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It's been about a year since WordPress 5.0 was launched which introduced the new block editor (Gutenberg) to the world. Despite much anxiety about the change, the release was successful and the Internet didn't blow up. Yay!With that being said, have you ACTUALLY been using the block editor to build more valuable sites for clients?

In this episode of PressThis, we interview Travis McAshan of Glide Design as he discusses his experiences using the new block editor to empower client content strategies. Travis shares how he and his team drives value for clients by providing them a powerful WordPress digital experience that allows for agile content strategies.

At the end of the day, brands hire agencies to grow. Supporting agile digital content strategies for your clients allows those brands to iterate on their message and drive growth faster, thus making your work more valuable.

If you're looking for more ways to deliver joy and growth to your hard-earned freelance or agency clients listen to this episode of PressThis now!

Listen to "Using Gutenberg to Empower Client Content Strategies with Travis McAshan & Jessica McDaniel of Glide Design" on Spreaker.

It’s good fun and good business sense when our host Peggy Anne Salz catches up with Rory Sutherland, Vice Chairman, Ogilvy UK, and author of “Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life,” a path-breaking book that argues thinking rationally and logically is actually not the way to go. Using real-life examples from his work with some of the world’s biggest brands and influencers, Rory blends behavioral science and case studies to show why marketers who rely on logic may be missing the ideas and inspiration that produce truly effective campaigns. The advertising legend whose TED Talks have been viewed nearly 7 million times also chats candidly about why today’s marketing calls for alchemy and how we can master it to do branding magic.

Listen to "Why The Most Successful Marketing Isn’t Logical, So Learn To Channel Irrational Thought" on Spreaker.

As with past years, we conclude 2019 with our annual Heroes and Zeros show with our good friends Brenda Christensen and Dan Tynan.

Except this year, we are covering Heroes and Zeros both for 2019 and the decade as a whole.

Listen to "Decade-End Heroes and Zeros with Christensen and Tynan" on Spreaker.

An estimated 65% of all digital ad spend in 2019 was programmatic. The numbers and audiences add up, but marketers also need to educate themselves about the pitfalls and work closely with their media agencies to avoid nasty surprises. We get the inside track on both from Marco Gerlach, Head of Business Development, and Christian Ratsch, MD and Founder of eComCon. The Germany-based pioneer saw the promise of programmatic – which makes advertising more targeted and buying more efficient – long before most agencies and got in early. They detail the ways eComCon is combining mobile and programmatic with Out-of-Home (OOH) advertising to reach new audiences and walk us through client case studies and key learnings. Finally, our guests share best practices sure to benefit all marketers everywhere.

Listen to "How eComCon Is Taking Its “Programmatic Everything” Approach To The Streets" on Spreaker.

Listen now to our monthly series "Word Around the Campfire" where we discuss the latest updates to WordPress itself as well as news from around the community.In this episode, we discuss a wide range of improvements in WordPress 5.3 as well as huge updates in the Gutenberg plugin which is a precursur to big changes yet to come in WordPress #core especially around how your themes might work.

If you haven't had time to keep up on everything happening in the world of WordPress, listen to this episode of PressThis now!

Listen to "Word Around the Campfire (December 2019) - News & Updates From Around the WordPress Community" on Spreaker.

Google’s Nov 2019 Local Search Update is official and the source of much discussion in the industry. Ross and Scott Van Achte discuss what is known along with other findings from the local search forum. They also discuss a Mueller file, an improvement to Google’s Search Console, and a question from a listener.

Listen to "SEO 101 Ep 370: Discussing Google’s November Algorithm" on Spreaker.

Google has upgraded the built-in tool that shows up in search results for the query “mortgage calculator.” Now, the tool has many of the key features that were missing from the previous version of Google’s mortgage calculator. Commodity content is content that is used across a wide range of sites. For example, content that is pulled by a feed by an affiliate can be seen as commodity content. In the example above, it’s government jobs that are available. There are many solutions for pulling a feed and automatically displaying the information on a website. It can help a publisher scale their publishing while also automating it. The downside is that these solutions are available to other publishers as well. A new study suggests the performance of virtual assistants, like Google Assistant, Alexa, and Siri, may have plateaued. Perficient Digital released its annual evaluation of virtual assistants. Perhaps the most interesting finding is that none of the top virtual assistants are improving when it comes to answering questions accurately. Not only are they not improving, but the accuracy of every virtual assistant dropped slightly compared to last year’s study. This may be an indication that these technologies have reached their limit, says Eric Enge of Perficient Digital.

"CMOs are abdicating their strategic position in their businesses."

Just when I was marveling at how much CMOs really must do for their brands, Laura Patterson, President of VisionEdge Marketing, said the above statement that stopped me in my tracks.

Laura has been focused on performance marketing and the proper use of data since before it was "cool,” and if anybody knows what's going on with CMOs, it's her.

A few weeks later, I was on a panel that brought up the Fornaise Marketing Group study. This study states that of the 1,200 CEOs polled, 80% of them did not trust and were not impressed by the work done by marketers. By comparison, 90% of them trusted their CIOs and CFOs.

I did some additional research and found more incriminating news. Forrester recently reported that "dozens" of major brands had eliminated the CMO position altogether, brands like Johnson & Johnson, Kellogg's, Taco Bell, and Netflix.

I wanted to get to the bottom of this. Was I part of the problem, focusing on just one channel? And why does Laura believe CMOs are losing their seat at the table in the c-suite? Listen in to find out.

Resources and links discussed:

Connect with Laura: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurapattersonvem/

Learn more about VisionEdge Marketing: https://visionedgemarketing.com/

Check out the Fornaise Marketing Group study: https://www.fournaisegroup.com/ceos-do-not-trust-marketers/

Follow Brian on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bmassey

Learn more about Conversion Sciences: https://conversionsciences.com/

Listen to "How to Know if Your CMO is Lost in the Weeds | Laura Patterson" on Spreaker.

As many of us in the WordPress ecosystem know, finding the right talent located in your home town is often very difficult. In order to get around this, agencies and brands build remote teams filled with people from all around the world. While this gives us an advantage by allowing us to attract great talent, building a powerful culture with far flung team members is a huge challenge!

In this episode of PressThis, we interview Joe Howard of WP Buffs around building a powerful remote workforce culture. Joe shares his thoughts on the strengths & weaknesses of remote teams, how to ensure you build a powerful culture, and what you can do as an individual if you find yourself on a remote team.

Joe runs WPBuffs which is a WordPress services based business that helps business maintain and optimize their WordPress sites. The WPBuff's partially remote-workforce must run at maximum efficiency and collaboration in order to keep customers happy.

Listen now to hear Joe's working-remote war stories and learn advice on building a powerful remote workforce culture!

Listen to "Building a Powerful Remote Workforce Culture with Joe Howard of WP Buffs" on Spreaker.

Ross and guest co-host Scott Van Achte discuss the latest global search market share statistics, Christmas ads, when to act on bad links, Google Maps user profile SPAM reporting, and a lot about the significant havoc within Google’s local SEO results in November. Lastly, they answer a few questions from listeners that were posted on the SEO 101 Podcast Facebook group.

Listen to "SEO 101 Ep 369: Bedlam Continues in Local SEO Results" on Spreaker.