MORE - The Digital Marketing Tech Tools Podcast

In a rapidly changing industry like SEO and digital marketing, finding tools that bring efficiency and productivity are critical to streamlining your efforts to succeed. In today’s episode of the MORE podcast, Ricardo is joined by the co-founder of GoBeyond SEO, Trish Saemann, to discuss one tool she uses to streamline her business and increase productivity.

The tool? Bird Eye.

• Many of Trish’s clients are attorneys, and their biggest sales and marketing complaint is they can’t always answer the phone. Particularly with B2C lawyers, an unanswered call leads to a lost client.
• One of Bird Eye’s offerings is a virtual receptionist that sends a text alert with information about the caller to avoid this problem.
• Bird Eye also has a review platform that will automatically send and request reviews from customers, and there is a referral component that can be utilized.
• Bird Eye has a universal inbox, which you can connect your different response areas like social media to create an easy and manageable workflow.

There are many types of business professionals who can find use with Bird Eye.

• Because it has multiple features, there is a broad audience.
• A great audience is people who rely on social proof and reviews to generate a client base, like restaurants.
• It is also great for people who don’t have the staff to manage these aspects of a business.
• Conversely, it’s great for teams because they have a higher overhead and can develop a robust strategy that can lead to more success.

Bird Eye sets itself apart from the competition.

• Vendasta is a platform that makes sure listings are correct and working appropriately. However, Bird Eye makes the process a lot easier.
• You can manually go to listings and get the same information you need. However, it is incredibly time-consuming. And as you scale your business, you’ll find it will reach a point where it is no longer sustainable.

What can people do with this tool in a practical sense?

• First, figure out what marketing activities you are doing that take too much time.
• Look through the list of solutions they have, and figure out which features are most interesting to you.
• Bird Eye integrates with popular project management tools (and other software), so you can get as much use out of it as possible.
• If there isn’t a direct integration, you can use platforms like Zapier to third-party your way to a connection.

Trish’s book and podcast recommendation:

• Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss
• Goal Digger: The Podcast by Jenna Kutcher

Trish’s parting advice? Know your strengths and weaknesses. Understand what you can do yourself and what areas you’ll need help. Before you make a decision, know who your audience is. Know what their pain points are and how you can solve them. And know what message you need to give them. Go to Birdeye.com to see what the platform can do for you and how you can take advantage of all that it offers.

Not all marketing tools have to be cutting-edge technology or platforms to be important. Sometimes all you need is a framework to shift your perspective to discover growth and increased revenue. On today’s episode of the MORE podcast, Ricardo is joined by the president and co-founder of Exverus Media, Bill Durrant, to discuss his book Digital Stone Age, which details what it takes to be successful in the digital world.

The Inception of the Digital Stone Age:

• Over the last ten years of meeting with marketers, his team realized a few mindsets pervaded marketing thought.
• People were either digitally focused, pushing dollars to specific paid tactics, or traditionalists, focusing only with tv, radio, and mass communication platforms.
• Research and experience say it’s a medium between the two that brings the most success, which Bill talks about in his book.

The book became a tool:

• How do you get a business or a brand to think a certain way and take away learnings they can use to grow their business?
• Bill’s book is high-value for anyone thinking about or working in marketing. (Especially if your business is already seven figures.)
• If you’re running an operation or a business and want to understand the appropriate mindset, this book is for you.

Marketing is more than running ads on Facebook or Google.

• It’s how you can get involved in showing your business’s applications in the real world.
• Digital media is less trustworthy than real-world interaction, but digital media in conjunction with traditional exposure is compelling in reminding people and driving them through the funnel.
• Don’t stick rigidly to something never proven successful to begin with.

Marketing is not just a cost or expense; it’s an investment.

• Think of it like dating. If you walk up to someone you’re interested in and directly ask them out without saying anything else, would you be successful?
• Conversely, having a conversation, letting them know and understand you, and then asking them out would be far more effective.

Bill’s practical marketing takeaways:

• The marketing funnel is the first thing to familiarize yourself with; it’s a great way to talk with consumers and B2B buyers.
• The funnel isn’t just a theory, it’s a language and timeline marketers today use to speak.
• Determine how your business fits into and implements that funnel, and you will be better able to track and develop growth.
• When it comes to service, it’s always about building stronger relationships for those whom you’re serving.

Bill’s book and podcast recommendations:

• Madison Avenue Manslaughter by Michael Farmer
• The Inner Work by Mathew Micheletti
• The Miracle Morning (Hal’s Podcast)
• The Lifestyle Investor Podcast with Justin Donald

Connect with Bill Durrant on LinkedIn.

As the top platform for professionals, LinkedIn has the versatility and functionality to help you reach your sales and marketing goals. In today’s episode, Ricardo is joined by Sheryl Cattell, a digital marketer turned life coach, to learn how professionals can leverage LinkedIn to develop a personal brand, find more prospects, or do whatever else they need.

Sheryl’s start in marketing was unplanned.

• She wanted to go into sales in college but found it very difficult.
• When marketing opportunities presented themselves, she jumped on them, and later got her MBA with a marketing focus.
• While she enjoyed marketing, Sheryl shifted perspectives when she realized she wanted to make a difference rather than focus on making companies money.
• After losing her job due to covid, she began life coaching to help other people figure out and then accomplish what they want in life.

Sheryl is the queen on LinkedIn.

• Once upon a time, LinkedIn was just where you went when you needed a job. That is no longer the case.
• LinkedIn is now the single largest social media networking platform for B2B companies, with about 50% of all B2B traffic coming from the platform.
• People can use it to develop relationships and engagement with prospects, colleagues, and even thought leaders.
• With creator mode, live streaming, and events, many assets within the platform make it continually more useful.

Who is LinkedIn for?

• LinkedIn is for companies to help improve the credibility of their sales team and their company to have a united, organized front.
• Part of what makes LinkedIn so successful is that there is no real competitor right now, LinkedIn singlehandedly dominates.

Sheryl’s practical LinkedIn tips:

• Have a quality, professional profile and header photo. For the header consider templates on Canva, a collage of your favorite things, or something meaningful to you.
• Use Remove.bg to get rid of photo backgrounds if you don’t have a headshot.
• Your default title will be your current position at your current company. Rather than utilizing the default, write a story about you and why you are unique.
• Your “About” section is your keyword repository. Anything you want to be searched for should be in this section. And use the first person in this section rather than the third.
• If you have a business page, she recommends you do 95% of your efforts on your personal page and only about 5% of efforts on the business page.

LinkedIn can be integrated with other tools.

• However, 94% of people use the free version of LinkedIn.
• Sales Navigator has a lot of value, but you don’t invest the money until you fully leverage the free tools. But there’s a place for it.
• At this point in the world, LinkedIn is as essential as a business card at a networking event.

Hiring a life coach can help you.

• There’s a lot of hesitancy about hiring a life coach. But if you’ve ever hired a personal trainer to work on your body, consider hiring a coach to work on your life.
• They provide an accountability partner and can help save years of trial and error.
• It doesn’t even have to be Sheryl!

Sheryl’s Books and Podcast Recommendations:

• Atomic Habits by James Clear
• Start With Why Simon Sinek
• Mental Equivalence Emmet Fox
• The Happiness Lab by Dr. Laurie Santos
• Follow Dennis Yu for great Clubhouse rooms

Final plug? She’s recently signed an agreement to develop a BizHack class on LinkedIn, so be on the lookout for that in the coming months. To contact Sheryl, visit her life coaching website, LinkedIn, or check out bizhack.com when her course is released.

In this episode, host Ricardo Berris talks to Ankit Shah, a growth marketer, marketing automation expert, and creator of the short link tool, Lin-K, which allows you to shorten URLs. There are other tools available such as Rebrandly, Tiny URL, and Bitly but Lin-K does more. In addition to shortening URLs and making them more powerful, easy-to-remember links, the site collects data about its customers and their behaviors. Examples of the data collected include location, the device that was used, which browser was used.

As a user, once you get your shortened URL, you have options. For example:

-Give your link a custom name

-Set a link expiration

-Create a protected link so only people with the password can access the link

-Geo-targeting options to redirect users to a separate URL for a particular country

-Device targeting

-Create link bundles, splash pages, and overlay pages

-Profile building

-This tool has a pixel so you can include your Facebook pixel, Google AdWords, Excel, LinkedIn, etc. By retargeting the audience and advertisements, it can help reduce your marketing budget.

So who can benefit from a service like Lin-K?

-Marketers of all sizes, including affiliate and digital marketers

-Influencers

-Artists

-Corporations

-YouTubers

Everyone can benefit from this tool and you don’t have to be tech-savvy to apply it right away. You simply create your account and once on the dashboard, you just paste your long URL into the space provided and you’ll be given options as to how you want to complete your new, shortened URL. Now you can use your shortened URL for a PDF document, website, or blog that is listed the way you want it to show up.

The features listed are currently free but advanced are available for a fee. If you need to link this to other tools, an API (application programming interface) can be provided or you can use a tool like Zapier.

About the founder of Lin-K:

As an entrepreneur, Ankit was not deterred by failures. Upon graduating with a degree in software engineering, he would experience multiple startup failures. The failures came from a lack of experience and resources, as well as financial problems. What he discovered in the failures, however, were his strengths: marketing and marketing automation. It was leaning into his strengths, and the strengths of others, that allowed him to start developing tools that would help in his endeavors as well.

As a small business owner, learn from Ankit: Let your failures be a stepping stone toward your goals, not your deterrent. Marketers know to keep testing to see what works and what doesn’t.

MUSIC CREDIT: Beat Your Competition – Vibe Tracks (No Copyright Music)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bll5zsOGNKA&feature=youtu.be

For many small business owners, all it takes is a shift in mindset to see dramatic change. And on today’s episode of the MORE podcast, Ricardo is joined by someone who knows exactly how to facilitate that change. Joe Siecinski, co-founder and owner of BrainSHARE, helps businesses become profitable enterprises, and today he’s going to share what he knows.

Building a system is like building a house - you need a blueprint and a foundation.

• Until you have a foundation, it’s difficult to determine your target market, USP, and strategic marketing.
• Joe helps companies lay these bricks to build profitable businesses that grow.

Anyone can utilize this framework to embrace change.

• Businesses floating around the 10M mark usually see more success because they’ve learned some of the challenges associated with their companies.
• (In his experience, you aren’t ready to learn until you get some scars.)
• But his teachings apply to everyone, and the specific levels might not be as relevant for you, depending on your ultimate career goals.

BrainSHARE offers a beginner, intermediate, and advanced stage.

• Joe started the beginning level as the foundation that builds up depending on where the client is at the moment.
• Best of all, he created his framework into bite-sized chunks so anyone can easily digest the information.

There are practical applications with Joe’s system:

• When we break our modalities and think strictly in terms of operations, sales, or marketing, we’re going to fail.
• Entrepreneurs need to be adaptable and need to see the whole picture.
• If you just look at one or two pieces of a puzzle, it won’t make sense. You have to use the whole picture as a guide.

Joe’s final takeaway? Set short, medium, and long-term goals, and celebrate when you achieve them! Your business is meant to support your personal life, not BE your personal life.

Joe’s Book and Podcast Recommendations:

• Secrets of Question-Based Selling by Thomas Freese
• The Goal by Eliyahu M. Goldratt
• Profit First by Mike Michalowicz
• Slicing Pie by Mike Moyer
• And anything by John Maxwell (like The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership.)
• Most importantly, check out Joe’s book, Brainshare: What Small Business Owners Need To Think About!

Joe is offering listeners a free consultation to anyone, and his system is available by visiting brainshare.online. Joe is also offering a gift certificate to a podcast listener! To enter, simply send us an email at [email protected].