Monthly Archives: April 2020

Here’s to Empathy in Business

Here’s to Empathy in Business written by Jenna Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with Minter Dial

Minter Dial

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Minter Dial a professional speaker, history fanatic, and president and founder of Digitalproof Consultancy, a strategic firm providing digital and brand consulting to clients. He is also an award-winning author, including his latest book Heartificial Empathy, Putting Heart into Business and Artificial Intelligence that won the Book Excellence Award 2019 and was shortlisted for the Business Book Awards 2019.

Minter Dial is the producer of the award-winning book and film The Last Ring Home and co-author of Futureproof that won the Business Book Award 2018.

Minter Dial is a self-proclaimed itinerant bohemian in search of experiences and interesting people. As a metier, he relishes being an energetic speaker on leadership, brand and digital strategy with a specialization in digital transformation.

Questions I ask Minter Dial:

  • What are the overarching ideas of empathy and artificial intelligence being blended?
  • How does empathy relate to business?
  • How do we ultimately connect this idea to AI?

What you’ll learn if you give a listen:

  • Where empathy needs to start in a business
  • How empathy affects employees and customers.
  • The two items that will gage our ability to connect AI to empathy

Key takeaways from the episode and more about Minter Dial:

Like this show? Click on over and give us a review on iTunes, please!

Zephyr logoThis episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Zephyr.

Zephyr is a modern, cloud-based CMS that’s licensed only to agencies. The system is lightweight, easy to use, and incredibly fast. And with an array of beautiful themes to choose from, you can get your clients’ websites up-and-running quickly and with less effort. Or, if you’d rather build a custom site, Zephyr includes agency services to be your plug-and-play dev shop.

Zephyr is passionate about helping agencies create great websites for their clients. To learn more, go to Zephyrcms.com.

How to Get High-Quality Backlinks

How to Get High-Quality Backlinks written by Jenna Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Getting backlinks can seem like a daunting task. How do you get other businesses to link to your site online?

If you don’t have any backlinks yet you can get up and running pretty quickly by tapping your existing partners and resources within your community. Things like the local chamber of commerce online listings, alumni directories for the founders’ schools, and church and community directories are great places to start. This is the low-hanging fruit, and getting these backlinks set up is a great way to ease into the next steps in a backlink strategy.

Once you’ve established those links, it’s time to move onto more advanced tactics. Gathering more backlinks should be an ongoing effort, and if you’re looking for legitimate ways to get backlinks, these are the best way to do it.

Research Competitors Backlinks

Start by investigating your competitors. Where are they getting backlinks? Are they in industry databases or local publications that list providers in their city? Once you’ve discovered these additional places where you can be listed, it’s sometimes as easy as filling out a simple form to get your business listed.

A comprehensive SEO tool like SEMrush or Ahrefs can help you research your existing backlinks as well as the links your competitors have acquired.

Update Existing Content

Hopefully, you already have some content on your site. Sometimes, there’s an opportunity to restructure or refresh the content you already have in order to generate backlinks.

Do you have any blog posts that list providers or tools that are helpful for your readers? Take a look through the list and add some new businesses onto these lists. Then, reach out to these businesses to let them know their service or tool has been featured; they’ll want to let their customers know that they got a shout-out on an outside site, and so you’ll likely get a backlink from them.

Submit Guest Posts

Guest blogging has long been a popular, more advanced way to get backlinks. Reaching out to relevant sites and writing a guest post on their blog is a great way to get links. However, over the years the trend of guest posting has waned a bit, so it’s now more difficult to get a guest blogging gig.

It’s worth the try, though! Put together a targeted list of blogs and publications that would be a solid fit for a strategic partner for your business. Write a compelling, error-free pitch email, outlining the topics you could write about and why it would bring real value to their audience. Tailor your pitch to each blog’s specific audience, and take the time to research who you’re emailing so that you can send a personalized message. Finally, feel free to follow up with your contact in a respectful way if you don’t hear back initially.

Join a Podcast

While guest blogging seems to be falling out of favor, guest podcasting is my new favorite way to get backlinks. Just like with guest blogging, guest podcasting is great because it allows you to tap into the existing audience of the brand of the podcast you’re appearing on.

And there’s an additional benefit that guest blogging doesn’t have: It’s very little additional work. While writing a blog post requires research, writing, editing, and selecting photos and relevant emails, when you are a guest on a podcast, you simply show up and talk about what you do every day. You’re an expert in your field, and you can speak comfortably on your topic with little preparation. And with most podcasts, you can call in from wherever you are to speak with the host, so within the 30 minutes or so that it takes to do the interview, you have generated great backlinks.

A service such as Podcast Bookers can get you set up a pitched to podcasts very quickly.

Write up a Report

While it’s sometimes challenging to convince others to let you guest blog, if you have exclusive research to share, you can capture everyone’s attention. Offering up research is a great way to get media links and to even open guest blogging doors.

Yes, exclusive research takes time. However, if you are able to partner with one of your existing business relationships, you can both reap the benefits and halve the work. You and your strategic partner can tap into your networks to find people to interview for the research. Then divide and conquer when it comes to assembly the data and creating visually-appealing ways to share it.

Connect in New Content

How can you get attention and backlinks for new content you create? Mentioning relevant influencers, community members, or others in your posts is a great way to get re-shares on new content.

Of course, you shouldn’t just stuff names into posts for the sake of name dropping. Make sure that the people you’re mentioning are relevant to what you’re writing about. For example, let’s say you are a home remodeling business. Consider pulling together a series of posts featuring families you’ve done work for. If there’s anyone that’s a pillar of the community who they’ve worked with, ask if they’d be willing to be featured. Let’s say you helped the former mayor remodel her kitchen—ask her if she’d be willing to talk about the process and share how her new and improved kitchen has bettered her life.

Once the post goes live, let the person know and ask them to re-share with their network and followers.

Publish a Press Releases

With all of these new digital marketing tactics, it’s possible to forget about those tried-and-true methods. But press releases are still a great way to get attention and backlinks! Are you launching a new product or opening a new location? Did you make a big, announcement-worthy hire? Are you participating in a local community event? There are plenty of reasons you might write a press release.

If you need a refresher on how to write an effective press release, check out this guest post on our Duct Tape Marketing blog.

Link Out

This is a long-game approach to getting backlinks, but it’s worth the effort. When you’re creating content, link out to tools and resources you genuinely like and think are helpful. If you’re featuring a specific tool or mentioning an individual person, you can email the business or person to let them know. But it’s good practice to include external links in every post, and many of those external links don’t warrant an email to the source.

However, it’s likely that the source is doing exactly what you’re doing: monitoring your online presence. They’ll see an alert that they’ve been linked out to, and that simple thing such as a link can get your brand on their radar screen. While they might not shout out that piece of content or link back to them right away, there may come a time in the future where they’re looking for a link to share that’s relevant to your client’s business, and it’s your site that they’ll turn to.

It’s important for you to build up a repository of backlinks. It matters for SEO ranking and your online reputation, and the more mentions you can get across the web, the more likely you are to win the attention of a new audience. But just as important as quantity is quality. A great marketing strategy can help you gather backlinks that are relevant to your business.

Weekend Favs April 25

Weekend Favs April 25 written by Jenna Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

My weekend blog post routine includes posting links to a handful of tools or great content I ran across during the week.

I don’t go into depth about the finds, but encourage you to check them out if they sound interesting. The photo in the post is a favorite for the week from an online source or one that I took out there on the road.

  • ZmURL – build a beautiful page for your Zoom event in 2 minutes
  • Outschool.com – live online classes for kids ages 3-18
  • Stream – make money from virtual events hosted on Zoom

These are my weekend favs, I would love to hear about some of yours – Tweet me @ducttape

Elevate Your Brand Visually with Easy Design Editing

Elevate Your Brand Visually with Easy Design Editing written by Jenna Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with Payman Taei

Payman Taei

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview the founder of Hindsight Interactive and Visme, Payman Taei. Payman’s background in Biology has led him to truly believe in the art of evolution. He constantly strives to create new as he believes if you follow you will be left behind.

He’s the Founder of HindSite Interactive award-winning web design and web development company in Maryland. His experience with web design clients highlighted frustration with the lack of easy-to-use tools to empower non-designers to speak visually. This drove him to create Visme, one of the easiest and quickest way to create engaging presentations, infographics, and virtually any other type of visually engaging content – from any browser without being a designer.

Questions I ask Payman Taei:

  • How do you wrestle with the idea that you are giving someone a powerful tool but there are still design principles that they don’t adhere to or know?
  • Are you finding designers particularly with a collaborative nature who are designing in Visme for their clients?
  • If someone was to ask you now, what would you say has been the hardest thing for you as a business owner to grow in this particular venture?

What you’ll learn if you give a listen:

  • The “aha” moment for creating Visme
  • How you can work with design tools and not be a designer
  • How Visme, a company that works with over 1.8 million businesses, is mostly remote and how it’s helping them today

Key takeaways from the episode and more about Payman Taei:

Like this show? Click on over and give us a review on iTunes, please!

Zephyr logoThis episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Zephyr.

Zephyr is a modern, cloud-based CMS that’s licensed only to agencies. The system is lightweight, easy to use, and incredibly fast. And with an array of beautiful themes to choose from, you can get your clients’ websites up-and-running quickly and with less effort. Or, if you’d rather build a custom site, Zephyr includes agency services to be your plug-and-play dev shop.

Zephyr is passionate about helping agencies create great websites for their clients. To learn more, go to Zephyrcms.com.

Shift Your Marketing for the ‘New’ Normal

Shift Your Marketing for the ‘New’ Normal written by Jenna Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with Mark Sanborn

Mark Sanborn

On this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Mark Sanborn, who is president of Sanborn & Associates, Inc., an idea studio dedicated to developing leaders in business and in life. Mark is an international bestselling author and noted expert on leadership, team building, customer service and change.

Mark’s latest book The Fred Factor: How Passion in Your Work and Life Can Turn the Ordinary into Extraordinary recounts the true story of Fred, the mail carrier who passionately loves his job and who genuinely cares about the people he serves.

We’ve all encountered people like Fred in our lives. In The Fred Factor, Mark Sanborn illuminates the simple steps each of us can take to transform our own lives from the ordinary – into the extraordinary. Sanborn, through stories about Fred and others like him, reveals the four basic principles that will help us bring fresh energy and creativity to our life and work: how to make a real difference everyday, how to become more successful by building strong relationships, how to create real value for others without spending a penny, and how to constantly reinvent yourself.

Questions I ask Mark Sanborn:

  •  Do you suspect coming out of this health crisis there will be a lot of reinvention going on?
  • Some people are saying they think they need to turn marketing off, but I think you just need to think of your marketing differently. Do you find that “checking in” is a good practice or is that adding to the noise?
  • A lot of salespeople are attracted to the idea of interaction or engaging with people. If this virtual thing is going to stick around, do you see it changing the world of business in general?

What you’ll learn if you give a listen:

  • Why you might never call a period in time normal again
  • How to make a greater connection between work and life
  • How to think about marketing differently as if you were doing no marketing at all

Key takeaways from the episode and more about Mark Sanborn:

Like this show? Click on over and give us a review on iTunes, please!

Klaviyo logo

This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Klaviyo. If you’re looking to grow your business there is only one way: by building real, quality customer relationships. That’s where Klaviyo comes in.

Klaviyo helps you build meaningful relationships by listening and understanding cues from your customers, allowing you to easily turn that information into valuable marketing messages.

Want to learn more? Head to Klaviyo.com/ducttape to schedule a demo.

Content to Fill Your Social Media Calendar

Content to Fill Your Social Media Calendar written by Jenna Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

It’s an age-old question: what should I post on social media for my business? When it comes to social media, engagement is the ultimate name of the game. You want to start dialogues online with your followers. Many times that engagement can be a first or second step in getting a customer with a need to know, like and trust you. 

Social media can be an incredible tool to open up potential lines of communication with customers or clients. But in order to begin a conversation, someone has to say hi! By posting regularly on social media, through both organic and paid channels, you are saying hello and giving followers a starting place for additional engagement. 

You want to share content that’s meaningful and is likely to get a response from fans. Social media feeds contain lots of junk; you need to create something that captures attention in a sea of reTweets, tiger kings and memes.

Here are the three types of posts you should be creating for engagement on your business’s social media profiles. Each serves its own unique purpose, and when combined, they create a consistent, thoughtful online presence.

Brand Personality  

Introduce yourself to your followers and their friends. This is organic content that can only be shared by someone within your organization. Let your followers start to understand the type of culture that is within your company. 

People go to social media for the community, to take a break, for advice, all of which are very personal. This is not where you should be selling. Sales messages would be a distraction from their original goal when they turned to their social channels. Or worse an annoyance. 

These posts can be hard to plan because they’re about things that happen organically. Maybe you decided to bring your dog in for the day. Who wouldn’t love to see your office from your dog’s point of view? Or take this real-life example from Duct Tape Marketing. I shared a photo with a touch of humor and a touch of a positive message with the help of my coffee mug and I got some great engagement and feedback. 

cup of sunshine

Posts like this get a lot of engagement because they tell the story of the person behind them. You aren’t selling to anyone, instead, you are letting them in, showing them day-to-day stuff as you run a business. It’s this kind of content that’s most likely to generate comments and likes, while simultaneously creating a sense that prospects really know the people behind the brand.

Editorial Posts 

The majority of your posts should be culture posts. These aren’t as easy to plan as the majority of them happen in the moment. To fill in the moments between you can schedule more operational posts. 

These are posts around shared content, they help to demonstrate you as an authority in your field. It’s proof that you are an expert at what you do and is a critical trust-building element with leads.

Let’s say you own a home cleaning service. Maybe you’ve been a guest on a podcast or local TV news show about finding the right cleaning service to fit your needs and budget. Or perhaps you write a great blog post about how to clean up messes left by a pet.   

Whatever the case may be, share this content on social media. While it won’t get the same level of engagement as your brand personality posts, it’s more likely to capture a prospect’s attention because the prospect has already been drawn in by something else. 

If they do click on the link, they’ll find it contains meaningful information. That’s how they’ll develop a deeper level of trust in your expertise.

Customer Journey Progression Posts 

Once you’ve won your audience over with culture posts and earned their trust with editorial posts, you can move into paid posts, which are designed to achieve business objectives.

These paid posts should have calls to action that speak to a specific conversion goal. You can create a number of paid social campaigns that are designed to speak to prospects and customers at various stages of the customer journey. For those in the try phase, create a CTA that invites them to download an ebook or sign up for a free trial. Returning customers should see advertising that’s tailored to their needs based on previous purchases.

While we all know that paid ads are not anyone’s favorite thing to encounter on their social feeds, if you’ve already laid the groundwork with meaningful organic content that your followers genuinely appreciate, prospects will be that much more receptive to seeing an ad from you.

A smart mix of organic and paid social posts can help you to build awareness and trust. This is what drives engagement on your social profiles. Posts with a lot of heart pave the way for those that are more focused on achieving business objectives. When you strike the right balance, you create an opportunity to have your social efforts feed directly into your other marketing channels to guide people farther down a customer journey.