Marketers In Motion

Communication is of utmost importance in times of crisis. During the pandemic many online platforms have offered tools that allow us to note our businesses as being temporarily closed, operating with restrictions, and/or provided the ability to post specific updates to our followers. With so many platforms, which should you be focusing on if you have limited resources? How have and how should you adapt your SEO strategy for the current marketing climate?

In this podcast we’ll discuss why adjusting your SEO strategy is important, which business listings deserve your utmost attention, adjusting your marketing automation for the current climate, refocusing your content strategy on what’s relevant, along with some crisis communications dos and don'ts.

Key Topics

-SEO Crisis Strategies

-Google My Business Updates

-Automated Messaging

-Crisis Content Strategy

-Crisis Communications Best Practices

Jason Dodge

Jason Dodge is the founder and chief strategist at search marketing firm, BlackTruck Media + Marketing, where he works to ensure clients’ business objectives are translated into online marketing strategies that work. His passion for the ever-evolving world of search has only grown over his 17-plus years in the industry, eventually caving into his entrepreneurial nature and founding BlackTruck in 2009.

Named one of Grand Rapids’ 40 Under Forty Business Leaders, he is active in the community serving on the Executive Board of Directors for the Grand Rapids Civic Theatre, the Leadership Counsel for Small Business Association of Michigan and a regular contributor to the Grand Rapids Business Journal.

Detailed show notes, links and resources can be found at:

www.amawestmichigan.org/EP23

As marketers we understand branding, communication, and brand storytelling, but what happens when the landscape changes and we’re faced with a crisis? How do we shift our voice and tone from our normal day to day communication while maintaining our consistent brand and image?

The Coronavirus is not just your average crisis, it’s a global pandemic. As the outbreak unfolded before our eyes, we were transformed from brand storytellers to the calming voice of reason and guidance for our organizations, coworkers, clients, customers, and followers. As the pandemic evolves, how can we continue being brand ambassadors while also balancing the delivery of important news and updates in an understanding and empathetic manner?

Key Topics

-Public Relations

-Marketing

-Crisis Communication

-Working Remotely

-Virtual Meetings

Amanda St. Pierre

Amanda is the Director of Advancement Communications at Aquinas College. She has worked in PR and marketing since 2004, primarily serving healthcare and community philanthropy organizations. Amanda earned Accreditation of Public Relations from the Public Relations Society of America in 2012. She is the current board chair of PRSA’s West Michigan Chapter and is a former co-chair of the Young Nonprofit Professionals Network of Grand Rapids.

Kim Skeltis

Kim Skeltis, APR, owns Blue Blaze Public Relations, a solo public relations consultancy in West Michigan offering a full spectrum of public relations services – from strategic planning and strategy development to tactical implementation.

Accredited in Public Relations through the Public Relations Society of America, Kim brings 20-plus years of communications expertise serving organizations from non-profits, to corporations, to government agencies. A veteran of the agency world, she offers the collective experience of working at two global PR agencies plus a boutique firm, in addition to her seven years of owning Blue Blaze PR.

Detailed show notes, links and resources can be found at:

www.amawestmichigan.org/EP22

With unemployment at 3% (as of 2/11/20) and upcoming demographic changes imminent, it's all hands on deck to help in the "war on talent." In the past, it was the HR department's responsibility to find and hire the right people. Now, successful companies are realizing that recruitment is every department's responsibility. Marketing teams are being tapped to assist HR and talent acquisition departments. What does that mean for your company? How does your marketing team tackle "all other duties as assigned" when it comes to attracting talent? And how do you integrate this new audience into your existing marketing efforts?

This Lunch & Learn presentation was held before the onset of the Coronavirus Pandemic. At the time of the podcast recording on 3/23/30 we discussed the additional layer of the importance of HR & Marketing collaboration during times of crisis such as the now unprecedented global pandemic. Now more than ever, HR & Marketing must work together to communicate vital information to staff, clients, customers, followers, and the public.

Key Topics

-HR Marketing

-Crisis Communication

-Company Culture

-Employment Brand

-Recruitment Marketing Strategies

-Marketing for Diversity

-Selling the Community

Cindy Brown

Cindy Brown serves as the Vice President of Talent Initiatives and collaborates with other talent related organizations to address regional talent pipeline challenges. She worked jointly as Executive Director for Hello West Michigan and Vice President of Talent Initiatives for The Right Place for many years before stepping into her role for The Right Place full time. In addition, her experience includes project management and director of human resources. Currently, Cindy serves on the boards of West Michigan Works! Workforce Development and Goodwill Industries of Greater Grand Rapids.

Rachel Gray

As the Executive Director for Hello West Michigan, Rachel (Bartels) Gray leads the organization’s strategy, operations, and membership. She helps educate employers and prospective candidates about the region.

Hello West Michigan is a talent attraction and retention organization promoting West Michigan as a great place to live and work. The organization, which helps member companies increase their rate of success in recruiting top talent, was the first organization of its kind in the country.

Detailed show notes, links and resources can be found at:

www.amawestmichigan.org/EP21

Part of the challenge of an effective multimedia marketing campaign launch is knowing where to begin and what to focus on. The goal is to gain immediate impressions and, most importantly, long term retention. Marketers at companies of every size grapple with market placement, brand awareness and cost efficacy.

The purpose of content marketing is to create and share relevant written, downloadable, and visual media so your target audience can learn about you as a brand, your products and services, and your expertise. Video marketing is highly effective in appealing to and converting customers as more than 50% of consumers prefer video content over other forms of content like emails, social, and blogs. Podcasts are also one of the hottest new media channels for targeting specific audiences and establishing your brand as market influencer.

In this podcast our panel discusses the most popular multimedia channels including videos, podcasts, photography, blogs and webinars to discover the best outlets to gain maximum engagement for your campaign. We'll explore pros & cons, tools & resources, and tips & tricks for each medium. We’ll also hear how our panelists have utilized these mediums to increase exposure with their own campaigns.

Key Topics:

-Visual Storytelling

-Videos & Vlogging

-Photography

-Blogging

-Podcasting

-Webinars

Panelists:

-Brad Larabell of SHEFIT

-Lynne Jarman-Johnson of Consumers Credit Union

-Cynthia Kay of Cynthia Kay & Company

Moderator:

-Josh Janowiak Marketers In Motion Podcast Host & PodcastStoryPros.com Founder.

Detailed show notes, links and resources can be found at:

www.amawestmichigan.org/EP20

Visual Marketing & Photography is a major component of brand storytelling. Every photo and visual element you share is a direct representation of your organization. In this episode we’ll discuss the impact your company's own images make on all of your marketing materials. We’ll also reveal insider tidbits about how all images on the web are found by search engines, how search can tell when stock photos are being used, why that impacts your reach, and how original photography can lead to a significant increase in conversions.

Key Topics:

-Visual Storytelling

-Photography Tips & Strategy

-Digital Asset Management

-Stock Images

-Image SEO

-Copyright & Usage Rights

-Visual Marketing Trends

Adam Bird

Adam Bird of Bird + Bird Studio is part of a husband & wife team that works with a variety of clients nationally,  from their studio located in the heart of downtown Grand Rapids. His career started early freelancing for local newspapers while in high school and throughout college. This evolved into working as a freelance photojournalist for regional and national newspapers and news-wire agencies. With declining trends in the news print business and with the shift of entertainment and news online, Adam started a studio and became Adam Bird, Photographer.

He’s also been an ongoing AMAWM sponsor and his team is responsible for all of our awesome event photos online at AMAwestmichigan.org.

Detailed show notes, links and resources can be found at:

www.amawestmichigan.org/EP19

Bill McKendry has been mixing business and nonprofit organization passion and purpose with clients for over 25 years. In this podcast we discuss how best to create brand and cause advocacy that creates win-win-win situations for both businesses and nonprofits alike. We’ll review examples from well-known companies like REI, Furniture Row, and JBL while discussing best practices. We also touch on ways to view public/private partnerships in a new light and offer a new perspective on the potential returns from these relationships, including:

-RO Investment – Leverageable for the good of business, nonprofit and cause

-RO Involvement – Engaging good done/felt by company, employees, customers, vendors, etc.

-RO Impact – Measurably good for the people/things in need

Key Topics:

-Brand & Cause Advocacy

-Cause Marketing

-Nonprofit Marketing

-Business & Nonprofit Partnerships

Bill McKendry

Bill McKendry is Founder + Chief Creative Officer of HAVEN | a creative hub and Founder + Board President of DO MORE GOOD

Bill’s quest to help grow the impact of businesses and nonprofit organizations began in 1994 when he brought years of big agency and big brand experience to the table in co-founding Hanon McKendry – a nationally-recognized advertising agency that had dedicated up to 50% of its efforts annually to working with nonprofits.

Since then, he and his teams have created and implemented marketing campaigns and branding efforts for a diverse mix of regional, national and international nonprofit and corporate clients, resulting in over 1,000+ award-winning programs.

Three years ago, JDA Worldwide acquired Hanon McKendry and Bill served as Vice Chairman + Chief Creative Officer overseeing all creative efforts in the firm’s six offices (Atlanta | Colorado Springs | Grand Rapids | Indianapolis | Traverse City | St. Simons Island).

Seeing a growing need in the idea generation space, Bill has recently launched HAVEN | a creative hub and is now independently running this specialty shop. HAVEN is a one-stop destination for strategic and creative ideas where a large network of agencies, alliances and freelance talent are custom-matched and blended uniquely by Bill for specific client needs and challenges.

Detailed show notes, links and resources can be found at:

www.amawestmichigan.org/EP18

EP 17: E-Commerce is a daunting topic for marketers everywhere. We'll work through 10 questions your e-commerce business can use to align and focus your organization for success. These include consumers and their experiences, your brand, products and services, technology, data privacy, innovation, markets served and what's around the corner for all of us.

Key Topics:

-E-Commerce Marketing

-E-Commerce Evolution

-E-Commerce & Communication Technology

-Leveraging data, privacy & security

-Distribution Channel Strategy

John Tegner

John Tegner has spent most of his career in the apparel and footwear industry, starting at Wolverine Worldwide and now at EssilorLuxottica and Costa Del Mar. He has worked to help large, global brands expand their traditional business models through the ascent of the Communication Age. John is passionate about brands and consumers and has a love for helping businesses think through how to best connect consumers to great products and services to improve lives and the world.

John Tegner

Vice President Direct to Consumer

Costa Del Mar - EssilorLuxottica

Detailed show notes, links and resources can be found at:

www.amawestmichigan.org/EP17

EP 16: Over the years, we have become a society reliant on technology more than ever, and therefore, more "connected." We no longer knock on the door, we text them "here." We don't ask to see a manager, we either directly message the company or leave a scathing review on social media. Speaking of social media, businesses & brands used to get that for free, but in addition to only being able to reach a fraction of our earned following, the average return on ad spend on those platforms has plummeted over 90% over the past 3 years!

So what's next? All of those "best practices" blog articles and professionals telling us: create snackable content; post on social media at *this* time; keep your newsletter to this length; be present everywhere, etc. have become outdated. Today we discuss how and why we need to go back to basics through building trust over time, quality content over quantity, and how to create authority-building content.

Key Topics

-Traditional Media

-Digital Media

-Customized Content

-Gated Content

-Podcasting

-Blogging

Jason Schemmel

Jason is a Content Marketing Consultant who's been in the content & social marketing space for the better part of 8 years. He loves helping others realize their potential through working together, mentoring, or just cheering them on that they're on the right path. He has shared his knowledge at the Content Marketing World conference the past 3 years covering topics such as SEO, building online communities, and influencer marketing.

In his free time, Jason also streams on Twitch playing games from his childhood as well as interactive games his viewers can play along with him. In addition , he streams monthly charity streams where his community has helped him donate over $2,500 to various non-profits & also has monthly Mental Health podcast, helping to break the stigma of talking about the sensitive topic.

Jason Schemmel

Content Marketing Consultant

Host of the Get Shit Done Chat podcast

On Twitter @JasonSchemmel

Detailed show notes, links and resources can be found at:

www.amawestmichigan.org/EP15

EP 15: E-mail isn’t the sexiest marketing topic, nor is it the most fun, but if done well it can lead to the best ROI of any tactic in your marketing plan. Regardless of industry and even though there is more noise in the inbox and more apps for consumers to juggle, e-mail continues to prove itself as the best one-to-one communication channel for brands and most preferred by consumers.

But, marketers continue to struggle with their email efforts. Even some 26 years after the first email campaign was sent, marketers are still challenged by how to ethically grow subscribers, ensure deliverability, and create content that is timely, targeted, and relevant.

Today we’re joined by Michael Barber (and his British Mum) to explore some of the best and most practical ways to improve your e-mail marketing, challenge your email conceptions, and discuss just why this tactic continues to be vitally important for marketers. 

We’ll also discuss how to ethically grow your email subscriber lists and how to select the appropriate Email Service Provider for the job.

Key Topics

Design Best Practices

Creating Relative & Personalized Content

Building Trust with Subscribers

Email List Building Strategies

Selecting The Right ESP For The Job

Michael Barber of Godfrey

Michael Barber

SVP, Chief Creative Officer

Godfrey

@michaeljbarber anywhere online

Recently named one of Marketo’s 50 Fearless Marketers

Detailed show notes, links and resources can be found at:

www.amawestmichigan.org/EP15

After two highly engaged and attended SEO Smackdowns, we brought back this popular panel topic to kick off the 2019-2020 season with a bang. Get ready for some heated debates, the most current information, and fascinating perspectives on the ever-changing and quickly evolving word of SEO. Our panelists discuss and debate current trends including YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) voice search, algorithm changes, site optimization, maximizing Google My Business, along with many SEO tools and hacks.

Panelists

-Jason Dodge of BlackTruck Media + Marketing

-Cayley Mosca of CDK Global

-Caley Atkinson of Stow Company

-David VandeWaa of OST

Detailed show notes, links and resources can be found at:

www.amawestmichigan.org/EP14