Performance Delivered

On this week’s episode of Polishing Your Digital Marketing, we sit down with Shawn Walker, VP of Strategy and Product Development at Symphonic Digital. Shawn is a digital marketing expert and the mind behind all of the great digital marketing campaigns we develop for our clients. 

We decided to focus this episode on Google Discovery Ads and how they can be leveraged in your digital marketing. Discovery Ads were announced as a new format last May, during a Google Live event, and were originally only available to beta testers. However, they were made available to the public in April of this year. Since this is a new ad format, we thought it would be great to talk about it and share the knowledge that we've collected over the last couple of months with our listeners.

We chat further with Shawn about:

• Google Discover and what Discovery Ads are

• The differences between display ads and Discovery Ads

• What businesses/industries Discovery Ads would be best-suited to

• The positive and negative aspects of this new ad format

• And more

On this week’s episode of Performance Delivered, we speak with special guest Sam Richter. Sam is the founder of High Profile Sales Coaching, as well as an award-winning keynote speaker, and the author of the best-selling book, Take The Cold Out Of Cold-Calling.

“I probably do about 100 dates a year, all over the globe, speaking on what's called sales intelligence, which is really all about how to find information about other people before you prospect them, before you call on them, so that you're highly relevant to what they care about. It can be summed up as: how do you find the right person at the right time? What's going on in their world?” says Sam.

We chat more about Sam’s coaching, as well as:

• The biggest challenges for salespeople

• The importance of different channels for outreach

• Properly gauging the efficacy of your sales calling efforts 

• Sales triggers— what they are and how to find them

• And more

On this week’s episode of Performance Delivered, we’re speaking about leadership marketing with special guest Lacy Boggs. Lacy is the Director of The Content Direction Agency, which helps busy thought leaders to consistently publish content that moves them closer to their business goals and captures their voices perfectly. 

“When I was getting started, I started working with a brand strategist, and she pointed out to me that I had the gift of being able to write in other people's voices. I honestly didn't know that was something that other writers didn't do, I thought that was something we all did. She told me that she thought a lot of people who had personality-driven brands, whether it was a person, for example, a coach who is the brand, or a product that has a strong personality brand, they would be very interested in having a writer that could mimic that brand voice that was already established. And so that's sort of what I leaned into as we were growing the business,” says Lacy.

We chat about what it takes to be able to write in someone else’s voice, as well as:

• The differences between leadership marketing and thought leadership marketing

• The importance of channels to your leadership marketing

• Developing a brand personality

• Marketing strategies

• And more

What works in SEO is always evolving, says Angelo Frisina, founder of Sunlight Media. And that means if you provide SEO services, you have to always be evolving too to continue a steady flow of traffic to your site.

Angelo shares the strategies he uses for staying on top of Google’s algorithm changes – and to make sure his clients’ websites stay highly ranked. We also explore some previous SEO techniques that don’t work today – and could even get your blacklisted.

In many ways, says Angelo, Google looks a lot different than they used to, with less emphasis on organic search results. That makes those top spots on page one extremely competitive, he says. 

We discuss that issue in detail, as well as…

• The best sources of “inside” information on Google’s algorithm updates

• The two most important elements of SEO strategy 
   
• A must-do task for effective link building (and a practice to avoid)

• What quality content really means today

• And more

Mattan Danino, CEO of WEBITMD, sees a gap in digital marketing services. And he’s passionate about working with small and medium-sized businesses who aren’t served by bigger agencies.

To that end, he strives to provide better results for clients by looking not only at the performance from individual marketing channels but also activities across all channels. He leverages technology to track – and act on – those results, including CRM, advanced automation tools, and more.

He says that helps bridge the gap between the theory of what should work… and what’s actually working.

We discuss that issue in-depth, including…

• The importance of KPIs and the right ones to use to measure digital marketing results 
   
• How to integrate inbound marketing and sales – automatically 

• The fatal flaw of the last touch attribution model – and what to do about it

• Why a CRM is an essential tool – but not for the reason you might think

• And more

Objectives and key results – OKRs – are a key part of a planning system that helps your team work in an organized way towards a common goal, explains Garrett Mehrguth, co-founder and CEO of Directive. 

Accountability is a key part of this strategy, with regular check-ins to make sure you’re on track to meet your quarterly goals. 

Garrett says it’s the perfect process to apply to his company’s work in SEO because OKRs provide strategic and deep-thinking consulting work for clients with long-term impacts, while still allowing for quick action on day-to-day tasks related to optimizing SEO or paid media work.

Involving your team is key because understanding the bigger goal behind their work allows them to be more effective. Plus, longer timelines for much-needed deep changes allow for more creative and effective solutions.

We take a deep dive into this topic, including…

• The reason quick “wins” lead to lukewarm strategic plans and long-term outcomes

• A strategy for organizing your team member’s time for better client results

• How to make sure agencies guide, not serve clients

• Factors beyond SEO you must consider – and will surprise you – to create an effective SEO strategy

• And more

On this week’s episode of Performance Delivered, we sit down with Shana Starr, CEO of Bastion Elevate, a PR, social media, and digital marketing firm that is part of Bastion Collective. In her role, Shana is dedicated to providing clients with rock star talent and a results-driven strategy for businesses around the world. She has over 20 years of experience running successful communication campaigns and working with both large and small brands.

“The importance of consistent messaging has never been more important today than in the past because you just don't have the time to spend with editors and they don't have the time to get to know you, so it's a different approach. I see brands now coming out with all kinds of different things and everybody's trying to offer everything to just hope they hit something that's popular, and it's confusing because nobody is going to take the time to understand exactly what you're offering,” says Shana.

We chat more about the importance of consistent messaging, as well as:

• Differentiating your brand through your value-adds

• Communicating your message across different channels

• How to ensure consistency across departments

• Teaching executives to understand the importance of clear brand messaging

• And more

If you’re losing web traffic, it’s time for a SEO audit, says Lindsie Nelson, VP of client strategy at Transistor, a digital marketing agency that specializes in SEO and PPC. 

In fact, any website that hasn’t done an in-depth SEO audit should do one because that will inform any SEO efforts and make them more effective.

We get into detail about the four main parts of a SEO audit, when it should be done, how to interpret results – and how the findings should guide SEO strategy moving forward. Lindsie shares what she looks for first and gets into the nitty-gritty of potential fixes – practical information anyone with a website should pay attention to.

Tune in to discover…

• How to tell if Google is “flying blind” on your website and how to fix it

• The simplest “back end” SEO mistakes to correct – you can do it yourself right now

• What many companies forget when building a new website (that kills their traffic)

• The best tools for conducting SEO audits

• And more

What works in SEO and digital marketing overall? 

That answer is always changing, says Kevin Indig, VP of SEO and content marketing at G2. But it’s that “continuous development” that attracted him to work in this field, along with the chance to stretch his creative and analytic muscles on a regular basis.

There is an issue he’s particularly concerned with these days. Google has gone from simply displaying ads and search results and sending searchers to other websites to actually answering queries themselves – and reducing traffic to other sites as a result.

We talk about how that impacts companies that buy Google ads and their SEO efforts, the regulatory implications, and more, as well as…

• The types of sites that are particularly vulnerable to the changes

• Industries that are benefiting from Google’s new business model

• How search marketers are adapting to this reality

• Potential channels that are ideal alternatives to Google

• And more

As senior VP of creative and operations at Eclipse, a full-service marketing agency, Michelle Azzopardi has worked with some of the biggest studios in Hollywood.

She says just as filmmakers tell stories; she sees marketers as storytellers as well. 

She talks about the role of creativity in her work, as well as some of the day-to-day of working in an agency, like powerful ways of mentoring junior employees, how to channel creative energy in the right direction, management and leadership strategies that work best in this industry, and more.

We also discuss…

• How to make sure creatives “play nice"

• What to look for in hiring a creative – and what doesn’t matter as much as you think

• Finding the balance between fighting for your ideas… and taking criticism

• Creating a supportive company culture that pays off in more ways than one

• And more