Martech Zone Interviews

Lee Odden is a world-renowned digital marketer that started working in web development and online marketing in the late 1990s. After working on engagements for companies like Toro, Supervalu and the U.S. Veteran's Administration, he shifted his focus to working with an upstart digital PR agency.   After introducing an SEO service called TopRank to the PR agency, it became the company itself - TopRank Marketing. Lee Odden is the CEO. TopRank Marketing is a fast growing digital marketing agency based in Minnesota that consults for Fortune 1000 B2B and B2C companies. In perhaps the greatest recognition I've received with my content marketing efforts, I was named along with Lee by LinkedIn as one of 31 Content Marketing Thought Leaders to follow in the industry. Lee provides some insight into how his firm is working with some key brands in the industry and how he's advancing their content marketing efforts. Lee isn't just a leader in the industry, he's also an incredibly gracious person and patient teacher. I've been a student for over a decade!

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Jay Baer's latest masterpiece, Hug Your Haters, is the new playbook for how businesses of all sizes must handle customer complaints in a modern, mobile world. Widespread adoption of smartphones and social media has fundamentally altered the science of complaints. Critics of companies – haters – can now express their displeasure in seconds, in public, with no interpersonal friction. This trend has resulted in an overall rise in complaints, and a belief by many businesses that they should pick their spots when choosing to answer haters’ criticisms. Hug Your Haters proves that approach to be a costly mistake. It's a great discussion of the culture of hospitality with Jay, joined by Jenn Lisak and Thaddeus Rex. Jay's book was written to provide quantifiable, statistical evidence of both the impact of poor customer service and how it can be reversed with great customer service.

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Side note: We did not record this in our new studio, so there are some audio issues. My apologies for that and we'll make sure it never happens again! My apologies to Dave Taylor - but we'll be sure to welcome him back whenever he's ready. Dave Taylor is truly a living legend and pioneer in the technology industry, working on the Internet before it was released to the public.  Dave helps companies realize the potential of reimagining their business, reinventing their company, and embracing the potential of Internet-based Web, social media and other forms of two way communication to establish themselves as thought leaders and experts in their industry. Because he's an avid technologist who frequents the Computer Electronics Show each year, we wanted to hear his perspectives. Dave discusses the patent controversy at CES, the dip in Television tech, the rise in home automation, autonomous vehicles, virtual reality and drones.

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Liz Miller discusses mindblowing mutlicultural research published by the CMO Council and Geoscape, Activating the New American Mainstream. Liz Miller brings a varied career that spans over 22 years in the Marketing, Sports Entertainment, Retail, Health, Beauty and Personal Care spaces. With the CMO Council, Miller oversees all marketing, research and program operations, serving as the lead analyst for all research initiatives and reports. Along with oversight of event, content and digital teams, Miller can most often be found hosting one of the CMO Council’s many executive Dinner Dialogs or presenting CMO Council research findings at global conferences and thought leadership events.

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Every interaction is like a mini-performance, and your customers have front row seats. Injecting charisma into that performance doesn't take any more time, but it engages the audience at a higher, more effective level, allowing you to get bigger results with less effort. Thaddeus Rex In an era where a product can be built and delivered to market overnight, companies often struggle to differentiate themselves in person or online. Unfortunately, that puts poorly branded companies at great risk. They have great people, they have great products, and they may even have great clients... but they're struggling with growing their business and closing sales more effectively.  At DK New Media, we're often asked to develop online authority for companies that lack the foundation of a brand to do so effectively. We've been enlisting the assistance of branding experts to do this - and Thaddeus Rex has been a rock star for us. That's actually a pun... Thaddeus started his career as a musician and entertainer, and he brings that expertise to companies to help them prosper.

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One area of explosive growth in the marketing technology space is technology for sales acceleration. Brad Seaman's company, Monster Connect, may be one of the most innovative and truly provides a solution to one of the most difficult issues that sales people have every day. Outbound sales requires sales people to drudge through dozens of calls before they actually connect with a real person. Combine that inefficiency with the fact that sales teams also have to log and reschedule any calls that didn't connect and it's no wonder that a sales team's time is spent doing administrative work rather than actual selling. Imagine if you had a team of people working on your outbound sales list that made dozens of calls on your behalf - only connecting you when a live person is on the line!  This is Monster Connect, a sponsor of the Marketing Technology Blog. Their platform is like the Uber of sales acceleration tools. With Monster Connect, sales teams are connecting on every call and having 8 times the success!

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Brian Solis is a digital analyst, anthropologist, and also a futurist. In his work at Altimeter Group, Solis studies the effects of disruptive technology on business and society. More so, he humanizes technology’s causal effect to help people see people differently and understand what to do about it. Brian has released a string of books for business that challenge and push the envelope on helping businesses understand consumer behavior... and his latest book is an example of what it takes. X: The Experience Where Business Meets Design "This isn’t your ordinary business book. The idea of a book was re-imagined for a digital meets analog world to be a relevant and sensational experience. Its aesthetic was meant to evoke emotion while also giving new perspective and insights to help you win the hearts and minds of your customers. And, the design of this book, along with what fills its pages, was done using the principles shared within." Brian took time out of his business schedule as author, speaker, analyst and consultant to share with us his vision for this book and why it required 3.5 years from idea to execution. It's a fascinating conversation where Brian helps explain where we've been, where we are, and why businesses need to yield his advice on where to go next. Disclosure: We used our Amazon affiliate link in this post.

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I'm pretty excited about this podcast, our first in our new podcast studio at DK New Media! Jon Wuebben has been a long-time friend, we seem to bump into each other at every conference and love hanging out together. He's also an entertaining singer, the life of the dance floor, and can do a heck of a job on Karaoke. Jon is a multi-book author and helps clients develop content strategies, deploy their content, and promote their content online. The frustrations of the industry led him to develop his own platform, ContentLaunch, for planning, coordinating, publishing and promoting content. It's primary focus is on the small and mid-size business market since Jon saw the industry only providing large, expensive, enterprise products to handle the process. In the first half, we speak quite a bit about the platform, but the second half of the interview gets into some incredible detail on content marketing strategies and its use to build relationships with your prospects and customers. Be sure to listen - we've got great information throughout and will leave you with a task that will transform your content ideation strategy.

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Daniel Lemin's book, ManipuRATED, teaches business owners how to track what people are saying about their businesses online; how to make every review, good or bad, a marketing asset; how to respond to reviews — and when not to; how to recruit your best customers to write fresh reviews; how to publicize good reviews; and more.  In this interview, we discuss the industry and the book with Daniel.  Daniel Lemin is a respected authority on the reputation industry. He has been quoted in the New York Times and USA Today and featured on CBS Radio, Fox News and many other national and international news outlets. An early Google hire, Lemin was one of the first pioneers to realize the importance, impact, and power of online ratings and reviews on small businesses and the ongoing struggle business owners have with their online reputations. 

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Jack Klemeyer founded Grow Your Business™ Coaching based on the philosophy of providing business owners, corporations and their employees the knowledge and skills they need to be successful. That could mean greater sales to one person, the ability to hire more people for another and being a good leader to someone else. Whatever is needed, Jack and his team will find the resources to make turning dreams and goals into reality for their clients. A key strategy that Jack utilizes for business leaders is Mastermind Groups. Mastermind Groups are confidential groups of executives that meet regularly to help one another with their businesses. It's not a class, group coaching, or a networking group. Mastermind group participants challenge one another, set goals, and accomplish them. By being amongst your peers, you're provided advice, ideas, and honest support.  Jack manages these groups regionally in Indianapolis as well as virtually, with leaders throughout the web. We're going to be starting our own Mastermind group soon - so contact Jack if you're interested!

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