Performance Delivered

Influencers aren’t just celebrities anymore. They come in all shapes and sizes – and command different rates, says Jordan Dahlquist, director of social media with marketing agency Bastion Elevate. 

These days companies don’t necessarily need someone well-known or have millions of followers to effectively “influence” their audience. In fact, companies with a small budget can actually do quite well working with the right “microinfluencers.” 

We talk about how much you should pay influencers, how to find the right influencers for your audience, and more, including…

• The differences of working with microinfluencers versus macroinfluencers 

• The best way to pay influencers so you get the result you want

• The biggest challenges to finding influencers today

• How to counteract the problem of fake followers

• And more

On this week’s episode, we chat with Jonathan Stark, author of Hourly Billing Is Nuts and host of Ditching Hourly.

Jonathan is the former VP of a boutique software firm who became dissatisfied with the hourly billing method and decided to branch out on his own as an author, aiming to convince businesses that value-based pricing is the way forward.

“It was kind of an organic transition from me leaving the hourly billing... going out on my own and moving over to value pricing, but, you know, I’m not trading time for money. Ultimately, people asked me so much about it that I started to move in that direction,” says Jonathan when asked about his career transition.

On this episode, we chat about transitioning from hourly billing to value-based pricing, as well as...

• What types of projects are ideal for value-based pricing

• What factors you should be looking at to determine if value-based pricing is a good fit for your project

• How value-based pricing can be used to optimize your labor

• The caveats of value-based pricing (they’re likely not what you think)

• And more

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 who works to develop strategies for digital media investment to maximize ROI.

When asked about the importance of Google ad bid modifiers, Shawn says, “I think the number one thing is people don't know they're there. Number two, if they know they’re there, they focus on other things that maybe they think have a greater opportunity to be more efficient, like working on ad copy, or adding keywords. I would argue this is just as important. If you're using the correct keywords but you're not targeting the right people, that could be just as bad as having irrelevant keywords.”

We chat further with Shawn about…

• What bid modifiers are

• What levels they can be applied to 

• How they can help to optimize a digital marketing campaign

• Why human supervision is still necessary when automating your ad campaigns

• And more

On this week’s episode of Performance Delivered, we speak with Jan Risher, principal at Shift Key Content Marketing and Public Relations Agency. Jan has been a newspaper columnist since 2002, has been awarded an International Fellowship for journalism, and has taught English in six countries.

“You have to have the balance even on your own social media of giving people news that they can use, versus the occasional self-promotional item. But traditional media is just not going to, well, traditional media worth their salt is not going to pick up completely self-promotional items, period,” says Jan when asked what she means by “ditch your pitch”.

We speak with Jan about how she got her start in content marketing and PR, as well as…

• What traits make a story great and how a PR agency can help businesses identify which stories are worth telling

• Ways for businesses to improve on news judgment 

• Tips for getting a story picked up or featured

• Methods for getting results with a smaller budget

• And more

Part 2 of our two-part series with the Queen of Cold Calling, Wendy Weiss, is here! If you tuned into Part 1, you know what Wendy is all about, but if you didn’t…

Wendy is an author, speaker, sales trainer, and so much more! Wendy’s track record is impressive— she’s recognized as one of the leading authorities on lead generation, cold calling, and new business development. 

In this episode, we’ll pick right up where we left off and chat with Wendy about overcoming rejection, why you need to optimize your calling scripts, and…

• The structure of a successful call

• How you should design your voicemail messages

• Should you always follow your script to the letter?

• How to know if your script is working

• Quality vs. quantity

• And more

It’s part 1 of our special 2-part series! In this episode, we sit down with Wendy Weiss— the Queen of Cold Calling, and an author, speaker, sales trainer, and so much more! Wendy’s track record is impressive— she’s recognized as one of the leading authorities on lead generation, cold calling, and new business development! 

Wendy is passionate about helping her clients speed up their sales cycles, reach more prospects directly, and generate more sales revenue. Her impressive client list includes Avon Products, ADT, Sprint, and thousands of entrepreneurs throughout the country.

We’ll chat with Wendy about how cold calling has changed over the years, why you need to have a target audience, as well as… 

• How to not overthink what you’re going to say— and why a script is important to have

• How to micro-target your audience

• Why knowing your audience’s pain points is important

• What you need to do in order to set yourself up for cold calling success

• And more

Digital marketing agency Flying V Group takes a multi-pronged approach to boosting traffic, leads, and sales for its clients, encompassing SEO, paid search, social media, content marketing, and more. 

Robb Fahrion, co-founder, partner, and SEO lead, says their main goal is to build a digital marketing strategy that drives growth. And if there is anything that remains constant in digital marketing, says Robb, it’s that what works is always changing, which forces you to closely watch trends and tweak campaigns as needed.

Now, the COVID-19 pandemic has thrown another layer of difficulty on the whole process.

Robb talks about how what they do for their clients has changed, the adjustments they’ve made to digital marketing strategy, and more.

Tune in for tips on what you can do to reduce the impact of coronavirus on your business and plenty of strategies that get great results even in normal times.

Discover…

• A way to save money on marketing when budgets are tight

• What sort of projects you should focus on right now (to reap returns later)
   
• Why SEO is more important than ever – and what you should be doing now in this area  

• A marketing channel that is more important now than ever – and how to get started 

• And more

In this episode, we launch our new series: Polishing Your Digital Marketing! This series is aimed at helping business owners overcome digital marketing related challenges and identify opportunities.

You’ll join Steffen and Shawn in a casual discussion about digital marketing topics you’re always wondering about— and leave feeling informed and empowered to make marketing decisions in your business.

Today, we’re going to talk about what attribution solution is best for a company. Specifically, we’ll chat about… 

• Available attribution models

• Building brand awareness

• Hand-holding buyers to speed up the buying process

• How trying different ad platforms can benefit your business

• Deciding which attribution model to use 

• And more

In her work as VP of Client Strategy at digital marketing agency Transistor, Lindsie Nelson focuses mostly on SEO, using search trends and keywords to develop content that drives traffic. 

One thing she says digital marketers and their clients must never forget is that content can’t just speak to search engines – it needs to connect with people in a meaningful way as well so that they get the information they need about products and services.

Part of that strategy is to have long-term goals in mind, while still being able to make short-term changes to capitalize on emerging trends… like the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

We talk about how you might tweak your SEO in uncertain times, as well as…

• Blending creativity with data-driven decision-making
• One of the most useful tools to improve your landing pages – and it’s free
• Long-term plans versus short-term SEO decisions 
• Best practices for messaging in pages, title tags, and meta descriptions
• And more

Does your marketing actually engage your potential customers? Elevate My Brand CEO Laurel Mintz says that too many companies have embraced digital marketing but have forgotten the basics of how to connect with their target market.

Laurel says it’s all about being “real”… sometimes even outrageous… and you have to combine online efforts with real world engagement to effectively build your brand. 

But that doesn’t mean just holding events or setting up a booth at a trade show. Experiential marketing done right takes more effort. We talk about that, as well as…

• The KPIs to pay attention to when building a brand

• The best way to test new experiential marketing efforts

• How to create brand awareness with those who matter

• Making experiential marketing memorable… and accountable

• And more