How Chase Chappell went from Working in his Sister’s Garage to Advising on $189.5M+ in Ad Spend

How Chase Chappell went from Working in his Sister’s Garage to Advising on $189.5M+ in Ad Spend written by Sara Nay read more at Duct Tape Marketing

 

Agency Spark Podcast with With Chase Chappell

The Agency Spark Podcast, hosted by Sara Nay, is a collection of interviews from thought leaders in the marketing consultancy and agency space. Each episode is designed to spark ideas you can put into practice for your agency today.

In this episode of the Agency Spark Podcast, Sara interviews Chase Chappell. Chase Chappell is a serial entrepreneur, marketer, and founder of Chappell Digital where he manages $10M in ad spend and is an advisor for $189.5M+ in spend across Facebook’s products.  He’s also the creator and instructor of the Facebook Ads Expert Mastery Class.

Questions Sara asks:

• How did you get into the Facebook Ad space?
• Talk to us about your process for taking on a new Facebook Ads client?
• How does a small business with a limited budget compete against a larger business that might have millions to put towards ad spend?
• How do you help small business owners analyze their budget to know what they even should be putting toward ad spend?
• Take us through your process for testing which ads are working the best?
• What is the value of retargeting?
• Tell us about your Facebook Ads Expert Mastery Class?

Resources mentioned:

• Canva

Learn more about Chase Chappell:

• Visit his website: Chase Chappell

Get 10% off Chase’s Facebook Ads Expert Mastery Class:

• Use discount code AS10 to receive 10% off the purchase price. Click here to see purchase options.

 

This episode of the Agency Spark Podcast is brought to you by Unstack, a no-code marketing platform and ecosystem.  Start building a site today for free by visiting their website. 

Stop waiting on developers and leveraging multiple tools to manage your marketing stack.  With Unstack, you get a no-code website builder, landing page builder, A/B testing, forms, analytics, contact insights, payments, memberships, blog, and more all in one platform.  Start building a site today for free by visiting this link and receive 20% off for six months when you sign up.

 

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Always Have A Backup: Why B2B Marketers Must Be Prepared

Are you ready for World Backup Day? For World Backup Day we want to explore the importance of backing up not only your business’ data, but why B2B marketers should always have a backup plan B — and preferably also a plan C and D — at the ready. “Don’t be an April Fool. Be prepared. Back up your files on March 31st,” the World Backup Day website admonishes for the annual day celebrating the importance of backups, which falls just ahead of April Fool’s Day. I remember the first backup I made 37 years ago, when I decided that my heavily-modified BASIC code for the 300-baud computer bulletin board system (BBS) I operated needed to be safely duplicated, in case anything ever happened to the single copy in existence. On that day in 1984 I had to borrow a second Commodore 1541 5.25" floppy disk drive to backup my BBS program and the data my callers left in the form of public and private text messages — the precursor to modern email. I still vividly recall the sense of reassurance I felt having completed that first backup — my data safeguarded at least to the extent that I was able to achieve at the time. I still have those two floppies, and about a decade ago I successfully used a piece of hardware to hook up my old disk drive to my modern computer, while a utility copied the disks into a format that present day Commodore 64 emulator programs can read. Those old files then became a part of my regular backup scheme. Let’s take a look at both smart data backup strategies and why, as B2B marketers, we should always be prepared for the unexpected — and not just when it comes to potential data loss.

Successful B2B Marketers Use Sound Backup Practices

A sound backup practice is fundamental to the success of any business, especially to today’s technology firms that operate almost entirely in the digital realm, creating mountains of potentially irreplaceable data. Relying solely on the type of cloud-based syncing provided by Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, Dropbox or countless others is scarcely better than having no backup plan whatsoever in place, as these services typically only offer file synchronization meant for convenience when hopping from one computer or device to another, while a dedicated stand-alone backup program exists solely to protect your data and provide a perfectly restored copy in the event of any number of unforeseen data emergencies. Similarly, relying too heavily on hard drives using Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) technology can also offer a false sense of protection, as the system is not meant to be a data backup measure, but simply a data redundancy solution. What are some of the elements of a robust data backup strategy? Let's examine some of the options.

Cloud, Offline, Offsite, Multiple Copies & More

In the digital realm, a smart data backup plan involves keeping multiple copies of your information in several locations and on a number of different media formats, with a goal of ensuring that even multiple failures can’t delete your priceless data for good. Even if the backing up of your data is handled by a specialized team within your company, in today's world that is more remote oriented than ever, many B2B marketers are working from several computers and devices — oftentimes not even located at a centralized office location — which means that we all need a backup strategy that can protect both our professional and personal files. Important and sometimes overlooked factors of a trustworthy data backup plan are:

• It Needs To Be As Automatic As Possible
• It Needs To Incorporate Regular Restoration Testing

If backup software is installed on all of your computers, that's not enough, as it should be set up to automatically perform backup operations on a regular basis. In the earlier days of personal computing — the nearly forgotten term we used for the novel and unusual practice of having a computer entirely for home use — backups typically couldn't be run automatically, and were instead only done when time was available and when we happened to remember. Today's backup programs make it relatively easy to schedule regular backups, which can also be encrypted for an added measure of security, especially when the resulting backup archive files are stored in the cloud. Detailing a thorough data backup strategy is beyond the scope of this article, however here are several resources to help guide those looking to set up or improve their existing backup plan on this World Backup Day:

• Wikipedia's backup entry offers a detailed introduction to the concepts and terminology of modern data backup practices
• Reddit channels such as r/DataHoarder offers its 433,000-plus members tips and tactics for robust backup solutions

If we've already successfully implemented a sound data backup strategy, are there lessons we can apply to our professional and personal lives?

Stay Ahead Of The Marketing Game By Having Plans B, C, & D At The Ready

As important as data backup contingencies are, it makes sense to apply similar strategies to our professional and personal lives, to ensure that when a change of plans inevitably happens, we’ve got the situation covered with backup plans thought out ahead of time. Unforeseen circumstances are minimized when you've taken the time to plan for a wide array of likely — and unlikely — scenarios, and often what sets the best B2B marketers apart is the thorough approach they've taken to planning for many varying situations. As with data backups, smart planning in marketing involves finding solutions to potential roadblocks — whether it's choosing who will fill in for you should you be on sick leave during an important meeting, or having a plan B and C in place for any number of typical business issues that arise. The human form of the cloud's data backup is knowing who is able to be your own backup when you can't be there in person. We don't yet have automatic methods to transfer our individual knowledge from one person to another, however each of us can help others in our organizations by documenting important workflows and procedures. [bctt tweet="“Often what sets the best B2B marketers apart is the thorough approach they've taken to planning ahead for many varying situations, including having plans B, C and D at the ready.” — Lane R. Ellis @lanerellis" username="toprank"]

Plan Ahead & Avoid Plan 9 From Outer Space Snafus

via GIPHY Don’t just wing it when agendas go awry, or your efforts will start to look like the low-budget special effects in the cult classic film Plan 9 From Outer Space, as savvy clients and associates can tell the difference between dealing with a professional who has a solid plan B in place and one offering only a toy flying saucer dangling from fishing line. This World Backup Day, as you reexamine your data backup plans, also take time to think about what you can do to help share your unique knowledge with key people in your firm and industry. Ready to take your own marketing to the next level? Contact us today and see why firms including Adobe, LinkedIn, SAP, 3M, Dell, Oracle and many more have chosen TopRank Marketing.

The post Always Have A Backup: Why B2B Marketers Must Be Prepared appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

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15 Chrome Extensions Every Marketing Consultant Should Employ

15 Chrome Extensions Every Marketing Consultant Should Employ written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Chrome extensions are incredibly useful (and often underrated) tools for marketers. They allow you to tailor your daily online experience to your specific needs, your job, and your productivity. As a marketing consultant, there are plugins out there that can help you, your clients, and potential prospects.

There are many extensions that can help you do things like: gain more competitive insights for your clients, quickly audit and report on a prospect’s website performance, instantly record a short personalized 1-to-1 video to send in a cold email, analyze SEO, security, and design flaws on a website, the list goes on.

There’s a huge library of plugins out there, and it’s easy to become overwhelmed when looking through the extension store. So which ones are really worth adding to your stack?

I want to share some of the best extensions you can add to your marketing consultant toolkit. These tools will help you focus, find new customers, and make informed decisions about your marketing strategies (The links below are all for Chrome versions but many also have Firefox and Safari versions.)

1. Similar web

SimilarWeb can give some basics on traffic to a site including the breakdown of traffic channels and similar websites. It’s a competitive digital intelligence tool for a complete 360-degree view of your industry, competitors, and customers.

2. Quick SEO

Quick SEO checks backlinks and few other handy things. It provides you easy access to important SEO signals and data like PageRank, Backlinks, Alexa Rank, and Traffic estimate.

3. METASEO Inspector

METASEO Inspector is useful to inspect the meta data and schema found inside web pages that are usually not visible while browsing. The extension shows you alerts when the meta data is not within certain ranges, for example when the description tag is too short, or too long.

4. Built With or What Runs

These tools are website profilers. Either of these tools can give you a pretty quick analysis of the technology behind a site like WordPress and what plugins are present with a click of a button.

Above: Built With

Above: What Runs

5. MyWebAudit

This is a paid tool that runs a complete analysis of a site and produces a pretty report you can brand and use. MyWebAudit runs automated checks that provide a done-for-you audit system. It identifies the major design, SEO, security, and performance issues that cost businesses money.

6. Lighthouse

This is Google’s site speed test tool that can quickly produce some ideas about what might be slowing a site down.

7. WhatsMySerp

WhatsMySerp shows related search volume and CPC data right in the browser for most search phrases. You get unlimited on-demand keyword research data inside Google search results.

8. Facebook Pixel Helper

This tool shows if Facebook Pixel is installed. The extension works in the background to look for conversion or Facebook pixels and provide real-time feedback on the implementation.

9. Loom Instant Video

This allows you to launch Loom from any web page and is handy if you’re doing site reviews to capture what you are seeing on a site. You can record your screen, voice, and face to create an instantly shareable video in less time than it would take to type an email.

 

10. Email Hunter

This tool allows you to find email addresses associated with any website. Along with the email addresses, you can get the names, job titles, social networks, and phone numbers. All the data has public sources detailed in the search results.

11. Color Picker

This tool makes it easy to identify web colors, saving, and editing them on a given site a quick and simple job.

12. What Font

What Font helps you discover the fonts used on a website. It allows you to know the font name, its family, color, style, size, position.

13. Video Speed Controller

Fast-forward, rewind, adjust playback speed on any video. This video speed adjuster adds controls to web videos that allow to increase or decrease playback speed.

14. Grammarly

This tool checks your grammar in email and any other online app. You’ll get real-time feedback from Grammarly on Gmail, Google Docs, Twitter, LinkedIn, and nearly everywhere else you find yourself writing.

 

15. Calendly

If you use this scheduling tool, the extension makes it easy to drop your calendar links into any doc or email.

There’s my list, but hopefully, you’ve found at least one Chrome extension that can help you become more effective at your job. Are there any essential or obvious ones I missed? Let me know in the comments.

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Creating B2B Podcasts That Rise Above The Noise

It’s never impressive to hear someone say they have a podcast. Making a podcast is easy! I have one that’s nearly a decade old and 400 episodes strong.  The hard part is getting people to listen. My personal podcast has maybe 200 monthly listeners and brings in just enough in donations to pay for our web host. And at that, we have 198 more listeners than a lot of podcasts out there.  The barrier to entry is low… but if you’re a B2B brand looking to engage with potential buyers, you’re going to want to aim higher. How do you make a B2B podcast that actually gets listened to? One that inspires people to subscribe and tell their friends about it?  It’s simple: 1) Use everything you know about content marketing to create and promote it, and  2) Make sure it’s polished, professional, unique and engaging So simple!  Here’s how to make a B2B podcast that rises above the noise.

B2B Podcasting Tips for Creation, Promotion and Beyond

It’s tempting to jump into podcasting the easy way: Interview some employees and executives, record to an MP3, and post away. But creating a successful business podcast requires more strategy and production than your average hobbyist would do. 

#1: Create a Content Strategy

You wouldn’t write a single blog post without doing research and strategizing (right? Don’t tell me if you would). And that’s to say nothing of an entire series of blog posts that takes hours of time to write and edit. Finding the right subject matter and understanding your audience are fundamental, foundational layers for content marketing. The same due diligence that marketers do for content should apply to podcasting. Before you record a single word, you should know:

• Who your audience is. How can you personalize your content to appeal to the job title, experience level, vertical and personal experience of that audience?
• What your audience wants to know. Use tools like SEMrush, Answer the Public, and BuzzSumo to see what people are searching for and what terms they’re using to search for it.
• What burning questions you can answer. Your sales and customer service teams can be key for this one. Find out where deals are getting stuck for sales, and what frequently asked questions your customer service folks are encountering.

At the end of all that research, you should have a good idea of the topics to put in your podcast editorial calendar. As a bonus, when you create content around your podcast (more on that later), it will have all these keywords and topic clusters already built in.

#2: Plan for Promotion

Promoting a new podcast can be a substantial challenge. There are thousands of podcasts out there, and very little in the way of standardized search or SEO opportunities within the major podcast directories. You can start by making sure your podcast is listed on Google Podcasts, to show up in regular searches, but a lot of podcast promotion happens outside of the podcast itself. Cross-promotion is one way for your podcast to find listeners. Reach out to other podcasts in a similar niche and offer to swap guest spots to promote each other. Remember, podcasting is not a zero sum game; people who listen to one podcast are more likely, not less, to listen to more. Creating content around your podcast can boost visibility, too. Make each episode into a blog post with key takeaways and a full transcript. And, of course, include the podcast links in your social media and newsletter posts. Paid advertising is an essential component, too. You can advertise on podcasts with a similar audience, sponsor social media posts, and even experiment with paid search. Finally, don’t forget to market the podcast to your employees, too. Podcast directories use early listenership as a signal to make your podcast more visible. If you’re at an enterprise with thousands of employees, it should be easy to get enough critical mass to earn that extra boost. [bctt tweet="“Remember, podcasting is not a zero sum game; people who listen to one podcast are more likely, not less, to listen to more.” — Joshua Nite @NiteWrites" username="toprank"]

#3: Make It Professional

Plenty of podcasts — including some extremely popular ones — are completely DIY. The exquisite Welcome to Nightvale, for example, started with one $80 microphone and free recording software. But for B2B, you’re not competing against those passion projects — your audience is likely used to professionally-packaged programs like All Things Considered and Radiolab.  To make sure your podcast sounds professional, start with a modest investment in recording equipment. You don’t need a $1,500 microphone to record a podcast, but you do need something better than the built-in mic on a laptop. A couple of good-quality microphones and a simple mixing board should get you going for less than $500.  If you plan to do remote interviews of guests, a tool like Zencastr can help you capture high-quality audio that’s not dependent on the speed of your internet connection.  Instead of high-end audio equipment, save your budget for outsourcing post-production. Let a professional edit out the umms and ahhs, mitigate background noise, and properly level your audio. 

#4: Keep It Interesting

Now let’s talk about the final touches that make a podcast engaging for your audience. This is where a little extra effort can really elevate the final product.  First and foremost: EDIT. Editing is a gift that you give to your audience. It’s easy to have a 2-hour conversation with an influencer or executive, mix it down and upload it. But how much more powerful would a 20-30 minute highlight reel be? Judicious, merciless editing is a key component of a polished podcast. [bctt tweet="“It’s easy to have a 2-hour conversation, mix it down and upload it. But how much more powerful would a 20-30 minute highlight reel be? Judicious, merciless editing is a key component of a polished podcast.” — Joshua Nite @NiteWrites" username="toprank"] Even better, go beyond the simple interview format and think about a more topic-driven style. Rather than a single Q&A with one guest, capture audio from a few different experts on a topic (influencers, employees, customers) and weave them together with the help of an engaging host — more on that in a second. Listen to how it works in this episode of the SAP Tech Unknown podcast*: Did you notice the sound effects and music cues in that episode? If not, it’s worth a listen — you’ll hear everything from squawking seagulls to tractors and roosters. All of those sounds were created in post-production — but they all serve to bring the listener further into the narrative.  Another key ingredient that you’ll hear in the podcast above is finding a charismatic, professional-sounding host. The right host can liven up potentially dull material, put your guests at ease, and steer conversations to interesting new places. Now, I’m not saying you need to hire a voiceover artist to be the host — in fact, you’re better off with an industry expert or someone in your organization. But make sure they have the gift of gab (Shoutout to the inimitable Tamara McCleary).

Please Cast Responsibly

The barrier for entry to podcasting is low — but the barrier to creating a B2B podcast that people will listen to is a little higher. The first step is to make sure your podcast will have relevant, interesting, unique content for your audience. Then it’s important to strategize your creation and promotion plan to help your podcast find an audience. Finally, it’s taking the steps to make sure your podcast is edited and produced to be a lean, no-filler, immersive experience. Need help creating a memorable B2B podcast? Let’s talk.  *SAP Is a TopRank Marketing client  

The post Creating B2B Podcasts That Rise Above The Noise appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

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Brandfluence – Why Growing Executive Influence is Essential for B2B Marketing

The post Brandfluence – Why Growing Executive Influence is Essential for B2B Marketing appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

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Weekend Favs March 27

Weekend Favs March 27 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.

• Reedsy– The Reedsy Book Editor is a free online writing tool allowing any author to format and create professional ePub and print-ready files in seconds
• Grid -GRID enables you to leverage your existing spreadsheet skills to build smart, interactive web documents. Get started – it’s free!
• Listen Notes– The most comprehensive podcast database online. Discover best podcasts. Search podcast show notes and audio transcripts by people, places, or topics.

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

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The Top 10 Duct Tape Marketing Podcast Episodes for 2020

The Top 10 Duct Tape Marketing Podcast Episodes for 2020 written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

2020 was an unpredictably eye-opening year that brought forth swift change, lots of uncertainty, and a shift in perspective for many. Even though 2020 immediately conjures words like “challenge,” “hardship” and “crisis,” there are many lessons learned that will impact and shape the future of business and small business marketing moving forward.

I chatted with some incredible guests on the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. I wanted to take a look back at the most popular episodes we aired in 2020.

If you enjoyed what you heard here, check out the full line-up of shows.

Tim Staples – Creating Shareable Content for Your Busines

Tim Staples is the CEO of Shareability and co-author of Break Through the Noise: The 9 Rules to Capture Global Attention. Staples has developed a reputation in the marketing industry for being a creator of viral content. In the past few years, several of his video campaigns have amassed more than five billion views, and 35 of them have landed on the first page of YouTube.

Biggest takeaway: Today everybody has a megaphone. But now that everybody has a megaphone, they’re shouting into it all day long, every day, to the point where most people have tuned almost all of it out. You’ll hear from Staples on the five positive emotions that are the most effective in content to get people to lean forward and share: happiness, awe, curiosity, empathy, and surprise.

Click here to listen to the episode.

Michael Margolis – Storytelling Around Disruption and Innovation

Michael Margolis is the CEO and founder of Storied. Storytelling has become a business buzzword of late, but there’s a lot of complexity behind the term. Margolis’ focus is specifically on storytelling as it relates to disruption and innovation. It’s often hard to tell stories about change—audiences grow wary or defensive—but Margolis helps leaders in Silicon Valley and other hotbeds of innovation make that change feel exciting and achievable.

Biggest takeaway: We are taught to lead with data and conclusions. But if you lead with data, the story is dead on arrival. Margolis shares his three-step narrative framework that will help you capture your audience’s imagination, attention, and relate to your story about what you’re selling.

Click here to listen to the episode.

 

Alison Levine – How to Treat an Opportunity Like Your One Big Break

Alison Levine is a leadership expert, polar explorer, and mountaineer who is no stranger to extreme environments. She has survived sub-zero temperatures, hurricane-force winds, sudden avalanches, and a career on Wall Street. She is one of the most in-demand keynote speakers, delivering resounding leadership messages that transcend her extreme climbing expeditions and remain relevant in today’s fast-paced business environments. She is able to draw relevant, authentic parallels between mountaineering and business because she has experienced both first hand—on multiple mountains, in multiple organizations, and in multiple industries.

Biggest takeaway: Alison Levine shares her story of starting her journey at 30. Levine shares how progress happens when you get uncomfortable, and how to treat an opportunity like it’s your one big break.

Click here to listen to the episode.

Steven M.R. Covey – Timeless Habits for Cultivating Success

Steven M. R. Covey is the former CEO of the Covey Leadership Center, where he helped his father, Stephen R. Covey, launch his classic book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. He is also a New York Times and #1 Wall Street Journal bestselling author himself. His book, The Speed of Trust, is designed to help leaders build a collaborative team and environment on the basis of trust.

Biggest takeaway: Steven M.R. Covey shares his insights on why it’s so important for people to feel understood, how a paradigm shift can change your reality, why spirituality doesn’t need to be religious, and how it can help you in challenging times.

Click here to listen to the episode.

Ben Shapiro – Uncovering New Possibilities in the World of Marketing

Ben Shapiro got his start at eBay, where he served as their manager of business development and SEO. He then went on to found his own business and run marketing for a number of early-stage startups. In more recent years, he transitioned into marketing strategy consulting and now runs several popular podcasts, including the MarTech Podcast and Voices of Search. 

Biggest takeaway: Shapiro shares why companies should consider getting into a content business. what really matters when it comes to creating a successful podcast (or great content in any format), and how to approach going independent whether that’s the next big step in your career, or you’re doing it for the time being.

Click here to listen to the episode.

 

 

Seth Godin – Tips of the Trade with Seth Godin

Seth Godin is an entrepreneur, best-selling author, and speaker. In addition to launching one of the most popular blogs in the world, he has written 19 best-selling books, including The Dip, Linchpin, Purple Cow, Tribes, and What To Do When It’s Your Turn (And It’s Always Your Turn). His most recent book, This is Marketing, was an instant bestseller in countries around the world.

Biggest takeaway: You’ll get insights from best-selling author, teacher, and entrepreneur Seth Godin about what it takes to create a successful podcast and produce one at that, the difference between the homemade and the professional approach to media production, and where conferences will stand on being relevant in today’s world.

Click here to listen to the episode.

 

Kara Goldin – How to Find Inspiration in Doubt

Kara Goldin is the founder and CEO of Hint Water, a flavored water brand founded in 2005. She is also the author of Undaunted: Overcoming Doubts and Doubters. Kara is an active speaker, writer, and host of the podcast Unstoppable with Kara Goldin where she interviews founders, entrepreneurs, and other disruptors across various industries.

Biggest takeaway: Don’t let anyone crush your dreams! Kara Goldin shares her story about the incredible risks she took and how she overcame huge challenges in founding Hint amidst all of the doubt from herself and others.

Click here to listen to the episode.

Solo Show – Google Analytics Simplified for Small Business

Closing the loop on your marketing investment, on your channels, on your customer engagement, are important. This allows you to focus, spend less money, and invest in what really works. I work with a lot of small business consultants and small business clients and this is one of the biggest challenges to get them excited about. It’s a lot like telling people they need to like math. Especially when you go to this tool, one that I believe is one of the best tools on the planet, and it’s free, but it’s really easy to get lost. In this podcast, I’m going to spend some time trying to simplify this.

Biggest takeaway: You’ll learn why you should care about Google Analytics, how to set it up, and what goals you should have when you set it up.

Click here to listen to the episode.

Todd Henry – How Motivation Can Drive You to Produce Your Best Work

Todd Henry is the founder of Accidental Creative, and author of The Accidental Creative as well as Die Empty. Todd Henry’s latest book he wrote with Rod Penner, Todd W. Hall, Ph.D., and Joshua Miller, Ph.D. – The Motivation Code: Discover the Hidden Forces That Drive Your Best Work.

Biggest takeaway: Todd Henry has created a new framework for understanding what motivates us and why. Henry shares tips on how you can use your motivation to produce your best work.

Click here to listen to the episode.

Shaina Weisinger – Repurposed Content Can Increase Your Traffic 300%

Shaina Weisinger is the CEO of Repurpose House. Shaina Weisinger is an expert in social media marketing, specifically optimizing content through repurposing. Repurpose House takes all of the content your business produces and adds the social media bells and whistles. They trim video and audio, create text motion videos of blog highlights, add headlines, captions, size them for all platforms, and more.

Biggest takeaway: You’ve spent effort and time creating content, you should get the most out of it. Shaina Weisinger shares how you don’t always have to reinvent the wheel, and you can use repurposed content to increase your traffic significantly.

Click here to listen to the episode.

 

Is your favorite episode on the list? If not, we’d love to hear which one you enjoyed listening to the most!

For our podcast audience, we can’t thank you enough for your support over the years! If you like the show, click on over and subscribe and if you love the show give us a review on iTunes, please!

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B2B Marketing News: Long-Term Brand Relationship Study, Digital Ad Spending Climbs, Ad Overload Survey, & Google’s New Review Tools

Instagram Announces That Stories Drafts are Coming Soon Facebook-owned Instagram will roll out a new scheduling option that will provide a helpful change for digital marketers who are using the native Instagram Stories interface, the firm recently announed. Social Media Today B2B Highlights From "The CMO Survey" 51.3 percent of B2B marketers said they were more optimistic in January 2021 than during the fourth quarter of 2020, while 77 percent said it isn't appropriate for their brand to take a stance on politically-charged issues — two of numerous findings of interest to digital marketers in new CMO survey data. B2B Marketing Directions Study: Ad overload could pose steeper risk to brands than messages near inappropriate content Some 52 percent of U.S. consumers say that they see overexposure to ads as the top cause of negative brand perceptions, especially those that were seen as distracting or otherwise intrusive, according to newly-released survey data. Marketing Dive Google My Business releases tool to manage your reviews Google has rolled out a new feature for its Google My Business service that allows marketers to conveniently monitor the status of multiple firm review take-down requests, the search giant recently announced. Search Engine Land 30-Second Video Ads Have Taken Over Some 4 in 5 digital video ad impressions are comprised of the 30-second format, ousting the previous 15-second format as the most used video ad length, while the average time spent viewing videos ads has remained mostly stable, according to recently-released survey data. MarketingCharts Zenith Forecasts Telecom Ad Spend Will Grow 4%-Plus Annually Through 2023 Nearly half of 2020’s $17.8 billion telecommunications industry advertising spending went to digital — the only channel with rising telecom ad spending — according to recently-released forecast data of interest to online marketers. MediaPost 4As Report: Agencies Stepped Up In Times Of Trouble Client engagement levels at advertising agencies climbed some 90 percent over the past year as the pandemic spurred increased use of online collaboration tools — one of several findings of interest to digital marketers in newly-released American Association of Advertising Agencies study data. MediaPost Digital's Big 3 Are Now The Majority Of U.S. Ad Spending For the first time, in 2020 Google, Facebook and Amazon combined to attract the majority of ad spending in the U.S., with ad revenue for the so-called triopoly reaching more than $115 billion, according to recently-released analysis data. MediaPost Advertisers Are Podcast Listeners, And New Report Finds That’s Also Making Them Ad Buyers 56 percent of advertisers say the global health crisis has given increased importance to podcast advertising, with a third of advertisers saying that podcast ads drive better brand buying consideration scores — two of several statistics of interest to digital marketers contained in recently-released podcast advertising report data. Inside Radio How Should Brands Create Better Long-Term Relationships with Customers? Just 17 percent of senior marketers say their firms track customer lifetime value (LTV), while 62 percent hope to improve LTV through developing a unified customer view, according to recently-released report data from the CMO Council and Deloitte. Understanding emotive drivers and delivering on brand promises top the survey list. MarketingCharts ON THE LIGHTER SIDE: A lighthearted look at “reinventing the marketing 4Ps” by Marketoonist Tom Fishburne — Marketoonist March Adness 2021: Vote for the Year’s Best Advertiser in Adweek’s Annual Bracket — Adweek TOPRANK MARKETING & CLIENTS IN THE NEWS:

• Lee Odden — Why Content Is Important for SEO — Search Engine Journal
• Lane R. Ellis — 10 Ways to Monitor and Improve Your Small Business Online Reputation — Small Business Trends
• Lee Odden — Entrepreneurs on Fire: A Sneak Peek of Chapter 8 of The Common Path to Uncommon Success! — Entrepreneur on Fire
• Lee Odden — What Does it Mean to Market with Empathy in 2021? — Heinz Marketing

Have you found your own key B2B marketing story from the past week of industry news? Please let us know in the comments below. Thanks for joining us for the TopRank Marketing B2B marketing news, and we hope that you'll return again next Friday for more of the week's most relevant B2B and digital marketing industry news. In the meantime, you can follow us at @toprank on Twitter for even more timely daily news.

The post B2B Marketing News: Long-Term Brand Relationship Study, Digital Ad Spending Climbs, Ad Overload Survey, & Google’s New Review Tools appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

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Using Collaboration Tools To Transform The Way We Work

Using Collaboration Tools To Transform The Way We Work written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with Phil Simon

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Phil Simon. Phil is a keynote speaker and technology authority • An award-winning author of eleven business books and counting, most recently Reimagining Collaboration: Slack, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and the Post-COVID World of Work.

Questions I Ask Phil Simon:

•  A lot of this technology has been around for a while, but it really accelerated in the last year — in your view, has this technology changed anything permanently?
• How do you define collaboration and how has it evolved?
• Has the ability to have people all over the world created a better end result for collaboration in your view?
• What would you tell a typical small business that has adopted some of these tools, but they’re just scratching the surface for them?
• You’ve mentioned the hub idea a couple of times, what would that look like, and what would that give us?
• Yeah. So, so let’s talk stereotypes for a moment. The typical CEO is probably not doing the demos to see what thing to take, but they might be they might certainly be casting the strategic direction about this hub idea. Does that sometimes present an issue again, going back to sort of the generational stereotypes?
• You can control internal communication mostly, but a lot of communication is external like with customers for example. How do you navigate external communication without having to use multiple different systems again?
• Where do you stand on the idea of banning internal email? Is that something you think just everybody should do just categorically or is that a personal choice dependent upon your strategy?
• Do you have a set tech stack that you think is a stack everybody ought to go with?
• Should there be a position for Head of Collaboration on the org chart?

More About Phil Simon:

• Philsimon.com
• Phil’s new book: Reimagining Collaboration: Slack, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and the Post-COVID World of Work.

More About The Certified Marketing Manager Program Powered By Duct Tape Marketing:

• Check it out at Ducttapemarketing.com/certified-marketing-manager 

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

This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by SharpSpring Ads.

Are you already retargeting with Google or Facebook? Now you can use one platform, SharpSpring Ads, to simplify the process, double your audience, and improve ROI. Sign-up for a free account and SharpSpringAds will match up to $1,000 in ad spend.

 

 

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Why Doubt Is A Sign You’re On The Verge Of Greatness

Why Doubt Is A Sign You’re On The Verge Of Greatness written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with Marc A. Pitman

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Marc A. Pitman. Marc is the founder of Concord Leadership Group, where he’s been leading organizations and teams for decades. He holds a master’s in organizational leadership and is a certified FranklinCovey coach and the author of a book we’re talking about called The Surprising Gift of Doubt: Use Uncertainty to Become the Exceptional Leader You Are Meant to Be.

Questions I Ask Marc A. Pitman:

• What you were trying to accomplish by kicking off your book with the essay you call the ‘Note on Privilege’ at the beginning?
• In your book, you discuss the concept of doubt and how it’s a signal that you might just be on the verge of greatness – can you unpack that concept a little bit?
• How do you interpret the subtitle, “The Leader You Were Meant to Be”?
• If you’re going to give a catch-all description, what’s the leader’s job?
• Where can folks find out more about the exercises, assessments, and tools that are in the book and that you use in your daily life?
• Who makes a perfect client for you?

More About Marc A. Pitman:

• The Surprising Gift of Doubt — Learn more about the pre-order bonuses, exercises, assessments, tools, and more.

More about the Duct Tape Marketing Consultant Network:

• Check it out at https://ducttapemarketing.com/marketing-consultants/

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

This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by SharpSpring Ads.

Are you already retargeting with Google or Facebook? Now you can use one platform, SharpSpring Ads, to simplify the process, double your audience, and improve ROI. Sign-up for a free account and SharpSpringAds will match up to $1,000 in ad spend.

 

 

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The First Page of Your Google Search is Your New Business Card

The First Page of Your Google Search is Your New Business Card written by Sara Nay read more at Duct Tape Marketing

 

Agency Spark Podcast with With Dean Heasley

The Agency Spark Podcast, hosted by Sara Nay, is a collection of interviews from thought leaders in the marketing consultancy and agency space. Each episode is designed to spark ideas you can put into practice for your agency today.

In this episode of the Agency Spark Podcast, Sara interviews Dean Heasley. Dean Heasley, is the founder of Nashville Marketing Systems, a digital marketing agency in Murfreesboro, TN. He is also an investor in a window coverings franchise in Middle Tennessee. He and two friends recently started Boro Business Lab, a company dedicated to helping small businesses get more customers through digital marketing. Dean is married with 2 children, enjoys karate and longboarding, and has an MBA in marketing.

Questions Sara asks Dean Heasley:

• What led you to launching your own marketing consulting practice?
• What drew you to working with small businesses in general?
• What challenges do you see working with small businesses?
• What does the partnership look like between the marketing agency and the business owner?
• Why is it so important for small businesses to focus on reputation management?
• How would you advise someone looking to ramp up their review and reputation management?
• How do you go about getting new positive reviews for clients and can you break down that process?
• What are your recommendations for replying to both positive and negative reviews?
• Do you have specific strategies to get people to actually leave reviews?
• What have you learned through working with virtual assistants over the years?
• What sort of work should one delegate to a virtual assistant?
• What are things that you as a business owner should not delegate to others?

Resources mentioned:

• Loom for video sharing

Where you can learn more about Dean Heasley:

• Learn more about his company: Nashville Marketing Systems

 

This episode of the Agency Spark Podcast is brought to you by Unstack, a no-code marketing platform and ecosystem.  Start building a site today for free by visiting their website. 

Stop waiting on developers and leveraging multiple tools to manage your marketing stack.  With Unstack, you get a no-code website builder, landing page builder, A/B testing, forms, analytics, contact insights, payments, memberships, blog, and more all in one platform.  Start building a site today for free by visiting this link and receive 20% off for six months when you sign up.

 

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Choosing The Best B2B Influencers Is Key To Success — Here’s Why

Why is it important to find the right B2B influencers? Are there right and wrong ways to approach the process of choosing the best B2B influencers? The crucial task of selecting B2B influencers who will drive the greatest success for a brand isn’t a simple one, yet it’s one often shrouded in mystery — a question that we’ll explore utilizing a collection of do’s and don’ts. There is no single more important element in B2B influencer marketing than finding subject matter experts who will provide the best relevance, resonance, and engagement for your brand. Join in as we take a look at what a smart B2B influencer selection process looks like, and why some approaches are better than others. If you're wonderful why influencer marketing is a winning solution for B2B brands, also be sure to check out our recent "Why Influencer Marketing Should Be a Priority 2021 Tactic for B2B Brands." [bctt tweet="“There is no single more important element in B2B influencer marketing than finding subject matter experts who will provide the best relevance, resonance, and engagement for your brand.” — Lane R. Ellis @lanerellis" username="toprank"]

Don’t — Rely Solely On Follower Counts

Mere follower count tallies tell only a partial tale when it comes to whether an influencer’s audience is first and foremost authentic — and not filled with fake accounts and the like — along with being topically relevant to the issues that are important to a brand. A potential influencer’s follower count plays a role in the selection process, certainly, however learning whether an industry expert’s followers are actively engaging with them by posting, commenting or by utilizing other forms of social sharing is usually a more important element when it comes to finding ideal influencers. This type of follower analysis requires a deeper variety of research into whether a potential influencer will likely be a good brand match, and as we’ll explore, it requires both taking full advantage of powerful tools for measuring social media engagement as well as a human touch. As our CEO and co-founder Lee Odden has shared with audiences since the dawn of B2B influencer marketing, in the B2B world you actually have to be an expert to be a great influencer — you can’t just be good at making videos, tweeting, or other individual particular forms of social messaging, as is often the case in B2C.

Do — Measure Follower Relevance, Resonance & Engagement

As we’ll explore, there are numerous helpful tools and platforms that help to a certain extent in the process of finding the best influencers for a particular brand, however their numerical measurements and rankings are only able to do so much, and often work best when several tools are used and then combined and analyzed by a competent B2B influencer marketing researcher. It’s key to look at a potential influencer’s topical relevance, and their resonance — the degree to which that topic resonates with the audience network of a particular influencer. [bctt tweet="“There are numerous helpful tools and platforms that help to a certain extent in the process of finding the best influencers for a particular brand, however their numerical measurements and rankings are only able to do so much.” @lanerellis" username="toprank"]

Don’t — Take A B2C Influencer Approach For Reaching B2B Audiences

B2C influencer marketing’s traditional approach, often built on paid relationships with minor or major celebrities — while occasionally utilized in B2B marketing — typically isn’t well-suited to creating the kind of expert credibility that B2B buyers and customers are seeking. Instead, smart B2B marketers use an influencer selection process that heavily relies on locating the most relevant subject matter experts for a particular topic — professionals who may be famous only on a certain niche industry Reddit channel or other social media platform. Their form of celebrity, however — while on the micro side — resonates well with B2B buyers, as the fame a good B2B influencer has built is based on genuine expertise about a topic. As Lee has explained over the years, if you want the best influencer content, invite the scientist, engineer, educator, or academic to share their perspective. When they do this as an influencer, it’s going to lift the quality of your brand’s content and help make it great. Simply seeking true celebrities for influencer marketing and hoping for massive engagement offers very little return on investment in the B2B arena, where influence has reached a level of democratization. This presents new opportunities for influencers, and makes the process of finding the right influencer more challenging than ever, despite having what may be a bigger pool of influencer talent than ever to work with. As Lee and others have suggested, smart brands will find B2B influencers that help them go for a little bit from a lot of different people in an important niche, where the micro-influencer approach has increasingly become more relevant as a way to build advocacy and co-create content in a way that speaks closely to the voice of the customer.

Do — Recognize B2B Brands’ Unique Influencer Challenges

The process of selecting the best influencer matches for B2B marketing should include substantial recognition of the nature of B2B influencer marketing, with its unique challenges such as significantly longer buying cycles than in B2C, while also being aware of the opportunities that are unique to B2B influencer marketing. There’s little doubt that today’s B2B buyers are overwhelmed with options, and that they have often grown distrustful of marketing and advertising, which has increased the power of influencers, who are expert sources of trusted information. Choosing the right B2B influencers leads to the creation of credible connections with people who are actively interested in paying attention. B2B’s longer sales cycles result in vast amounts of content being created to help buyers learn, and the research they do is increasingly self-directed, so unlike in traditional B2C influencer marketing, B2B influencers must have the credibility to influence others. When you've successfully found the best B2B influencers, you generally have people who are truly invested in improving their industry in the long run, so taking the extra time and performing the additional steps to discover and vet them are costs that are usually well spent.

Don’t — Settle For An Automated Generic Approach

We’ve touched on some of the tools and platforms available to help marketers find potential influencers — utilities such as Traackr, Onalytica, BuzzSumo, and dozens of others — and why even when combined, the numerical rankings such services can deliver will only take you so far in your journey to find the best B2B influencers. As Lee has noted in his various presentations on B2B influencer marketing, it’s important to utilize software during this stage — tools that can crawl millions of social messages and algorithmically identify the people who have a particular combination of reach, network size, popularity — but more importantly — the topical relevance that shows that a potential influencer is indeed publishing content on the topic that you as a brand want to be the best answer for.

Do — Use A Human Touch To Refine Tool & Platform Recommendations

Perhaps the single most important work in finding truly the best influencers for a B2B brand takes place once the apps have been utilized, the platforms have been thoroughly put through their paces, and the social tools have crunched their final numbers — this is when the human touch begins, and takes the B2B influencer selection process to an entirely different level of success. Using platforms and social tools, successful B2B marketers can have piles of data on potential influencers to work with, but what sets apart the best plan from the rest is when a professional familiar with every facet of B2B influencer marketing methodically assesses that data as just one piece of the digital tapestry of successful B2B influencer marketing success. A cohesive approach to the B2B influencer selection combines the best data available about potential influencers with a human touch that includes such elements as:

• Staying True to a Brand’s Mission
• Weeding Out Irrelevant Data
• Prioritizing the Best Data
• Moving Influencer Recommendations into Solid Strategy

Other human-powered elements that go well beyond influencer research platforms and tools include the use search, customer relationship management (CRM), and social data relating not only to potential influencers but to a brand’s mission, to get an understanding of what it is that people are thinking about relevant to the brand and their customer connections. This type of information can help uncover intersections of topics that can be factored in when selecting the best influencers for a particular brand. [bctt tweet="“The best plans use a professional familiar with every facet of B2B influencer marketing to methodically assesses data as just one piece of the digital tapestry of successful B2B influencer marketing success.” — Lane R. Ellis @lanerellis" username="toprank"]

Don’t — Use Only A One-Off Approach

A short-term approach to B2B influencer marketing isn’t well-suited to activating the unique power that the top B2B influencers have to deliver stellar results to brands. One-off B2B influencer campaigns are akin to merely borrowing influence by working with top industry experts, and when that’s the extent of a brand’s commitment, they’re not going to reap the full value and the many benefits of influencer marketing. As Lee has noted, when you take a short term approach, you’re also typically not going to form the type of ongoing emotional connections with influencers that are central to an always-on approach to B2B influencer marketing. Countering the short-term variety of B2B influencer marketing is always-on influence, which succeeds in part because buyers are always on, and our digital world of today certainly also is.

Do — Utilize The Power of Always-On Influencers

When choosing B2B influencers, be cognizant of the advantages of an always-on strategy, which thrives in making the type of lifelong commitment to clients and customers that creates avid fans. Despite its advantages, just 19 percent of B2B marketers are running ongoing influencer marketing programs, research from our State of B2B Influencer Marketing Report shows. Among the many reasons why ongoing B2B influencer marketing programs are successful, the following insights from our research help reinforce the point:

• 60 percent of marketers who use always-on influencer marketing programs are very successful versus 5 percent who do periodic campaigns
• 12 times more marketers are very successful when they run an always-on influencer program versus those who opt for periodic campaigns
• 89 percent of B2B marketers who use an always-on approach expect their budgets to increase or remain the same in the next 12 months
• 94 percent say that influencer marketing will grow in importance over the next 12 months
• 75 percent saw an increase in their views of brand content using an always-on approach

The process of finding and selecting the right B2B influencers benefits when right from the beginning it’s understood that an always-on approach to influencer marketing will be used. Among the human elements that go beyond prospective influencer ranking data to find the best influencers is an understanding of whether the relationships between brands and influencers will be short-lived or one that will stand the test of time. A healthy selection process takes this into consideration, along with all of the other influencer research elements we’ve touched on.

Say ‘I Do’ To A Best-Answer Influencer Search

via GIPHY By knowing what not to do when it comes to finding and selecting the best B2B influencer matches, saying “I do!” to the right ones suddenly becomes much more straightforward. We hope that the insights we've explored here will help inform your own B2B influencer selection strategy. More B2B brands than ever are turning to a dedicated specialist B2B influencer marketing agency such as TopRank Marketing, which has worked with brands from Adobe, LinkedIn, and SAP to 3M, Dell, Oracle and many more. Our research shows that 60 percent of marketers don’t have the right in-house skills or knowledge to execute an influencer marketing program. Learn how to begin an influencer marketing pilot program or start a full-featured always-on influencer program.

The post Choosing The Best B2B Influencers Is Key To Success — Here’s Why appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

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