and so on. But most businesses that we see at least a huge part of their Facebook advertising is some form of warm audience.

Mike (34:11): Whether that's an email list or a remarketing audience, if you've got two and a half, three times the volume of people coming through your website, think what that does to your remarketing. Think what that does to your Facebook traffic now, to the organic reach for your YouTube videos, because now you've got all of these people that are watching, which sends that algorithm a nice message to say, Hey, all of these people are watching this. They're finding value in it. Let's put this video in front of more people. Everything starts to, to grow. I think it was, it was Dan Kennedy that said the winner is not the business that can pay the list per customer. The winner is the business that can afford to pay the most. So if you can afford to pay one 20, if you can afford to pay one 50, you're going to win because you know, your numbers, you know, what that leads to, and you know, that ultimately you are going to be much better off for it. Now, if some businesses will, will be even a loss leader, right.

Kathleen (35:12): A lot of startups that are well-funded are like that.

Mike (35:15): Yes. Some, some somebody told me the other day that something like 40% of VC money goes into paid at 400%

Kathleen (35:22): And it was blowing my mind. I I was looking at the the SEC filings for Shopify which is, you know, a huge success story. And I think if I remember correctly, they were saying they didn't expect to be profitable anytime soon. And, and, you know its very common with startups because they're really just trying to grow as quickly as possible to, to build up a massive audience and create an ecosystem and this and that. But, you know, you do have to sort of think about at what point is trying to compete with that stop making sense.

Mike (35:57): I bet. And it feels like over the last 18 months or so, we've started to see a bit of a shift there away from, yeah, Shopify have done that. Amazon very famously didn't make a profit for a very, very long time. And when they finally did, everyone was a bit amazed. Tesla didn't make a profit for a very long time. Those story stocks though seem to be sort of padding it. People seem to be a little bit more, well, hang on a minute. Don't we need to make a profit at some point? Isn't that the sustainable business that we're trying to build here and not just burning someone else's money. So, yes, I think it's becoming more important. And I am very aware that at the same time, that we're sort of detailing out all of these numbers and drawing this curve, that, that marketing is going to get more fuzzy in the future.

Mike (36:43): We're not going to be able to measure things quite as perfectly as we've measured, but we can still think about the trend. We can still take those overall concepts of, as you said, 80 versus 120, I would've picked 80, but now that you pointed out, yeah, actually I'm much better off. And it's the same profit. That's the, you know, mindblowing bit is it's exactly the same profit. So I, I have to be making it up in volume. Oh, that volume is worth so much more. To me, I'd be crazy to go back to paying 80 bucks or what many businesses asked for is we're paying 80, but we need 50.

Kathleen (37:20): I think putting on my hat as an in-house marketer some of that is pressure from above, you know, where you're you're, if you are working for a CEO or a board that doesn't understand this concept they're looking to consistently lower CAC. And so they're going to be saying, you know, how come, how come that cost of acquisition is not coming down over time? You know, and so there's a, there's an educational element that I think is needed there from the marketer to, to the rest of leadership within the company, to understand kind of these concepts that you're talking about. But I also think what's interesting to me about this whole conversation. Is it points to kind of what you need to think about as a marketer when you enter into a relationship with an agency to do your paid ads, because so many, so many of the marketers that I know in my network don't have, full-time, in-house people that do this.

Kathleen (38:18): Cause it's, they're either at a stage of growth where they need to outsource it, or they've recognized that it's something that's pretty specialized. And so coming to that relationship with more than just, you know, I want to keep my CAC below X, or I want you to consistently bring CAC down and get me lots leads, but coming to it, understanding your pro like the overall profit margins of the business and, and understanding just those, those core financials that are maybe are not necessarily looked at as part of the paid ads strategy is super important. And then knowing to hold your outsourced team responsible for factoring that into the strategy.

Mike (38:59): Yes. Well, it comes back to it's the goal, what's the goal that you're giving your agency. And I think more and more the hybrid model is, is the right model. You know, like, as you say, it's changing so fast, do you really want, unless you're spending millions a month, do you really want somebody in house who's going to leave after 18 months running all that for you? You can't obviously outsource your marketing strategy to an agency that has to come from the CNO internally, but using those external skills in a fast changing environment. But what's the objective, what's the goal that you've given to your agency. If it's just keep reducing CAC, no matter what that isn't going to work, that's going to hit a point where, well, yes, we can get you a row as a 14, or we can get CAC down to 25, but at what cost, what does that do to volume? Because we can't triple volume and reduce CAC at the same time. We're good, but we're not magicians. What's the objective

Kathleen (39:55): Point about, you know, we were talking about startups and high-growth startups and, and you know, if you're a company that's looking to raise another round of venture capital funding, or if you're looking to get acquired, that volume is so important, they want to see, they want to see acquisition fast growth. They don't want to see, Oh, like at the end of the day, having a lower CAC is nice, but that is not as important as, you know, we tripled our customer base.

Mike (40:25): I, I, I know very little about say something like Y Combinator, but my understanding is it's, it's all down of that growth number, you know, are you growing at 10% month on month or whatever that, that number is for your business and have you sustain that? Are you improving that growth? Yeah, I'm conflicted by that. I get it. I understand why, because you've got to make a dent. You've got to get in there. You got to become something in the market. You've got to build that awareness, but at the same time, how much are you going to burn getting to that point, right. That's a different world for us.

Kathleen (40:59): I guess if you have deep VC pockets behind you, you can burn a lot. No, that's so fascinating. So, so, you know, what would your advice be to marketers if they're looking at entering into a new relationship with somebody to do their paid ads, or if they're in a relationship, but they're thinking I need to take a fresh look at this. Like, what are, what's the information that they need to gather to come into this conversation in an informed way?

Mike (41:27): That's a great question. I think at a minimum asking your agency, Hey, what happen if you know, what would happen If we allowed CAC to go up 10 bucks or 20 bucks, what would happen if we doubled our budget? What would happen if we reduced CAC? What would happen, but what would happen to what, what would happen to overall profit or first 90 day revenue? And let's be really, really clear about how we're measuring what works and defining how, what, what, what works is, sorry, I butchered that sentence, but you know what I mean? What's the definition of did this work and being really clear about that and being open to sharing all of those numbers from both sides. This is what we understand about our lifetime value. This is what we understand about our referral process. Yes, we're trying to fix this, but right now each person brings in 1.2 additional people like being really clear and transparent and sharing all of that.

Mike (42:25): And back to your point about education, I think that's really cool. So maybe it's I will put some pictures up on our, some pictures, some images on a, on a blog post around this concept on our blog so that your listener can, can come and steal those images, download them, stick them in the PowerPoint for the CEO, for the board and say, zero, that's this point down here. Break even. That's this point over here, this is the Hill that we're going to die on. Actually, we're not, we're going to die on this plateau up here. Which one do you want to pay? And basically do the 30 second version of what we've been talking about and get your board to say, is it 80 or 120? And then when they say 80 go, I knew you'd say that, which is why you don't get a lollipop. And here's why we're going to go after one 20.

Kathleen (43:11): I love that. I love that. Well, if you do this blog, I will definitely link to it in the show notes. And it's like the convince your boss letter that, you know, conferences give out, here's the letter you should give to your boss to convince them why you should go to the conference. This is the convince your boss letter for taking a different approach to your paid ads. Yeah, that's great. Well we are now at that point in the conversation where I get to ask you my two questions and I've already previewed that a little bit. So I'll ask you the first one which is, you know, the podcast is all about inbound marketing. Is there a particular company or an individual that you think is really knocking it out of the park with inbound marketing these days?

Mike (43:54): You know, I was thinking about this a little this morning and I, yeah, I'm going to have to say a client name, but I am I'm conflicted because I'm not meant to mention client names, but look, if you're still listening at this point, you kind of go and look and tell me who is doing it really well here. I think ButcherBox who are, have grown and grown and grown in the States over the past three, four years. They just, they care so much about their customer, but also about the farmers that they support. And that story has just resonated. We're lucky enough to help them along their journey. I know they've got a happiness, really, really smart in-house team. And then they've got, you know, external SEO agency that we chat to a bit. And we look after paid ads. So we do Facebook. I don't think we even do Facebook for them. We just did the Google side for them. And so there's lots and lots and lots of people involved, but at the core of it two guys that really, really, really care about what it is that they're doing and what it is that, that, how they're making the world a better place. And I think people are just drawn to that. I think their content is absolutely fabulous who doesn't love candied bacon, I'm Australian. I have no idea what candied bacon is, but it sounds amazing.

Kathleen (45:08): It's a uniquely American thing to, to put sugar on cured meats.

Mike (45:14): Pancakes and bacon doesn't even make sense to people outside of America.

Kathleen (45:19): It's funny that you say that. So, little story. I lived in Barcelona for a year after college. That's the thing I missed the most was pancakes. And I remember trying to explain what pancakes were to the people that I lived with. I lived with a family. And they were like crepes? And I'm like, no, that is not the same thing. There are pancakes. It's a foreign thing. All right. So butcher box, I'm now intrigued and we'll have to check them out. Second question is the one I mentioned earlier, which is how do you personally keep up to date, stay educated and stay on top of, you know, all these things that are constantly changing?

Mike (46:01): In a word, curiosity, I guess. I mean, I love the business of business. So I read all the time. I get to go to a lot of conferences. I guess I figured out really, really, really early on that that was an investment in, in me, in my education, in my team, we have a role here. So we have a learning fund. Everybody has a learning fund of five grand per head, and it's frowned upon if you don't spend that. So we also have an unlimited Amazon policy. If you want a book, then buy it. Don't ask anyone for permission to go get it. So we've got a wonderful library out here, but the deal is, if you go off to a conference, if you go into a course and learn something, you have to come back and do a lunch and learn on what you got out of it. So it's an investment and, and everybody gets better because of it. I follow some, some smart guys like Avinash Kaushik. I think he thinks about data so wonderfully. He's such a wonderful presenter too. I had the absolute privilege of sharing the stage with him in Moscow a couple of years ago, and managed to sneak back to his green room. We all had our own green room and we all had our own personal assistant.

Mike (47:13): So I asked my little personal assistant, like, could you get me into his green room? And we had the most wonderful chat about data, about parenting, about all sorts of stuff for half an hour. He was so gracious. This is before he went on stage when I'm usually a bit of a mess and I don't want to talk to anybody. And he's like, come in, have some of my free snacks. Let's chat about life. And the world is just such an entertaining, brilliant thinker. So Avinash I just saw an interview with Seth Godin the other day and just bought his new book. I haven't read it yet the practice, but I was chatting to my wife last night. She, she saw it on the counter. I mean, is he still going? I'm like, Oh yeah, she used to be in marketing. And, you know, she remembers purple cow and permission marketing. That was what, 20 years ago. And he's still wonderful.

Kathleen (47:59): Yeah. He, and every day he comes up with something new seven and a half thousand blog posts. Yeah. It's pretty invincible.

Mike (48:06): But most of all you learn by doing, I think so I learned from the team we learned from our clients where we're always trying new things. I try and invent a big new thing around Google ads every year. So that sort of forms the bulk of my, my talks back in the day where we went to conferences and gave talks. So I'm always thinking about how businesses can, can benefit, not just from Google ads, but you know, from, from marketing in general, from what's going to happen with no cookies, how are we going to track things? How does this play with this? How does paid ads play with SEO play with Facebook? How can we make it all better? My my latest little thing has been Google data studio and getting really deep into data studio and thinking of different ways to visualize the data.

Mike (48:53): So it tells a better story. So, Oh, it's, it's, it's really quite bloody annoying and fiddly in some ways, but an incredible tool and Google are tipping a lot of resources in, you know, that team is growing fast and they are pushing out improvements to that all the time. So yeah, really, it's, it's, it's by doing and just continuing to get educated every day. I probably still spend at least an hour a day on my education. And I, I love it. I love learning. And I love teaching, I guess I've discovered I'm a teacher at heart. And that for me is that the reason that you learn is so that you can teach so that you can help other people with the stuff that you learned. So it's it's fun. It's not a choice.

Kathleen (49:37): I heard a quote once and I don't know who said it, and I'm going to probably get the quote wrong, but it's something along the lines of you haven't truly learned something until you have successfully taught it. And I so believe that because the act of teaching forces you to really synthesize the information that you've taken in and, and to be able to then process it and help somebody else to understand it. That's so powerful.

Mike (50:00): Yeah. To process it, to sort it out in the, in the right order and to, to know which pieces come, where and the, the relative importance of those pieces, if you, if you can explain it. Yeah.

Kathleen (50:13): Yeah. Well, Mike, I feel like I could talk to you forever. I have to know, do you still ever fly helicopters?

Mike (50:20): You know, I have not flown in over 10 years, so I, I definitely, I'm not legal to fly anymore.

Kathleen (50:28): You probably don't have those, those hours that you need to come up.

Mike (50:30): I don't. And you probably wouldn't really want to sit next to me while I, while I read that I would definitely have to go back to school to learn that one, but I will I will fly again when my daughters are old enough after I do lots of training, I would love to to fly them around actually thinking about it. It would be lovely to go back to Hawaii and and fly around Molokai and Maui. Again, it was such a beautiful part of the world. Yeah. Yeah. I'll take that. Excuse me.

Kathleen (50:57): Awesome. Well, I love your story. I could talk to you forever. And this was a really interesting conversation. I definitely it's, I'm thinking differently about Google ads now than I was before we started, which I love, I love talking to anybody who gets me to challenge, you know, the way I think about things. So thank you. And I suspect there are going to be people listening who are going to have questions and want to dig a little deeper on this. So I will be putting some links into the show notes, but for those who are listening what's the best way for them to find you online and to learn more about WebSavvy.

Mike (51:32): The best way is probably to head to WebSavvy. So WebSavvy.com.au, because we're down here in Australia. I do have that good Twitter handle. I'm not on Twitter much, so don't try and get me there, but just send me an email. I love this stuff. I love answering questions. So, or being challenged, if you, if you think half of what I said today was garbage and you disagree. I would love to hear that too, but if you have a question, if you would like us to take a second pair of eyes over an existing Google ads account, we can do that for you too. That's Mike M I K [email protected] that I, you send me an email, ask me a question would love that.

Kathleen (52:09): Fantastic. Okay. That email address is going to go in the show notes.

Mike (52:12): I will write the blog and I will send you the link in the show notes too.

Kathleen (52:16): Love it. And you're going to give me the link to your course for those who are potentially interested in learning some of the basics. So lots and lots and lots of resources from this episode. Thank you, Mike for that. And if you're listening and you enjoyed this as much as I did I would love it. If you would head to Apple podcasts or the platform of your choice and leave the podcast a review, let us know what you thought. That's how others find us. And of course, if you know somebody else, who's doing amazing inbound marketing work, tweet me at @workmommywork, because I would love to make them my next guest. That is it for this week. Thank you so much for joining me, Mike.

Mike (52:52): Thank you, Kathleen. It was an absolute pleasure. I've had a lot of fun.

Kathleen (52:55): Thanks. Me as well.

For B2B marketers and sales teams, LinkedIn holds tremendous potential. As a marketer, how can you help your sales team make the most of it?

This week on The Inbound Success Podcast, Intero Advisory founder and CEO Colleen McKenna shares the strategies she's used to coach hundreds of marketing and sales leaders on getting the most out of LinkedIn.

From how to set up your profile, to using LinkedIn Navigator and encouraging sales team members to share marketing content, Colleen breaks down what is and is not working on LinkedIn today.

Check out the full episode, or read the transcript below, for details.

Resources from this episode:

• Visit the Intero Advisory website
• Connect with Colleen on LinkedIn

Kathleen (00:00): Welcome back to the Inbound Success Podcast. I'm your host, Kathleen Booth and this week, my guest is Colleen McKenna, who is the founder and CEO of Intero Advisory. Welcome to the podcast, Colleen.

Colleen (00:27): Thanks, Kathleen. It's great to be here.

Kathleen (00:29): I'm excited to have you here. We're going to talk about one of my favorite topics. But before we get into that, I would love it if you could introduce yourself. My listeners know I'm not a big fan of reading people's bios because I hate when people read mine and I have to listen to it. So I always ask my guests to tell a little story about themselves, how you know, what they do, how they got to the point they're at in their career, what their company does, et cetera. So I'd love it if you could share that with us.

Colleen (00:59): Absolutely. So Intero Advisory is a firm I started 10 years ago, actually 10 years ago this month. So we're celebrating all month long for 10 years and we are focused on LinkedIn for branding, business development and recruiting. So we work with clients all over the country to make sure that they're using all of LinkedIn's best practices to really create ROI and get their work, their name out there, build their brand strategically and build really strong sales pipelines.

Kathleen (01:33): I love it. I am a huge LinkedIn fan. It is definitely the social network on which I spend the most time. I just think it's, I especially have really grown to love it in the last, I would say two years. I feel like it's, it's come into its own in a new way. And, and there's so much possibility there and I feel like most people are barely scratching the surface, which is why I was so excited to talk to you. And I think what makes the conversation we're going to have today especially relevant for me is we're going to talk about how marketers can help their sales teams use LinkedIn better and more effectively. And the reason I'm excited about that is you know, I had a conversation actually yesterday that points to this. I was speaking with another head of marketing for another SaaS company.

Kathleen (02:29): And she was saying that she finds herself increasingly being pulled into doing things that relate to sales. And I was saying, I'm experiencing the exact same thing. And for everyone, there's a different reason for it. In my case, I'm at what I would still consider a startup. You know, it's a high growth company we're in the early days still, so we don't have a head of sales. So in my case, you know, I'm trying to do everything I can to help the sales team use the tools they have. For her, it's different. She's at a more mature company, but she just had the BDRs put under her as the head of marketing. And so she's all of a sudden having to manage the BDR team. So it's just interesting to me and I'm going on and on, I'm going to turn it over to you in a sec, but I, what I'm seeing as a trend is that for whatever reason, I think there's always been this concept of marketing and sales alignment, but marketers seem to be getting pulled increasingly over to the sales side of the house.

Kathleen (03:29): And I think some of that just has to do with the changing nature of how we sell the use of social media, the technology platforms that we have available to us, et cetera. So with that as the jumping off point, I would love to hear your take on this. Do you see the same trend happening of marketers being pulled over and, and working more on the sales side?

Colleen (03:50): Absolutely. you know, and I'll just as a little bit of an aside before I jumped really jump into that. When I first started Intero, I really started out as a HubSpot reseller. And then I started to really focus on LinkedIn. Intero actually is Italian for connecting. And it really, our first tagline was where marketing and sales intersect. And I had a circular logo. And I share that because, you know, I've been in sales a very, very long time with what I would say, is a minor in marketing. So, you know, I've, I've done a lot of selling. I love the sales profession, and I think that there has been an increasing move toward aligning them. But I think it often falls to the marketing department. And what I find is that very often the person that brings me into an engagement is that marketing person in order to help the sales team.

Colleen (04:52): So, you know, I think that a lot of times when I talk to a CEO, so we do a lot of work in small to midsize businesses. We have some enterprise clients, but even with the enterprise clients, they're still really trying to help the sales team figure out how to best use LinkedIn. So they're creating all the content they're really responsible for that marketing strategy and yet, and they're putting out all of that content on LinkedIn, really creating you know, great videos and case studies and all of the things that they should be creating on the content side, putting it on the right channels. And then it's a little bit like crickets. And so very often where we come in is how do we get the salespeople to really engage more? So I do find that the sales marketing team is always the group. I actually wrote a blog on this. If people don't know where to put it, let's put it under marketing. And I think that marketers are really in the position even more today than ever of being responsible for understanding all of these tools. And unless they have a lot of depth in their marketing department is really hard for every marketer to know all of the nuances and idiosyncrasies, if you will, of all of these tools to make them all effective equally.

Kathleen (06:15): Yeah, yeah. It's it is a lot. And, and the scenario you described, it's just, it really hit home because I've constantly found myself in that position of, you know, I oversee a team of people that puts a lot of time and energy into creating content, and then you put it out there and it, and there's an opportunity, you know, either you can get your team to share it, and if they do, you know, number one, it gets more eyeballs on your marketing content. So it makes your life easier as a marketer. But number two, you know, if your salespeople are using LinkedIn for anything, they, you know, it makes it should make their job easier. But it's just funny how so often it feels like pulling teeth, trying to get them to share content, you know, and in our heads it's like, Oh, I'm helping them.

Kathleen (07:03): I'm giving them stuff that they can share. And I, and I don't always know why salespeople don't share my content. That is a mystery I have, maybe you could shed light on that. But there's definitely a lost opportunity there. And I, and to me, I think part of it is honestly that a lot of salespeople and also a lot of executives don't understand the massive opportunity that there is on LinkedIn and, or they are using it completely wrong. Like there's so much horrible LinkedIn sales spam. It's unbelievable to me. And so, I don't know, I don't know what you find in terms of like how, how the world of, of sales operators plays out, you know, are they more on the I'm using it, I'm just using it wrong or are they more on the side of I'm not using it?

Colleen (07:59): I think the level of proficiency across the sales team is greater today than it ever has been. So always people who are like, I'm on LinkedIn, I'm not really using it to that power user. And, you know, my goal is always to get that, that newer user thinking and up to speed and thinking more strategically and not going down rabbit holes in LinkedIn and that power user, like what's the next way you can be more creative or you can do some things that you haven't noticed have been released on LinkedIn. But I think going back to your point about salespeople, I was working with somebody yesterday. We were doing a coaching session. It was a marketing person, and we were reviewing the content, the messaging that her sales team was using on LinkedIn. And it was, we gathered all of this messaging and what was so interesting and a little deflating was this is a company that creates absolutely stellar content, absolutely spot on, in lots of different ways, video white papers, case studies, blog posts, great imagery, very well done, not one of the messages contained a link to any of those pieces of content.

Colleen (09:21): The messaging sort of went, and if you'd be interested, I'm happy to send you some of our blog posts. Why not just send the blog post? Why just not send the link and drive them back to the website? And, and I think partly sales teams and the sort of, you know, very much a generalization, but they don't want to make a mistake. They're not really sure how to do it. They're not confident about putting, you know, an outside before someone's name or their company to get that per, that called out or how to use hashtags. They spend a lot of time explaining what hashtags are. I get that, you know, and and so I think a lot of times the salespeople don't feel grounded. So rather than make a mistake, they choose not to use that content. And they really they're thinking, Oh, I'm just supposed to like, comment or share that piece of that post, but they're then not thinking about, well, how can I spark a new conversation with somebody I just recently connected with, or I should reconnect with by using that content or personally, you know, my new favorite thing, you know, as part of the liking commenting sharing is the sending let's send something directly to a person because if we actually want them to see the content, that's probably the better way to do it.

Colleen (10:43): And imagine if each sales person was doing that 10 times in a particular week to a particular person, just the number of touches. So lots of times I feel like they just don't, they don't have the confidence, and they're not thinking about that, how that content really what its purpose is. And there's certainly salespeople that we work with who do use it really, really well and use it very strategically. However, to your point, there's lots of noise on LinkedIn right now, and lots of people who definitely do not you know, have a strategy for how they're using LinkedIn.

Kathleen (11:23): And what you said about confidence is so true because as soon as you said it, in my head, I saw one particular salesperson who I worked with in the past. And it was a woman and wonderful sales woman, wonderful person. And I did some LinkedIn training kind of for the sales team. And yet every time she had to post on LinkedIn, she would message me and say, can you get on zoom with me, I want to share my screen. I want you to watch what I'm doing. And I want you to tell me if I'm doing it right. Like she just never had that confidence. And she was so worried that she would do something wrong. And it was, I was like simultaneously very appreciative that she was putting that much care into it, but also simultaneously like, Oh my God, I'm going to spend another 20 minutes on the phone with you for one LinkedIn post. You know what I mean? But so, and I've done, I've been asked to, and I have delivered LinkedIn training to my sales teams in the past. I wouldn't say what I do is particularly phenomenal. So I would love to hear, like, how do you approach that when you're first brought in, how do you, how do you approach working with sales teams and, and getting them up to speed?

Colleen (12:38): So we always start with, I absolutely want to know what the sales process is, what the what's the strategy, lots of times there is no strategy. So ideally there's a strategy. How are we weaving LinkedIn into that sales strategy and process? If there's not, can we start with LinkedIn from there? And, and usually if we're working with a company what we're really focused on now is let's create a strategy overall, so that people who are handling recruiting, people who are in sales, people in marketing, everybody's got the same set of best practices and the same strategy. And, and that's important because very often I'll talk to a company and, you know, somebody who's, their in-house recruiter took a LinkedIn, a LinkedIn learning class, and somebody else was on an American marketing association webinar, for example, all good. Right? And somebody else read an article or watched a video on YouTube.

Colleen (13:34): So they've got all different perspectives. Let's just have one perspective in terms of best practices and how we're going to use LinkedIn. And then we start looking at profiles. So what I find also with salespeople very often when we're looking at their profiles, once again, I do believe it's a little bit of a confidence issue is there's very little on their profile or a TA it's very resume oriented, so it sets them up. But if I look at that and I see what an amazing salesperson they are, and I'm glad to know they're an amazing sales person. However, if I see that they've surpassed quota for 15 months and they made president's club, I'm probably going to feel if I'm a prospect I'm going to get sold. So I want to start to turn those profiles into marketing tools. How are we solving a problem?

Colleen (14:27): Who do we serve? What our market is, what it is. It is it that we actually do take out all those buzz words, dynamic results, oriented, strategic, creative, all of those words, right? It should be their story of who they are, why they do the work that they do. I love when that why is woven in there. And then it goes back to the Simon Sinek video, TED talk, and then have some common about the company. So lots of times people are not recognizing LinkedIn is a search engine, just like Google, Bing, you know, Amazon, Netflix. And we have to, we have to build these profiles in a way that LinkedIn can see some of these really dialed in keywords. So LinkedIn looks at the relevancy of the content on a person's profile. So building them out, even positioning them from third person to first person makes a huge difference.

Kathleen (15:19): You know, I love your point about the sales person kind of resume profile on LinkedIn, because it's so true. And I never thought about it until you just said it about the impact that, that has on the prospect. And it is, it's interesting because most people do approach LinkedIn as like, this is my online resume someday. I'll be looking for another job. So here's what my LinkedIn should say. Instead of, as you know, this is my opportunity to market the company that I work for. I mean, I think as marketers, we do that very naturally, but as salespeople, it's a totally different story. So that's really, that's really fascinating. So you start with their profile and do you find when you're working with a team do you find that the, the head of marketing should be involved in like crafting kind of boiler plate language for how they describe the company and then sending that out? How do you handle that? Because also there's that delicate balance of, I'm going to suggest you put this on your LinkedIn profile, cause you really can't tell somebody what to do there. Right. But how do you, how do you handle that?

Colleen (16:28): Yeah, it's we really have found that people are very open to this. So it used to be, we would craft the profile for the CEO and really in the last three, four years, it's the leadership team and the sales team. From there, we create a template for different functional areas of the business. I always want to work with the marketing person and that marketing team to make sure we have the most current about us and language about the company. So, you know, I can presume that what's on the website or what's on the LinkedIn company page is accurate, but I can tell you very often, people will say, Oh, where'd you get that?

Kathleen (17:07): Guilty. I've done that in the past for sure.

Colleen (17:09): Have we all have, so we definitely want to be working through this. I'd love to get the leadership team, their profiles set first because when you interview them to get the information and you talk about what their vision is for the company and for the leadership team, by the way, we really want to incorporate culture into their LinkedIn profile for the recruiting piece, because anybody that they're reaching out to or anybody that might be applying for a job is probably going to find their profile. So let's talk about the culture and let's introduce the value of people in the organization and in core values and all of that. So even with the marketing of a profile for a sales person, rather than that resume, it should always highlight them. I'll say to people, you know what? I could pick up your about section. If I can pick up your about section and put it on a hundred other people, that's not enabling you to stand out.

Colleen (18:06): So we want you to stand out and then we want the company. And most people, I can probably count on one hand how many people said I'm not doing that. And those were probably people looking for a new position anyway. And, but they appreciate that. Suddenly it's a little bit like having a, make-over getting it, you know, a brand new hair guide, like you feel good and you feel more confident about the next step. And I hear this all the time. I just had an email from a CEO a couple of weeks ago. He said, Oh my goodness, I looked so different. I get, I get what you were saying, because sometimes they'll say, okay, if you won't do anything else until you do the profile, okay, that's, you know, I'm like, we can't, I can't help you build a really great network. If people can't see who you are, you're not demonstrating, you know, your expertise. So everybody should be building their personal brand and that salesperson, especially. So we want them to seem, we know they're a salesperson. I love salespeople. I love the sales profession, but I don't want you to sell through LinkedIn in the, in the pitching sense of the word.

Kathleen (19:12): So I want to pick that apart and talk about that because this is the biggest pet peeve I have about LinkedIn right now is, Oh my God, I get connection requests. I say yes to them. And then the first thing that happens is I get a direct message trying to pitch me. And it's like, are you kidding? And I have one guy right now who must be on his 10th direct message to me. Like, you haven't answered me. How come you haven't answered me? And I'm like, well, because I'm not intending to, you know what I mean? Like it's so off putting and, and drives me bananas. But I think this, I do think a lot of salespeople, you know, look at LinkedIn and they, you know, they think, well, of course, I'm going to sell. And some, some think some are smart and do it a little bit more subtly than others, but I want to hear your take on this. So when you say you shouldn't be selling on there, like how do you advise salespeople to use it?

Colleen (20:06): So I want people to connect and build really strong strategic networks. And that's really the second piece building that network. I mean, I'm sorry, building that profile out, then looking at your first level connections, understanding who you're already connected to, and then nurturing that network and expanding your network. So we do a lot of that kind of work for our clients. So we work with a very specific process in terms of touches and cadence using LinkedIn. We're straight forward, no bait and switch. No automation, which I hope we'll talk about for a minute or so a little bit in a little bit. And, but we are trying to build credibility for our clients, whether we're coaching them or we're managing it on their behalf. So I think the goal is identifying the right people, having those people look at your profile and saying, well, I should definitely be connecting with this person.

Colleen (21:03): This person may actually be able to help me, or this person looks like they have a lot of expertise in X. I may not need that today, but I want them in my network. And then through the using of content and follow up and engaging on LinkedIn, they stay pretty visible at some point. And I'm fine with, you know, touch three or four asking for a next step, trying to spark that conversation. Absolutely. But I do not believe in, in the pitching. I mean, we are all looking for people in a ready state, however, no one, no one on their LinkedIn profile has that they're in a ready state to buy X. Yeah, exactly. So then me. Yeah, exactly. You know, I need to buy X, X and X in the next three months. So if you are one of those people that sell that, please let me know nobody's doing once again.

Colleen (21:56): One of the, the exercises we go through with all of our clients and it usually really draws kind of an aha from pretty much everybody in the group that we're working with is let's download your first level connections. Let's download them and let's break it apart. Let's sort it by position, sort it by company. You know, if you've got a thousand people or 500 people, I don't want people going line by line. I want you to find if you're calling on CFOs. You know, I worked with somebody a couple of days ago, that was his target audience. He had over 1700 connections. He only had 14 CFOs in this network. So that's an action item. Let's start there. Let's jumpstart your network with the right people. So because LinkedIn will say, Oh, you're connecting with CFOs. Here's some more of them. So we need to unlock the network.

Colleen (22:51): And I want to start to understand what's your relationship? Do you know them well enough to bring, engage? Should you know them better? Who are your centers of influence? Who are the people in your network that will introduce you? We have to have people in our network that will introduce us. And by the way, we should want to, within our own network become a center of influence. I think that's very, very important. How do you, how do you kind of catalyze that, that network in a really strong way? I mean, 95% of all of our business over the last 10 years has come through the network, our networks.

Kathleen (23:31): Now I get this question all the time and I, and I have an answer for it, but I'm really curious what your answer is. What is your advice to people about accepting LinkedIn connection requests? Should they accept all of them? Should they be really picky if they should be picky? What the criteria is? What do you tell people?

Colleen (23:51): Yeah, I'm a little bit of, I would say probably a LinkedIn purist. I like to know a lot of the people or have interacted with the people on connecting with. I do not connect with everyone for what I do, Kathleen. I probably have the smallest network in the country trainers and that's okay. My network is built a certain way. I tell CEOs, you don't have to have the largest network. You need to be connected with people who are your peers and who will, you know, you can engage with, so create the, the network that you want for the outcomes that you're trying to achieve. Recruiters, 99% of recruiters, they're going to have 10, 15, 20, 30,000 people in their network. That's the strategy, right? They're just using it as a database of when they're doing their searches. They need more people to show up in those searches.

Kathleen (24:45): Yeah.

Colleen (24:46): Salespeople. I think that they need to be really thinking about who they're connecting with in terms of, are you connected to your customers? I would say 70% of the people when we look at their network downloading it, they're not connected to their customers, missed opportunity prospects those referral sources, I probably have about 50 connection requests right now in my, in that area, in my network. On LinkedIn people reaching out saying, hi, I can help you with LinkedIn lead generation.

Kathleen (25:19): They clearly haven't looked at your profile.

Colleen (25:22): They're automated. So I'm really, I'm telling people, be careful with these automated messages, because that is absolutely going to trigger what you just talked about, which is, can I talk to you when can I talk to you? Here's the demo, you know, et cetera. What you said about people connecting and then asking for call every CEO business owner, president, everybody I talk to says the same thing. So, you know, I don't believe in, you know, if I see somebody's profile and they have 20,000 connections, that's great, but I pretty much know that they're not using their network in a really strategic way. You know, they just want a large network and that's fine, depending on what they're doing. If they're trying to just create an audience on LinkedIn and get content out there, I totally understand. But I think for salespeople, it really is time to be much more strategic with how they build their network and how they engage with that network.

Kathleen (26:21): So let's talk about that then being strategic, putting together your strategy as a sales person. I mean, as a marketer, I, you know, I'll say I have a very different approach. Mine is to have a bigger audience. And so, you know, and this is one little hack I use that maybe people will find it useful. Maybe people will find it bad? I don't know. But like my last company, for example, I was head of marketing for cybersecurity company and we were selling into the internet of things world. And I didn't have people in the internet of things world in my network because I had a bunch of marketers, but I needed to get the word out about some events we were having. And so I would send connection requests to people like IOT engineers, and I, I'm a big believer.

Kathleen (27:10): You have to customize every connection request. You don't just hit it, hit connect and let it go. And so what I would do is invite them to a free event. I'd be like, Hey, I have this, this free, you know, virtual seminar coming up that I thought might be of interest to you because you work in IOT. It's a little spammy because obviously I'm sending them something. But my thought, and you can tell me, honestly, if you think this is bad. So my thought was like, it's a free event. I'm not asking them to buy anything. I'm not asking them to take a meeting and I'm not asking them for a response other than to hit yes on my connection request. But it's interesting because that enabled me to build quite a large network in IOT, which I now have, but now I'm not selling to IOT, which is sort of funny. So that's the approach I've used. I'm just curious, like, I don't know. How do you advise people on that sort of thing?

Colleen (28:01): Well, I think it makes absolute sense. So when I talk about nurturing and network, I'm talking about really nurturing that first level, but we need to expand our network always. And so I, you know, I kind of differentiate between marketing and sales in that marketing's casting a wide net, whether from your individual LinkedIn profile or from the company page. So it is about reaching that large audience for the salesperson. It's about more one-to-one though in my opinion, and creating that, that relationship, that conversation. So I'm all about that. I mean, for many of our clients, we have them, we have probably in the last year and a half had about 200 clients in sales navigator and for those sales teams and and marketers who are working with sales teams, that's really the product to be leveraging if you want to use LinkedIn for very intentional and organized B2B business development and sales. So that's, that's more of the numbers game for sure.

Kathleen (29:08): So let's, I want to talk about that for a second, because you said not just for salespeople, but for marketers who are working with salespeople I'll admit I've, I've had sales navigator in the past, but I it's been awhile. I'm not as deeply familiar with that tool. So as a marketer who wants to be very deeply involved in sales enablement, what should I know about sales navigator?

Colleen (29:31): Just the ability, the power that it has to organize and help create more granular and better searches. There's more filters in there. There's more ability to, so for example if I'm looking at a particular company and I'm sorting and searching by by company, which is account or lead, which is a person, but I could start to build out buying communities within sales navigator and really organize that. So I might say on the average B2B the number, and it might've changed, but somewhere around 5.4 people involved in every B2B buying decision. So now within sales navigator, I can have that account and I can start to save multiple people to that account. So I think that that's helpful as marketers and sales is kind of looking at how should we approach this and what messaging I'm like send to somebody who's the economic buyer versus, you know, an influencer. And so I can get really much more granular within sales navigator. So that's, that's one piece. It also if you have the team version of sales navigator and certain CRM such as HubSpot, Zoho, Salesforce, obviously Microsoft Dynamics integrates into those CRM systems. So where this is, you know, the marketing side might be more involved on this with the CRM. Suddenly now we're taking that record in the CRM and we're bringing the person in and the company. So we see a whole lot more information right from the CRM.

Kathleen (31:12): Mm that's good to know. So especially if you're, it sounds like if you're doing account based marketing, particularly this would be really important. And then, and then, so, so one thing is your profile, as you mentioned, getting that straight, and then it's all about having the strategy to expand your wallet, to, to expand your top level connections. But then as you mentioned, nurturing the connections that you have, and it sounds like that's where sharing content comes in.

Colleen (31:42): Yes.

Kathleen (31:43): I guess where I would love to begin on this, selfishly is that from the standpoint of the marketing leader, you know, I said before, like I work with teams that create a ton of content and I don't know that I've ever had a really great system for working with sales on sharing it. I I've done everything from copying the link to the company, LinkedIn post and posting it in Slack and saying, Hey, could you all please like comment and share on this? And I may or may not get a response, you know, like, I don't think I've had a good solution. So what is the best way to tackle that

Colleen (32:21): That's a $64,000 question for sure, because that is one of the most difficult things, regardless of the size of the marketing department. And, you know, LinkedIn does have a solution to that called elevate. And I don't know if you're familiar with Elevate, but it is so Elevate is for enterprise level clients in transition. It was supposed to be shuttered at the end of 2020. It's still in inaction, if you will, through, I think the first quarter of 2021, but it is an enterprise level product, it's an amplification tool, but we have some clients that use it. So it's a LinkedIn product. It has its own app. Their content goes in and basically all the sales team needs to do is go share that content or schedule it. So it's an amplification tool like buffer or Hootsuite or Sprout Social, any of those.

Colleen (33:14): And you know, I've kind of leaned lately on, can we work to build trust with the sales team that we actually use a third party amplification tool and either work with the sales team to build it in and schedule it. So they don't have to think about it in the moment, or can we as the marketing team work together to, and we're going to schedule it for you because truly there has, it feels like there has not been a lot of progress in getting people to just share it on their own because we're sending them the link.

Kathleen (33:52): I totally agree. But I've tried that too, and it's really hard for me to get people who are willing to say, yeah, go ahead, publish to my account. How do you do it?

Colleen (34:04): Yeah, I think it's I think it's a lot of collaboration that there has to be a high level of trust that I'm not just gonna put everything out. You know, you're maybe going to approve it. I mean, we work with clients on this, so we might send them something and say, you know what? These are some of your posts for this week. Just take a look at them. Are you comfortable with this? If so, we're going to schedule them for you.

Kathleen (34:27): And are you using a particular tool for that?

Colleen (34:30): We do use buffer and we've used Sprout Social in the past, but for some especially independent salespeople, we will, we'll use buffer and sometimes we're just scheduling it right through LinkedIn. You know, I think, I think there sometimes, and I've heard this from salespeople and I absolutely get this.

Colleen (34:53): I hear from them and their feedback is I don't want to just share my, all the content that's coming out of marketing. I'm like, okay, that's, that's no problem.

Kathleen (35:04): Yeah.

Colleen (35:05): Like I get that just to have that conversation with marketing and by the way, build out some of your own content. Right? Look, look it, look at industry content. So maybe you only share one or two pieces a week, or you comment on one or two pieces that comes from marketing, but how are you building your own expertise? How about giving a shout out to somebody else? And sometimes they're like, Oh, I never even thought that I could do that. Why not? So, you know, there's this, how can we have the best approach that's personalized because some people are not comfortable just sharing one type of content. I'm like, does it add value to your network?

Colleen (35:49): Yeah. This would, this comes from our industry by all means. Yeah. So it, you know, I think sometimes it goes back to finding the group of people that are going to be the most comfortable doing it within the sales team and letting them do a little bit of experimenting on their own, but say, how can I best support you on this? Because I've noticed that if I just send you something, it doesn't actually get shared. So is there a better approach? And a lot of that comes out of one-to-one coaching. We did a lot of, I do a lot of group webinars on LinkedIn training and typically the second or third part, you know the follow-up, if you will, the marketing will say, should we do another webinar? I'm like, actually, no, you know what, let, can I schedule one, two, a 30 minute one-to-one with each sales person.

Colleen (36:45): It's remarkable, Kathleen, what you'll learn. And you know, over the years I can think of clients. I can think of one just recently where pre COVID we, we did an in-person three hour training marketing was there. We had a great training session, but three weeks later, the VP of sales and the marketing director of marketing said, should we do another one? And I'm like, Nope, let's just do a one-to-one let me have a one-to-one conversation. There were five people, five business development professionals in that session. And I talked with each one of them, two of them totally got everything, you know, like they were like, right on, they were doing it. One of them wanted to know how they could then automate. They wanted to, you know, like, how do I automate this? This is awesome, but I need to automate it.

Colleen (37:39): We talked through that one person was just like, really spot on super steady. Another person, she just simply admitted like, every time I log into LinkedIn, I go down a rabbit hole, I just get lost. And, and plus, I get so distracted. And then I am like, what am I here for? And she said, I just, I feel like I never accomplished anything. And it has really good network. And then another person who has the most unbelievable network and has closed more new business in LinkedIn than anybody else on the team, subsequent to this conversation, it was as though had never been in the webinar, because she got the, all the strategy and just has an unbelievable network. Was in that group that just didn't really feel confident, pressing the buttons, but a relationship builder, like you cannot a network, just, she's probably one of the best networks I know. And, and people respond to her and she has really developed it as a referral engine. So it's so very often, just those one-to-one conversations. If I was in a marketing department, I would really kind of reach out. Now I recognize the people on this call might have marketing in marketing, might have a hundred, 200 a thousand salespeople. So you really can't manage that. But if you have a smaller sales team, could you just have a one-on-one and kind of tailor a strategy?

Kathleen (39:10): Yeah. Now, what do you, how do you advise salespeople in terms of crafting a good post? Especially if they're sharing company content, because I did do a training on this recently, and I have just personal opinions on this, but like, you know, I'm always telling people don't just paste the link. Don't just parrot what the company said in the post. Like, you have to add, you have to add some opinion, you have to add value to what you post and, and often, like longer is sometimes longer is better on LinkedIn. My posts tend to be pretty long. I often find myself having to cut them shorter to fit within LinkedIn character requirements. But I think a lot of the salespeople that I've worked with in the past, err on the side of very, very brief, almost to the point of like, you know, not typing anything with their posts. And so what do you tell people is the right way to tackle it?

Colleen (40:06): I totally agree with you. This is where they have an opportunity to stand out. I'm like, you're trying to get somebody who's looking at their LinkedIn feed to pay attention to you, to see your name, to stop, to read whatever you're sharing. This is why I'm not a big fan of just liking, but I am a big fan of commenting and sharing and even sending and put something in there. You know, obviously the number one thing to do is you have other heads who have read that article, watch that video. You know, you need to know something about what's being said and discussed so that you can put your expertise. This is where the salespeople who are really using LinkedIn well are standing out because they are adding value. There very often will be a statistic, a quote that you can pull out a point of view just to elaborate on that. And once again, it goes back to just being confident. If you make it, if you have a typo, you can go back in and edit it. Everybody makes a mistake. It's not a reason not to do it, but definitely pull it out. And as you said, LinkedIn likes longer.

Kathleen (41:15): Yeah. Although I think you can you have to use your powers for good and not evil because there is a trend on LinkedIn. Maybe you've heard of it called broetry, and it's these like super annoying long form posts and it's called broetry because it's a lot of mostly white guys and many of them are in sales positions that do it. And they don't even write full sentences. It looks, it's like little short snippets of, and oftentimes I find the topics they write about are like, I don't know. I don't know how to explain it. When I'm done reading it I say, duh. But they take, you know, paragraphs or not paragraphs because they're writing in short snippets. But like they, they fill up a long post with a lot of words that when you add it up, say nothing. And so that's my only pet peeve is like, yes, write longer, but like, really write about something where you can add value and not just to check the box and post.

Colleen (42:12): Add value please be positive, stay away from particular, ytou know, like let's not alienate people on LinkedIn. We're trying to do business on LinkedIn and stay away from buzz words. And you know, I read, we read so many posts, our team last year, sourced, you know, in that probably the last 15 months, over 130,000 LinkedIn profiles, C-level leadership profiles. And there's a, probably a pretty good percentage. Really? What does this person do? Who are they? What are they talking about? Right. You know, just let's be professionally conversational. We don't need to sound all corporate. We, we do need to put the context in because while we might know what we're saying, if the other person doesn't know what we're saying, there's no value.

Kathleen (43:02): Yeah. Now you earlier mentioned automation. Let's talk about that for a minute. Is there good automation? Is there bad automation? What should we know?

Colleen (43:16): I haven't found a great automation solution. I, you know, I wish there was really great automation. However our experience over especially the last four years is that the automation ends up diluting a person's network more than it ends up adding enhancing that network. Will people get business from that? Sure. It's a numbers game. The automation, all the automation I've seen and you know, much like you, Kathleen probably you get a number of people saying here, test this automation, right? Test this LinkedIn lead gen tool. We have the best LinkedIn lead gen tool in the world. And I mean, I've actually stopped testing them. I can't possibly, it could be a full-time job being a LinkedIn lead gen automation tester. And, but what we, what we see is that it presumes two things. It presumes LinkedIn's search algorithm is always accurate. It also presumes that what that person has on their LinkedIn profile is accurate.

Colleen (44:24): And I think they're flawed assumptions. And so there's so much nuance, especially if you're using CRM. Like we have, we have a client who uses the CRM. So when we're working with them on LinkedIn lead gen and looking and doing those searches and we're sourcing, we don't take just the first 50 or 60 people that come up in that search, we're actually hand selecting them. So we're looking at that person. Does, do they really fit the criteria? Do we think that they're going to pay attention on LinkedIn? Are there some indicators that tell us they're actually using LinkedIn and then we go into a CRM. So if you don't have a CRM, you know, it probably can, it can work better. Certainly. However, there's so many ways for it to go wrong. And I had one, you know, I mean really, I probably have 50 of them from just this week.

Colleen (45:21): I can help you with LinkedIn lead gen. Somebody actually sent me a connection request saying, Hey, you came up as somebody that might be interested in entry-level extra part-time work for data entry. When can we talk about it? I was like, Hmm, I don't know that there's anything on my profile that fits that. I'm not quite sure how that popped up. And you know, I have an example in a deck that I use for training where the keyword was president. So they're looking for presidents of companies. It went to a president, unfortunately it was the president of a student fraternity, right? So it got the right keyword. It got the right title, wrong, wrong context there. So most people, I really I think that most people are pretty aware. Especially if you keep getting these subsequent messages, if you accept that connection request that it's automated. And I get the, I get the goal of wanting to automate. Absolutely. And you know, can make a difference, but you have to think about how does it reflect on the brand? How does it reflect on the person and then make judgements from there for some people they're going to be like, it's worth it, the upsides greater than the downside for our clients who want a more personalized high touch approach to LinkedIn, it doesn't fit.

Kathleen (46:48): Also, you can run the risk of getting your account put on hold because a lot of automation tools violate LinkedIn's terms of service, and they're pretty aggressive about sniffing those out.

Colleen (46:59): Almost all of them do. So what we've noticed just in this last week is two tools that clients asked us to evaluate for them. And both of them, the limits that they're enabling through LinkedIn are much reduced, are very, you know, they're far less than they were last year because they got found out and they're trying to stay under the radar. And I, and I get that, you know, I mean, but I said, okay, this isn't really going to get you very far, very fast. So I, you know, if there was some really great automation and it's not that the tools are not good, it's just, you have to think about what the unintended consequences are.

Kathleen (47:49): Totally agree. All right. We are going to run out of time. And so I have a couple of questions for you. The first one is to sum up kind of what we've been talking about. What are your top three pieces of advice for marketing leaders regarding how they can best help sales teams do better on LinkedIn?

Colleen (48:09): The very first point I would make a point, I would mention, is for all marketers, sometimes I think they're really focused on the sales team and how they look on LinkedIn and not to forget how they as marketers look on LinkedIn too, and really build out their profile because that's an opportunity. And number two potentially have a conversation and a little bit more on the training really is to coach them through how to best feel comfortable sharing the content. And I wouldn't even say to a marketing team, can you please talk to your leadership because your leadership needs to buy into and your leadership needs to advocate and explain that this is a really important initiative for the company, but because if the leadership doesn't buy in and it's only on marketing, marketing's going to have a more difficult job. So marketing makes sure that your leadership team is bought in. It's the, one of the first things I talk about to leaders, CEOs when I'm talking about putting an engagement together.

Kathleen (49:11): Great piece of advice. All right. Now I have two questions I ask all of my guests. First one is, of course we are all about inbound marketing on this podcast. So is there a particular company or individual that you would point to that you think is a great example of inbound marketing done right?

Colleen (49:30): I love Intercom and love what Intercom is doing. I certainly, you know, always HubSpot, right. I, and, and we use Pipedrive. So I'm always sort of watching what some of these companies are doing, but I love Intercom's tool. I love their marketing. I love their kind of look and feel. And I think they have done a really, really great job. HubSpot. I love all their content. I mean, they, you know, they continue. I mean, they've just done such a great, consistent job year over year of standing out and you know, every post I, and I pay attention to quite a few of them teaches me something. So I just love the educational aspect. And so those would be, you know, really two that got a lot of them in my inbox. I tend to look at it a little bit more frequently.

Kathleen (50:25): Second question. Many of the marketers I speak to say that they, one of their biggest pain points is just trying to keep up with the changing world of digital marketing. How do you personally keep up with it all?

Colleen (50:38): Yeah, that is a work in progress. I love the Marketing Brew from Morning Brew. I love that I can pay attention to that. I do pay attention to Social Media Today. I also pay attention pretty, pretty frequently to Business to Community. I kind of like a little bit of a different lens. I love you know, I've learned a lot. I read the Wall Street Journal every day and there's usually a marketing article or two, you know, kind of woven in throughout the week. Just learn more on the business side, but like how, how companies are looking at things. And so those would probably be my, my main sources of information.

Kathleen (51:23): Great. All right. Well, we've come to the end of our time. And so my last question for you is of course, if somebody is listening and wants to connect with you online or learn more about Intero Advisory, what's the best way for them to do that?

Colleen (51:39): Absolutely. So our website is Interoadvisory.com and on LinkedIn, Colleen McKenna Intero Advisory. So those would probably be the two easiest ways. We have lots of content on our profile, on our website and our profile. So lots to learn. We write a lot about LinkedIn and so there's lots of tips.

Kathleen (52:02): And of course, as always, I will put those links in the show notes. So you can have an easy way of finding them. And if you're listening and you enjoyed this episode, please consider heading to Apple podcasts and leaving the podcast a review. And of course, if you know somebody else who is doing amazing inbound marketing work, tweet me at @workmommywork because I would love to make them my next guest. That is it for this week. Thank you so much, Colleen.

Colleen (52:28): Thank you so great to spend time with you, Kathleen.

You've got a new product ready to launch. What's the best way to come out of the gate strong and see immediate ROI?

This week on The Inbound Success Podcast, Mindful Marketing founder Jordan West shares the details of a gated launch strategy he's used many times to nail new product launches.

In addition to his work as an ecommerce marketing agency owner, Jordan is a serial entrepreneur who owns three successful ecommerce businesses (with plans for more in the works!). He isn't just advising other companies on how to market their businesses—he's in the trenches building his own businesses as well. 

In this episode, Jordan gets into detail about what he's done to build customer communities, how he stays top of mind with his customer base, and why the concept of FOMO (fear of missing out) is a powerful tool to use in building momentum around new product launches.

Check out the full episode, or read the transcript below, for details.

Resources from this episode:

• Visit the Mindful Marketing website
• Get Jordan's launch checklist
• Connect with Jordan on LinkedIn

Kathleen (00:00): Welcome back to the Inbound Success Podcast. I'm your host, Kathleen Booth. And this week, my guest is Jordan West, who is the founder and CEO of Mindful Marketing. Welcome to the podcast, Jordan.

Jordan (00:24): Hey Kathleen. Thank you so much for having me. I really, really appreciate it.

Kathleen (00:29): You are a fellow podcaster, which I love and it's just easier, isn't it? I don't have to tell you, you know, to silence your cell phone and things like that. Amongst many other things.

Jordan (00:44): Oh, I would have appreciated you to though because I don't think I did silence it.

Kathleen (00:48): Well, you can be forgiven just this one time. No, you're, you're a fellow podcaster. You are a marketing agency owner, which I was for 11 years. I feel like we probably could do about 10 or 20 podcasts together about any array of topics, but we're going to start with what I think is a really great one today, which is a big success that you had. Before we go into that though, can you tell my audience a little bit more about yourself as well as what mindful marketing does?

Jordan (01:20): Yeah, totally. I'm the CEO of a marketing agency. I also run three brands as well. My wife and I own and run three brands. So to me, I actually normally get introduced on that side. So it's fun to be introduced in the agency side. I don't wanna just have to slip it in at the end, you know, like I, I love that. That's, that's wonderful. Cause mostly people want founder stories when I, when I come on podcasts. So so I'd love to actually tell you the story though, of sort of how I got into business. So I was 20.

Kathleen (01:52): Four businesses! Like we, we might have to talk about like how you cope with the crazy, because that is a lot of work.

Jordan (02:00): Yeah. I mean, and we're doing two acquisitions right now, too, so.

Kathleen (02:05): Wow. Oh, okay. Yeah. So what's your story? How did you wind up doing all of this?

Jordan (02:10): So, okay. So I was 23 years old. I was a paramedic and a painter. So painting houses, being a paramedic, doing the part-time paramedic thing. And I really wanted to learn business. So my family actually had had a business. We had a, a mill and they wouldn't let me come in and learn business there. They're like, no, no, we don't want family involved. I'm like, Oh shoot. Okay. So I looked on Craigslist and I found a Mexican chain restaurant, a taco Del Mar for sale. And I'm like, Oh, okay, this is great. It was for sale for $35,000. All everything included. I'm like, Oh, this is incredible. Okay. I'm a learn business. And this like, what's the worst case scenario. I'm going to lose $35,000, like a big deal. Right. I mean, at 23 years old, actually 35,000 was a big deal.

Kathleen (03:00): Chump change when you're just starting out.

Jordan (03:02): No, totally. But I thought I'm like, okay, well that, that wouldn't be that bad. Well, the worst case scenario after five years was that we lost about $150,000. So we did not have to lose. I just remember having these lines of credit from every possible place. My father-in-law my dad, like all these places just to keep this thing afloat. We finally sold it for $25,000 at the end of it. And it was a very tough learning experience, but I'll tell you, I wouldn't be here without it. I absolutely would not be here without, I remember before my grandpa died, who was big in business. He said, he said, Jordy, you know, nobody who I respect doesn't in business. Doesn't go bankrupt. At least once I'm like, okay, good. I'll consider that my bankruptcy without actually going bankrupt, waiting those seven years, you know, for my credit to, to, to resolve. So, so that's really, that was the beginning and, and that could have been the end. You know, if I, you know, didn't actually stick to it. And so we had, this is about seven years ago now we had our first child Daphne and she we decided to try cloth diapers. We thought, Oh, this is going to be great. You know, we're going to save a bunch of money. Use cloth diapers, be good on the environment. Yeah. I mean, we were just absolutely great people.

Kathleen (04:17): I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it when I had my son.

Jordan (04:24): Well we tried for, you know, I mean about three months, but my, my wife was trying to put leggings over top of her and no leggings would fit. And so she was she came from a fashion design background and she's like, Oh, I can whip up a quick pattern, like no problem. So she put them on and she's like, huh, I wonder if anyone else is having these issues. And so she brought these leggings you know, she just bought fabric online, brought these leggings to a market and people loved them. She was already selling jewelry at the time. And so she's like, Oh, I'll just add leggings on. And the leggings started to sell out every single market. And so then we put them on Etsy. This is back in like, I think 2014, we put them on Etsy and they, they would just sell and sell and sell.

Jordan (05:01): And we're like, this is incredible. So we started a Shopify store and we started to get men home sellers around where we were. Right. So we'd, we'd actually cut out the patterns at home, in our garage. And we bring them to all of our home sewers and, and and so that was really the growth of our clothing company. And now obviously we, you know, we have manufacturers and all that sort of stuff. We're sort of like mid seven figures with that company and growing very, very rapidly now. And so the baby brand is Little and Lively and then we've got, we're actually, we're doing a huge rebrand right now, but The Kindred Clothing co is the women's line. And we also have a new pajama brand that we're launching called Pretty Laundry. Yeah. Yeah. So those are, those are kind of the fun ones on that with that core business right now.

Jordan (05:50): So throughout all of that, my wife and I realized you know, we're not awesome working together day to day. It just didn't work. And the, the one thing that I was really good at was the marketing side I could execute on, on on the paid, especially in, in paid media really, really well. And so, you know, I started doing consulting for people and I'm really like it, I'm not a Saint, but I just couldn't charge people. I just, it was just so hard for me to charge people or even charge like what I was worth to, to them at the time. So, you know, I charged like 500 bucks a month or something to run these paid media campaigns for people. And and I realized one of the lessons that I learned to talk about more was bringing in a business partner, especially a partner who does the things well that I don't do it.

Jordan (06:34): So I brought a business partner in and and since then I think that was 2017, 2018 I don't know, time, just, just blurs and you're having fun. Totally. And so since then, now I think we're a team of 15. Now we just keep hiring right now. So so yes, the team has grown. We're not, you know, a massive agency or anything, but but a really, really great team of super efficient. We work mainly with e-commerce brands. Actually, sorry, mainly we only work with e-commerce brands. Can't even imagine if a non e-commerce brand came in. So we work with, with seven and eight figure e-commerce brands, mostly running paid media that we're adding services within that vertical all the time. And then, yeah, and then on the, on the other side, I'm the kind of an acquisition mode buying up kind of one to $2 million brands that hopefully we can scale into eight figures. And it's just, that's, that's my life.

Kathleen (07:28): I love this story. And, and when I said in the beginning that we probably could do lots of podcasts on lots of different topics, cause we both owned agencies and things like that. I didn't realize that you owned your agency or you owned your businesses with your wife and I, when I had my agency for 11 years, my business partner was my husband. So we could do podcasts together on those topics.

Jordan (07:53): I feel like that's even, that'd be even harder at an agency. There's so many more people issues.

Kathleen (07:58): We were like two businesses in one. And much like you and your wife. We had to figure out how to run our business in ways that we did not overlap. So literally our offices were at the polar opposite ends of our office suites that we'd have as little in-person contact, not cause we couldn't stand each other, but because we spend the rest of our time together, right? So like when we were at work we were like, let's be far apart. And then we, we, we, I ran the digital marketing side of our business and then we actually sold promotional products, which is the side of our business that my husband ran. So they were like two businesses in one.

Jordan (08:28): Those are two totally different businesses.

Kathleen (08:30): Perfect, perfect division of labor for us. But we, I always say whenever anybody asks, that my proudest accomplishment in life is that I owned a business with my husband for 11 years. And I'm still married to him.

Jordan (08:42): That is good. That's something you should be very proud of.

Kathleen (08:44): I am. So anyway, I, that has nothing to do with what we're talking about today, but I just wanted to mention it because, you know, you don't come across people very often who've had that much experience working with a spouse and we are a small and unique and probably pretty crazy tribe.

Jordan (09:00): Yeah, totally, totally. We should probably start like a Facebook group or something, you know, just for support.

Kathleen (09:05): So one of the reasons that I was excited to talk with you was that, you know, we first met because of the world of e-commerce because in my day job my company does things that have to do with e-commerce and we started talking about e-commerce marketing and this and that, and you have had some particularly successful campaigns and things that you've run one of which was a big launch that you did that got amazing results and you have a particular strategy around that. And so that's, that's what I love sharing on this podcast is who's getting great results and how are they doing it? So let's back up and, and talk a little bit about what was the launch and what it is that you were trying to do.

Jordan (09:49): Totally. So just to be clear, this launch was for our baby and women's brand. So for Little and Lively and Kindred, so it was our fall winter launch. So we generally launch almost all of our products on one day where people can finally purchase. So we do about a two to three week lead up to that with content, letting them know sort of what we're going to be releasing over the years. And we've been around for five years now, we built up a really loyal following that we'll generally when we release something we'll purchase. So so what, what we've done though, is we've really tried to create some hype around this and real hype, right. Real hype and real what's, what's the word I'm looking for? Like feed, you know, fear of missing out yeah, all like all of that around, but without like scarcity, but not false scarcity.

Jordan (10:41): Right. We manufacture everything still in Canada. And so that's, that's very difficult to know exactly how much to manufacture, because it does cost a lot more to manufacture here. It's just one of our core values. So we're, it's not something we're going to get away from. So people know that you know, of, of items that are popular, which we have no idea until they buy them. What's going to be the most popular item. Otherwise we just make more of those. We don't know what's going to sell out and what's not going to. So generally during launches, people already know that we're going to sell out. So we've created a VIP community over the last year. So the VIP community consists of a Facebook group and an SMS list. So those are kind of intertwined together. And we call those our VIP our VIP customers.

Jordan (11:23): And they know by being on those lists, that they're going to get early access to certain sales like this. So I got this idea years ago and I only implemented it this year. I got this idea from a book by Jonah Berger called Contagious. And he talked about this fashion brand that that was really struggling and they decided to password protect their site. And then they would give the password out only once a week and then they'd sell out every single time. And I thought, you know, why don't we do that? Why don't we try that? And so they just rebranded, they were selling all the same stuff. They were struggling almost going bankrupt. And then they turned it into this massive brand because they created this hype around the brand. Right. And sort of, re-imagined what it looked like.

Jordan (12:08): And so we weren't, we were already on our way to, you know, being a hundred percent year over year then sales, but I'm like, how can we, how can we create this kind of hype around this? And so we did that exact thing for 12 hours before the before we released the product. And I remember there's no discounts, no sales anything like that. This is just new product that people were paying full price for. We password protected the site for 12 hours before, so nobody could get on people on the VIP group. You know, there's probably 50 posts that people like, Oh my gosh, I can't wait. I can't wait. And we'd have launches before that were pretty successful, but like maybe 50 grand, which is great. I mean, that's still a great launch, but we had no clue what this, what this type of launch was going to do.

Jordan (12:54): And we have replicated it since. And so we so we, you know, password protected the site, gave people right at 10:00 AM Pacific the password. And I looked on Google analytics and immediately I see like 3000 people on the website.

Kathleen (13:08): Oh, wow.

Jordan (13:09): Oh my gosh. Not like 3,500. And then we just see the sales come in. And it's like, I think in the first hour it was something like a hundred thousand dollars in the first hour of sales. And we're like, Oh my gosh, I can't like, we couldn't even imagine. So for two hours, people had to enter a password to get in. There's some incredible things that happen when when you make people want it like that. Right. First of all, there's the whole FOMO idea, right. Which is like, FOMO is not going away. Everyone has this, this fear of missing out.

Jordan (13:43): There's the idea of exclusivity, right? There's also, I think the thing that I love the most is micro-commitments right. They have now made this micro-commitment and they've, they've made I remember somebody told me this term years ago, and I just thought they were such a nerd. I love this term now. It's a Rubicon, right? It's something that you can only go through. Right. You can only go one way through and you do not want to leave. Right. You don't, as soon as you've, you've made it through that you know, through that gate, you don't want to leave that gate. And I think that's the psychology behind it. Right. So, and why the gated launches do so incredibly well. We've replicated it twice since then. And every time it's results that are, that are very similar to that, essentially, we generally just sell out of everything during the gated portion of it, which then just self-perpetuates right. People join the VIP group. People join the SMS list because they know that they want that early access.

Kathleen (14:43): So, all right. I have a lot of questions. Let's back up.

Jordan (14:47): No I've talked all about this so I'm done.

Kathleen (14:49): No, it's great. That's great. There's so to unpack here, so this sounds like a good strategy. When you have something kind of big you want to announce whether that's like a new season of clothing, or it could be a new product you're launching, or, you know, what have you, I can, I can envision lots of uses for it, but it sounds as though you started with building your list of let's call it most ardent brand enthusiasts or your brand loyalists in the VIP group. So you had that before you did this, correct?

Jordan (15:22): Yes. Yes. So we've been building that for a good year and we'd been doing launches to them, but we would just tell them early, right. We wouldn't password protect the site. We would just tell them early, or we'd give them like a special discount.

Kathleen (15:35): And how did you determine, like, how did you build that list? Was it invitations? Was it marketing of it? How did you get people onto that list?

Jordan (15:44): That brings up another great strategy or tactic that we've been using for a while now? So every new purchaser somebody who has never purchased from us before the first time, they actually get a personalized video from one of our staff that by name, thank them. They tell them what they ordered. Like, Hey, hope you enjoy your, you know, leggings in floral. If you want to learn more about the brand, do you want to ask some questions, join our VIP group. So that's where we invite people to the VIP group right there.

Kathleen (16:14): I love that you do a personalized video. That is, it's such a simple thing that is so easy to do. And I can't even imagine, it must be like a fraction of a percent of companies think to do something like that. And it has such a big impact. You must get great responses from it.

Jordan (16:33): Oh yeah. And it's really hard to actually measure the entire impact of it. Right? Like the, the brand, it's hard to measure what that brand loyalty looks like and the brand sentiment. But it's something we're going to do forever. We're not going to stop doing this. I've told some you know, on our podcast and our agency, I've talked to massive brands about this and they've just started doing it because they realize how incredible it is to, to just start doing it and start letting people know, like, people don't want to buy products anymore. Right. They want to buy from brands. They don't want to just buy some random product. I mean, go to Amazon, if you just want to, I don't know, buy toilet bowl cleaner, but if you want to buy the most incredible toilet bowl, cleaner in the world, that's surrounded by the toilet bowl. People, you know, build a brand. Right. That's, that's really what it's about, and brands have to have people involved in them. And so that's why I think that it works so well.

Kathleen (17:26): So do you have somebody who is assigned to be like your community manager?

Jordan (17:32): Yeah. So in this case we actually have so for the videos we actually use virtual assistants who we have worked with on the agency side and on the brand side awesome people. I've worked with them for ages. They're essentially just full-time employees for us. They'll just actually do the videos. We tried to get in-house staff to do the videos and they would take like five minutes on each video and be like, I don't look super good. I dunno, like, no, this isn't gonna work. So and then as far as community management, believe it or not, that's something that my wife and I do that is one place where I truly believe that it is worth us doing that on, is managing that community. I've seen communities thrive especially in the digital marketing space. So I don't know why I've talked about this a lot recently. I think it's cause I'm sad about it. But Digital, Digital Marketer like Ryan Deiss and those guys, they had an incredible community for years. I pay a hundred dollars us a month. Literally. I never went on the platform. I don't think I've been on digital marketers platform in like four years, but I was paying a hundred dollars a month just to be a part of that community. And that community is dead. Absolutely dead.

Kathleen (18:42): Do they still have their Facebook group? Cause I was a part of that.

Jordan (18:45): Yeah. It went from 12,000 people to 3000 and nobody ever posts. The posts are garbage. It's not a great community and I think they've made, you know, they had incredible people in there who went on to - Susie, I forget what her name is. She went on to work for Facebook afterwards in building communities and, and became a real expert in that. And they have just it's dead. And to me, I look at that as a, as a warning of being like, no, that, and so I stopped paying. I'm out. And that was the only reason I was here for all these years. Cause that's when I first started learning digital marketing, I became part of digitalmarketer.com and, and it's awesome. I love those guys. I've done presentations for them and stuff and but I think that they've really missed the mark on that. And so I use that as a warning to me, with our community, making sure that like that, to me, that's the $10,000 an hour stuff is, is being a part of that community.

Kathleen (19:44): Oh, I mean, and, and you certainly don't have to sell me on that. I'm a huge believer in building community. I was, I spent two years at a company called IMPACT that has a 5,000 plus member Facebook community that I was involved in growing when I was there. It is such an investment that you're making, like a long-term investment when you build community. It's an asset for your business.

Jordan (20:09): It is, it is. And it's interesting. Cause I'm looking at these two acquisitions that I'm making in the outdoor space right now. The reasons why I love them so much as they have massive communities and engaged communities, I'm like, you don't know, they don't know what they have. Right. They don't realize how to leverage those communities afterwards. Right. I think that there's ways that you can leverage your communities. Especially like, I looked through them and they're not doing some of the things that we're doing and I'm like, Oh, I see the value in this, in these communities are like 10,000 person communities, ones on Slack even, which is even bigger in my opinion than a Facebook group. So yeah.

Kathleen (20:48): Cause you, you own your platform on Slack. I totally agree with you. Yeah. Oh, this could be again, a whole nother podcast on community building. I love this. So you built your community and I liked that you used the video, the videos that you sent as a way of funneling people in and then what was the SMS component?

Jordan (21:10): What we were finding is that people at first didn't have SMS attached. We did not want to do SMS. We're like, you know, people don't want to hear from us via text. Like nobody wants to get that text from a brand, but we realized that people actually weren't seeing the notifications on Facebook, right. Because groups, I mean, groups still, I think, have the biggest reach, right? If you have a big community you're going to get the biggest reach, the biggest bang for your buck, I think within a Facebook group, still with the algorithm, but that, that may go away at some point. So we said, Hey, if you guys want to make sure that you get the benefits of being part of the VIP group, sign up for our SMS list. And so I think that's really been, that's really been the magic ticket of actually getting that direct response within the Facebook group, the rest of the community building, which you know all about.

Jordan (21:56): Right. The other portion of that too, on the Facebook group side, sorry, I'm jumping around here on the, on the Facebook group side. It's incredible to get the feedback from customers. So we'll often just ask them before we release something like, Hey, what do you guys think about this? We almost released something at Christmas that like 90% of people and who knows there could have been some groups thinking this, but like 90% of people said, no, we hate this. Like really, like we had like 200 comments on on one of the graphics that people said, no, we do not like this. And so we had to go back to the drawing board and release new graphics. And luckily we hadn't,

Kathleen (22:33): When you say graphics, is this like your ad, your ad creative, or because that's a cool idea if you're able to test things like that.

Jordan (22:41): Actual graphics on shirts. So one of the things that we do within the the baby clothing company and the women's clothing company is so we produce all the actual garments, but we'll do graphics as well. And and so luckily there wasn't something that we'd invested in. Yes. Was those graphics, but people said no. And then we showed them two more graphics and they're like, yeah, we love those. That's interesting. Yeah. Really good to get that feedback. Just, there's so many different ways that you can leverage those groups.

Kathleen (23:12): So you have the, the launch that you're planning and you've got your group that you can message and that is, am I correct? That's on Facebook.

Jordan (23:19): Yes. Yeah.

Kathleen (23:20): And then, okay. And then you have the SMS list. So how far ahead of time do you start messaging about the launch and what does that cadence look like?

Jordan (23:31): It depends. If it's a big launch, we're going to start messaging two to three weeks before. Right. Cause we're in, at that point, I mean with, with apparel, I think that most brands are probably doing something similar to we're doing. That's sales season for us. Right. So we're launching sales throughout that, like just getting rid of all that inventory. We have to carry so much inventory. And that's just part of, that's just part of apparel. So we're, we're, you know, doing sales along with showing people what the new collection is going to look like. Right. so that's about two to three weeks out and we're going to let them know if you want early access, join these groups. Right. So in our emails, we're going to include links to SMS and to the VIP group. So that's it, generally. For, for other launches, it'll be about a week before that we're going to let them know. We also don't want our sales to completely drop off before that. That just makes it a really difficult time for our staff to fulfill orders. We still do in-house fulfillment. So that does take, you know, quite a, quite a good amount of time for them to fulfill orders like that.

Kathleen (24:32): And then, so I assume you're regularly messaging folks leading up to it. How often do you hit them on SMS? Well, on SMS and in the group, like how often are you posting about the launch? Because there's, I feel like there's a fine balance, right?

Jordan (24:47): It's not a lot. It's not, we're not, we're not, we're not posting every single day about the launch. We'll do like maybe once a week, we're kind of reminding them, Hey, we're going to be doing this launch or we're doing it sort of subtly like showing them like, Hey, here's, you know, one of the things that, one of the new items that we're going to be launching that sort of thing, or we'll just make a monster post that shows them all of the different things or links to the look book. Like when we release a new collection, it's like 500 skews, right. Five between five and 600 skews. So there's a lot of different products that we're launching. So those posts get a ton of reach and a ton of action on them, especially with people clicking links to go over to a look book or whatever that is.

Jordan (25:24): So, but we're, we're not banging people over the head that I feel like would start to people would not enjoy that. And then they would stop being a part of our community. And, and also we don't like, we really don't want people to think we're just about revenue, right? We're not just about selling things to people. We genuinely want people to be happy. Like we have at all of our brands and we will continue with the, with the new brands will have return policies where we're paying for everything back and forth. We just want people to be happy because if they're not, and we, we at the, on the customer service side as well, we have this idea that even the customer's not always right, but we're always going to say yes. So we just don't say no, because it, it costs us so much more. They think that they're right, right. It doesn't, it doesn't really matter whether they're right or not. Like recently somebody, you know actually this is probably a good year ago now they sent us a picture of a ketchup stain and they said, yeah, I can't get this ketchup stain out. I want to return it right now. Just keep it, we'll send you a new one.

Kathleen (26:24): Oh wow. That's like, I feel like that's almost like the LL Bean return policy of the days of, of before where like, it was like a lifetime thing.

Jordan (26:33): And that's exactly, that's where we got the idea from right. Was from, from them. And I don't care how much it costs and if people take advantage of it, because the brand equity that we get from that is, we're so much more the, the, the not accepting those returns, that's just small thinking, right. That's this years thinking that's not 10 years from now and building a big brand thing.

Kathleen (26:57): Right now. I really want to check out your store because it sounds so awesome. So talk me through the results. It sounds like you've done this a couple of times. Talk me through the results you get when you do this kind of a strategy.

Jordan (27:12): Yeah, totally. So we just had another one. I think the last one we did was in November, December, this was actually after black Friday. So December generally is our worst month of the year at this company. And we're like, okay, we've got to figure out how we can get better December sales. So we're like, ah, okay, let's launch of our bigger promos. It's like three leggings. We call them Kindred surprise cause Kindred is our company. And so it's this three legging bundle. They don't know what they're going to get in it. And people love this promo. We only do it twice a year. And so we launched that one and I think in the first we actually just sold out. So it didn't. So we did about 150 K in the first day. And then we just sold out.

Jordan (27:55): It was an awesome promo, really helped our December out in incredible ways. And it just kind of kept the ball rolling for all of December.

Kathleen (28:04): And then, is there anything you do kind of after you run the launch to follow up on it? Or is it just really like then onto the next one?

Jordan (28:14): The great thing about a VIP group as well on Facebook in particular is that people do the promoting for you, right? What will happen? And we didn't promote this at all. People just started doing this. They started screenshotting their cart afterwards and being like, Oh my gosh, look at all this stuff I got. So there'll be like 40 posts of people talking about the different things that they got with a ton of comments on each one of them showing what, what they got, which then you know, incentivizes other people especially with, with the whole FOMO idea, being like, Oh my gosh, they got all this stuff. That's incredible. And it's, it's user generated content that we're not even promoting. Right. It's just going, like every post in our VIP group will generally reach like 3000 people. So like we're getting like 10 to 20 posts a day in a regular time that reach 3000 people that's like, and that's user generated content that has nothing to do with us. We don't promote that. Nothing.

Kathleen (29:12): So how large, can I ask how large the VIP group is?

Jordan (29:15): I think it's only 10,000 people.

Kathleen (29:17): That's pretty good. That's pretty good.

Jordan (29:20): I think so. Considering we've only been growing it for about a year and a half. Yeah. Yeah. It's a, I think it's a great community and our SMS list is about the same size too, not massive. Like these aren't huge lists that we're talking about, but I think that those customers, right, when you create loyal customers and we've been talking about this for years and actually Digital Marketer, speaking of, did an incredible job, Ryan Deiss of walking through what the customer journey looks like, right. Everyone thinks the customer journey stops at purchasing. It's goes so beyond that, right. To, to the place where like, you know, the eighth step of the customer journey is they are your brand advocate, right. When somebody posts a complaint on the VIP group, it gets flagged immediately, immediately somebody flags. And those are our advocates, right. That are like, Hey, I understand you've got an issue. They flag it. And they say, talk to customer service about this. We don't have to do any of that for us. We've got this 8,000 or eight to 10,000 person army. That's doing our promoting for us. Right. So we've actually been on, on the paid ad side. We've actually had to spend less or the money that we're putting into paid ads. We're trying to build our community and our lists even more.

Kathleen (30:25): No, I think doesn't Ryan Deiss refer to it as the Value Journey Canvas? I've seen that model before. It's really great. So cool. So you, do you also help other like online retailers to do launches? Is that part of what, how you advise them?

Jordan (30:45): It's actually part of our, at our, at our agency, it's part of the strategy portion, right? One thing that we discovered really early on, and I don't know how many B2B people are in this, but like one thing we, we really realized is that results mattered maybe like a quarter to people. Right. Whereas results are kind of like the baseline when you're working with an agency, right. You have to have results, but strategy and relationships are so important to maintaining clients long term. And so for us, we really try and break up what we charge right. Based on strategy and then also an execution. And I think that that's really important and I'm sure, you know, from, from being in the agency world but that's really important that people know, like, look, you're getting strategy along with us. And that's really part of the longterm strategy that we have with clients is like, Hey, you're not going to run a gated launch tomorrow. Not unless you've been doing all the things I've been saying, but let's get you to the point where you can run a gated launch.

Kathleen (31:47): Yeah. And I remember from my days as an agency owner, you're, you're spot on that. Like even if you have an amazing call it overarching marketing strategy, you still need to introduce new, littler strategies, like every quarter every month, what have you done to keep people excited, to keep the momentum feeling as though there's momentum? Yeah, there always has to be something new.

Jordan (32:10): We've actually, we've actually built out a whole, we use monday.com as our project management tool. Very similar to ClickUp if people out there, you know, wondering about that. So on Monday I've actually built out a strategy board that every, because I don't, I can't manage accounts. Right. Impossible. But I've, I've kind of given over that strategy to our account managers. So we have, I think it's something like 65 paid ads, strategies with loom videos of each, every single strategy so that clients can actually see. So it's a shared board that the clients and our ad account managers see so that they can then you know, on the ad account management side, it's awesome. Because sometimes you'll be like, just bang your head against the wall. Like, Hey, what am I doing? Like, am I just running dynamic product ads? Or like what, like, you know, what's working right now and now they can go and be like, Oh, okay. So Facebook, you know, a level one strategy is this. And then the clients can also see it. And it future paces clients. I mean, our churn is so low at this agency because of I think it's the future pacing along with relationships.

Kathleen (33:16): Oh, that's great. And because agency, life can be very brutal if it's not going well.

Jordan (33:22): Yeah. I mean, you can have, yeah, yeah. It can be, yeah. It can be terrible. I really prefer the product side to be honest. Yeah.

Kathleen (33:31): Yeah. I can see why. Well, that's awesome. I love that strategy. I love that you built a community in order to facilitate it. Anything, any kind of like last words of advice, things you wish you knew when you got started that you would say to somebody, if they were thinking about doing this now themselves. Yeah.

Jordan (33:51): I mean, on the gated launch side, I just say start a community right now. Right? Like as soon as you can start a community, give tons and tons of value. Especially at the beginning, like we were asking questions every single day, right. People want to give their input, especially in our space you know, moms who are struggling and, and you know, maybe first-time moms just ask questions, be involved, really be just think of your business. You're human to human, right. You're not direct to consumer. That is not what you are. You are a human selling to another human at a craft show at wherever. Just think of it like that.

Kathleen (34:27): Yeah. I love that advice. All right. Well, we have to shift gears now because before we wrap up, there's always two questions. I ask all of my guests and I want to make sure I get your answers. The first one is, of course this podcast is all around inbound marketing. Is there a particular company or individual that you think is really like setting the standard for what it means to be a great inbound marketer these days?

Jordan (34:51): That's a good question. That's a good question. Did you prep me with this one? I feel like you did prep me for this.

Kathleen (35:00): That's all right. There's lots of people that I prep and they read it and then they still don't have a good answer. So you are not alone.

Jordan (35:06): You know what? I actually, it's interesting. Cause I told my sales team about to follow these people recently because I think they're doing an incredible job inbound and that's Interview Secrets. They are, I forget what their names are. The owner Margie is one of them. They have a huge podcast, like gets you onto podcast agency. And they run just the most incredible inbound strategy that I've seen because I really believe that in the, in the business to business space it's all about podcasts. These days, podcasts and YouTube shows, right? Like we've grown our agency just doing that. And so those guys that interview secrets go get into their Facebook group, they have an awesome community and they just give value all the time.

Kathleen (35:55): I will definitely have to check that out because I'm clearly drinking the podcast Kool-Aid and, and you mentioned that you have a podcast. So quickly, what is the name of your podcast?

Jordan (36:04): Yes. So ours is called Secrets to Scaling Your E-commerce Brand.

Kathleen (36:07): I love it. So if you're an e-commerce or you're, or you're e-commerce curious, just check it out. Second question that I always ask everybody is, you know, marketers are constantly saying to me that one of their biggest pain points is that trying to keep up with all the changes in the world of digital marketing, particularly things like paid ads where you really specialized, it's like drinking from a fire hose because it changes so quickly. So how do you personally keep yourself educated and up to date?

Jordan (36:34): Ooh, good question for I'm going to answer that. First of all, that, that if you focus on offer and creative, thing, don't change. They really don't. IOS 14 - big deal. You still have to have good offer and good creative you're targeting. Like for me, targeting is number five, right? It's the least important. It's the thing everyone wants to talk about. And the thing that matters the least because if you don't have any of the other stuff, it just doesn't matter. Right. so as far as where I get my advice, honestly our account managers are the ones who are doing, they're having calls every single week with their Facebook reps. That's, that's really where we're getting the most on the Facebook side. And after that, I'm just looking at my peers, like Ezra Firestone is a great example. He's got great content out there. Digital Marketer is still awesome for the content that they're putting out just in a little, but like I said, they're in a bit of a funk right now. Those would be my, my two places that I would kind of point towards.

Kathleen (37:40): Nice. I'll definitely have to check out Ezra Firestone. I know the guys at Digital Marketer and they definitely have lots of great content. So that's also a very good one. So if somebody is listening and they want to learn more about the stuff that you've been talking about, or they have a question, what is the best way for them to connect with you online?

Jordan (38:00): Totally. So we actually have a checklist that we run every sales launch that we're giving away for free. So it's mindfulmarketing.co/sales-launch-checklist. I know it's a long URL, but man, we get like 20 or 30 downloads a day. So people must actually, it must get in their brains.

Kathleen (38:20): That's right. And I will put the link in the show notes. So that will make it really easy.

Jordan (38:25): Yeah, totally. And I love to connect on LinkedIn. So most of the conversations that I have start on LinkedIn and end in us chatting. So actually they own, and generally they end other places, but the beginning of a beautiful relationship.

Kathleen (38:40): Oh, this is awesome. Jordan, thank you so much for sharing all of your tips with me and my listeners. If you're listening and you enjoyed this episode, I would love it if you would head to Apple podcasts or the platform of your choice and leave this podcast a review so that other folks can find us as well. And of course, if you know someone else doing amazing inbound marketing work, tweet me at @workmommywork because I would love to make them my next guest. That is it for this week. Thank you so much for joining me, Jordan.

Jordan (39:08): Thanks so much for having me. Really nice to be on here.

ou've launched a successful B2B podcast. Now what?

This week on The Inbound Success Podcast, Casted Founder Lindsay Tjepkema talks about why publishing your podcast is just the beginning, and how top B2B marketers are repurposing podcast content in creative ways to drive better marketing results.

We've talked about podcasting on this podcast before, but we've never covered some of the strategies Lindsay and her clients are using to turn podcasts into sales enablement tools, improve their ABM campaigns, and more.

Check out the full episode, or read the transcript below, for details.

Resources from this episode:

• Check out the Casted website or view the company's Look Book for examples of how their clients are repurposing podcast content
• Following Lindsay on Twitter
• Connect with Lindsay on LinkedIn

Kathleen (00:02): Welcome back to the inbound success podcast. I'm your host, Kathleen Booth. And today my guest is Lindsay Tjepkema, who is the CEO and founder of Casted. Welcome to the podcast, Lindsay.

Lindsay (00:32): Thank you. I'm so excited to be here.

Kathleen (00:34): I'm really happy to have you here because we get to talk about my favorite topic, which is podcasting. The podcasting topic about podcasting.

Lindsay (00:43): It's my life. Podcasts about podcasts all day long.

Kathleen (00:46): The most meta podcasting thing ever. Before we jump into that can you take a minute and tell my listeners a little bit about yourself and your journey, how you wound up doing what you're doing now and what Casted is?

Lindsay (00:59): Of course, yes. So I'm a marketer at heart. I I've spent 15 years in, specifically in B2B marketing, specifically in the brand and content side of things. I've been on the agency side, I've been on the corporate side, I've run my own consulting thing. So I've all things. B2B marketing most recently before starting Casted I was running a brand and content team for global enterprise SaaS company. We had the strong content marketing engine that we had built that was based on, you know, a lot of, you know, social and blog and downloadable content. But we were this 20 year old SaaS company that was literally and figuratively missing a voice. And so this was 2017. When I said, you know, we need a podcast. That's where our audience is. As a lot of opportunity is, would also help unify this 900 person company around the world.

Lindsay (01:53): So let's do it. So like a lot of marketers that I now work with I I've set out to understand, okay, what does that even mean? How does starting a podcast work? What does this new medium, this new channel look like? And quickly realized a couple of things. One, it when we, when we did launch the show, I was happy that we did, because it did give our, our global team something to kind of rally around and a voice to get behind. And, and it also helped us reach our audience in a new way. They responded well. They liked hearing from our customers, liked hearing from our partners. But the, the flip side, the other thing I realized I was, was shocked. Really. I was vastly underwhelmed with the, the software that just didn't exist for, for me as a marketing leader and for my team, because we put, you know, firsthand how much, how much work it is to do a show and to do it right. What else were we going to do with it? And, and how were we going to see a return on this investment of time, money, resources, energy how we're going to use it in different ways. So we're going to measure it. And I just, I couldn't believe that there I didn't, there was no answer to that question. So that's, that's why Casted was born. We're the first and only platform that's really built for B2B marketers to harness the power of podcasting as part of their content.

Kathleen (03:08): I love that so much. And as you say, speaking from firsthand experience, I mean, I'm a marketer, that's, that's what I was trained in. I was not a trained audio engineer or audio production editor or graphic designer or any of that. But I knew I wanted to do a podcast and so I had to figure it out and I had to learn a bunch of things and I have my process down now, but like, it, it was sort of painful. And if, I think if anything, if any part of it changed now, it's like, you know, the whole thing would go crumbling down because I, I have it like set up so that I know exactly what to do at every stage. Cause I've learned specifically how to do these things for this very purpose, but I haven't learned overall like how to be a great audio editor for example.

Kathleen (03:54): Right. So it is, it's, it's complicated and I think it can be intimidating for people who are interested in starting podcasts. Yeah. you know, we've, we've talked so much about podcasting on this podcast. I've had people come on and talk about why you should podcast and like why it's great to be a guest on other people's podcasts and so many different topics. And, and, and it's funny because like, usually I'm pretty careful about not talking about the same topic too much, just because, you know, you've, you've covered at once, but this is a topic that it keeps coming up. And it's really interesting cause I'm in a lot of like Slack groups with other CMOs and, you know, private group, private communities, et cetera. And it's, it's fascinating to me how the interest in B2B podcasting just keeps gaining steam. Like just when you think it's hit it's, you know, high point it keeps going.

Kathleen (04:46): And I think COVID has only reinforced that. And so this is a really hot topic, which is why I wanted to talk about it again. And I think I love the specific angle that you and I are going to cover, which is so you've created a podcast. What next, because that's part of the problem. A lot of people go out and they think it's just all about doing the podcast when really that's just kind of scratching the surface. So assuming that that people listening are convinced of the power of podcasting and some of them may or may not have started their podcast, let's dig into what happens next. And I'm going to turn it over to you because this is what your, what you do day in and day out.

Lindsay (05:26): It's true. Yeah. And I think to your point, Kathleen, whether you've started a podcast already, maybe you've been doing one for years and years and years, or you're thinking about doing one, regardless if you are a B2B marketer and you're even considering a show, your frame of mind, shouldn't just be, Hey, let's do a podcast. It should be, how are we going to use this, this podcast, this show as part of our integrated content marketing strategy, even our integrated sales and marketing what's, how's it going to fuel everything else we're doing that that is the difference maker. Anyone can just, you know, hit play, hit, publish, and get something out into the world. It's what you do with it from there. That really makes an impact on the brand and even, even on the bottom line, even on the pipeline. Right. So what I say is, yep, go create a show and then really think about how you can harness that expert voice.

Lindsay (06:22): You know, if I'm interviewing you for my show, why would I leave it at just, you know, publishing it and maybe sharing it on social media when I could use your voice across other channels when I could use use that to fuel blog posts when I could use that to fuel sales cadences, when I could use that to provide social media content that would be more engaging. How can you really use your expert voice as the center of everything else that I'm doing to make that content richer and more engaging for my audience,

Kathleen (06:56): I love that you started with, you know, the question of like, how are you gonna use it as part of your strategy because that's, it's fascinating, you know, we're all marketers. And so we're taught to start with strategy first, but it's amazing to me, how many marketers I have seen who've gone and created podcasts almost like, because they feel like they should like, like it's a box they need to check. And they haven't really thought through what part that's going to play in their overall strategy. And I'm going to admit, I was guilty of that with my very first podcast that I had many years ago where I was kind of like, I just, I need to be podcasting and I, and I did it and, you know, I don't have any regrets because like, it taught me a lot about how to podcast and what makes for a good one.

Kathleen (07:36): But, but I quickly discovered that without having a real defined goal behind it, it, it wasn't getting any traction and it wasn't getting me any results. And so when I created this one, I thought for a very long time about like, what is it I'm hoping to really get out of this? And as a result, you know, what topics are going to help me get there? What format, you know, whether it's interview style or conversation with a co-host, et cetera, you know what format's going to help me get there. And then within the structure of the podcast, like, what do I need to cover to achieve those goals? So like, there's a lot of strategy that goes into really that very first step of creating the right kind of podcast. So assuming, assuming someone has gone down that path and they finished kind of producing their episodes and they have that asset talk me through some of the ways that you've seen that have worked really well to get it out there and repurpose it. Yeah. And I think

Lindsay (08:36): Even before getting into that, even if you have, let's say you are a marketer sitting here and you're like, Ugh, I think we're doing our podcasts for the wrong reason. Like, or it doesn't fit into anything it's okay. Like, regardless of whether your podcast is super strategic and you are just hitting it on all cylinders and it is, it is a, a solid part of your integrated strategy. Or if it's sitting over there on an and it's someone's pet project, it's okay. Regardless, like you can start today with getting more value out of it. Right. And so I think step one, I always say this, and this is, this is seemingly more for someone who's starting a podcast, but I think it really applies to anyone at any stage is who's it for, and why are you doing it? Right. So just take a minute, even if you're not going to write anything out, just take a minute and your brain to think about, okay, who, who is the show for?

Lindsay (09:20): Who is it serving and why are we doing it? Because that really there is no one size fits all. There is no checklist. There are a bunch of examples which we'll get into today, but there is no, like, first you do this, then you do this, then make sure you do this, then make sure you do this. As we all know, it depends is always the answer, especially for marketers. Like it depends on, on who your show is serving and why you're doing it. If you're doing it for, you know, to, to gain exposure for one of the thought leaders in your company and therefore credibility, you know, for them, for the brand. That's one reason that is very different from, you know, more directly generating leads. So with that in mind, think about who are you doing it for? Why are you doing it?

Lindsay (09:55): And then start to, then once you kind of at least get your head wrapped around that, maybe do it as a team. Maybe you do it just yourself. Then start to think of, okay, I've got all this content assume that I'm, I'm, I'm serving the people that I want to serve. And that I understand the why, how can I connect the dots between the interviews that are being done on this show between, you know, somebody in my company and an expert that my audience cares about and wring it out across other channels, how can I amplify that expert voice on other channels? So if you're using the the channels of like blogging and social media, like many of us are, how can you take that expert voice and say, okay, I'm not just gonna do a recap post, that's fine. Do a recap post, do show notes, but like, how can you say, if you came on my show and you're like, you know, here's, here's three things that you really need to consider about inbound marketing.

Lindsay (10:47): Here's, here's three unique perspectives or here's, here's you know, this, this really in-depth example on how you should attribute X, Y, and Z. I could dig into that. I could put my content team on that to dig so much deeper and to come up with really, really rich, possibly really keyword centric content that is not only going to rank because it's something that's naturally keyword rich, it's going to be expert first. It's a unique perspective, it's original content. But also it's, it's going to serve your audience in a unique way, because it's, it's something that started from an expert. Didn't start from some keyword research, right? So this one is, is look at that, look at every episode and think, okay, how can I bring this out? How can I take hopefully you're, you're doing a transcription for your show. How can I take that transcription and equip my content team with ways to source content they can dig deeper into and just really ring out and possibly even go combine different transcripts together to create really, really rich written content. So I think that that's that's one. So let me ask you one question,

Kathleen (11:54): Because this is something that I have had so many debates about with people over the years, which is in your opinion, what makes for great show notes, because that's the starting point, right? Like that's your first thing that you're you're absolutely. Or I think you should be doing it.

Lindsay (12:10): Yeah. Yeah, I think, okay. So I'll answer that directly and also kind of indirectly show notes should provide a recap of the episode to zoom out from that a little bit. I think that I'm really convicted that your show should live on your own website as well as, you know, absolutely use Google apps. So you absolutely use Spotify, absolutely use Apple. They are amazing megaphones to amplify the, expand the reach of your show. But when you have the opportunity to send someone, to listen to your team, to experience your content, why in the world, when she, him to your own website, right. And when they're at your website they don't really need show notes as much as they need to be able to experience that content in a way that gets, you know, if they can't listen, if they don't want to listen, what do you want them to take away from your show?

Lindsay (13:05): So we see that in a couple of different, I'm going to answer with like an it's depends again. Right. what, some of the examples that I see done really well are, if it's done on your show, on your, on your website, you have a page for your show that has like a version of the transcript. That's kind of easy to skim. It's not just copy and paste to make sure that it's accurate or do a recap of the show that will hopefully entice someone to dig in deeper, along with clips. So make sure that you're pulling clips so that if somebody doesn't have time to listen to that 30, 40, 60 minute episode, that you're giving them some of the snippets and takeaways that they can, you know, get some of those key points that especially as a marketer, you really, really want to make sure that they hear that are advancing your perspective, that that are helping to carry the torch for what your show stands for making sure that you give your audience those little snippets and then kind of fill in the blanks with, with a written synopsis too. So I guess to more directly in summary bring people to your site and give them a recap along with some clips as key takeaways.

Kathleen (14:10): I love that you mentioned the transcript, and this is something that I'm personally really, really, really passionate about. And I had to fight for it in a couple of situations, which is, I think it's so important to transcribe and to end to provide like a thorough, thorough transcript. First of all, it is a no brainer because there are so many transcription services out there that are inexpensive and incredibly accurate for the price. So I will say personally, I've used rev.com for many years. You know, they have a human transcription, which is a little bit more expensive, but I've used recently, I've started using what they call their rough draft, which is an automated transcription. And I'll tell you, it's pretty close. I definitely have to like, edit, do a little editing and clean up, cause it doesn't get everything right, but it's, it's cents on the dollar.

Kathleen (14:59): I mean, I think I can transcribe a 40 minute podcast for $10, right? So there, there certainly should be no reason financially that you shouldn't transcribe it, but the reason I'm so passionate is, is both for accessibility reasons. Like, I, I think it's very important to solve for all of your, your audience. And some of them may not be able to listen. And so being able to provide that written transcript is, is key for that. But then also, honestly, as a marketer, I just think the SEO opportunity is tremendous. Like this is a 40 to 50 minute podcast. And when it's transcribed, that's a several thousand word article. Yes. I mean, if I had to write that I'd be spending hours. So I just so passionate about it and not everybody loves transcripts. I've had certain people at certain companies I've worked at pushed back on me.

Kathleen (15:49): And I think it's because they just like to listen. And so they don't get why the transcript is important, but everybody has a different learning style and yes, some people like to listen and they can listen to your podcasts, but other people really like to be able to read and skim. I happen to be one of them funny enough, because I definitely can read faster than I can listen. And so I like to just like look through and if I see something really great, I might listen. But anyway, that is the end of my Ted talk on transcriptions, but I'm all fired up and passionate about it.

Lindsay (16:17): I'm so glad that you mentioned that because yes. I think a lot of people overlook transcripts or use them in a way, I'm not gonna call it the wrong way, but in a way that I don't think is optimal because if you're just taking a transcript from just Slack, I think that transcripts get a bad name because a lot of people, especially in past years, were taking the, the, the largely inaccurate transcript and just slapping it up on their page. I'm basically there. What is essentially a blog page for their episode and saying, this is the transcript, forgive us because it's not accurate. Well, I don't want to forgive you because it's not accurate. Like then why are you sharing it with me? You wouldn't just not even just publish a really, really rough version of a blog post, like go through and one way or another, it's either going to be, you know, a little bit time intensive.

Lindsay (17:02): If you have a person going through and making sure it's accurate, or you pay a little bit more and have it transcribed more accurate, or, you know, you said kind of a balance of both get it right and, and share it for a couple of reasons. One, you mentioned accessibility that is hugely important. Also learning styles, the way that people want to consume content, maybe somebody is sitting someday when we're all in offices, again, sitting in an office and you know, it doesn't have ear buds or something and just wants to read something or somebody wants to share something with somebody else that they know isn't going to listen to it and just wants to skim also yep. SEO and being able to search Google so that they've been indexing podcasts for years. And now we're just now starting to see those audio podcasts come up.

Lindsay (17:44): But also if you, if you're posting the transcript, that's keyword rich. And then also something that I don't think that people think about and that we've baked into Casted is searchability for yourself. So you have tons of content. You've done more than a hundred shows. You have so much content here that if you are able to go back and search through your transcripts, you can repurpose and repackage and reuse, which is another thing that you should be doing on the flip side. Like once you want to show, what else are you doing with it? How are you reusing those shows and transcripts, make it a lot easier to go back and search and resurface a content we already have.

Kathleen (18:19): So I could not agree with you more obviously, cause I'm a little biased on this. But you talked to them about, so you've got your show notes and then you talked about creating other types of content and getting your content team on it to either like dive deep and create a more in-depth article on a particular aspect that someone spoke about. Or I think you mentioned also kind of, you didn't use these words, but like doing Roundup posts where maybe you have multiple guests, who've talked about a similar topic and putting that together. Do, can you share any examples of where either you've done that or a client you've worked with has done that and what does that really look like?

Lindsay (18:54): Sure. So first thing that comes to mind is one thing that we did at Casted. It was early on. So we we did two seasons, so about 20 shows and it was largely let's see, the first season was talking to hosts. And so these are all, you know, B2B show hosts, like what their experience had been like. And then the second season was the people that, the unheard voices behind the mic, right? Like how does your strategy work? So we had a lot of great content there and what our marketing director did is she went in and again, was able to search through all those transcripts and re you know, surface content and, and pull clips and kind of write basically a, a course around strategy around like of your podcasts. Like what should your podcast strategy be like around, you know, hosting and interviewing and kind of these different topics that she didn't have to, she could have, I mean, she's a pro in the space, but she let the experts that we had on our show basically teach the curriculum by pulling the clips from the episodes that we already had.

Lindsay (19:56): So we had, you know, Jay Baer on talking about, you know, the importance of podcasting and how, and why it matters, what your strategy should be like. So she just literally pulled clips of him talking about it and kind of filled in the blanks to provide more of that, how to, and we made something called pod class that uses the reuses, the shows that we did in a different, completely different way. And that became gated content for us. So that that's something to think about is even though your show, your episode, like the episode that we had with Jay Baer was really broad. It was about, it was one of the, if it was it's one of, one of the first shows, if not the first show that we did. And so it was really broadly talking about, you know, why podcasting, how podcasting, but if you take, if you just take a look at it from a different angle, there was a lot in there that was really how to, and so, and that was a theme, kind of a crop that kind of dotted throughout our first couple of seasons. So we were able to pull that out. And I think that if you're doing a show you're able to look back and say, okay, how can we do? And we do a Roundup post or a Roundup even episode or series or gated content. That's all around this one topic that our audience would, would value, right? Again, who is it for? Why are you doing it? What do you already have that you can repackage in a way that would really be valuable for your audience?

Kathleen (21:16): Okay. If you're listening, I want to just stop and underline what you just said. That is such a great idea. I, you know, I've heard people talk a lot about roundup posts and things like that, but creating an actual course from your content is, is so genius. And I feel like courses have a ton of traction. They can be great sales enablement tools. They can be great ways to engage your community, but they're a pain in the neck to create. And I know because I've worked for education companies where I've had to create online courses and it's a lot of work, but if you already have all the content that is amazing. So that that's, I love, I love that as one way to repurpose content. So as I said, I love that tip. What else you got? What, how, what are some other ways that you or your clients have repurposed content?

Lindsay (22:08): Sure. So another example, this is what we're doing, but I promise I have lots of examples of our, of our customers and others in the, in the world are doing to one of the first things that comes to mind that, you know, obviously account based marketing, ABM is huge, has been, should be. It's great. It helps us refocus as marketers to think about how can I make this experience for an account that I'm going after, how can I make it more personal? How can I make it more relevant? How can I, how can I really go after this account in a way that will yield greater results because I'm being more appealing to this person and to their brand podcasting can, and absolutely should be a part of that equation, right? So account based podcasting, if you will we're starting to see some, some fun ideas and some creative thinking with some of our customers.

Lindsay (22:55): One thing that we are doing, I can kind of speak to in a little more detail is our SDRs or BDRs, some people call them, are creating their own little podcasts and using our, our podcasts, the Casted podcast to, you know, pull clips and pull snippets based on who they are trying to meet with and who they're trying to get in front of who they're trying to engage with and what that looks like and what it could look like for listeners to say, okay, and who's it for? Who's your audience? We all have segments within our audience, right? So there's quite often decision makers and users, right? Let's just make that assumption. There's these kind of two segments within those your decision makers are going to be coming into your conversation from a couple of different pain points, right.

Lindsay (23:43): Or a couple of different scenarios or situations, context, the same thing with your users. So what if you, let's just say you have a decision maker, audience, and a, a user audience, and then within that, let's say they each kind of have three different pain points or contexts. What if you went back through your podcast and said, okay, here are some of our customers talking about this pain point, talking about this context, talking about how perhaps we cause in podcasts sometimes, you know, when, when people are just talking openly about, especially if you're talking to your customers about how you've helped them, or how, how they were able to advance because of something that you're doing with them, if you pulled that and use that in the sales process. Right? So what you end up with is going back and using your show, looking through your show for clips and for takeaways that your sales team can share that specifically address the pain point, the problem, the context of a specific persona or segment within your audience, that you can package up into a cadence that you can really use naturally and say, Hey, Kathleen, you know, I know that we were talking the other day, you're thinking about buying our widget.

Lindsay (24:52): I just thought it would be great for you to hear from so-and-so who, you know, at such and such company that had the same problem as you. And, you know, he's a CMO just like you are. But you might want to hear it from him directly. It's content it's already been shared publicly it's it's something that can be kinda put into a different context and, you know, just think of ways that your sales team could benefit from using those little snippets and make it super easy for them to serve it up and say, Hey, here's something that you can use to either advance the conversation you're already in or start a new one.

Kathleen (25:23): So when you're doing that, do you share, are you sharing video? Are you sharing just audio? What is it that you're sharing?

Lindsay (25:31): Sure. So for us right now, our podcast is audio until literally as of the week that we're recording this, we're launching a Casted video podcast. So that's going to be a new one that we're including if you have the video use it. If you just have the audio use it I think more than anything else, what matters is that third party endorsement that, that credibility, whether it's, I mean, it doesn't even have to be a testimonial by your company. I mean, just something that's really relevant to that, to that audience segment something that really matters to them. And that will really resonate with the situation that they're in, whether it's audio or video, if you have somebody other than outside of your company that can, can really speak to them in a way that resonates.

Kathleen (26:12): That's what matters. And, and are you sending, like, let's just use an audio podcast, for example, cause that's like, what this is, are you sending the full podcast or are you just editing out a piece of it? And if you're an either way, like functionally, what does that look like? If you're putting it in an email? Like what, what, how are you inserting it?

Lindsay (26:31): Sure. So I'm a little bit biased because this works with Casted, but you can do it without Casted too. So I'll try to kind of speak both sides. Pull a clip, because otherwise you're asking - if you're not pulling a clip and serving up someone the piece of information that's really valuable to them, you're really promoting your show. Promoting your show is great. But if you have a problem and I'm trying to help solve your problem, I'm not solving your problem by asking you to do more work of listening to a 30 minute plus episode.

Kathleen (27:00): The very least I was going to say, just say to somebody fast forward to 15 minutes and 30 seconds for the answer.

Lindsay (27:07): If that's what you've got do that. If you have the ability to pull a clip, like in Casted, you just highlight over the transcript, hit create clip, and it, it gives you a unique URL that you can share. If you don't have that capability use what you've got, right. Send the person that clip or direct them to that clip that says, Hey, you know, at 15 minutes, 30 seconds, you know, you'll hear, so-and-so talk about how Casted saved them this amount of time, whatever. And then make sure you put it into a context of, you know, again, that kind of account based marketing. What does it mean for them? What's in it for them? What's the context, what a situation that's really matters to them. And how does the, how does the clip come into play? Otherwise it's just a clip. Also I would say beyond that clip, where can you send them?

Lindsay (27:49): So if you have the capability, I mean, this is in Casted. I know there's some other there's lots of ways to create a landing page to create a unique landing pages. If you have ABM tools, how can you create, can you work it into that experience to say, okay, as part of this kind of personalized, tailored approach that I'm taking with this account, how can I use this show? And, and something that, you know, different people have said on our show along the way to help advance this conversation. That's, that's the big picture and there's lots of different, tangible ways to do that. But I think far too often, because podcast content is looked at as like over on this Island and kind of a lockbox of, of audio content, people discount it and don't use it. And so I'm saying think of ways to incorporate that into your account based marketing strategy. So that, I mean the power of voice, having someone like literally being able to hear someone other than yourself you know, talk about this, how you solve this problem, or, you know, get that prospective buyer into that state of mind is so powerful.

Kathleen (28:56): So you're actually putting URL in this case, you're putting URLs into your email and directing somebody towards a landing page with a video clip on it. Correct?

Lindsay (29:04): Yeah. I mean, that's one way you could do it. Yep.

Kathleen (29:08): Yep. Okay. I like that. I like that approach. It's not something I would have thought of before, just because normally you're so focused around how are you going to host the actual episode itself that I hadn't thought about? Like taking snippets and creating ways to host that.

Lindsay (29:18): One way that we, I mean, just specifically to Casted and then I'll share how we do it. And then even if you don't have cast and maybe it'll get you thinking about ways you could do it with resources that you do have. So what our SDRs do is that they'll create an actual podcast. So they'll record something and pull clips cause we could do in Casted. So they'll have a transcript and they'll pull specific clips that they are, are really, really relevant that they really want to call out to that audience or to that prospect. And they'll include clips from our show and say, Hey, you know, listen to, okay, I keep using Jay Baer. Listen to Jay Baer talk about this, listen to, you know, so-and-so talk about this other thing. And that's all included as key takeaways or clips on the show page that they'll send people to.

Lindsay (30:02): So they'll say, Hey, I created this podcast just for you. And that podcast experience is personalized, right? So it's, it's a show that's created just for that, that audience segment with that problem. The key takeaways basically the outline of the show, the clips that you can jump to are specific and tailored to that audience, segment that persona with that problem, the related resources at the bottom of the page that are included are resources that are tailored to that audience in that problem. They can even be as tailored to say, like, this is a specific thing for this person. And it just, it makes that whole experience really customized and really, really personal.

Kathleen (30:40): So, all right, now I have more questions because your SDR is creating this. So let's use your Jay Baer example cause we're gonna, we're gonna pound that one home today and you have an episode that has Jay Baer in it. The SDR you know, didn't necessarily like host that or interview Jay Baer. So are you saying that they're creating almost like an intro and an outro for it or like an executive summary? What, what is it exactly that the SDR is creating?

Lindsay (31:08): Sure. So one way that I've, I've seen them do it is to, yeah, they'll create the intro and the outro and basically set up the context and they'll pull some clips and have our producer put them together into a show that that show would contain an intro from the SDR and algebra from the SDR maybe a couple of talking points in between and several clips from different shows that we've had, you know, over the years, but that that I'll speak to this one specific audience in one specific pain point, that is a show it's private. So we're not syndicating it out to Apple. But it's also not password protected. It's just shared, it's viewable only through a link. They'll send that link. That link goes to a page that has your show notes, that has the transcript that has clips and key takeaways. It has related resources. And so that whole experience you know, when somebody clicks on that link, it takes them to an experience that's tailored just for that audience.

Kathleen (32:07): So I assume you, you don't do this for everybody because obviously there's some work involved, but I love, I love the concept of it because if I'm understanding correctly, if I'm your target and I get this email, that's like, here, I have this for you. I open it up. And if I listen, it's a podcast where like, they're mentioning my name. Like, Hey, Kathleen, I wanted to, I know your challenge is X. And so I wanted to share with you these clips of Jay Baer saying X, Y, and Z, like, is that how it works?

Lindsay (32:33): That's, that's how it definitely could work you're right. That it would be, that would probably be more for, depending on your resources, mean if you have an audience. Yeah. It could be your tier one. If you have the time and you have the resources in-house to be able to kind of quickly, it wouldn't be that hard. I mean, if, if the rest of the show was more persona or segment specific, but just the first 10 seconds where the Hey Kathleen it would be very easy for an audio engineer to like, create that really quickly, if you don't have those resources, do it by audit by segment. Right. So if you have like you said, that tier one, maybe you do it for a few customer potential customers, or if it's a segment, you know, this is going to be for CMOs in this vertical that have this problem. Right. And maybe that's only 10 people, maybe that, that one episode goes to like 10 people. But it's really specific to that niche situation.

Kathleen (33:28): Oh, my head is spinning with so many ideas now. I never thought to really do that and, and to like take an existing podcast and then sort of sandwiched in between, you know, commentary, if you will. So that's really interesting. Have you, what kind of results have you seen from that

Lindsay (33:43): Really early? Really early on, but we've seen, we've seen great results and, and, you know, as soon as we're looking to generate meetings and to start conversations and it's been working so far and we're, we're starting to talk with customers too about like, Hey, would you, what are your thoughts? Would you do this? Should we roll it out help? And just like you, people are excited and want to learn more about how to do it. So we're, we're excited to.

Kathleen (34:05): That's great. All right. Do you have any other tricks in your bag?

Lindsay (34:10): So that's, let's see, we covered kind of digging deeper with, with blog content. We talked about what account-based podcasting and account-based marketing looks like. I think just broadly speaking is again, how take, take quick inventory, and I'm not saying spend hours spend five minutes right now, thinking about all the different channels you use depending on who's listening, what's under your umbrella, right? Like what do you have the power to do right now? Like maybe you own the podcast and the blog, right? How can you feed your blog with your podcast content? Quite often, content teams are made up by, you know, some, some more, more junior or earlier in their career content marketers that are tasked with creating really, really incredible content at a breakneck pace. Right? And I've been there. I've, I've been that person.

Lindsay (34:59): I have managed that person. I've managed that team. It's, it's a lot, and it's a lot of pressure on, on a content marketer to try to be an expert in something that somebody else has literally spent their entire career doing, just so that you can be, you know, five steps ahead and write like the thought leader and also, Oh, by the way, rank better than any other company. So think about how you can support if you own the blog, the podcast how can you fuel those other channels specifically like your blog? By saying I'm going to go out and interview experts in the space and I'm going to equip my other teams, my content team, my social media team, my sales enablement team with this content that they can use as a resource. So they can be more efficient, they can be more effective.

Lindsay (35:48): And, you know, I've, I've been that marketer trying to, trying to bridge the gap between thought leadership and product and, and say, how do these two things line up, you know, and, and trying to use my marketing expertise to also be the thought leader in that space for whatever company I was working for. If you have that expert on your show, literally that knows what the gap, how to bridge the gap between your product and your thought leadership, go interview them, turn that into a podcast. That'll be a really naturally keyword rich podcast. That'll be really engaging to your audience. Your sales team will like it because they're also trying to do the same thing and then hand it over to your content team in a way that they can access that content and turn it into equally as engaging written content that they don't have to try to break that gap on their own.

Lindsay (36:31): They can literally just be a content marketer and, and use the words of that expert to create really, really engaging content same thing for social media, same thing for web content, same thing for you're trying to put together a case study or use cases look at it that way, not only as a, as a content channel, but as the hub, right. Put it at the hub in the middle, from that fuels everything else. Even just starting to think that way will really help you start to think creatively about what you could do. And we've got lots of great examples that I can dig into. OpenView ventures. They, they do this really well, so they, they have a really great show specifically for founders like me, if they're looking for how to scale up their business. And then they, they will embed clips of that show into their blog posts that dive deeper, right. And they share clips on social media that, that engage founders like me to bring them in to experience not just the podcast, but their content in general.

Kathleen (37:33): That's a great example. I love, I love their content. And you know, and you raise a really good point. It's something that I've learned over my career and that I practice now which is that when you stop trying to put a square peg in a round hole, and by that, I mean, when you stop trying to get all of your subject matter experts to write and create content, and instead you turn to interviewing them, whether that's, you know, interviewing them and not using the audio, but then creating written content or even better, what you've suggested, which is interviewing them and actually using the audio, but then also creating the written content. It just, it removes so much friction from the content creation process and it really can, can produce some outstanding content.

Lindsay (38:19): It can. Yeah. And so another example is Drift, right? So we all know Drift, we all love Drift as a, as a brand, they've done some really incredible things. And, you know, a lot of it started with a podcast, right. And if you go back to, you know, Dave Gerhardt was their first marketing hire, if I'm not mistaken and wanted to create great content. So he just started, like you said, just started and I've done it before to interviewing Dave Cancel and just saying, Hey, how did we do this? Why did we do this? Why did you start this company? Why, how are we solving people's problems? How have, how are you leading this company? What does leadership mean to you? And in recording those conversations said, Hey, this would make a great show, turned it into a show that show was wildly successful, still is. Seeking Wisdom.

Lindsay (39:04): They now have five other shows. I think they have five or six shows. They're, they're one of our customers. So they are using the transcripts, they're using their clips and they are, they have this entire Drift Insider part of their website that is all this content saying, how, how can we equip our audience with, like you said, ways that they want to consume content, that their video content, audio podcast, content, and lots of written content. They have really rich versions of, of 10 different integrated types of media content. And it all starts with conversations. Let's go talk to the people that have the answers that our audience wants, and let's be the facilitators. You know, you don't have to be the expert in everything. As the author of whatever you're, you're creating, you just need to go tap into that.

Kathleen (39:46): Yeah, it's so funny. I feel like that could so easily become me because I, I love podcasting. It's why I've been doing it for so long. I've started a podcast at every single company that I've worked at. And, and I often think like I could easily have five or six podcasts. I could just do it full time, because for first of all, it's just fun. I mean, maybe I'm just a huge marketing nerd, but it's fun. It's fun getting to learn from people. Like when I get to talk to someone like you, I learned so much from these conversations and then the, the phenomenal by-product of that is that other people get to learn alongside me. Right. But I always say, and my listeners know, I say this all the time. I would keep podcasting even if nobody listened, because I learn so much, it's like free consulting.

Kathleen (40:31): But being able to share that is so valuable. And it's funny because there are so many different dimensions to what you can create a podcast around. You know, and I'm just early in my current company, we will definitely have a podcast. So stay tuned. I honestly could create four or five. I won't do that in the beginning because I'm not that crazy, but someday we'll get there.

Lindsay (40:56): Yeah. And see how it happens. Yeah.

Kathleen (40:58): Yeah. I love that. Well, so many great ideas. I feel like I could keep going on this forever, but we're going to run out of time. So I want to make sure I leave room to ask you the questions I always ask my guests. The first one is, of course, this podcast is all about inbound marketing. Is there a particular company or individual that you think is really setting the standard for what it means to be a great inbound marketer?

Lindsay (41:17): You know, I, I knew you were gonna ask this. And so I thought, and I thought, and I have so many examples. And so I feel like I'm going to be leaving out the other, you know, everyone else, but, you know, just mentioning Drift. They are, they are constantly, I love working with them or if they're a great customer and partner to us, but even before they were, I've loved what they were doing. They, they have several shows for a reason, not just because you know, shows are great and podcasts are popular, but because as they continued having conversations, they realized that their audience was growing. And so they didn't try to cram it all into one show. They remembered who's it for why are we doing it? And so seeking wisdom stayed with that kind of more general audience of marketers, marketing leadership.

Lindsay (42:01): And then they have other shows that focus on, you know, product development and, you know, quickly scaling business. And, and, and because they've been really smart about who their audience is and what the different sub sectors of that audience look like. And, and they've also been really smart about who on their side should be the host to kind of carry on those conversations. And then, you know, this whole conversation has been like, and then what would you do with it, have these great shows, but they're also bringing them out and doing really, really great things that are generating a lot of inbound activity. I mean, of course they're, they're growing like mad. And because they're Drift, they're also making sure that they're using the, the Drift bot to engage with people as they are coming in to say, Hey, what'd you think about this? How are you, how are you consuming that maybe you'd like this other show as well? So yeah, that would be my example.

Kathleen (42:54): Great point about breaking the show up into two separate shows, because I do find that that is a huge mistake a lot of companies make as they try to be all things to all people. And that was probably one of the mistakes I made with my first podcast that I mentioned that I did for a little while, and then abandoned because I didn't have the right strategy.

Lindsay (43:09): It's easy to do.

Kathleen (43:09): Yeah. I was trying to, I was trying to speak to too many audiences. And as soon as I switched gears and for this podcast, I got much more specific. And, and it's, that's why I've been able to stick with it for so long because it's, it's, it's a clear audience with a defined need and I'm able to solve for that in each episode. So, yeah. Great. all right. Second question. One of the big pain points I hear marketers always mention is that trying to keep up with all the changes in digital marketing, it's like drinking from a fire hose. So how do you personally drink from that fire hose?

Lindsay (43:41): Okay. I'm going to be super duper obvious and cliche, but podcasts. Honestly, honestly, it truly, it's not just because of Casted. It's not because I'm biased. Even before Casted, I think probably that's one of the reasons I created Casted. It was, it's, podcasts are an incredible way to, to get information. First of all, you can consume them when you're doing anything else. And I'm sure our listeners doing lots of different things right now, doing the dishes, driving, running, doing work right. You can consume that content doing whatever it isn't. I don't know about anybody else, but I'm busy. And so I like to collect that information. And you know, I'm, I'm getting information about marketing, about, you know, raising capital about, you know, being a first time founder, like all these different things that I can consume in any basically anytime of day.

Lindsay (44:28): And I love that also studies have shown there's a really cool one by BBC that talks about the neuroscience of, of consuming content, the way that we do and that kind of passive way when you're doing something else and also actively consuming content, it sticks out, it sticks in your brain in a different way. Eventually it's a really scientific way of saying it in your brain, but your cognitive recall your, the person's affinity for the brand, it all increases because of the way your brain works when you're consuming content that way. So I highly recommend just going broad, finding a bunch of podcasts, find a couple that, that really resonate with what it is that you want to learn. Podcasts like this one that combine, you know, high-level strategy with, you know, really deep how to's. Keep on that. That's that's served me really well.

Kathleen (45:17): Yeah. My favorite times to listen to podcasts are grocery shopping, vacuuming, and yard work.

Lindsay (45:23): Right. Because it makes those tasks, you actually look forward to it, right?

New Speaker (45:26): What else can you do, right? Yeah. Like, it's not like you're, you know, you're sort of trapped. Like you can't, I don't know. You can't really do much else when you're doing those things. So yeah.

Lindsay (45:36): Mine is getting ready in the morning, when I fold laundry and like post-workout when I'm like stretching and stuff.

Kathleen (45:42): All right. Well, we have reached the top of the hour. And so before we wrap up, I want to make sure folks know how to find you and get more information. So if somebody is interested in asking you a question or learning more about this, what is the best way for them to connect with you online?

Lindsay (45:58): Sure. So Casted.us is our website. Casted dot U S slash lookbook is where you can find that information, tons of examples from what our customers are doing to really bring out that content. You can find me on Twitter at @CastedLindsay or on LinkedIn. I'm really active on both.

Kathleen (46:16): Fantastic. I will put all those links in the show notes. So head there to get access to all of those resources and to follow Lindsay. And of course, if you are listening and you enjoyed today's episode, or you're learning something new, I would really love it. If you would head to Apple Podcasts or the platform of your choice and leave the podcast a review. That's how we find new listeners like yourself. And of course, if you know somebody else doing amazing inbound marketing work, tweet me at @workmommywork because I would love to make them my next guest. That's it for this week. Thank you so much, Lindsay.

Lindsay (47:00): This was a lot of fun. Thanks for having me.

Building a personal brand can be a powerful way to drive marketing results, but what's the best way to actually build your brand?

This week on The Inbound Success Podcast, Online Profile Pros CEO and Co-Founder Claire Bahn shares the strategies she's used to help entrepreneurs and business executives strategize and create strong personal brands.

Clair is a personal branding expert who is also the founder of Claire Bahn Group where she helps entrepreneurs leverage their personal brands to develop the authority, influence and trust they need to exceed their business goals.

In this episode, Claire talks about why it's so important for executives to have strong personal brands, and she walks through the exact process she uses with her clients.

Check out the full episode, or read the transcript below, for details.

Resources from this episode:

• Check out clairbahn.com 
• Connect with Claire on LinkedIn

Kathleen (00:01): Welcome back to the Inbound Success Podcast. I'm your host Kathleen Booth. And this week, my guest is Claire Bahn, who is the CEO and co-founder of Online Profile Pros and Claire Bahn Group. Welcome Claire.

Claire (00:25): Thank you so much for having me.

Kathleen (00:28): I'm excited to talk to you because this topic that we're going to discuss is something that I'm very, very passionate about, which is personal branding. But before we dive into it, I would love it. If you could share kind of your story what you're doing now with Online Profile Pros and Claire Bahn group, and kind of what led you into that?

Claire (00:51): Well basically I have a background in doing, working with fortune 500 companies in New York is kind of how I cut my teeth, so to speak. And I always kind of had this drive to be an actress. And you know, obviously many of us, you have to pay your bills. Right? So after college I did that with, with doing marketing and then I was like, you know, I really want to do acting, so I didn't have a ton of acting experience, but what I did have was marketing experience. So I knew how to market myself. And so I set up a website, set up all the social media channels and just really started kind of defining who I was, because I knew that if a casting director was able to see, you know, kind of how I presented myself, they'd be like, I know what part you know, I should, I should put her in or to have her come in to read for or whatever it is or for a commercial part.

Claire (01:44): And from then I was doing you know, a lot of international and national commercials and print ads and other, you know, I've done movies and that kind of thing. And so it really just helped. And I had a lot of actors coming to me after that saying, Hey, I need your help. So I kind of ballooned from there. And then I started online profile pros where I help people brand themselves for online dating and LinkedIn, which is so, so important. And then from there I had investors and you know, angel investors, venture, capitalists executives, and people coming to me saying, Hey, I really like what you're doing. I've come across your personal branding blog. And I want to kind of have you do, you know, do that for me. And that's really just kind of how it was born. It was very organic just kind of practicing what I preach and people coming to me saying, Hey, I need your help. So that's, that's how it'll happen.

Kathleen (02:42): I love this story. And you just made me realize something. Cause I, I spend a lot of time thinking about personal branding, you know, partly for myself, cause I have this podcast and there's some work I do. I like, I, I work within a company, but there's work. I do outside of that. But also because I'm, I'm such a strong that for every business, the best businesses build strong personal brands for their executives. They're thought leaders they're subject matter experts. Like that's, that's a true differentiator. And, but you just made me think of something like I had a realization as you were talking, and I don't know if anyone's ever said this to you before, but when you talked about your experience as an actor and needing the casting agents or the people that you were auditioning in front of to be able to picture you in a role, it made me think of this parallel with staging a house.

Kathleen (03:34): Like if you're in real estate and you go to sell a house that has no furniture in it, it's really hard for buyers to picture themselves living there. But it's also why they say when you stage a house, like you shouldn't, you shouldn't put any of your own personal things in like your, if you live there because they need to be able to see themselves in the house. And if they can see themselves in the house, the sale is so much easier. And, and all of a sudden it occurred to me that there's this, this is a little bit like that. Like you're, you're crafting a story, a narrative around who you are. And if somebody can see you as that person, like you you've, you've already sold yourself to them. Does that make sense?

Claire (04:13): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I mean, as far as like the, when casting directors they have such a limited amount of time. If you think about it, they, they, they look at your thumb now. If you've ever done any casting, I mean, I've lived in Los Angeles. So we cast for stuffs, I've cast for things, commercials and things like that myself. And you literally, you go online and you see headshots. So you need to be able to look at that photo and say that I can, I can tell this person is interesting. Let me take a look. And a lot of casting directors will actually do research. They would actually look at, you know, pictures where that aren't your your headshot, because so many people do so much crazy Photoshopping. They wanted to see what you really look like. So you really ha so I kind of just being in the business, you kind of learned that you're like, wow, you really do have to do my homework.

Claire (05:00): People will dig deeper to find out, you know, do I really look like this without, you know, on my daily life? Or am I crazy Photoshop to look 10 years younger or whatever. And you start to kind of realize that, and it's so important when you go into LinkedIn and online dating as well, especially online dating because you want the, you want the picture that you see, obviously you, you're kind of, if you think about, you know, swiping right or left, you have this thumbnail and a little bit little bitty blurb. If you're kind of like thinking about Tinder and this, you have to make an impact, it has to make an impact to make you decide. Do I want to even look, do I want to dig any deeper? Do I want to learn a few more lines about what this person is about?

Claire (05:36): And if you, so you think about all the things and it goes the same way for looking for a job press wanting to do an interview with you. People are going to do their, their homework and you have seconds to have them say, I want to learn more or add next. Yeah. So it's in everything you do, really your, everything you do, it has to make an ad that makes somebody want to learn more past that, those like five seconds or whatever it is. So that's just, that's kind of what I do. I've learned it through, through, you know, my own work and I make sure that people want to learn more.

Kathleen (06:12): It's so interesting though, because I feel like there's a fine line between what I would call like clickbait. You know, I want to learn more and authenticity because as you pointed out, like, I think it's really interesting that you do personal branding for executives, but you also help people with like Tinder, because, because really when you think about it, it, yeah, somebody might want to learn more, but then when they do learn more, if they're like, well, this has nothing to do with the bill of goods I was sold. Like, that's actually the worst possible outcome. It's kind of like, you'll have lots of first, but not a lot of second dates, you know? And I feel like it's the same thing with, with business, personal branding, like the best brands that I've seen out there for executives are pretty authentically true to who that person is.

Claire (06:57): But you also have the other, the other way around is if you have a great personal brand, but your initial gut reaction from, from seeing whatever it is, website, whatever it is, and you don't want to learn more. So yeah, it's, it's when they go together, when you have that great thirties, you know, five seconds kind of thing, where you're like, I want to learn more. And then when someone does learn more, they go, okay, this person is really who they say they are. They really are an expert. So you have to have both.

Kathleen (07:22): So let's kind of pull back for a second. And obviously we're, we're not focused as much on Tinder. Although I think that would be a fascinating podcast that I would love to do at some point you know, here, it's all about like, how do we use this for marketing and for business marketing and right. The thing that I would want to start with is really why should people even care? Because I, like I said, I passionately believe in this and every company I've worked at I've, I've really kind of pushed it. But I will say I've gotten a lot of pushback from executives who are not interested in, in kind of shining the spotlight on themselves personally, like they're willing to do what needs to be done to promote the company, but they're very hesitant, not all of them, but certainly many of the ones I've worked with very, very hesitant to do anything that's perceived as promoting themselves. So maybe you could talk for a minute about like, why is this an important thing for an executive to care about and to want to participate in?

Claire (08:20): Well, I mean, I'm kind of thinking like all of the, there's so many things flying in my head, but one of the biggest things cause I do run into this when we have, you know, with my, with our personal concierge clients. If you aren't telling, you know, essentially shouting from the rooftops that you're amazing, there's somebody else that is, and that person is going to be stealing your opportunities, your next career move, whatever it is because there's somebody that, that is doing this and they probably don't even have the experience that you do. So I think that is just one of the things that we in this space that we're in right now. I think we just need to realize that we need to be, you know, our biggest champion because no one else is going to do it for us. You know, and you are number one and you need to take care of yourself.

Claire (09:09): This is really about taking care of yourself, your future, whatever it may, may happen in your future, the, you know, things won't kind of fall into place if you are not positioned well, if they just won't, you won't get the opportunities that somebody that maybe who is less qualified than you will get, because they're shouting louder than you are. So that's ultimately why it is important. Even if you are the head of a company, you know, when you want the business to do really well, people get behind, they don't want this faceless entity anymore. You know, they, especially with, when you're dealing with small and medium sized businesses, they want to get behind the CEO, the person they want to know your passion. Why did you choose to do this? What makes you tick? They want those kinds of things because they want to know. Again, like we've been talking about that you're authentic. You're not just in it to, you know, make money off them. They aren't just a number. They mean something to you. So I think that that, that really being personable and personal is really the only way to do that and showing people why you care and showing people just a little bit about you, you know, kind of that personal connection. That is what is so important.

Kathleen (10:24): I would also add in my experience that when you build a personal brand, it opens doors that otherwise wouldn't be open to you. And what I mean by that? Well, a few things. I mean, obviously when it comes to things like speaking at conferences you know many businesses want to get somebody up on a stage at a conference, ideally on the main stage, not in a breakout room. And very few conferences are going to invite a nameless, faceless, faceless executive to get up on a main stage and talk about their company because that's seen as self promotional. So you need to have some kind of larger story that's of interest that's personally compelling. Or you need to have already established your expertise through, through having a strong personal brand. And, and that in itself will bring invitations. But the other thing I found beyond that that's kind of interesting is, is that people, when you have a personal brand, it doesn't even need to be the world's strongest one.

Kathleen (11:25): People seek you out for things, you know, and, and like, I've seen this happen a little bit with me because of the podcast and because of some other things I've invested in and let me be honest. I mean, do I have a personal brand? I mean, yeah, it's, I'm not famous. It's certainly not like I would say I'm, I have a personal brand in a tiny little niche space, but, but people have come to me for advice, for introductions, for all kinds of things. And, and I'm a big believer in there's an author named Adam Grant and he has a book called give and take. And I've always said that that's like the most powerful business book anybody should read. And it's not a business book. It's basically about how the most successful people in the world, both from a professional standpoint and personally are those who give first, who are, who have a give before you take mentality, because, because the very act of giving is what will at some point come back and allow you to receive, right?

Kathleen (12:21): And so when people seek you out, whether that's for advice or for introductions or for what have you, it opens the door to our relationship and it opens the door to it, the type of a relationship that eventually will, will pay dividends for you. And I don't mean like it positions you to ask for a quid pro quo, cause that's not the spirit in which you should do it, but it just, it positions you to be someone who, who has the opportunity to give, which naturally will produce wonderful opportunities that you may not have even asked for, but that will be presented to you. That sounded very philosophical.

Claire (12:55): Oh, I, I believe it. Yeah. I I teach a masterclass and that's one of the things that I, that I talk about is that you know, a lot of people are using their personal brand for their business to sell a product or service or whatever it is. And if you're constantly like buy this, do this, click this, do that. You never just like here's information that I just want to impart to you. Because I'm sharing my expertise, which like you said, is, is going to make people believe that you are who you say you are, that you, and if they go, when they try one of the tips that you give, you gave them, you just gave them a gift. And like you're saying, some people will just take the gift and be like, wow, awesome. But maybe they're going to go, you know what, that Claire, I did this masterclass, I'm going to tell a friend, so you get referrals, you get and maybe they'll, they'll turn into an, a customer, but yeah, I always say 80% give 20% ask because yeah.

Claire (13:49): Otherwise, I mean, if you think about it, I mean, I w did Ben in the influencer space, like on Instagram and things like that. And I just kind of think of some of them that are just like, buy this, buy this, buy this, click this. And I'm just like unfollow. I can't handle this. And you see businesses, it's all with time. It's just, Oh, it's just icky. I don't, it doesn't give you a really good feeling and it doesn't make you trust them. It doesn't make you think that they're an expert. Yeah. And if you think about someone that you're going to go back to over and over like your podcast, it's because you're giving great information for someone to keep coming back and listening to it. You know, whatever it is, your YouTube channel, whatever the stuff that you're doing, the stuff that you're presenting, you need to make sure that it's actually really good information so that you get the email and you get people to come back to you.

Claire (14:35): So, yeah, that's, that's kind of like both ways, but yeah, I, we have clients all the time and, and that's one of the biggest things that we talk about it. You can do your personal brand in line with PR, but it, you know, when someone's doing their research on you and you don't have a strong personal brand, they're not going to have you come in to be an expert, to be a speaker or anything like that. And more often than not, when your personal brand is outstanding and you are out there sharing content and giving, giving, giving, giving people are going to come across your content, because they're going to do a Google search on personal brand. They're going to find something and they're going to go, this is a piece of content. Oh, I love it. You know, and, and that is ideally, that's, that's kind of one of the things that I always talk and I always teach is that ideally, when someone is doing a search on your L your area of expertise, you want your piece of content to, you know, be as front and center in front of them. And they're like, Oh, aha. I love this person. I'm going to follow. I'm going to subscribe. I'm going to subscribe to their email list and I want to be connected. And you know, that's what, that's what you want.

Kathleen (15:39): Well, and that is actually really what inbound marketing is all about. It's about educating first and naturally attracting the right audience to you. So thank you for setting that stage so nicely and tying it back to the topic test. All right. So, I mean, there are so many good reasons to do this. Are there ever people that you come across where you say you shouldn't, you shouldn't like you're just not the right fit for building your personal brand? I don't know. Maybe the answer is no, but I mean,

Claire (16:10): One of the things that I mean, sometimes there's some, there are some people that need a lot of media training. They need a lot of help to feel comfortable talking. They'll comfortable speaking and things like that. And, and maybe they're not right for certain things, but it doesn't mean you can't brand yourself. It doesn't mean you can't present your ideas and maybe it's not, maybe video is not your format or things like that, but you can present it in a blog and things like that. I think it's still so important to make sure that especially when you're dealing with inbound marketing, you have to, you have to give, you have to give content. You have, people have to know why they should trust you. And that I have had people that are very reluctant to, to give away their information, because they think that if they do it, they're never going to get a customer.

Claire (16:55): They're like, if I give someone that, you know, the secret sauce, right. Yes. And I, and I remember, like I was dealing with, with somebody who is, you know, in my masterclass. And I was like, it's kind of hard. Cause you kind of sometimes want to see, you know, constructive criticism, but essentially nothing about what she said she did. And she had great credentials was, was in her personal brand and would make me trust that she was the one that I should go with. And that's a big problem. So, you know, you have to give the information so that someone can say, you know what, this is good information. I use your, your you know, tidbit of information and I, this happened and thank you so much. I now know you're an expert. That's just really the thing. I mean, cause a lot of times people are going to compare experts. And if you're the one that has like the great information they're to keep you, they're going to stick to you. But I think that's the biggest thing that I, I did a video on like, you know why you need a freebie, why you need to give stuff away. It's because no, one's going to trust you.

Kathleen (18:00): Yeah. Well, and the story I always come back to when I'm on this topic, because people do say like, we can't give out the secret sauce and I love saying, you know, who really has secret sauce? That would be, what is it is a burger King or is it McDonald's right?

Claire (18:20): Here in LA we have In and Out Burger.

Kathleen (18:21): They literally have secret sauce. They call it secret sauce. And McDonald's Canada actually built a website called your questions are answers or something like that, where you can ask them anything and people ask them things like, you know, is the pink slime real? What do you make your nuggets out of? And P many people have asked, what is the recipe for your secret sauce? And they literally have the recipe on there. They have a video of their chef making it so that you can make it at home. Like they give away the secret sauce. And they've done this for years. And I always like to say to people like, have you seen burger King selling secret sauce? The recipes out there? Like they're not doing it. No, because you know, that's not, what's going to get them ahead. Like so often our secret sauce really. Isn't what we think it is. I mean, yes, there's a difference between like intellectual property when you talk to technology companies. But most of us don't truly have secret sauce. We don't.

Claire (19:15): Yeah. I mean a lot of people, yeah. There's a lot of the same kind of stuff out there in the world. It's just how, how you present it or yeah. I, I really think that what draws people to you, which is why the personal part of your personal brand is so important and obviously video and things like that is that people really will connect to your story the way you present an idea. You know, sometimes like I have, I've had people that were really connected with way I've said said something. They're like, Oh my God, I loved that thing. And I'm like, I don't even know what I said. Cause I just was like speak, you know, I was just speaking from the heart and like, I think, I think that's what it is. You know, there's so many, so many competitors in, in any space that I think there's probably enough to go around. Right? You have business. But you just, you need to speak from the heart. You need to be personal and personable to have the people that are your, you know, your champions, the ones that really love what you do, they'll come to you, there'll be magnetized to you. So, all right. So let's move down to tax here. Yeah.

Kathleen (20:21): Somebody is convinced that they need to build their personal brand. They come to you, someone's listening to this podcast and they're thinking, I need to do this. Let's let's talk about how you do it. Like how do you start with your clients? Walk me through it.

Claire (20:38): I think one of the biggest things that people first need to do is you need to, do, you need to know what's out there about you. You can't do unless you know where you're starting from. So it's either going to be something or it's going to be nothing. So if there's there's stuff that you don't want out there, figure out maybe how you can get, get rid of it. But you need to know where you're starting from. And then from there, it's really about owning your name and you, I mean, if someone does a, if someone does a Google search on you, you need to be like, you need to own that first page. You need to own it. You need to have lots of content, lots of information, lots of what you want. You want there, like you were talking about, you need to own the narrative on your name.

Kathleen (21:23): So I have a story around that I have to share. So my married name, Kathleen Booth, you know, it's not the most unique name on the planet. And, but I have a lot of content. So I have a bunch of like first page Google results, but it turns out that there is a really famous computer scientist, Kathleen Booth, who's responsible for inventing a certain programming language and she's, I think she's no longer alive. But you know, Google has the, the information panel where it has on the right side of the, of the search engine results pages. And for a while there, it was putting my picture next to her biography.

Claire (22:05): Oh, wow.

Kathleen (22:07): She wouldn't be like 120 or something right now. And it was just so funny because there, I have a Google alert on my name. So every time I've mentioned in an article or something, I get an email about it. And I discovered this because I got an email. And then, and then there was actually a tweet that followed it, that a publication had written an article about the talk women in computing. And I was like named as one of the top 10. And they had tagged me on Twitter and they'd included my picture. And I was like, I had to reach out and be like, you guys, that woman is no longer alive and would probably be 120 years old. If she was so much as I love this accolade, like you need to take it down. And it just, it was just so funny because I think it weirdly, it's easier said than done, like getting your picture disassociated with with a, it's like an AI result in Google.

Kathleen (22:58): Like it's not something that somebody enters in, it's them pulling information out of the information graph. So I guess that leads me to my question, which is, you know, it's one thing to say, you need to own your name. It's entirely another thing to do it. And yes, you can create a lot of content, but, you know, do you have certain strategies if, for people in situations like mine where there's a famous historical figure with my name or somebody who, whose name is like John Smith, which is super generic how do you stand out in those situations?

Claire (23:29): You, I mean, you definitely just need to make sure that you're kind of the one that's shouting the loudest, if your, your, your, any of your content, your name, anything like that is associated with this wrong person, make sure you fix that. We haven't, we have a client that this has happened to he there's somebody else in Singapore who is, is like, has done a lot in I think also the competing space and we're just like, Nope, separate clients. And so we're always on it to make sure that they're separate or it's. Yeah. And so I just think that's basically it, but you ha you have to create that content that is going to kind of get some most you know, so constantly share it on social media. You've got to have people linking to it so that it's, it's all about back links and the shares and that sort of thing. And so when you have that content and that's what will get you, you know, you to own that first page of your name, but yes, it's, it's work if you're kind of working against somebody else that has a lot of backlinks success essentially, and a lot of activity on their social media. So yes, you, you need to be there doing the same thing and you need to probably do it a lot louder than they are

Kathleen (24:39): In the entertainment world. There's this thing where like, you can't have two people at the exact same name, right? So this is why you have people who have assumed names and this and that. What are your feelings about, like in the business world about incorporating your middle name or like

Claire (24:55): I was gonna, I was gonna mention that. Yeah, you can always use your, your middle name, middle name, middle initial to make sure that people find you and not that other person, especially if it's an uphill battle that you're really fighting against somebody else that is creating great content as well. That's it? It will be a pedal. And so if you just wanted to kind of not deal with the battle again, if you have a married thing that you can use, use your married name. Yeah. You might have to just kind of decide where you want to go. But if, if you are really dealing with a huge battle, because your name is very common, then you switch it up, go by that name professionally. Essentially,

Kathleen (25:34): I have a good friend who also has previously been a podcast guest on this podcast. George B. Thomas, who has done exactly that he's made the middle initial B like just a part of his name, like his friends, everybody who knows him, like people, it's George B. Thomas. It's never George Thomas ever. He's been really good about consistently using that. And so if you ever search online for George B. Thomas, it's easy to find him, but if you searched for George Thomas, I don't know. I don't know if it would be as visible.

Claire (26:03): Yeah. Well, and, and, you know, obviously if you use a middle initial or you kind of switch it up a little bit, it's going to be easier to get the domain name, your, all the social media handles and everything like that. So yes, you need to figure out what name you can get and then own it across everything. So if you have a very common name yeah. Just, just using middle initial or you can, I mean, yeah, you have, essentially, you may have to come up with a stage name, like you were saying, like an actor would have to because you really want to make sure that you're standing out.

Kathleen (26:34): So your goal number one is to own your name. And I think you've, you've taught, you've mentioned a few things that could help with that. One is creating content sharing that content. Another, you talked about getting a domain, like how important is it to have a website?

Claire (26:49): Very, very important, because it's what you own. You don't own your Instagram handle your YouTube. So you can't, yeah, you can't be, if you do something that violates their terms, you may not have even knowingly done something. And all of a sudden they turn off your account. You need to have somewhere that people where you actually own your domain. And so it's all about driving people back to what you which is your domain, your content and that sort of thing. So make sure that it is one home and hopefully get people's email addresses so that you can continue to contact them because that's all you own. Really.

Kathleen (27:26): Yeah. Now, I mean, obviously we can, we can talk for hours about the digital side of this and I, and I do want to talk more about it, but I'm really curious what your take is on. If somebody is building a personal brand, like how far into the different aspects of their life should the tentacles of that brand reach. And I'll give you an example of what I mean by that question. Another woman I know who is a published author has a personal brand as a female entrepreneur. And hold on, I'll just mention her name, Danielle Tate. And she published a book called the elegant entrepreneur and the book on the book cover, she's wearing a red dress and the colors are like black and white and red. And she literally, her wardrobe is black and white and red. That those are the only colors she wears, which I thought was so interesting. And it had never occurred to me before I met her. That like that somehow your, the color choices of your clothes could be a part of your brand. Like, so I'm, I'd love to just hear your take on, on how much does the brand need to permeate the different aspects of your life beyond just your digital presence.

Claire (28:35): Interesting. I'm glad you explained that because I actually thought of it from a different perspective. So I'm glad that you, that you explain that I think it's whatever you're really, really comfortable with, but if you really, if you think about a brand that everyone is, you know, you think about the new, the Doritos ads where they just literally have the chip, right. And you're supposed to know that that's Doritos. That's why the brand is so important. So if your color is so important, you always wear a red blazer or whatever it is. I'm not wearing anything now, now, but purple is my color. Like a deep purple.

Kathleen (29:07): Wait let's clarify, you are wearing something. You're just not wearing a particular color because you said I'm not wearing anything right now.

Claire (29:12): Oh yeah, no, no. I'm not wearing the PR that's a whole nother brand. But yeah, a lot of times I will wear purple without even really realizing it just because it's something that I always gravitate to. So it's, it's what I have in my, in my logo. So I think that you just need to figure out where, how far you want to go with it. But I think that's a very, I love that idea of the fact that she's always wearing those same colors, because if you think about it, if you, you know if you just kind of see her in a distance, you know, and she's wearing that color, you're like, Oh, there she is. I picked her up.

Kathleen (29:47): Well, it's like Steve jobs wearing the black guy. That was just so you, so associate that outfit choice with him. Yes. All right. So, so somebody comes to you and they have to own their name, but like walk me through what,

Claire (30:04): So you were talking about how far do you want it to permeate into your life? And I one of the things that I really, I really always talk about is privacy. You need to know, you need to know how far you're willing to go in that aspect of your life, whether you're willing to share personal information about, about your background, your, your, you know, wherever it is, your spouse, your boyfriend, girlfriend, whatever it is your children, you need to know kind of how far you want to get personal with that. And that is a, that is a very important choice. So that originally, that's what I thought you were talking about for how deep you want to go. And a lot of people don't want to go down that path. So I feel like you can be, you can share personal details about yourself, but you don't, you can make, I mean, for me, I never, I never talked about my family.

Claire (30:54): I just don't, I, I it's, they didn't choose to kind of be the one that's front and center I did. So I don't, I don't, I very rarely will show my husband and things like that. And I just, that's how I feel comfortable. So you that's, that's something that you needed to decide. And if you change your mind, you can always change your mind. But a lot, I know that most of my clients are very concerned with their privacy and their family, and they want to keep them separate. And so we can find ways to, to bring in aspects of their life and their, you know, personality without talking about their family.

Kathleen (31:25): Yeah. I talk about my husband a lot because he's in marketing and he doesn't care, but I don't talk about my children. Not only because I don't think I should, but they would probably kill me if I did.

Claire (31:39): I talk about my dogs a lot.

Claire (31:42): You see a lot of dogs in my feed.

Kathleen (31:44): Yeah. Interesting. So when I think about building a personal brand, I, one of the things I always think about is like that old quote, the, your brand is what people say about you when you're not in the room. Like, so it's like Claire Bahn is what, what comes after that, or Kathleen Booth is what, so obviously with building a brand, you, what you're trying to do in part is shape that narrative. So in my mind, I always think about like, what do I want to be known for? What do I want to be known as I imagine you must have similar conversations with your clients. And I would love to understand how you work through that process, because I think it's surprisingly more difficult than it would seem that it should be. And, and I imagine, I know for me, at least how I answered that question evolved over time, which I also think is interesting. So like, I'm curious to get your take on how set in stone is that, or does that evolve? So I, that's kind of a big topic and not exactly a question, but I'd love to hear

Claire (32:52): We do have this happen a lot because a lot of our clients are multifaceted and have, you know, amazing credentials and things that they've done in their life and things that they're experts on. We really kind of do a deep dive and figure out what we can own first, what are the keywords we can own first? And those are the ones we attack first, because again, you're going after backlinks, you're going after shares and all this sort of stuff. So if you really own this space, and then you add to it, Google is going to say, okay, well, they'll give you more juice for the, for the stuff that maybe you have a lot more competition on if you actually own. And you're having a ton of, you have a ton of content on something else, especially if they're related. And so that's essentially what we, what we do. So it's okay.

Kathleen (33:39): Very much a kind of a classic SEO approach. Yes, yes. Done through the lens of personal branding, which you know, these days, if you're doing SEO, it means you're creating content. And you've already talked about that in the beginning. Lots of, of executives that I know are very reluctant content creators and you kind of touched on like, you know, you don't necessarily need to be on video or this or that. Can you talk a little bit about how you figure out what is the right kind of content for somebody to create and do they always create it themselves, or do you pair them with someone who helps them or who ghost writes or who, you know, like how do you get the content out of their brain and out into the world?

Claire (34:21): Right. Well, so when someone comes on and they're in our concierge program that we have essentially again, we figure out what keywords we're going to tackle first. And then we create content. We do that with blogs. So long form blogs. We do have writers in-house that, that write all the blogs. And most of our clients from there, we also do kind of Q and A's. And we kind of, they do video Q and A's tackling a particular question, or it might relate to what we've covered in a blog, but yeah, we basically make sure that they always kind of are, again, are shaping that narrative and either through a blog or through a video, but when we do create the long form blogs, obviously you're thinking 2000 plus words, you need to make sure that you have them in there. So we asked for like a, either give me a video of yourself, just literally on your iPhone, tell me how you're feeling on this topic, and then we'll expand from there. So we always make sure that we get what they're feeling on every aspect of whatever we decide to cover.

Kathleen (35:25): Now, you know, obviously there are lots of ingredients that go into building the brand, but then there's the, okay. You have built your brand. Like you are a brand to what end, what then do you find that many of the executives you work with have certain goals in mind, whether it's to speak at a conference or to publish a book? Like what, what's the end game for most of them?

Claire (35:50): I mean, it's, it's all, it's basically what you said. So yes. Speaking engagements it's when we have investors, we have angel investors that work with us and they want deal flow. So they want the deals to come directly to them instead of them having to seek all these great things. Right. So, yeah, it's, it's opportunities deal flow belonging to certain organizations being asked to join certain syndicates, obviously, if they're an angel investor, there's angel investor in syndicates. So our clients have been invited to join these groups rather than them seeking them out. People seek them out. So it's, it's really about opportunities, press industry recognition, getting the opportunity to speak. So yeah, all of those things, those are usually what our clients want. Maybe it's to write a book, but again, you're going to have people coming to you saying, Hey, I have this, this idea.

Claire (36:42): I'd love to help you with this book. You know? So those things will come to you, especially if you're constantly sharing your expertise and your ideas and all of that will come to you. Because I, one of the things that I always say is you don't want to just be another choice. You want to be, be only choice in your market. And that's only going to be there by constantly sharing your expertise and showing why you are the only choice. Why, why someone should want to work with you. And again, it goes back to the, what I said before, because you, people are going to connect with certain people that are going to connect with me. I, you know, my background is in New York, I'm a straight shooter. I don't, you know, but sometimes my, my, the way I work, it doesn't people don't like it, but a lot of people do. So that's, who's going to be magnetized to me. If someone else is just like really laid back, you know, they're like San Diego, they're like brah, you know, they're going to love that person. They're not going to love me. Cause I am not that person, a lot of those around here.

Kathleen (37:43): Now, do you ever work with clients who come to you because they want to build a brand so that they can monetize it? Like they want to be a professional speaker or, you know, basically be paid essentially to go out and talk to groups and things like that.

Claire (37:58): Most of the, most of the time it's so not necessarily to be paid, but yes. I mean, obviously to have something that will, I like being part of a syndicate being part of an angel investing group being asked to be a limited partner. So again, they'll get payment from it, but it's not like a specific thing. Right. It's, it's kind of all, and a lot of times it's many it's ideas and then things just kind of start coming and then we get other ideas for new content and new ways to new directions for them to go to. And things like that based on the opportunities that are coming their way

Kathleen (38:31): That's. So I know saying that you work with so many investors, it's not, that's not a category that I would have thought of as one that would invest so much in personal brand building. But as I hear you explain it, it makes a ton of sense.

Claire (38:41): Well, what was interesting is for online profile pros and we're going out for investment. So I was in San Francisco a lot. It was doing a lot of networking events here in LA and I met an investor. And I did a Google search because if you've ever done investor, you've ever gone through investment, you know, you need to give a lot of details. You're given every bit of detail about your business. So I'm like, why should I trust this person again, going back to the know, like, and trust, why should I trust this person with all the details about my business? Who is this person? And that was one of the biggest things. Yeah. And so basically he became our first client actually, so that it just kind of came organically because he knew there was a missing link for him as well, because he didn't have the opportunities that he felt that he should.

Claire (39:26): And now he does. So I love it. Yeah, that's, that's kind of how it happened because it, it really is important for everybody. Even if you are somebody that's helping somebody else, the other person still has a decision. Do they go with this investor? Do they keep looking for another investor because you have to give a lot of information. And you, you know, a lot of personal details, business details, you have to do a lot of work. Sometimes you're like, is it worth it? If this person really is not who they say they are. And if you've gone down the investment bank, you know exactly what I'm talking about with the amount of time and effort and meetings and all the things you have to do. So you want to make sure that they actually are who they say they are.

Kathleen (40:10): Well, and I'm sure it works the other way too, because if they're going to put all their money behind you, they're going to want to know who you are.

Claire (40:14): Exactly. So it's both. So yeah, so we work with founders and we worked with an investor, so it just kind of happened just because again, I was in that space talking to people, meeting people, and then they saw kind of what I did. They saw this initial investor and they were like, how do you, how do you have this amazing personal brand? Well, Claire helped me. So it's been a lot of referrals based on again, just doing, doing really good solid work. Yeah.

Kathleen (40:39): Well, I could talk about this for hours, but we're going to shift gears because we're running out of time. So there's two questions. I always ask all my guests. And first one is the podcast being all about inbound marketing. Is there a particular company or individual that, that comes to mind when you think of, you know, the gold standard for inbound marketing?

Claire (41:02): I mean, I, you know, I, I always think of, like, I think for marketing people, I often there are two, I know that you have two questions. I feel like my answers are probably for both is the same, but I, I always look at Gary V and Neil Patel because I look to them for a lot of guidance on what's hot, what's working, what you should be doing. You know, you think of Gary V talking about like, don't be perfect. That's like one of the biggest things you tell your clients, you're never going to be perfect. Just don't seek it out. It's going to be the enemy of good. Yes. So I think that I love what they're doing. Cause they're, they're especially gravy, very, very authentic, very real and personable.

Kathleen (41:48): Then maybe we already know the answer to my second question, which is digital marketers already saying it's really hard to keep up with all the changes in the industry. How do you stay educated? I'm assuming you subscribe to those two blocks?

Claire (41:59): Yes. Well, definitely, definitely. Neil. I we've done, I've done some programs with him and worked with him in the past and yeah, always, always really, you know, put his money where his mouth is like, he's, you know, you've seen it, any of the challenges he's done or he said, Hey, I'm willing to do this. You know, I'm going to get this many followers in this period of time and I'm going to do this thing to see if it works based on what I, what I'm doing. And I really liked that because you can kind of see the stuff that he's constantly doing. He's got a huge team. They're always thinking of new ideas. So yeah those are two that I always look for.

Kathleen (42:33): Awesome. All right. Well, if someone's listening and they're interested in connecting with you online, or they want to learn more about the kind of work you do, what's the best way for them to find you?

Claire (42:46): Clairebahn.com. I own my name and that's B A H N and yes. So Claire C L A I R E B A H N.com.

Kathleen (42:57): Awesome. And I will put a link to your site in the show notes. So if you're listening head there and you'll be able to find information on how to connect with Claire and thank you so much for joining me, this is a fun conversation. I love your background and how it started in acting. I think that's so interesting and it really gives you kind of a different perspective on this topic. And if you are listening and you enjoyed this episode as always, I would really appreciate it if you would head to Apple podcasts or the platform of your choice and leave the podcast a review. That is what helps us get found by other listeners. And if you know someone else doing amazing inbound marketing work, tweet me at @workmommywork because I would love to interview them. That's it for this week. Thank you so much for joining me, Claire.

Claire (43:43): Thank you so much for having me.

With so many marketing software tools available, it can be hard to pinpoint the ones that can really move the marketing needle without breaking the bank.

This week on The Inbound Success Podcast, Voy Media founder Kevin Urrutia talks about three lesser known marketing tools that have made a big difference for his business.

A self-taught marketer who studied computer science, Kevin loves discovering new tools that can save him time and give him access to information he can use to improve his marketing results.

In this episode, he explains how he's using Visual Ping, Phantom Buster and Zapier to get big results on a small budget.

Check out the full episode, or read the transcript below, for details.

Resources from this episode:

• Visit the Voy Media website
• Follow Kevin on Twitter
• Contact Kevin by email at [email protected]

Kathleen (00:00):Welcome back to the inbound success podcast. I'm your host, Kathleen Booth. And today my guest is Kevin Urrutia, who is the founder of Voy Media. Welcome Kevin.

Kevin (00:37): Hey, thanks for having me. Super excited to be here.

Kathleen (00:39): I'm really excited to talk with you. I think we have kind of a fun topic. But before we get into our topic of the day, can you tell my listeners a little bit more about yourself and your journey and what you're doing now and what Voy Media is?

Kevin (00:55): Yeah. So my name is Kevin Urrutia and my background to the part of make more sense throughout the conversation is I went to college for computer science. So I always was into programming, doing software, software design, and really my, when I was doing computer science, it's a lot of like C plus plus Java, but really what I gravitated towards too was more of the front end stuff. So like JavaScript, HTML, and a lot of that was also to do with the graphic design. So I also did study graphic design in college as well. So that's sort of like visual slash programming aspect was always what I was drawn to.

Kathleen (01:29): That's an interesting combination.

Kevin (01:32): So like I love computer stuff, but I knew that I didn't want to do like the backend stuff because I was like, no, one's going to see that. I want to build stuff and see stuff that people will see and can be like, Oh, that looks cool. So that's really where I did that. And then after college I went to San Francisco. So I was living there for four or five years. I would tell people like I'm from New York, San Francisco was like the Mecca, like this was like seven years ago. And when I got a job there, I was like, yes, like I needed to go there. I'd never once traveled there, like growing up. But like I knew, like from just reading stuff reading these like tech articles, reading these tech founders, I was like, there's gotta be something in Silicon Valley that I need to go and figure out how I can get there.

Kathleen (02:18): You felt the gravitational pull.

New Speaker (02:20): I had to. Yeah. And I was just like, even for me, like I, so I'm in New York and I got a job offer at ESPN and I tell people all the time, like great place to go at that time in my life, I was like dating this girl. And she also got a job. She also got like she was always going to UConn and she was like, this is perfect for us. But in my mind, I was just like, Oh man, like this is going to be a tough decision. Like I'm like I told her, like, I don't want to go to Yukon like this. I don't want to go to Connecticut. Essentially. I don't. I think this is like, my dream has been to go to Silicon Valley and I'm gonna see, I'm gonna keep applying for jobs.

Kevin (02:57): They're going to make me there. And obviously we didn't stay together because big sort of shifted like what your goals were. But at least for me, when I went to Silicon Valley, it was everything I imagined it was what I wanted and what I wanted to do. And it really kind of like made me want to do more entrepreneurship, more startup stuff, because everybody there wasn't like me and it made sense. That kind of led me to do startups and they're doing competitions, they're just building stuff. And then I kind of came back to New York cause after five years I was like, Hey, I want to move back on to build my own thing. And then there, I built a section in my first company, which was a first like real company in between there. I was like building stuff. But in there I was building a cleaning company called Maid Sellers. And we did a lot of like home cleanings. And then I did e-commerce and then now what I do as concept before I do Voy media, which we help other brands, e-commerce companies or info products advertise online. So that's kind of like the journey of getting from like programming to when I do marketing now.

Kathleen (03:56): I love that. I, I it's, it's really interesting because I've spoken to a lot of marketers over the past three years hosting this podcast. I mean, I think I'm almost on episode 180 and you know, you start to see patterns emerge when you talk to that many people. And one of the patterns that I've seen is that many times the, some of the best marketers that I interview are not trained as marketers. They have studied other things. And I think I have this theory about it and it's, and, and my theory is that it has to do with the best marketers, regardless of their educational background, they might be trained as marketers, or they might not be, but the best ones are people who are just really avid students of the human mind. Like how do people think, how do people make decisions? What gets them ticking, right? Because that makes you so good at marketing. If you're fascinated with people and, and, and what motivates them, you can be a good marketer. So I just think that's interesting that you come from that kind of a background.

Kevin (04:57): Yeah. And I think that too, for me too, like I had that same thought too with sort of, at least for me with like any sort of thing that requires like programming. Right. For example, I did programming a lot in Silicon Valley and I was working with some really smart programmers and I would ask them like, Hey, what's your background? Like, Oh, I went to college for like design or writing, but they're so good at programming. And I was just like, wow, it's like crazy. Like, you're just like really good at this. Cause you get it. And it's like, I would look at their code. My roommate is an example. Like he would, we would talk about a problem and the way he would break it down and be like, well, there's something in your mind that like, I just, like, I can't think of programs like that.

Kevin (05:39): Because you just get that sort of way of thinking. And for me marketing was that when I was in marketing, I was like, Oh, I get like how people are thinking like, this is why I gravitate towards more marketing. Because even though it's Silicon Valley, I was like training programming in my mind. I was just like, wow, I'm never going to be the best programmer I needed to like, figure out what I'm good at, because I know that like I'm talking to other people, I'm just like, Oh my God, you're so much better than me. Like I just need to find something different. Right. So

Kathleen (06:07): Well, and the other thing I think is great about you. And one of the reasons I'm excited to chat with you is that you do have this like computer science background because marketing has evolved so much in the last two decades and today, like, I don't think it's an over-exaggeration to say that, you know, every marketer needs to have some degree of ability to work with code. Like I always joke, I know enough CSS to be dangerous, right. Like I can get in there and I can manipulate the code and I can spot problems in code I'm by no means a programmer. But like, you have to know these things these days. And that's probably why you're so good at some of the stuff we're going to talk about today. Which is cool tools that you might not be using. And for those listening I love this topic because nothing gets me more excited than when I discover some obscure software tool that does something that, that previously here to for has been like a manual slog for me, or I didn't think was possible.

Kathleen (07:16): And like, there's just something that gets you so excited about knowing, Oh my God, this is the easy button right here. And then it also can open up all kinds of possibilities for different things that you can do with your marketing that you maybe couldn't do before. And there's, I have a ton of tools that I've discovered that have gotten me excited, but I thought it was really fun listening to you talk about some of the tools you're using. So today we're going to dig into that and we're going to hear about some of the awesome, like hacks and shortcuts you've discovered with tools.

Kathleen (07:49): What's the first tool that you want to highlight?

Kevin (07:52): Yes. So the first tool I really, I love using and we still use to this day is called Visual Ping. There's also another alternative to this one that you can do is called Phantom Buster. But Visual Ping is a really great, easy to easy tool to use and what it is, it's essentially a screenshot tool. And basically the tool go out there to any website, let's say google.com and every single day that's at 9:00 AM. I'll take a screenshot of the, the homepage and what makes, so that sounds basic, but what's cool about the tool is that let's say today is, you know, Friday, Saturday, Google updates, maybe a button, the tool, then email you saying, Hey, there's been a change on that website. And it will actually highlight what the changes are. Cause they'll do like a comparison or a difference between yesterday and today and the next day.

Kevin (08:41): And that sounds so basic, but really it's kinda like support it's like once you sort of understand like, Oh, that's interesting that it basic track changes. And now the way, the way we've used it here and made sellers was we compete with, for cleaning local businesses. So what we did was we had the tool just sort of track competitor's pricing pages. And when we would see that their pricing pages would change, we would then get notified of it. And that's a great thing about what you said before. It's like, you can check it every day, but like after checking maybe five days, you'll probably be like, eh, they're not going to change and you kind of forget, right. It's like, ah, it's like, nothing's going to happen. Right. It's like, it's that same like thing, but you don't see any changes. You kind of just like, Oh, I'll check it like next month.

Kevin (09:21): And then next month you forget, you got busy. But like what this tool, you'll just get an email saying, Hey this company has changed our pricing or something has changed. Right. They will change the pricing. Exactly. And then you can go and see and maybe update your internal spreadsheets because we also have a spreadsheet of every price, every competitor that we have, that will be nowhere where we sit in the market. But yeah, that's sort of like one aspect of using Visual Ping, another way that we use it. And the way I like using it the most is I like to track Google search results with this tool. So you type in your keyword in Google, you put in like, you know, for, for example, for cleaning maid services NYC, I like to see who's the top three and where we shift in those rankings because Google rankings change every day.

Kevin (10:03): So you're probably gonna get an email every day, but at least for me, I'm like, I'd like to know like, how are you, you're moving up and down, especially when Google has these massive updates where you went up and down and just track little changes the competitor doing. I think people know when you go to Google, you see like the blue title, like the header, and then you see like the description, those are super helpful with ranking. So it's interesting to see what the top two companies are doing. So then maybe you can change it on your website. So Visual Ping, great tool. I love that one. It's, it's free not really free for like certain amount of usage, like any tool, but then if you could pay more for credits and really, if you think about difference tracking that's really good one.

Kevin (10:42): And the reason why this tool came to mind to me was because then coding, there's a website called GitHub and whenever you push a change, they'll show you like, Hey, this is the code that was before, this was a code that is now. And that's so useful to see like when something breaks. So you think about it like as your website as well. If something's changing, maybe somebody, someone, your team changed something if you're working in a big marketing team, like let's see how landing pages are changing for yourself or, or something converting drops. So those are that's one way to think about that tool is when you want to track differences.

Kathleen (11:11): I, so this was really interesting to me because I feel like in all the groups I'm in, there's a lot of conversation about like, Ooh, what competitive analysis software should we be using? And there's lots of big players in that market and that software is not inexpensive. And one of the things that people use it for is exactly this use case. They use it to track how their competitors are updating their websites. And I love the fact that this is a way to do it for like almost no money because not everybody can afford to spend. I don't even know how much some of those platforms cost, but I think it's like over a thousand dollars a month, let's say that's a major investment major. And unless you're doing something with that information to really, you know, drive tremendous ROI, it's not worth it. And so here's a situation where you can be scrappy. You can still do that same kind of competitive analysis, but you can just do it with Visual Ping. And I mean, I feel like my brain is firing, cause there's probably a thousand other ways to use this. But I particularly love tracking the pricing pages or like really any pages on competitor websites for changes in messaging you know, looking at product pages to see how they update the language on their product. If you have a competing product, those are all,

Kevin (12:30): Yeah, exactly. There's so many like ways to do it, but yeah, that's exactly why I found the tool useful because I want the competitor analysis software, but a lot of times it's super, super expensive and you just want like one feature out of like the 30 features they have. And you're just like, I'm not going to pay 5k for this. Like, let me pay 30 bucks a month. Then it's a little bit of manual work, but it's like the scrappy way to do it. And once you can do this now, it's like, you're, you're, you're kind of limitless with like the ideas that you have sometimes. And then that makes you think like, why are these softwares charging you so much? Like, this is an easy, that's like, that's what I think about it. I'm like, this is an easy tool. Like it's so extensive. Yeah.

Kathleen (13:06): Yeah. Now earlier, when you were talking about Visual Ping, you mentioned that there was another tool called Phantom Buster that could do the same thing. Phantom Buster I had been aware of. And that was one of those ones where I found it and I was like, this is the coolest thing. Cause it does a lot. It does a lot of stuff beyond what Visual Ping does. So, so let's start talking about Phantom Buster. I'm curious how you're using it.

Kevin (13:31): Yeah. So yeah. So Phantom Buster is think about as visual, Visual Ping as does the screenshots. This is just one feature of Phantom Buster. Phantom Buster is like the way to describe it is like anything that you can do with like on a computer, they, with a web browser, they can automate it all for you. And some ideas that you can think about like, yeah, fan ambassador.com. It's a great website, but basically let's say at least for one way that we're using it here at boy is we do a lot of Facebook ads with Phantom Buster. The tool will actually like it's called like a headless browser. We're basically like behind the scenes, we'll log in, in their system, right? Wherever they're using you input your Facebook credentials, he'll log into your Facebook account and then you can give it a list of Facebook pages.

Kevin (14:19): Remember Facebook pages could be, your competitors could be your own your own, your own ads. Let's say you're hired to work with the agency. You can say, Hey, like I want to see what ads they're making up. And then it'll go to the ad library, at least for us. Cause that's an important part of, of, of the page. And then it'll take a screenshot again, of all their ads that you're running. And then you can actually save those in an Excel sheet. So visual sorry, Phantom Buster is like this automation chain. So like I'll take a log, you in, take a screenshot and then it'll say like, Hey, let me say all those URLs in an Excel sheet. And then in your Excel sheet again with Excel has macros. Now you could do a bunch of other stuff too. And like, say like what's the text on it.

Kevin (15:01): But basically that's kind of like the core of Phantom Buster, where, and again, this is just one thing in Phantom Buster, you can do so much more. Another thing that we've seen, we've seen well, brick wall before too, is I was telling you, it's like, let's say you have an email list of people that you want to contact. You can actually put those first names and emails into an Excel sheet. Phantom Buster will then read that data. And potentially let's say you want to find them on LinkedIn elk. We're trying to find their LinkedIn profile and then put in that profile into your URL. So then now if you're doing cold outreach, you can then send them a message on LinkedIn. So basically you see all that process of kind of like, like SDR work can be automated. So Phantom Buster helps that.

Kevin (15:39): So like the way I think about it's like if you're doing a task over and over again, try to see if Phantom Buster can do that for you. And there's a lot of these built in automation essentially, but you can code it as well. And that's an expandable of powerful. It's like you can code all the stuff. And the reason why I think like this is so important is because people probably know when you're doing all this sort of scraping essentially right. Scraping the data. You can sometimes get paralyzed by like, let's say LinkedIn by Phantom. Buster has like proxies that allow you to sort of like limitations and throttles throttles you so that you're, you can do like a hundred at a time, but it won't do like in the next minute, it'll say like, okay, let's wait five minutes. That will, you're not like getting banned. So Phantom Buster is smart enough to know this and really wants to work with you to get your tests done. So that's one way we think about it, at least for us the tracking the Facebook that's so important. Like again, it's competitive research. We want to know what ads other companies are doing, how they're doing it. If somebody looks different, we will then go in and be like, okay, let's maybe copy that ad and see why they're, why they're doing that change.

Kathleen (16:43): There's definitely a, an aspect to Phantom Buster that's like, use your powers for good and not evil. Because I've heard a lot of people talk about using it with reference to LinkedIn, for example, like, and one of the use cases that that I have heard is, you know, if, if for example, if you're if there's a certain LinkedIn group and you're like, everybody in that group is an awesome qualified prospect or everybody with X job title is a great prospect for me, you can scrape the profiles, get all the email addresses. And, but then it's like what you do with it. That's really kind of the question, right? And I mean, to me, you could do audience match ads. That to me is, you know, on other platforms potentially. You know, what I wouldn't want to do is like cold outreach email, all of them or you could come up with a list for your SDR to reach out to that. And it's just a quicker way of creating that list of targets, but it is so interesting and there's so many different ways to use it. So have you used it in any other ways besides those?

Kevin (17:45): So other ways that we use it are obviously the screenshots, other ways that we use it too, a big one that we used to do before, it was probably kind of like what used to be four it's like Instagram automation was a big one on, on Phantom Buster

Kathleen (17:57): In what way?

Kevin (18:00): So basically what you can do with it, same thing with like, before you can log into your Instagram account, and then you could potentially just kind of like, if you like hashtags, you can, it will go in and sort of like posts in that. And then that would help you sort of at least show up in the algorithm more. And then people would say like, Oh, who's Kevin liking all my posts. Let me go his content. Interesting. Let me go, like, let me go follow him back. So there's a way to sort of like automate that like kind of like process of like people knowing who you are because you will, you like their stuff. Stuff like this doesn't really kind of used to before. It doesn't really work well anymore. Instagram has kind of like said like, no, like we can detect this type of stuff. So it used to work really well. I remember four years ago Instagram didn't have like a limit on how many people you could follow. So people were finding like thousands of people at like a minute and it's just like, Oh my God. Oh, the followers.

Kathleen (18:50): And that's, those are examples of like marketers ruin everything, right. Just because you can, does not mean you should.

Kevin (18:57): Like, that's what I said, Phantom Buster is, there's all these stuff that you can use, but it's, it's kinda like anything. It's how you use it. If you want to do natural way, you could do it. But again, if you go crazy, you're just gonna get abandoned. Then what's the point of using these tools if you're only gonna last for like a month, right. It's like anything. Right,

Kathleen (19:13): Right. All right, so we've got Visual Ping. We got Phantom Buster. What else do you have in your back pocket?

Kevin (19:20): So another, another one that we really like used to use is this one's like kind of a mix of two things. Zapier. People know Zapier. Zapier is kind of, think about Zapier is kind of like the non visual way of Phantom Buster. With Zapier, the companies actually need to like develop an API or application programming interface to work with each other. And so Zapier allows this. And the thing about Zapier, it's kind of like, it's more safe because you're not like kind of scraping Zapier saying, Hey, no, these companies that have been on our platform because they're allowed to be on here. So Zapier is kind of like a safe card that way. But how we, how we've done, how we use Zapier here, many ways like, like my zap is like crazy. Like I think I wouldn't charge like 500 a month because I have so many zaps.

Kevin (20:10): So a few ways I've used it for my cleaning company. So we so basically we here in New York, we only clean certain zip codes. So in Zapier, when we get a new booking or a new cleaning in Zapier, the booking will go through Zapier, Zapier will then scrape that sort of API does zip code. And then we'll still do like a pattern matching in Zapier. And we'll say, Hey, if this is, if this zip code isn't in our target service area, then send our customer service a message saying, Hey, this customer just booked a cleaning, but they're not our service area called them. So they can cancel the booking that way. It's like a better, instead of like the customer service rep, reading, every booking that comes in and just, or specific ones, and that's helps us with like customer service productivity, because now we know too. And the reason why this was useful for us is because we wouldn't recognize these sort of booking until like, let's say the day up and the customer be. It's like, Hey, why don't you tell us? So it's like, you see how, like, some of this stuff is because of you just need a solution. So that's one way we use it.

Kathleen (21:11): So this reminds me, this reminds me so much of an interview I did. My gosh. I don't remember when it was a long time ago with a guy named Connor Malloy from Chi City Legal. It's a law firm in Chicago and it's him and just his partner. It's two lawyers. They don't have any staff or anything. And he, it was such a great interview because he basically has automated his entire business using Zapier. And it's super impressive what he was able to do with it. And I just, I've always loved that episode. And I talk about it a lot because it's a great example of you do not need a big team or a big budget or fancy software to do really cool stuff. And this is the same thing. Like, you know, you don't have to have like a very sophisticated marketing automation platform or a lot of money to spend on your tech stack. Like, I think you're, you're talking about a lot of similar things to what Connor did. And, and I, that gets me excited because I love solutions that are accessible to anybody.

Kevin (22:11): That's why Zapier, I think is so powerful because once you it's so funny, because once we did some, a few automations in the company and like other team members started looking at it, they're like, they're trying to automate everything. I'm like, all right. Let's like, relax, like relax. Because then you realize like, basically you realize, Oh, I don't do, I don't have to do any work.

Kathleen (22:30): Robots are running my business. And then you have those nightmares about Zapier breaking down and your whole business coming to a crashing point, right.

Kevin (22:37): For us, that's like, that's, that's what our nightmare, because even like, kinda what you said before. So we have our booking platform for the cleaning company. And we just said like, Hey, we don't need any more emails because of puzzled emails, because all the bookings go through Zapier and Zapier. We have another Slack that says, anytime there's a booking, it'll go through Zapier. And so basically another, another zap that we did with Zapier was that similar to what I said before, protecting the zip code, we can also detect the address. And then we'll put the address into like we're in New York city street easy. And then we'll just have a link automatically we'll link to the StreetEasy address. And then the customer service rep can go and see, Hey, does this booking size match the actual home? And if it does great, we don't do anything.

Kevin (23:19): If it doesn't, we have to call a customer service customer and say, Hey, look, we booked the one bedroom, but your house is a pretty bedroom. What exactly are you looking for? Is it like one room or an Airbnb? And then that helps us with that stuff. So like I said, it's pretty cool. Yeah. So like, all this stuff was like stuff that we're doing automatically. We're like manually. It's like, okay, like Zapier, if you just give us the link and then we just click and then open. So that's the great thing about Zapier. Other ways that we've used it for us too, is, is for kind of like when people contact us, at least for boy media is Zapier has this thing called lead scoring. It's powered by another software called Mad Kudu. So Mad Kudu is super expensive. And it's kind of like a lead scoring platform.

Kevin (24:01): A lot of big companies use it, but they have a partnership with Zapier that they power. Zapier's free tool called lead score in behind the scenes. And you get a hundred free users a month. And basically the lead scoring is really cool because let's say someone contacts you through Zapier, you get three Emil email address, and then you pass it to the lead scoring tool, the lead scoring tool. Then come back with like this like profile of that email what business they work, how big is their business. It'll give you like a lead quality. They'll be like low, medium high. So basically that's kind of like super interesting for you. If you're doing like Lee qualifying low, medium high, that's a great way for you to pass it internally to your sales rep. Hi, I usually get them like, Hey, this is a great lead.

Kevin (24:41): I'll talk to them medium, the second best sales, a third. Okay. The people that were kind of training or testing new programs, because we don't care. Like if we don't close them. Right. And that's the way that, and then that just automatically then distributes to your internal Slack channel of sales and then says, Hey, Kevin, you had a new lead go talk to them or, Hey, John, you have a new lead, go talk to them. And then we know who goes and talks to me versus like us manually saying like, okay, like this looks like your lead. Right. So. Stuff like that.

Kathleen (25:10): That's awesome. Yeah. I did not realize that Zapier had lead scoring.

Kevin (25:15): Yeah, it's, it's really good. I think it's probably one of their most like under used features and they have a lot of these like, like internal zap tools. They have another one like called like one-off emails where you can like send yourself an email. So when something happens in their tool and that's free as well. So of course it's like interesting. Cause that integrates, if you want to Zapier pretty much integrates like almost anything you've ever used them. Like, they're crazy how like big, they they've grown. It's like every tool wants to be on Zapier.

Kathleen (25:45): Well, they're solving a huge problem for not just marketers.

Kevin (25:50): This is business owners. It's like really the cutaways to before. It's like automating your business people all the reason why Zapier is so great because all these integrations before you have to get a developer to make it for you, and you have to find a way to like, sort of like hack the API, but vape you're saying, Hey, look, people want this thing. You guys should make your websites available, programmatically. That way people can use your software more efficiently. And it's crazy. At least for me with my software background, I'm looking at new software, get built. Like if you look at any software request, board number one thing is once the Zapier information

Kathleen (26:23): Coming out and it's like crazy,

Kevin (26:25): Like how people want to just do like Zapier for everything, because they know that like once you pipe into their system, it can go to like 20 different places. And I think for people listening, it's that concept is like, Hey, like you bring it into Zapier. Now you can go anywhere and anywhere it could be kind of, how do you automate that? How do you make it easier for your internal team? How do you make it easy for everybody? Because there's lot of stuff that you probably do that is really just logic. Like, Hey, if this happens, do this and Zapier can do that versus like you doing it yourself.

Kathleen (26:55): Yeah. So the question that comes to my mind when I listened to you talk about all this is you have a degree in computer science engineering. So if somebody is listening, most of my listeners are marketers who don't have that kind of a degree myself included, like, what do you, how skilled you need to be to do these things? Like, do you need to have programming skills?

Kevin (27:20): No. And that's, that's why I love something like Zapier, for example, they make it super easy and you don't have to do any program. It's literally just like a user interface that says like, Hey, we know you want to connect to the service. Here's what the output will be like. And I'll give you like a test sort of like output. And it says like, name, email, last name, zip code, and says, Hey, this is what you would get. If you were to actually do the call, how do you want to process this now? And then it'll go to like hey now connect to the second tool. And this is where it's going to happen. So Zapier has made it super easy to do this for anybody, because exactly they're solving that exact problem. You said it's like, not everybody knows programming. But they want to make it as a way for you to sort of be able to transfer this data.

Kevin (28:03): So that's what I love Zapier. Like they've done out of all the companies. Like I think they've done a really good job of making it super friendly for marketers to do, to do things. And I think that's probably why they've grown so big because it's just like, your possibilities are endless once you, I thought we were like, just do one and try it. And sometimes it's sometimes like anything, you know, it's like, you just get overwhelmed by thinking how hard it could be. But once you do one, I'm like, you'll, you'll go nuts and you'll realize, Oh my God, I'm running. Like I have so many zaps. Like, it's like, that's a little of how it was at my company.

Kathleen (28:33): Now what about Phantom Buster and Visual Ping? Do you need to know any of that?

Kevin (28:36): Yeah. So visual, so Visual Ping is very easy. That's probably the easiest one. It's like, Hey, input, a URL track. That's it. You don't need to do anything. Phantom Buster is a little bit more complicated. I think Phantom Buster out of all of them is the most complicated one because it's like, kind of like the raw version of like Zapier it's, how would you do it? And of course there's built in ones too, but to really make it do a lot of work, you need to like learn about like, how do you integrate with your like Google sheets? And it's like, it makes you kind of like import your cookies. It imports your, your hidden encrypted passwords, all this stuff. That's a little bit more complicated. But it's a lot more powerful because Zapier the ability for you to do zaps, you can only use what's on their platform. Whereas Phantom Buster it's like, if there's no zap, you can go to Phantom Buster and scrape your own sort of data the way and pass it to let's say a Google sheet and then do something else with it. So a Phantom Buster is probably the most complicated one, but not super complicated. It's only gets complicated when you want to do like super customized, customized stuff.

Kathleen (29:42): Wow. So I feel like this has been so much. Fun by the way, I feel like this needs to be a regular kind of topic in the podcast where we talk about cool tools. Cause we haven't really done this before. Unless it's come up as part of a different part of an interview. So I actually want to throw a challenge out to anybody who's listening, which is that we only covered really like three tools here. If you have a really cool tool that you're using that you think people don't know about, but they should tweet me at work, mommy work. And I will come up with a list and I may have another one of these, but I will share the tools out for sure. So tweet me at @workmommywork with the best tools, you know, that are under appreciated or unheard of, and we'll get the word out about them. Or if you have a cool tool that you think more people need to know about. All right, switching gears, Kevin. I always ask my guests two questions and I want to know what you have to say. The first one is obviously the podcast is about inbound marketing. Can you talk a little bit about, is there a person or a company today that you think is really setting the bar for what it means to be a great inbound marketer?

Kevin (30:54): For me, the company would probably have to be Zapier. I think their inbound marketing is probably some of the best. When I talk about in marketing, I'm talking about some of their internal traffic through SEO. They are growing their brand so much by doing reviews of tools, such as let's say Phantom Buster reviews. They rank pretty highly for that, but also they're really smart by all the permutations that they can do. So let's say you can do like Zapier with MailChimp. Zapier with Drip. All that stuff is just getting them so much inbound traffic. And they do great comparisons of like what their tools can do with all of the software. And they're just super smart about it. And if you look at their like SEO growth, it's like crazy. I'm just like, and the thing about the, what I love about them is because every year there's new marketing tech coming out. So they're like limitless with how much they can grow because there's so much, and I'm just like, wow, this company is so smart. I love Zapier.

Kathleen (31:51): That's awesome. I'll check that out. And then, you know, the other thing I hear a lot from my listeners is that as a marketer, it's really challenging to stay up to date with all of this. Like even just the stuff you're talking about. Like it changes so quickly, as you say, new tools are coming out all the time. How do you personally stay up to date on the changing landscape of digital marketing and how do you keep yourself educated?

Kevin (32:12): So for me, the biggest, I love using twitter.com. I think it's like my favorite platform ever. I'm addicted to Twitter. So I just follow marketers on Twitter. Like obviously there's, I'm really big into SEO, for example. I really love following Rand Fishkin. I think he's pretty smart guy.

Kathleen (32:30): He was a guest.

Kevin (32:31): Oh yeah, no, I love Rand. Yeah. He like Moz, like was where I learned almost everything from in the beginning. I tell people like, it's crazy, like just long ago, but yeah, like Rand I just follow, like I try to follow people that I think are like, I try to follow like marketing leaders from like, let's say Zapier. I'm like, okay, who's running their SEO. Like this guy's gotta be smart or right. So I gotta, like, I look for these like really smart marketing for these brands.

Kevin (32:55): Another good brand that I really like is a buffer. So I follow their marketing people from buffer. I think their SEO is great. So I'm like, okay, who are the guys running? The buffer SEO. But for me the way I think what a two it's like, for example, buffer a big company now. But what I like to do is think about, go to LinkedIn and find out who was working for buffer during that growth stage, because maybe they're not there, but these guys have probably, maybe wrote about it, something and think about it. So that's kind of what I think of what it's like a lot of the Buffer's massive now, but the guys that grew it probably aren't there anymore. I need to find those guys.

Kathleen (33:31): Yeah. Well, I have I have some hot tips for you on people to follow on Twitter then if you're into SEO. So one of them, like you said, you like to look at whose running SEO at companies that are really, really good at it. So one of the top SEO guys at HubSpot who's, who does not have a high profile, but who is brilliant is a guy named Victor Pan. So follow him for sure. And he does little rants once a week on certain SEO topics. And the marketing nerd in me is completely obsessed with him cause he gets really specific. And then the other one is Barry Schwartz whose handle is Rusty Brick. He's like, I think if you're not following him for SEO, you you're not following anybody.

Kevin (34:18): Barry somehow knows everything about SEO, any news, like he's up to date he's so yeah.

Kathleen (34:23): Well, whenever I find like anomalies online, I just screenshot them and I tweet them to him and he figures out the answer in like five minutes.

Kevin (34:30): He's really good. Yeah. He runs like Rusty Brick in upstate New York and yeah.

Kathleen (34:34): And he's, I think doesn't he right? Is it search engine land or search engine journal?

Kevin (34:38): I think he owns both. Me neither. I'm like, okay. One of them is crazy how they're similar, but I think he runs two. Yeah. It's like he has like two blogs or something I'm like,

Kathleen (34:51): And he has that direct line into John Mueller at Google.

Kevin (34:55): Well, yeah. I mean, at least for me like, like I do, like, it's kind of kind funny to talk about SEO. Like for Voy we do paid, but like SEO is like where I learned like everything like these guys are doing SEO, like they think different, so yeah.

Kathleen (35:08): Oh, it's fascinating. It's so fascinating. All right. Well, if somebody wants to learn more about Voy Media or wants to connect with you and has a question, what's the best way for them to connect with you online?

Kevin (35:18): So you can always stay with me on Twitter. So my Twitter handle is @Danest. I've had that since I was like, when Twitter first came out.

Kathleen (35:28): That's why I'm @workmommywork.

Kevin (35:32): I'm never going to change that one. People are like, is your name Dan? And I'm like, no, it's not that.

Kathleen (35:36): I got my Twitter when my son was born which was a long time ago.

Kevin (35:41): Never changed that name. It's like my favorite like username. Cause it's also short if you're like, I want a short name. I was like, okay, you're not getting mine though. So another way is just Kevin@Voymedia and that's the V O Y media.com. So, but yeah, that's, that's where you can find.

Kathleen (35:56): Awesome. All right. Well, I'll put those links in the show notes. So if you want to ask Kevin questions about any of his cool tools or anything having to do with Voy Media you can find his information there. And as always, if you're listening, I would really love it. If you would head to Apple podcasts and leave the podcast a review so that other people can find and discover us that's all we have for this week. Thank you so much for joining me, Kevin. This was a lot of fun.

Kevin (36:22): Thank you for having me.

When COVID-19 hit, PFL was forced to shift its approach to marketing. Here's how the changes they made were a big marketing win.

This week on The Inbound Success Podcast, PFL Chief Evangelist Marne Reed explains how the company shifted its approach to marketing in response to the COVId-19 pandemic and why the changes they made have fueled impressive growth during this challenging time.

PFL has productized its solution for programmatic direct mail and now any company can use its software to integrate direct and dimensional mail into its overall marketing strategy.

In this episode, Marne talks about many of the use cases for programmatic direct mail, from account-based marketing to event promotions.

Check out the full episode, or read the transcript below, for details.

Resources from this episode:

• Visit the PFL website
• Follow Marne on LinkedIn
• Contact Marne by email at [email protected]

Kathleen (00:01): Welcome back to the inbound success podcast. I'm your host, Kathleen Booth. And this week, my guest is Marne Reed, who is the chief evangelist at PFL welcome to the podcast Marne.

Marne (00:27): Thank you, Kathleen. I'm excited to be here today.

Kathleen (00:30): Yeah, I have to confess. I'm so interested in interviewing you because you have one of the most interesting career paths of anybody I've ever spoken to. You're a currently chief evangelist at PFL, but in your 18 year history with the company, which also we are going to talk about. Cause that's amazing. You have held leadership roles in HR, accounting software slash product. I mean you name it, you've done it. I think it's just so interesting. I don't think I've ever met anybody. Who's done software and accounting and HR before, but you're my hero. I think. So maybe start out by having you talk a little bit about your background and who you are and how you came to be doing what you are today, as well as what PFL does.

Marne (01:20): Yeah, absolutely. There's times that I feel a little insecure about my background. When you look at my resume, I think could Lord, if I ever needed to find another job, what in the world would I actually apply for? Because it has been all over the place. I actually started my career in human resources. And so starting off as a recruiter for a couple of different companies and then moved over here to PFL. I love working with people. I think if they ended the day, it's kind of what drives me. It's what motivates me is, is trying to understand people and their stories and what makes them successful. My other thing that I absolutely am driven by is just helping my employees be successful in their roles. And so that's kind of where it's driven me into all of these different departments that I've run and I love building machines.

Marne (02:09): And so, you know, when I started off in human resources, it's like, I'm a very competitive person. So I love making something that's going to be sustainable and that will grow. And at the end of the day, I also need stimulation. And so oftentimes I would go into my CEO and say, okay, you know, I've got this department humming, I need a new challenge. And I can remember the day that I walked into his office and I said, I'm looking for a new challenge. And I was thinking maybe like adding training and development potentially to my resume. And he said, how about you go run the software development team

Kathleen (02:44): Because that's a natural, right? No, I don't think so.

Marne (02:49): Oh no, no, that's not good. I don't know anything about it. He goes, no, you're going to go run the software developers. And it was a four year stint that I wouldn't at all, but it also helps me open my eyes to the level of technical detail that is required to run developers. And there were so many times where they'd say, Hey, Marne, you know, Hey, look at this code. You know, I want you to take a look at the software architecture of this code. And I thought, Oh Lord, this is not good. And love the people I loved helping them grow in their careers, but it was definitely, it stretched, stretched me to the point where I said, this is not the, the direction I want to take my, my career. And at that point, Andrew just said, we'll find your replacement.

Marne (03:35): And so I hired very gratefully my CTO now Casey Bartz who actually came over from Oracle is now running our software developer team. And I'm just, I like every day I just check in with him. How do you feel about your job? Is there anything I can do to help you remove your barriers? Because if he left, I would be crying crying many times, but after, you know, it was kind of a leap of faith for me because I thought, well, what am I going to do if I do hire my replacement? And Andrew just said, we'll figure something out. And at that time is when we actually started creating our new category, which is called tactile marketing automation. Historically all of our software development had been very internally focused to help with efficiencies and scale. We had come across this opportunity in our own marketing, where we were really struggling with getting our marketing dollars to be effective.

Marne (04:27): And we were trying to figure out how do we leverage all of our marketing channels using, you know, all of the data that we have acquired. And we have collected and have it be kind of a seamless flow. And so that's where we came up with this category of tactile marketing, where it was making sure that both your digital marketing channels and your offline channels, like your direct mail are actually working in harmony with each other. And that's the birth of that category that we created. And so at that point, Andrew said, well, we need someone to really help evangelize this because it's so different. It's not something that is out there currently. And that's where the chief evangelist role came in. And then there was other departments that kind of fell underneath me across different points of time.

Marne (05:16): And it was just something that I love leading teams. And, and so, you know, as an opportunity would present itself, Andrew would just kind of drop that department in underneath me. And I think the beauty of it is it has opened my eyes to so many different facets of the business, you know? So when I'm having conversations with our customers or our partners out there, I'm able to speak to so many different views of what's going on in someone's business. And it's been like a crash course of just learning every component of a business. So it's been fun.

Kathleen (05:52): I was just going to say, I, it listening to you talk about it. It really does make clear why having somebody who's had their hand in so many different facets of the business is perfect for a role like the one you're in now, because you really can kind of cover it from every angle. The other thing that resonated with me is it sounds like Andrew is just a great CEO to work for.

Marne (06:13): The challenges you, I tell you that he's, he's been I've learned more at my time at PFL than any college or any other role that I've ever been in, just because it's he definitely, he pushes you. He pushes you to learn and, and really be excellent in everything that you do. So it's sometimes exhausting,

Kathleen (06:35): But it must be good because you've been there for 18 years and it's so rare these days to find somebody who stays in one company for that long. And so I think it really speaks to the place that that has been built up there

Marne (06:48): It is. It's I absolutely believe in what we're doing. And I think, you know, what keeps all of our employees just, you know, moving forward is just watching what our customers are doing, watching what our partners are doing, seeing the success that we're helping them generate is a huge motivator for us. I think that makes, you know, any long days or obstacles that you come across in your role worth it is when you see customers that are just knocking it out of the ballpark. So it's, it's pretty motivating.

Kathleen (07:17): That's awesome. Well, one of the reasons I was really looking forward to speaking with you is that, and, and we didn't talk about this when we first spoke, but I owned an agency for 11 years. I sold it in 2017 and part of that business we had, we were digital agency, but we also sold promotional products. And, and we did some what we called at the time dimensional mailing and it was very manual, you know, we would, if we needed it. And it was the thing that kind of bridged the gap between the two sides of our business. So if we had a digital campaign on the one hand and we wanted to engage some of the leads that a client had gotten, we would put together really great custom boxes with promotional products, with messaging that tied in with the product and, you know, create a box with a custom wrap on it and send it out with a die cut, kind of foam insert for things to sit in.

Kathleen (08:09): And it was really cool and, and they always got amazing results. And in fact, some some of our best case studies came out of doing that because the response rates were so high to people receiving like packages in the mail as opposed to flat mail. And for that reason, I I'm so intrigued by the way, it's evolved since I got out of the game. And, and I love hearing you talk about tactile marketing automation and that now it has become this more automated process. So let's just start by having you explain what tactile marketing automation is.

Marne (08:42): Absolutely. And you described it really well which is, it's just the ability to have direct mail, be a channel, just like all of your other digital channels within your marketing campaigns. I remember when we first started this category, I would walk into, you know, one of our partners is Marqueto now owned by Adobe. And they, I walked into their marketing department and what I saw was just, it, it just made you want to cry a little bit, because what you saw was these brilliant marketers opening up a closet, pulling out swag, and then actually doing all of the packaging and the shipping of those items versus what they should be doing, which is marketing. And so the ability to have a direct mail piece just as an action step within your campaign makes all of that go away so that marketers can focus on being marketers.

Marne (09:35): And so very simply it's apps that we have created in many of them, different marketing automation platforms, where as you're building out your campaign flow, you can drag and drop an action to send a direct mail piece. And it makes the communication just seamless out to your prospects because you're sending an email you're sending in any kind of digital outreach. And if they're not engaging, maybe that's the time to send them a direct mail piece and it's all automated, and it's all leveraging the beautiful data that you're collecting within your marketing automation platform to influence what the messaging is, the personalization of that. And then even down to the imagery that you're having, so that you're really connecting with that end prospect with that physical piece, because you're right, it's, it's something that creates a lot of engagement, but it's also going to be the most expensive piece of your marketing campaign. So you want to make sure that it's going to knock it out of the ballpark and actually get the response rates that you're looking for.

Kathleen (10:28): I just, I have to laugh when I hear you talk about marketers packing things up, because true, true story, true story around the holidays, we did a lot of holiday gifting for our clients, and this was my, this is when my company was pretty small. And just about every Christmas, there would be at least one, if not, you know, four or five nights leading up to Christmas where we would have boxes piled to the ceiling in our house and our dining room table covered in cardboard, where we would turn it into essentially a fulfillment center. And, you know, we would have like boxes of crinkle and, and, you know, packing tape and all of it, like, and that's what we did because we were a small business and it had to get done and we would stand around and my husband and I would be cursing at each other over a bottle of wine. Like, why do we do this every year?

Marne (11:21): Yeah. So now, I mean, the, the, the application that we've built, it's very simple, you know, you're just creating a audience list within your marketing automation platform. So these are all your top tier accounts that you want to send out your holiday gifts to, and then you just trigger this end. All of those orders come into our fulfillment center. So we are the ones that are doing the work.

Marne (11:45): There's glitter everywhere. And like you said, crinkle, but yeah, so we're taking that burden off of marketers laps in order to automate that and really make it, you know, make it seamless and make it flow. And then the, I think the other cool part about it is it really gives you some great metrics and analytics on what's performing, and what's not performing in the past. If you did a direct mail campaign, like a batch and blast, you really don't know if it's successful or not, because it's really hard to track it. Where if you actually have it integrated into your marketing automation campaigns, then you have the ability to actually see what's creating a lift and what's not creating a lift.

Kathleen (12:19): Yeah. Now the key word, I think in what you've been talking about is automation and the ability to just like drag it into your workflows and hit, you know, hit a button and off it goes. So you mentioned that you have a partnership with Marqueto. Are there any other marketing automation platforms that you integrate with?

Marne (12:36): Yes. so right now we are partnered up with Salesforce CRM Salesforce marketing cloud and then Marqueto, and then Oracle Eloqua or the marketing automation platforms that we are integrated with.

Kathleen (12:50): That's great. And so if somebody is not using one of those platforms, can they still like take advantage of this as a standalone product? Does it have its own interface or app?

Marne (13:02): We do. So there's a couple of different ways that we're helping serve our customers. You know, I would say the vast majority of our customers at least have Salesforce CRM and say, you can trigger campaigns within the Salesforce CRM, but you also have the sales enablement component where you can enable your Salesforce to actually easily trigger this end of a one-off package. But we have many customers who are not using our technology and they're just using us as the print and fulfillment center. And so we certainly have many customers like LinkedIn and Oracle who are not leveraging the technology, but we're still being able to, you know, able to do those campaigns for them. I would say we also have some standalone solutions that people can use. You know, I always encourage people to use all of the data that they currently have. And so if you're using a standalone, you're not really leveraging all of the really great data that you're collecting.

Kathleen (13:49): Yeah, absolutely. Now what, talk me through just a few of the use cases for this. So how do you see marketers or sales teams using this kind of triggered automation of direct mail?

Marne (14:03): Well, right now it's super critical. I, I don't know if last time we talked, if I had mentioned that I had read a recent report and actually they just published a new one where the numbers are even worse. So HubSpot pushed out a report recently that said since the pandemic has hit the sales and marketing emails have actually increased the original report, which was back in June by 67% off of the baseline, which the baseline, you know, it was already horrific. And I think it jumped up to like 123% was their most recent one. And so what marketers are doing right now is they're just activating more email campaigns, just like, man, I'm not getting the numbers I want. So I'm just going to keep pushing this activation button. And I'm just going to hit Kathleen up with more emails to see if I might be able to get her attention.

Marne (14:47): And so, you know, I think marketers need to put, pause on what they're doing and really look at what's going to drive the engagement that they're looking for for their prospects. And so all of our customers are looking at it from every stage of the funnel and saying, okay, where do I need people to engage? And how do I get that engagement with them? I would say one of the use cases that really resonates with a lot of marketers is like an ABM strategy. And I know you recently interviewed Peter from Demandbase. Demandbase is one of our awesome customers and partners and they just, they've got it down. They are so good at understanding how do they engage with their audience in a way that is really going to help them drive their success metrics. And so taking a look at an APM approach, understanding who is your target accounts that you're going after, what are their personas within those target accounts?

Marne (15:37): And then making sure that you're sending a relevant message to those personas. And so if I'm talking to make maybe a marketing ops person, I might be focusing a little bit more on how do we help make their job easier. Versus if I'm talking at the C level, I might be speaking a little bit more to, how do I actually help you hit your revenue targets? And so being able to really understand who it is that you're marketing to, and then sending a piece to them that is going to resonate with them. And, you know, we always talk about, it's not about the church and the box. Everyone loves to get something that's branded. I get it. I think it's great too. You need to make sure that all of the messaging that you're putting within that package is actually helping provide some type of value to the individual that you're marketing to because you know, our customers are not going to get bribed into spending $60,000 on a software just because you said yes, exactly. In fact, I had a situation happen before, you know, when we were actually in the office where someone sent me this awesome Yeti mug absolutely loved it. It was not branded, there was no messaging around it. And it was just a wasted, it was a wasted expense on that person's part because they didn't hit, they didn't hit me up with any problem that I might be currently experiencing in order for me to want to have a conversation with them. So I think that messaging is super critical to really get that nailed down.

Kathleen (17:00): Yeah. And I love what you said earlier about needing to build off of data. Because when I think about this approach, it's, it's different than direct flat mail for a variety of reasons. One of which is that it is more expensive, right? If to me, if you're going to take this approach, you should invest in like really quality stuff to put in the box, like the cha-cha and the box, as you said you know, not just that the box itself, like there's, it's an investment that you're making. And the, the, there is somewhat of a correlation between putting, putting in a good amount of spend and getting a nice result. And, and so to me, like, there's that aspect of, of being picky and choosy about who you're going to send this to, because you know that this is your opportunity to the scales.

Kathleen (17:50): And because you're sending it to fewer people, you can invest more and really like knock their socks off with what you send, not just as you say, because you're sending a really cool product, but I've always found like the most effective campaigns to be the ones where there's a really strong tie in between the messaging and the actual items. So I'll share a cute story about one that did really well for us. My, and my husband, who at the time was my business partner, was the person who did all the creative behind the, so I give him full credit. And we were, we were working with one of the largest valet parking companies in the country, and they were trying to get meetings with the the, I guess it would be like the general managers of top, top hotels, like the four seasons, think of it, very hard person to get in front of.

Kathleen (18:39): And so we did a, it was like a four-part mailing to the, the small list of people. And one of them was where it was the kind of step in the campaign where we were sharing a social proof. And the thing that we sent was a, it was a plastic pitcher, like a drink, a drink where pitcher with the client's logo on it, or the, yeah, the client's logo and packets of Kool-Aid mix, which seems really cheap. But the messaging was, you know, here are all of our other clients that are already drinking the Kool-Aid for this company. And then it listed like all their success stories and the testimonials and this and that. And it was just clever. And we got such a great response to it, you know? And there were three other steps in the campaign, but I guess that's just an example of what I mean by like, it's, it's quality products, it's tying the messaging in, as you say, it's adding value and having something there to say, that's going to convince people. And to me, that all comes back to, like you said, that, that point of the data and knowing your audience really well and getting the right thing to the right person, which I guess is marketing one Oh one, but it's amazing how often people don't do it.

Marne (19:47): It is. It's true. I think people get really caught up in the, you know, I've got a task list that I need to check off, and sometimes you forget to actually look at it from the perspective of, is this actually going to drive the results that I'm looking at? And you know, most recently we did a, we partnered with demand gen report. They had their B2B SMX event recently, and we had such a blast partnering with them because one of the challenges that I think a lot of people are facing right now is because everything has gone virtual, we're all competing for that same slot, you know, that our webinar or that, that virtual event now. And so how do we actually engage with the people who have registered, but they're, you know, frankly, a lot of our customers, and we've even seen it a little bit ourselves where, you know, you have a lot of registrants, actually a higher number of registered, but you have a lower number of attendees because people will register for more things, but they find they get distracted in their day.

Marne (20:41): They're getting overwhelmed with their emails. And so, or they might think, well, I'll just catch the on-demand version. And so one of the things that we did with demand gen report is we actually created a kit to send out prior to the event. And it was really about, it was kind of like a booth in the box or event in the box. And it helped create that engagement of having people actually attend the event. Because one of the things that we did is we put in there and, and like you said, sometimes it can be a little cheesy, but it's fun. So it was a it was a coloring book. They actually had the agenda on there, but it also had notes section. So if you're a doodler, you know, you can be attending these sessions and doodle and then take a couple of notes on there. But in addition to that, we actually had almost like a treasure hunt form for them where they could attend these different sessions, find out what the key word is. And if they collected enough of these key words in the different sessions and attending some of the sponsors virtual booths they got nominated into win prizes. And so again, just kind of thinking of ways of how do you keep these, everybody who's virtual now, how do you keep them engaged during the event itself?

Kathleen (21:51): Well, fun fact, I got one of those. Did you need? Yeah, I got one of those boxes and it was great. And I remember because I have been in the business, I was opening it in my kitchen and my husband was there and I was like, I need to take a picture of this before we take it apart. Cause I love saving examples of really great mailings like that. And I did, I think it was really nice. You guys did a great job on

Marne (22:11): That. Thank you. It was fun. It was great.

Kathleen (22:13): So when you, I mean, you've obviously as a company, you drink your own champagne, you know, you do that sort of mailing all the time, but when you and I were talking, I thought it was interesting to hear how you needed to really pivot a little bit when COVID hit. Can you talk about that?

Marne (22:31): Absolutely. Yeah. We and I, I haven't talked to a single marketer that didn't have the same, like, Oh my gosh, everything just fell apart. Everything that I had planned this year is gone. You know, even our marketing team, we, we made t-shirts for our team members that had the list of all of the different in-person events that we were going to sponsor that year and, you know, March hit. And it was like, Holy crap. Now what? And even for us, it's like, you know, I think it was middle of March, everybody just scattered from the office and took their computers and went home. And the shock for us is if you think about it, where do I send a direct mail piece to at this point in time, I used to know that you were in your office, but now I don't know where you are.

Marne (23:18): And so we had about a two week period where it was just stop all of our direct mail campaigns. You know, we took out that step within our campaigns and we just froze basically. And one of the things that we found is, is, you know, our, all of our numbers just like went right in the toilet. Our email response rate dropped to a 9.7%. Our meeting booked rate went to a 0.9%. I mean, that's not sustainable for any business. And after a few weeks it was like, you know, we have to take a leap of faith and just, and just assume that we can make this work. And so one of the things that we did and eventually we productize this for our customers is we would actually put in our BDR outbound sequences, Hey, you know, this is what's going on.

Marne (24:07): And I know early on everybody mentioned the pandemic in coven. We kind of stripped that out because I think people were getting fatigued of hearing that. But we said, Hey, Kathleen, we'd love to still engage with you. It looks like you've been checking out some of these pieces of content. We'd love to send some more information to you. Is this your preferred mailing address? And so we would actually, I mean, to be able to get people's residential addresses, it's actually very easy. And so we would proactively say, is this a, is this an acceptable address for us to send you some information? After we did that, our email response rates actually jumped up to, it was a 21% reply rate on our emails. And then we had a over 10% meeting book tray. So, I mean, that's a pretty big leap up and for the people that actually confirmed their addresses, it jumped to a 22% meeting book trade.

Marne (24:57): And so it just showed that in the early phases, I think people were a little like uncertain. Do I really want to mix my personal life and my business life at this point in time though, Kathleen people like this is this personal life is your business is, you know, my, I have a desk in my bedroom. And so it's one of those things that at a certain point in my day, it's like, okay, this is office Marni and I was not bedroom Marne. And so you just keep going with it. And so it's something that we have actually launched a new product called preferred address capture, where we can help our customers actually collect those addresses. And I think, you know, you're, you're smart about the language that you use on the landing page that you're collecting the address, which is what is your preferred address versus what's your home address?

Marne (25:43): I think makes people feel comfortable. And then the other thing that we have coached our customers too, is, you know, once you've used that address, you can say, we'll only use this once and then we won't store it. And so we actually run scripts in our own CRM system that we'll delete that address out once we have collected it and used it that one time. So this is kind of business as usual at this point in time, you know, our customers are seeing great response rates with it. They can continue to engage and, and really like I said, hit those metrics that they're, they need to hit because our goals haven't changed. You know, everything else has changed in the world, but we still have our business goals that we have to hit.

Kathleen (26:20): So you're you say you have a product to help companies capture these addresses? What exactly does it do?

Marne (26:25): It's? so there's a couple ways that we coach our customers to do this one is they can create a simple web form within their campaign that will actually collect that address. And the other way is as if our customers do not feel comfortable actually collecting that address, then we actually are the one who are hosting the web forms so that they can still put it into their campaign or their outbound sequences. We collect the address, it comes into PFL secure database, and we are the ones who are actually running a script to delete that once we have done the mailing.

Kathleen (26:55): Got it. Okay. So, so you made the shift and it really had some great results for you. How do you see your clients taking a new approach in response to COVID? Has it, is it just about asking for addresses in a different way or the types of use cases evolving as well?

Marne (27:17): I think I don't know that the use cases are evolving too much other than the fact of, like I said, you're no longer doing in-person events and say you don't have a booth with a bunch of chops sitting there. A lot of our customers have repurposed what they were going to be using at their in-person events to actually package those up and put those out in their sequences. I think the booth in the box that I had mentioned earlier is a key component for people. You have to figure out how to keep your audience engaged in your virtual events. Demandbase, I know, like I said, you interviewed them earlier, they're just, they've done this virtual wine tasting that we are actually the ones who are fulfilling all of those bottles of wine and the branded glasses and stuff.

Marne (27:59): You know, I think it gives people an opportunity to just be a little bit more empathetic in your marketing and realize that people are tired, you know, and how do you still have the engagement that you're looking for, but also have that empathetic approach where it's like, let's just take a breather and have a glass of wine together. Some of the things that we're seeing our customers do is they're, they're segmenting their office audience a little bit to be smaller and more hyper-targeted and a little bit more of a VIP experience versus I'm going to reach out to 3000 people in this campaign and see if I can engage with them. So even at PFL, we're doing the same thing. We've been hosting a CMO book club where it's, let's learn from each other. So a little bit more round table sessions, VIP experiences. I think we'll see a shift to customers. And PFL in addition to that, doing more workshops where it's, hands-on smaller audiences again. But it's not just listening to, you know, listening to a webinar. I think that's people are getting a little worn out from that.

Kathleen (29:00): So if somebody came to you and said that they were interested in doing something like this, whether it's a booth in a box or, you know, a targeted mailer to a segment of their database talk me through how you all kind of guide and advise your customers on putting together a phenomenal experience in a box, because that's really what it is. It's not just, we're sticking a mug in a box and shipping it off. It's truly like a, a curated experience. So how do you approach that?

Marne (29:34): I think the first step that we take with our customers is just understanding what are the metrics that they're trying to shift, because that can really influence even the piece that you're sending. So if you're sitting at the top of the funnel, you're not going to be sending the 60 to $80 package to an individual, but you can still send really engaging, like you said, flat mailers, but they still, we do these things called infinity folds or even a reveal where it's still something that someone would engage with, but it's got a really nice amount of real estate on there to be able to put information that your prospect can read. But again, first step for us is to just understanding what are your KPIs and then how do we actually create something that's going to give you the return on the investment of the spend. And so at that point, once we have identified where in the funnel are you trying to influence what is a good ROI look like for you? And then at that point we engage, we have a, an entire consulting team that works with our customers to understand what are the different physical pieces that we can actually create for you. That's going to be on brand on message. And cost-effective, and get the return that you're looking for.

Kathleen (30:42): And does your team also work with clients on, on designing, like wraps for boxes and, and 'cause the thing that I always find sort of challenging is, you know, I can pick out great products. I can even create messaging that ties in with that product, but it's the whole, like putting it together. And how does it fit within the box in a way that looks really great. And how do you incorporate flat pieces within the box and the packing materials and the wrap and like just that whole branded coming together, I think is the tricky part where I, I would think that a team like yours that has done it a lot, it would be super helpful.

Marne (31:20): Absolutely. And so we have an entire product team. That's exactly what they do. We have both software products, but we also have, you know, the physical products that we need to look at for our customers. And so, you know, you had mentioned earlier the die cut foam insert that has the tray where, you know, you have the mug sitting in there and it's not going to move around. You know, we, we have done some of the most interesting R and D with just on her own where we wanted to figure out are these things gonna ship in a way that they're not going to get banged up? You know? So if you're spending a lot of money on a Yeti mug, you don't want it to get scuffed because it's not really from in the package. And so we have, in my opinion, some of the most brilliant people on our team that they're just, they're kind of like print geeks and print and packaging geeks, where they will actually sit there and do we'll ship packages to our other team members, just to see what it looks like on the other end. So we have fun with that. That's something that we have a great deal of experience with. So yes, we do a lot of consulting on that one.

Kathleen (32:19): I'm just picturing in my head, like you guys have a team of people in some room somewhere where they're packing things up in boxes and then throwing the box at the wall or dropping it off of the way for like, you know, when you had to do the, keep your egg alive in school, that is sort of what I'm imagining.

Marne (32:35): It's. I would say it's pretty darn close if, and you know, we're human, we've our own failures one year. This is, this was when we first started. So keep that in mind, we've gotten better, but we decided to send a holiday package to our customers and partners, and it was Montana honey with a little honey jar and, you know, it had messaging around it. And there was a couple instances where unfortunately, the honey did not make it intact. And so you would end up with a package that was stuck to someone's desk because, Oh, no

Kathleen (33:07): Tarred and feathered or something,

Marne (33:09): The point where we're like, okay, we need to really get good at this because we can't have our customers go through the same thing that we just went through where it's like, kind of embarrassed. Where are you going to go?

Kathleen (33:19): Yeah. Now, I don't know if you can share this, but are there any particular examples of things that you've seen that either PFL has sent out or that some of your customers have sent out that you thought are really cool and then have gotten a great response?

Marne (33:34): Oh, wow. There is so many

Kathleen (33:37): Other than the honey, of course the honey,

Marne (33:40): It was a fail on our part, but we learned from it. Salesforce does a really great job. They're a customer of ours and actually there's so many, I can't even, I don't even know if I could pick one out. One of the things I love about what Salesforce is doing is they're really into educating their customers and their prospects. And so, you know, it's educating, but it's also like they create evangelists out of their own ecosystem, you know? So they have a thing called trailblazers where they're really encouraging their audience to engage with their learning center, where they can take and get badges and certificates, but then they also send them, you know, like the Salesforce branded hoodie, but then they also send like badges of things that they like, the sort of certifications in the badges that they have gotten. And it's like, people just are a walking advertisement for them. But then their industry, like industry specific newspapers or not newspapers, but industry specific catalogs that they have are really great because it really resonates again with their audience. So Demandbase always does such a great job.

Kathleen (34:51): Do you all, now, you said you work with Salesforce, do you know offhand? They have a book. And, and a few years ago we got a mailing with their book and it had a belly band around it and had a bookmark in it was that you guys that did that, I'm pretty sure that was us. Yeah, it was so good. I took pictures of that too.

Marne (35:10): And it's simple, you know, it's, it's simple stuff like the belly band that you've talked about. That's just such a great way to make someone feel special because you're having to slide it off. Like again, that engagement factory unwrapping a present. It is, it is. Yeah. And one loves opening packages. I mean, I buy stuff from Amazon all the time and I know I've bought it and then it shows

Kathleen (35:31): You're like myself.

Marne (35:33): I know. So it just, I think it goes just to show that really, you know, it does make you feel special to open something and if something's even in an envelope but I've gotten mail to my house, I still open it and look at it and it really creates kind of a, a good brand experience.

Kathleen (35:50): Yeah, that's so true. So last question, and then we'll shift gears for a minute which is really, if somebody is listening and they're like, this sounds great. I want to incorporate this into my marketing. Are there volumes below? Which it doesn't make sense? Like if somebody, if someone's going to come to you and say, I want to work with PFL, what's the minimum quantity of things that they would be sending out.

Marne (36:14): Yeah. I, and I do think there's a minimum. I don't really have a specific number in mind, but if someone says, I want to enable my sales team and we're probably going to send, you know, five to 10 pieces a month, I would say it doesn't make sense to, to purchase a software at that point. You know, you want it to be something that's really going to be ingrained both in your marketing and your sales culture where you will be sending out, you know, at least, you know, maybe a couple of hundred pieces a month. It would be some of the threshold I'd look at, but again, like Salesforce sent out, they sent out four packages and these packages were $800 packages to these very strategic C-level people in one organization in order to get a really big like brand boom. But in that case, that was just kind of like a one off scent that they did versus something that's really systematic within their marketing campaigns. And so that would be a couple of things that we had talked to our customers about is again, what's how do we develop that ROI? And if we can develop the ROI by doing, you know, 20 cents a month, that's great. But more than likely, you're probably looking, we have customers they're sending like hundreds and thousands of pieces a year. Oh yeah.

Kathleen (37:28): That's so fascinating. I mean, I think it would be just so much fun to be a fly on the wall in your production room, just watching all this stuff get put together. But that's the nerd in me from my former fulfillment days.

Marne (37:39): It's good. Well, and we even have, so one of our, our companies that we're working with is a very large medical supply organization. And we do all of their supply, their medical supply fulfillment. And so a great example, and this is the first division that we worked with. And so here's one that we'll kind of make your eyes pop a little bit. So they have a very large incontinence program. And so, you know, their objective for a medical supply company is it's, whoever gets a sample out to an individual or to a medical facility first they've done studies that have shown that they're going to be the one that the, the company selects. And so with their incontinence program, we have roughly about 7,000 square feet of adult diapers in our facility that we have shrink, wrapped into a two pack with a little note card that says, you know, dear Marne, this is the you've gone and selected the, you know, the size and the here's the PR you know, the, the perks of the product and stuff like that. So, I mean, just the, the use cases as you had mentioned were they're all over the place. It's really interesting.

Kathleen (38:45): That's so fascinating. Well, I would love to dig into that more because I'm sure there's literally thousands of those great stories sitting in your facility somewhere. But we're going to run out of time. So I want to change over and ask you the two questions. I always ask all my guests. The first one is we always talk a lot about inbound marketing on this podcast because it's the inbound success podcast. So is there a particular company or individual that you think is really nailing it when it comes to inbound marketing these days?

Marne (39:16): I'll mention, I'll mention one person that has just actually, there's two people that I'll mentioned, and these are two young ladies that I'm so proud of in their marketing, you know, they're up and comers. I, they have no ceiling ahead of them, which is very exciting. Delaney Coatesville from Demandbase she's phenomenal. She is someone that I absolutely love getting on the phone with and listening to the marketing strategy, the execution that she does, she's just she's. She is like on fire. The other person I would mentioned is Katie Kelly. She actually was formerly with blinking where she was formerly with she's with you, to me right now, and dynamic signals who she was West. She's another one that I just I'm so impressed by these young ladies who just, you never see a boundary, you never see an obstacle. They just, they, they own it. They're super talented. And then I love watching my partners. I mean, Marquetto Oracle, I mean, Oracle had kind of I didn't see them do a huge marketing push, but it seems like, like just in the last year, they've really been more focused on their marketing and their messaging and being more personable. And then Salesforce just always blows it out of the park.

Kathleen (40:37): I love that. A couple of examples that everybody's heard of, and a couple of examples that probably a lot of people haven't, so something new to check out there. The second question is digital marketing is always changing so quickly. This year is the greatest example of, you know, just how lightening fast the change can be. How do you personally educate yourself and stay up to date on that whole landscape?

Marne (41:00): I think the best way to stay up to bait up-to-date is just listening to our customers. We have, our customers are all marketers. And so, you know, to have all of these at our fingertips to listen what their challenges are and what they're doing to solve those challenges. To me, that's, that's more than reading you know, a website out there that's educating, it's listening to the people who are like feet on the street, the people who are actually to their elbows in it and had hearing what's going on in their world. So we have such amazing customers that are willing to share all of that information with us and share what's working and what's not working. And then we are able to then take that information and educate our other customers and educate ourselves on that.

Kathleen (41:51): Great. All right. Well, if somebody is listening and wants some more information about what you've talked about, or they have a question and want to connect with you, what's the best way for them to do that?

Marne (42:03): Oh, I would love for them just to reach out on email and just have a conversation. You know, I love to hear where people stuck points are and see if PFL could potentially help unstick those stuck points. You know, it's we can learn so much from each other and I love things I love when we have the opportunity just to be an open book and share information with each other. So certainly happily I'll share my email address and just reach out and have a conversation.

Kathleen (42:30): Awesome. All right. What's the email, I'll put it in the show notes.

Marne (42:33): Awesome. It's Marne, M a R N [email protected].

Kathleen (42:38): I love it. And of course had to pfl.com. You can learn more about the company and the software, and I'm sure see some examples of things. Cause you guys have so many cool ones. And if you're listening and you enjoyed this episode or you learn something new, I would love it. If you would head to Apple podcasts and leave the podcast a review, that's how other people discover us. And of course, if you know somebody else who's doing amazing inbound marketing work, tweet me at @workmommywork because I would love to make them my next guest. That's it for this week. Thank you so much, Marne. This was a lot of fun.

Marne (43:12): Thanks, Kathleen. I definitely enjoyed it today.