Marketers In Motion

With brands and marketers increasingly taking up the torch of storytelling, partnering with publishers on native ads and leveraging content across their own properties, there are plenty of tips, tricks and approaches to be learned from the world of journalism. In this podcast we discuss the five most important journalistic best practices taught in journalism-school classrooms and used in newsrooms across the country, allowing brand marketers and content strategists to make high-quality and authentic content that abides by the best practices that make journalistic content compelling, effective and trustworthy.

Key Topics

-How to add trust to the content you create

-How to set your content apart in a world of content-sameness

-How to ensure your content is relatable and creates an emotional connection with your audience

Melanie Deziel is the founder of StoryFuel, which consults with brands looking to create, expand or optimize their branded content teams, processes and practices. As a speaker, Melanie travels the world giving keynotes and corporate workshops that teach marketers, publishers, creators and companies how to create the best possible brand storytelling.

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

www.amawestmichigan.org/EP13

It's 2019, but ineffective, outdated and unhelpful websites still hamstring the majority of marketers. New technology and experiences continue to push the web forward every day, but often, sites go untouched for years. Your websites should be the cornerstone of your marketing efforts, not something you work around.

Today we’ll discuss what you should be focusing on in 2019, how to start triaging what you have, and how to evolve from establishing a stable baseline to a sustainable practice of continuous iteration. We'll also cover how to tell if your site should be iterated, refreshed, or rebuilt based on your unique situation.

Key topics

-Discovery

-Mobile's Effect

-SEO

-Content Strategy

-Design

-Future Proofing

Josh Stauffer

An optimistic believer in digital’s transformative power on the landscape of B2B marketing, Josh brings over a decade of agency experience to his role as CEO and president of Blue Flame Thinking. He has the hands-on experience of a former programmer mixed with the sharp instincts of a dedicated client partner. Both of which help him focus the agency, and its relationships, toward the future. Josh started making things at a very early age. His formative years were filled with hours of sketching, carving, building, painting and traveling.

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

www.amawestmichigan.org/EP12

It is easier than ever to create and maintain a website. However, there are many pitfalls and potential liabilities that quietly exist in cyberspace. Anyone publishing content online through a website should be aware of certain legal requirements, and some best practices, so problems aren’t inadvertently created.

Key Topics

-Keeping Your Website Legal

-Using 3rd Party Content

-Privacy Policies

-Protection & Security

-Regulatory Rules (GDPR & CCPA)

-Intellectual Property

-Terms of Use

This podcast follows the outline of an Grand Rapids Business Journal Blog written by Jennifer in March, 2019.

***This podcast is to assist in a general understanding of the legal issues involved, and is not intended as legal advice.  Persons with particular questions should seek the advice of counsel.***

Jennifer Puplava

Jennifer A. Puplava is an attorney at Mika Meyers in Grand Rapids. She practices primarily in the areas of intellectual property law and technology law. She helps clients protect their trade secrets, trademarks, copyrights and other intellectual property, and she assists clients with the negotiation, drafting and enforcement of related agreements, policies, terms and conditions and other documents. Jennifer received her law degree from Indiana University School of Law, cum laude, and her undergraduate degree from Saint Mary's College, magna cum laude.

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

www.amawestmichigan.org/EP11

EP 10

Why is differentiation important? Why should companies care?

It’s easy to follow the crowd. It’s easy to blend in. It seems smart to do what other brands are doing. It feels safe. But it’s not. Successful brands stick out. They are different. They are unusual.

Be proud of what your brand does and what it doesn’t do. Be proud of your brand’s strengths and weaknesses. Don’t apologize for your flaws and don’t try to fix them. Instead, exploit your brand’s imperfections.

Key Topics

-Customer Experience

-Embracing your Uniqueness

-Differientiation

-Flaunting your Flaws

-Being Weird (Micro-weirding)

-Being Flawsome

Stan Phelps

Stan Phelps is a best-selling author, keynote speaker, and workshop facilitator. He believes that today’s organizations must focus on meaningful differentiation to win the hearts of both employees and customers.

He is the founder of PurpleGoldfish.com – a think tank of customer experience and employee engagement experts that offers keynotes and workshops that drive loyalty and sales. They help organizations connect with the hearts and minds of customers and employees.

Stan is a TEDx speaker, a Forbes contributor, and IBM Futurist. His writing is syndicated on top sites such as Customer Think and Business2Community. He has spoken at over 300 events in Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Ecuador, France, Germany, Holland, Israel, Japan, Malaysia, Peru, Sweden, Russia, Spain, UK, and the U.S.

Stan Phelps challenges leaders to think differently about their most important stakeholders: customers and employees. He inspires brands to be remark-able, showing them how to stand out in ways that customers and employees can’t help but talk about. His informative keynotes and workshops focus on the value of customer experience as a competitive differentiator, the role of employee engagement in building a strong corporate culture, and the impact of technology and purpose in business.

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

www.amawestmichigan.org/EP10

EP 09

With the constant changing Marketing Technology (aka martech) landscape, there are more options than ever available to businesses of all sizes for lead generation and engagement strategies. But with all these wonderful technologies available, there are strategies for selecting the right platform and understanding how these systems fit within your overall business technology systems.

Today we discuss the concept of pace layering which provides a framework for businesses to organize and align martech systems with your business strategies. Understanding the concept of Pace Layering will help your company make timely and strategic business decisions with selecting martech systems. We’ll discuss key components of Pace Layering, how to apply it to your business and examples of how other businesses have utilized this concept.

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

www.amawestmichigan.org/EP9

EP 08

Today, staying agile and keeping an entrepreneurial mindset—regardless of business size, age or industry—is proving to be essential. As competition tightens, and industries continue to evolve and change, its questions like these that are keeping us up at night:

How do you market a new business with little or no budget? What strategies, tools and tactics do you use and why?

When should you hire out marketing, versus what can (and should) you, and your team do in-house?

How much should you invest in marketing and how do you know when and where to invest your budget?

This was the topic of a recent panel discussion held with four West Michigan Entrepreneurs.

During the panel we discuss how these entrepreneurs launched their businesses, while providing lessons learned, insights and tools that all marketers can use on-the-job today. Since the panel was held in an Q&A format with a moderator we thought it best to record the panel discussion for rebroadcasting on today’s podcast.

Panel Moderator

Rebecca Dutcher

Red 66 Marketing, PresidentAMA West Michigan Preside Elect

Meet the Panel

Jonathan Dodge

Freshwater Digital, Executive Vice President

Jonathan Dodge has well over 15 years of digital marketing and entrepreneurial experiences in paving new industry opportunities. He has co-founded successful start-up companies (including one of the first online food ordering platforms), served on a board of directors at his alma mater Michigan State University, consulted for several large web publishers, led the creation of the digital advertising department at Meijer, and managed digital strategy for Jack Morton Worldwide. He is currently EVP of Business Development for Freshwater Digital, a 9-year-old company in which he is a partner and joined as employee number two.

Chris Ake

Grand Apps, Co-Founder and Operating Partner

Chris Ake and another founded Grand Apps in 2011, a mobile app development company. The company’s reach began locally in Grand Rapids, MI but soon expanded its mobile marketing services and began serving clients globally. As Chris grew this company over the past several years, he began investing in and launching more businesses. Currently he owns 6 companies, 4 are service-based companies and 2 are investments. Entrepreneurship and building companies are his passion and he is constantly sharing his journey.

Erik Lauchié

Carbon Stories, Founder

Erik Lauchie is a young entrepreneur. He Founded Carbon Stories, a Michigan based creative agency in 2015 at the age of 19. Carbon tells its clients’ stories and shares experiences through numerous media forms, including; photography, videography, graphic design and print media. Since the start, Carbon has traveled around the world telling stories and sharing experiences. Erik’s motto is Create Daily.

Karen Scarpino

Green Giftz, President and Owner

Karen Scarpino is the President and Owner of Green Giftz and Promotional Impact, a certified woman-owned business. Green Giftz is a high-design and eco-friendly branded merchandise company servicing clients like Steelcase, Herman Miller, Haworth, Stiles, Herman Miller, Chrysler and more. She is a member of the Chamber of Commerce CEO Round Table, a recipient of the Grand Rapids Business Journal Top Woman-Owned Business and West Michigan Women Brilliance Award Entrepreneur Award Winner. Karen has mentored students at Grand Valley State University and presented to the Michigan Diversity Council on onboarding and employee retention through successful branded merchandise programs.

Detailed show notes can be found at http://www.amawestmichigan.org/EP8

EP 07

The silos between sales and marketing are legendary. If you’ve ever worked for an organization where the two departments live together in peace and harmony; consider your company a unicorn! It’s more common to hear how marketing folks think sales is comprised of a bunch of lazy divas and how sales folks think marketing is a bunch of creatives who make branded coffee cups and T-shirts (and don’t generate any real value). The evolution of marketing- the digital transformation of marketing – makes it possible to qualify and quantify marketing’s value and enforce the rules by which sales engages with potential customers. But only if you put the right processes and systems in place.

Today we’ll be sharing insights on how the emerging field of marketing operations and the transition to “self-educating buyers” has changed the sales and marketing dynamic to one of the interwoven dependencies, with marketing coming first. From inbound strategies to a demand generation waterfall, to the necessary elements in a service level agreement between sales and marketing, we’ll offer up helpful tools to start breaking down silos and creating a path to marketing and sales nirvana.

Key Topics

Marketing Operations

Bridging the Gap of Marketing & Sales

Traditional & Digital Marketing

Quantitative & Qualitative Data

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

http://www.amawestmichigan.org/EP7

About 1 Bold Step

There is a gap between old marketing and new, and a general misunderstanding of the evolving role of marketing. It’s no longer just about the creative, but also the analytical, technical, and perhaps most importantly, the data. There’s the traditional marketing mix of product, price, place, and promotion (The 4 P’s), and supporting marketing mediums like print, mail, billboard, sponsor, and mass email. And then there’s the new mix of product, price, place, promotion, people, process and physical evidence (The 7 P’s), and new marketing mediums like inbound content strategies/blogs, personalization, social, predictive analytics, data-driven decisions, etc. Marketing personnel seem to be either traditional or digital, and rarely able to deliver both old and new or to step back and make sure that the organization is doing the right mix of both. That’s where we step in and bridge the gap.

https://1boldstep.com/

EP 06

How do we create emails that people love?

We can all agree that email marketing is one of, if not the most effective digital marketing tactics. The problem is that most marketers and organizations have abused the channel; leading to depressed open, clickthrough, and post-conversion metrics, as well as a love/hate relationship with all emails. To solve this problem, we need to rethink how we connect with people via their inboxes, radically reduce the propensity of sending campaigns simply because our organizations have something to announce, and expand the KPIs that dictate success.

Key Topics

Design Best Practices

Creating An Experience on Mobile Platforms

Creating Relative & Personalized Content

Building Trust with Subscibers

Metrics That Matter

SPF, Authentication & Demark Policies

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:

http://www.amawestmichigan.org/EP6

Influencer's Perspectives On Partnering With Brands

EP 05

Influencer marketing. A popular buzzword and a top marketing trend but really, what does it mean? We know marketing pros across industries are looking for ways to integrate influencer marketing into their strategy, but doing so in a smart and authentic way remains a challenge. This was the topic of a recent panel discussion held with three of West Michigan’s brightest influencers on how you can harness influencer marketing in a way that makes sense for your business and brand. The panel discussed how you can approach, interact and work with influencers to help drive your marketing efforts.

Key Topics

-Influencer Marketing

-Audiences & Follower Counts

-Authenticity & Causes

-Costs & Numbers

Show notes available at http://www.amawestmichigan.org/EP5

Meet The Panelists

Liz Della Croce

The Lemon Bowl

Liz Della Croce is the creator and author of The Lemon Bowl®, a healthy food and travel blog. Since 2010, Liz has grown a loyal following of health-conscious readers.

Jill Gleason

Good Life for Less (JillGG)

Jill began her fashion blog, Good Life for Less, as a creative outlet for herself, but soon found that her blog inspired many women as well.

Emily Richett

HAPPY PR

Emily Richett is the founder and owner of HAPPY PR, a public relations and marketing firm. Not only does Emily connect brands with influencers daily, but is one herself.

MarTech Decisions Begin With Knowing Your Audience and Your Business

EP 05

With “Baby boomers” continuing to exit the workforce at a rapid rate, relationships between buyers and sellers are changing more rapidly than ever. Learn how to design winning processes and use technologies to help your business cultivate new relationships and secure existing relationships in the digital age. 

Key Topics

-CRM (Business Automation)

-Social Media

-Marketing Automation

Show notes available at http://www.amawestmichigan.org/EP4

Dan McGraw of DPT Solutions

Dan McGraw, CEO and Senior Business Strategist from DPT Solutions, a local business process strategy and automation company in Grand Rapids, MI. Dan has spent the last 20 years connecting people, process, and technology to drive business performance. He is a technology innovator and leader that is passionate about leveraging technology to help improve business outcomes through digital transformation and industry disruption. Outside of business, he is an avid cyclist and cycling coach, and enjoys competing in mountain biking, road racing, and the occasional triathlon.

Dan McGraw

CEO/Senior Business Strategist

DPT Solutions

dptsolutions.com