Monthly Archives: May 2020

Weekend Favs May 30

Weekend Favs May 30 written by John 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.

  • Zoom Backgrounds: Hundreds of virtual zoom backgrounds available, change your zoom background for your next meeting.
  • GIPHY: Your top source for the best & newest GIFs & Animated Stickers online.
  • Blush: An easy way to add illustrations to your projects. With collections made by artists across the globe, there’s something for everyone—and every project.

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

How to Get the Best Out of Your Virtual Meetings

How to Get the Best Out of Your Virtual Meetings written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with Mike Fraidenburg

online meetings In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Mike Fraidenburg, a certified mediator, natural resource scientist, and former government executive with broad experience helping organizations and executives who are struggling to work effectively in environments with a lot of conflicts.

Mike’s specialties are assessment and implementation of community-building programs to establish and then maintain positive working relationships across the boundaries between organizations and the community that cares about what you do.

His book Mastering Online Meetings: 52 Tips to Engage Your Audience and Get the Best Out of Your Online Meeting was published in January this year.

Questions I ask Mike Fraidenburg:

  • Meetings for a lot of people have always been horrible regardless of the format because meetings, in general, are not run that well and now have this technology in the way. Do you feel as though this is going to make people up their game and redefine the meeting in general?
  • Are there some tips for getting more engagement particularly when you are trying to brainstorm or collaborate?
  • Would you say there are different rules for different size audiences?

What you’ll learn if you give a listen:

  • The difference between synchronous and asynchronous meetings
  • Mike’s favorite tools for different meeting types
  • How you can make sure everyone can participate even when they can’t attend the actual meeting

More about Mike Fraidenburg:

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

 

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

Have you ever tried to find a domain name and been given  the message, “Sorry, that domain name is already taken!”? You are not alone! But with .store, a new domain extension for eCommerce and online stores, you will get the domain you want!

What’s more, www.yourbusinessname.store, instantly tells people your website is a “store” and lets your brand do the marketing for you! So, go ahead
and get the perfect, memorable website URL for your online store at www.get.store​.​

Focus on Your Customer to Grow Your Business

Focus on Your Customer to Grow Your Business written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with Simon Severino

strategy In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Simon Severino, CEO of Strategy Sprints GmbH, where their goal is to coach CEOs and their teams to ensure higher NPS (Net Promoter Score), higher sales conversion and faster execution.

Simon also teaches Growth, Strategy, and Innovation at select MBA courses across Europe. Simon is the host of a podcast The Strategy Show, a show from CEOs for CEOs, in every episode he promises you will find a new masterclass on how to grow and scale your business.

Questions I ask Simon Severino:

  • In your experience what are some of the biggest mistakes that you’ve come across that companies commonly make, especially in the strategy area?
  • Can you think of a business that you have been able to convince to simplify and that’s where growth came from rather than piling more on to get growth?
  • Would you say there is a type of business this approach works best with?

What you’ll learn if you give a listen:

  • What are Strategy Sprints and how they work
  • How to find the #1 bottleneck in companies
  • How to focus on customer growth

More about Simon Severino:

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

Zephyr logo

This 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.

The Small Business Guide to Podcasting

The Small Business Guide to Podcasting written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

The term podcasting has become mainstream these days and interest in this medium is on the rise and, rightfully so. Not only is it convenient for listeners who want topics that they’re interested in on-demand, but it’s also valuable for the person or business hosting them.

Below find seven great reasons every business should consider starting a podcast

Getting started is easier than it looks

The secret’s out, podcasting really isn’t that difficult to get started. People often assume that podcasts require a lot of fancy equipment and a large investment, and while you certainly can get to that point, you definitely don’t have to start there.

As long as you have a microphone that works, a way to record a conversation with guests (if you have guests), and a way to share the content with your audience, you’re really all set. Here’s a simple set-up that covers what you need.

  • Microphone USB Mic such as a Blue Yetti
  • Recording – You can use Squadcast, Skype or Zoom
  • Editing – Garage Band or Audacity
  • Hosting – Libsyn or Blubrry
  • Publishing – Podcast on WordPress using Blubrry Plugin
  • Distribution – iTunes/Apple, Spotify, Google Podcast, Stitcher, TuneIn

You can repurpose episodes into other forms of content

Since podcasting is audio-based, repurposing the material into other forms of content, such as video, a blog post or a series of blog posts, is a great way to create content without reinventing the wheel. Additionally, it helps to further expand your reach because part of your audience may not be podcast listeners, but they may be blog readers, and vice versa.

Rev.com is a great transcription service.

Podcasting is great for networking and building referrals

Reaching out to others to have them as a guest on your show is a great way to build your network and will also give you more chances to be asked to be a guest on other podcasts, furthering your connections even more. The more people you can connect with, the more you’ll increase the chances of referrals, leading to more opportunities and business for your company.

Along with networking and building referrals, podcasting can expand your public speaking skills as well which can lead to in-person speaking events (a great way to establish authority and credibility in your field).

It establishes an emotional connection with your audience

The format of a podcast allows you to develop a deeper relationship with your audience. You’re not hiding behind words on a page. Hearing your voice on a frequent basis makes your audience feel like they actually know you, and the more likely you are to establish an emotional connection with them, the more likely they’ll be to follow your brand and buy from you.

You can make money from it

Not all podcasters want or need to monetize, but if you are interested in making money from your show, there are a number of ways to do that, including:

  • Sponsorships
  • Affiliate marketing
  • Product promotion (be careful with how you go about this, your podcast should be entertaining and educational, not “salesy” if you want it to truly be effective)

You can increase traffic to your website

The audio portion of your podcast can drive traffic to your website simply because it helps to build your credibility and authority on your topic which often makes your audience want to visit your website to learn more. Another way this boosts site traffic is that podcasts often come with show notes (at least they should) that people can review for resources and an outline of the show. If people are on your site reviewing the show notes, or even the episode transcript, they’ll be more likely to visit other areas of your site, which will increase the odds of them converting to customers.

Another way podcasts boost site traffic is that they often come with show notes (at least they should) that people can review for resources and an outline of the show. If people are already on your site reviewing the show notes, or even the episode transcript, they’ll be more likely to visit other areas of your site, which will increase the odds of them converting to customers.

Podcasting is a type of long-form content that people actually pay attention to

Hate to say it, but our attention spans are fading. We live in a world of information overload where we only have the time to consume small bits of information at a time. With podcasts however, you can consume them at times when other forms of content are unavailable (hopefully you’re not reading a blog post while driving to work in the morning). Whereas with a podcast, you can sit in traffic for an hour and consume valuable information. Since people are engaged with podcasts for longer periods of time than other content, this gives you opportunities to showcase your knowledge and expertise in a way that you’re unable to with other formats.

Podcast Guesting is a Killer Marketing Tactic

So far we’ve focused on creating your own podcast but there are many benefits associated with being a guest of someone else’s podcast.

There’s no denying that interest in podcasting has increased over time, especially within the last 5-6 years. I think this is for a couple of reasons:

  • Content has become the air that drives so many channels
  • It’s portable and allows for multi-tasking nature of it

The combination of the two has allowed the popularity of this medium to skyrocket, both from listening and production standpoints.

While I think producing a podcast is a great idea and can provide many benefits for your business, there are also a plethora of opportunities that are there in podcasting for any business owner, namely through being a guest on another person’s podcast. Let’s dive in.

Guest interviews

Putting yourself out there as a guest on podcasts (as opposed to traditional PR with radio and TV) is one of the best things you can do for your business these days, but let me be clear, in order to be successful with it,  you must put yourself out there and pitch yourself on an ongoing basis, and truly build this as a channel for your marketing efforts.

A podcast interview is not only content, it’s great quality content. It’s a tremendous way for you to build expertise, authority, and branding for you and your business. When people hear your voice, it adds a deeper level to building trust, and the more a person trusts you, the more likely they’ll be to buy from you.

SEO and the benefits of podcasting

My friend, Phil Singleton, is one of the most knowledgeable people on SEO that I know, and he recently stated (over this past weekend, in fact) that of all the time he has spent on SEO, podcasting may be the best SEO tactic to give you the biggest bang for your buck. Being a podcast guest provides the following benefits:

  • Gives you access to an engaged audience
  • The host does the majority of the work
  • You have virtually no preparation (especially in comparison to guest blog posts)
  • High production value will make the content more shareable
  • There will likely be show notes that will drive links back to your website
  • Reviews can help build authority and credibility
  • There is a ton of repurposing potential with the content

At the end of the day, SEO really comes down to three main things:

  • Keywords– You must know what keywords your ideal client is searching for
  • Content– You must build those keywords into your content on a consistent basis
  • Links– That content must be seen and shared by other people by acquiring links from other sites to link to that content. From that, Google surmises that it’s good content.

If you focus on those few things over time, you will show up, and likely rank highly, in search engine rankings. What this means, is that a guest appearance on a podcast is your content on steroids. You get high-quality content and awareness to the podcaster’s audience (podcasts get shared more than blog posts).

Guest blog posts are a lot of work and time-consuming. Even if a podcast doesn’t have a huge following, it will likely still have more engagement than blog posts and have the ability to get more shares than regular blog posts and you will get links back to whatever it is that you’re promoting.

To make this even better, a lot of podcasters, including myself, are also creating transcripts along with their podcast episodes to have the written word content go along with the spoken content. In many cases, if you appear on a podcast, and they don’t transcribe it, many podcasters will let you transcribe it and repurpose it for additional content on your site; again, which will help to boost your SEO.

How to get on shows

Remember, this is a consistent process, not just something you do every once in a while, so it’s important that you allocate time and attention to this. Below are a few ways you can approach getting on podcasts.

Google search

Google is great at showing podcasts. Start by searching with an industry you’re interested in and google “[industry] podcast” and see what appears. Simple enough, right?

iTunes

iTunes not only categorizes podcasts, they include related searches like Google as well.

Amazon

If you click on an author link, Amazon will show related authors, which can help expand your search.

From your research, build a spreadsheet of hosts you want to reach out to. Most podcasts have some form of contact information or a form asking people to pitch themselves as a guest.

Once your spreadsheet is filled out, one of the things I’d spend time on is to think of your objective for being on a show. Make the podcast host understand the value they’ll get by interviewing you.

From a content and link objective perspective, don’t worry about how big the show is or the size of the audience. Focus on the links and content and make sure they align with your objective.

In almost all cases, you need to go out and pitch people. I can’t emphasize this enough if you listen and subscribe to their show and know the host’s listeners, what they talk about, and how they deliver value, you’ll do a much better job of showing how you’ll benefit their listeners in your pitch.

These days, podcasters are looking for guests to have one-sheets that include your bio, why you’re a good fit, what you have to offer, places you’ve appeared, what others have said about you, and so on. If a podcaster is trying to decide between you and another guest, the one-pager can go a long way. The more professional you’ll look, the better your odds are of getting chosen for the show.

How to be a great guest

Your work isn’t done once you book the podcast. In order to be a great guest and get the most value out of this exposure, you really need to prep for it.

Subscribe and listen

If you want to be on a show, subscribe to it, or at least listen to it and really educate yourself on the host’s style and type of questions he/she may ask.

Don’t sell

The purpose of the interview is to educate or entertain the host’s audience. You may have the opportunity at the end of the episode to say where people can find you and so on, but nothing will turn an interview sour faster than selling.

Answer questions succinctly

A minute to 90 seconds is often too long for a response. Prepping will help you be clear and concise in your delivery.

Sound quality

Nothing is more frustrating than listening to a podcast with poor sound quality. Before you hop on the interview, confirm you have a solid internet connection or cell reception, and take the call in a quiet space to try to eliminate any extra background noise.

Show appreciation for the opportunity

Once you’re on the call, remember to thank the host for having you on the show and express your appreciation. Once the show is complete, be sure to leave a review for the podcast on iTunes.

How to promote your interview

After the show, most podcast hosts will send you a link to promote the show, and may even send you proposed copy for social media posts. Sharing and promoting your appearance makes a lot of sense. It helps spread the word and it’s good content that people may want to share. Look for multiple ways to promote it to your network.

After everything is said and done, ask your host for a review and use it in your marketing to boost your authority. If you own a local business, have them do the review through Google. Think of this as an opportunity to produce content and get amazing links and put your SEO on steroids.

One of the best ways to get the interest of podcast hosts is to let them know you’ll be a great promotional partner as well as a great guest.

Below is a checklist of potential promotional activities once you’ve been a podcast guest.

  • Add it to Your Next Webinar
    • Do you host webinars? If so, why not make a highlight of your next one a chance to hear your recent podcast interview?
  • Email Newsletter
    • When someone signs up to receive your email newsletter you can include photos, teaser videos, quotes and Click To Tweets from the actual interview in your emails.
  • On Your Blog
    • Highlight the event with a blog post. You can include episode show notes, as well as the embedded video or audio from the interview. You can even repurpose your podcast interview into a long-form blog and then embed the audio of it at the end of the post.
  • Social Channels
    • Please post links to the podcast, videos, graphics, quotes, and photos. Facebook Live, Instagram Stories, and Snapchat are all great for real-time engagement. Also, Facebook, Instagram Images, and LinkedIn offer the perfect platforms for promoting evergreen content.
  • Retargeting and Paid Advertising
    • Paid advertising on social media can also be effective. With Facebook especially, you can create ads that are hyper-targeted for the ideal persona that will find value in your interview.
  • Email Signatures
    • The average person sent 34 business emails daily. Now think about if you have advertised your podcast interview in each one of these. That gives you the opportunity to reach even more people.

 

How to Create Segmented User Experiences

How to Create Segmented User Experiences written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Your business doesn’t serve a homogenous customer base. Unless you’re an incredibly niche service, it’s likely that you have at least a handful of types of people who benefit from your products or services.

Because these types of customers are different from each other, they won’t all be won by the same kind of messaging. That’s why it’s helpful to create unique user experiences on your website that speak to each segment of your overall customer population.

Here’s what you must do to create a more personalized, segmented user experience for your website.

Create Target Market Personas

First thing’s first: You need to figure out what the segments of your larger customer population are. There are a number of ways to break an audience down into distinct buyer personas, and it starts with data. This might be data from your CRM, email service provider, website, or social media analytics.

Start looking for demographic and behavioral trends. Are there certain age groups, genders, or people from specific locations that do business with you? If you’re a B2B company, are there industries you work with often, or are your point-people in a particular department, or do they hold a specific job title?

Behavioral trends can help, too. Are there certain pages on your website that nearly everyone visits before they become a customer? Is there a particular email campaign that drives a lot of prospects to set up a sales call and eventually convert?

Finally, take a look at how these demographic and behavioral data points overlap. Is there a specific age group that responds well to a certain section of your website? Does your social media page generate a lot of interest from people in a particular geographic area?

If possible, it’s also a good idea to conduct some interviews with your existing customers. Hearing straight from the source about what problems your client solves and why they chose your client over their competitor can help you hone in on some of the other elements of the customer personas.

Once you’ve gathered all of your information, you can create your composite sketch of each type of their ideal customers: Who they are, what they need, and what they expect from you.

Allow for Self-Identification

Now that you understand who these different segments of your audience are, you can begin to create different messaging and experiences for them on your website.

The easiest way to ensure that each customer ends up on the path that’s intended for their persona is to allow them to self-select into the appropriate segment on your website. Websites do this all the time to great effect. Let’s say you own an architecture firm, and you handle both residential and commercial projects. On the homepage for the website, build a splash page with two separate buttons—one for those interested in each type of project.

Each button will take the visitor to a separate homepage for that specific audience, with a navigation bar that speaks to their needs (i.e. those who click on residential will see the portfolio for homes the architect has designed, and informational content about the process of undertaking home renovations).

Design Unique Landing Pages

I’ve already covered one instance in which unique landing pages can work on your website to speak to different audiences. This is also an effective tactic when you’re driving traffic from ads to your website.

Take, for example, a paid search campaign. Let’s stick with the architectural firm example and say that within your commercial work, you have two distinct personas: You work regularly with private schools and non-profit organizations. You design a Google Ads campaign targeted at private school leaders and board members. When they click the ad, rather than taking them to the generic landing page for commercial projects, why not create a landing page specifically about your work with other schools?

This customized landing page is effective in immediately addressing the pain points of your distinct persona. That board member of the private school might be somewhat interested in your work for other types of commercial properties, but when they see right off the bat that your architect has designed beautiful spaces that address the specific needs of a client in private education, that prospect feels an immediate connection to your work. They feel seen and understood, and you begin to immediately build trust.

Select Channels Based on Audience

Once you’ve captured the attention of each segment with an effective strategy to get them onto your website, continue to dazzle them with content that speaks specifically to their needs.

Of course, you want the meat of the content to be relevant to the audience. That means topics that matter, filled with advice and helpful information, rather than sales pitch after sales pitch.

But in addition to considering what you’re going to cover in your content, you want to think about how you’re sharing it. Typically when people think of content, they think blog posts, but there’s so much more to it than that: Podcasts, explainer videos, webinars, infographics, and ebooks—there’s a wide variety of ways to reach your audience.

For example, did you know that video, while a popular medium with all consumers, is even more effective with Baby Boomers? It might surprise you to learn that they watch 10 percent more videos on YouTube than Millennials. Meanwhile, Millennials and Gen Zers outpace Boomers and older generations when it comes to podcast listening.

So while you want to be providing a variety of content to each of the segments of your audience—because no one wants to be greeted with the same content format over and over again—think about ways you can lean into certain types of content for specific personas.

Invest in Hub Pages

Hub pages do a lot of good in organizing content on your websites. In addition to giving you great SEO juice and breathing new life into old content, it can also establish thought leadership in specific areas that are important to your different personas.

Let’s return to the architect example. If you know that your commercial clients are mainly in the private education and non-profit worlds, it makes sense to build hub pages around those two areas. One hub page can be specifically for that private school audience and include content that speaks to topics like fundraising and budgeting for major capital improvements, planning your construction around the school year, and designing a modern education building that speaks to what today’s parents are looking for.

Different segments of your audiences will have different needs and expectations when it comes to what they’re hoping to get from your business. By identifying these different buyer personas and creating specific customer journeys for various groups, you get a better chance at directly addressing pain points, building trust quickly and efficiently, and moving new prospects towards the sale even faster.

How to Create Your Referral Engine

How to Create Your Referral Engine written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with John Jantsch

Today I want to talk about what is probably the highest pay off marketing activity right now. Obviously there is a lot going on in the world today. I find that a lot of people are looking around trying to figure out what they can do marketing-wise. Obviously a lot of businesses are being displaced. With the massive change businesses are feeling it is also being experienced by customers. Long time customers are being disconnected from longtime providers. Customers are being forced into changing their purchase behaviors, how they research, think, and buy.

This can be leveraged as a huge opportunity. Many companies are still looking at how to remake themselves. But I’m suggesting it is the time to look inward. To seek referrals from existing customers and strategic partners as the primary lead generation initiative. Listen to find out how to do this.

Tips discussed during the podcast:

  1. Highest payoff marketing activity right now is referrals
  2. How to ask your existing customers for referrals
  3. Referrals can benefit both your business and customers
  4. Some people may need what you do so reach out to them
  5. Talk to other businesses to strategize and find ways to help each other
  6. Make partnering up with other businesses successful and bring something of value to the table

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

 

Klaviyo logoThis 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.

Weekend Favs May 23

Weekend Favs May 23 written by John 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.

  • Userinput.io– Get real feedback on your website, SaaS or Ecommerce store
  • Speakpipe– Allows your customers, podcast listeners, blog readers and fans to send you voice messages (voicemail) right from a browser without any phone calls.
  • Indicative– The only customer analytics platform for product managers, marketers, and data analysts that connects directly to your data warehouse.

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

How to Define Your Path Towards Wellness

How to Define Your Path Towards Wellness written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with Dr. Nancy Trimboli

health and wellnessIn this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Dr. Nancy Trimboli, a health expert, and chiropractor with over 25 years of experience. She has taken the lessons she learned from her father, an Episcopalian priest, and from earning a black belt in Taekwondo and used those as the foundation for her compassionate care of patients and for the
hard work and dedication necessary to build a thriving business.

While in the heyday of her practice, Dr. Nancy created a multi-location, multi-doctor business with over 40 employees and she personally worked with up to 150 individual patients per day. This has allowed her to master the art of taking complex health issues and breaking them down into a concise and easy to comprehend manner. Dr. Nancy has facilitated over 800 workshops at her office. She shares her knowledge through platforms such as her YouTube channel (which currently has over 100 videos), Facebook live videos, and Stealth Health: Take Back Your Power and Unravel the Mystery of You, her first adult book. Her first children’s book, Little Squirrel Girl, is a true story of a baby squirrel who needed a chiropractic adjustment and watched sunsets.

Questions I ask Dr. Nancy Trimboli:

  •  We have the USDA, FDA, and all these organizations that are supposed to take care of us, like a food pyramid. How is this possible?
  • There’s stress about how to get the bills paid and a lot of times even when everything is going great you’re still awake till 2 or 4 in the morning because you’ve got this client thing you are gonna do and you just want to get it right. So how do you turn it off?
  • If somebody is listening to this and thinking, “Yea, I do need to kinda take control of this”, what is the three-step get started plan?

What you’ll learn if you give a listen:

  • Where stealth ties into health
  • Who to trust and who not to trust when it comes to finding your path towards wellness
  • Benefits of taking time to destress

More about Dr. Nancy Trimboli:

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

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

Have you ever tried to find a domain name and been given  the message, “Sorry, that domain name is already taken!”? You are not alone! But with .store, a new domain extension for eCommerce and online stores, you will get the domain you want!

What’s more, www.yourbusinessname.store, instantly tells people your website is a “store” and lets your brand do the marketing for you! So, go ahead
and get the perfect, memorable website URL for your online store at www.get.store​.​