Dave Kerpen on Reality TV, Building a Successful Marketing Agency, and Launching a SaaS Company

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Weddings are expensive. Most couples accept that and budget for it, or try to keep the cost down by limiting the guest list etc.

Not Dave Kerpen. He wanted a big wedding, and at 500 guests he definitely got that. But, he didn’t pay through the nose.

Instead, Dave and his wife used their marketing smarts to raise $100,000 in corporate sponsorship. Now that’s impressive!

But it doesn’t stop there – the wedding was held in a baseball stadium, and ended up getting a ton of media coverage. The couple estimated they received the equivalent of $20 million in earned media coverage, and they used the momentum from this success to launch their successful marketing agency!

Dave’s also had an Inc 500 fastest growing company for 2 years, and when we spoke he held the title as the #1 LinkedIn Influencer in pageviews. You can imagine that he has some great ideas to share.

Listen now and you’ll hear Dave and I talk about:

  • (03:05) Introductions
  • (05:20) What problem does your software solve?
  • (10:45) How did you go about attracting customers?
  • (15:45) How did you get started in business?
  • (18:45) How did you get corporate sponsorship for your wedding?
  • (21:45) How did sponsorship translate into customer attraction?
  • (26:15) How did you launch your agency?
  • (28:45) What would do differently today if you were starting over?
  • (31:45) What advice would you give the solo-preneur on growing beyond just one?
  • (32:45) What is your pricing strategy?
  • (36:15) How did you target your customers?
  • (39:45) How did you continually increase the size of your customers?
  • (42:45) What advice would you give to entrepreneurs to succeed with content marketing?
  • (47:45) How did you become a LinkedIn Influencer?
  • (49:45) What should we be doing on LinkedIn?

Resources Mentioned

More About This Episode

digital marketing strategyThe Bright Ideas podcast is the podcast for business owners and marketers who want to discover how to use online marketing and sales automation tactics to massively grow their business.

It’s designed to help marketing agencies and small business owners discover which online marketing strategies are working most effectively today – all from the mouths of expert entrepreneurs who are already making it big.

Listen Now

Leave some feedback:

Connect with Trent Dyrsmid:

 

About Dave Kerpen

Dave KerpenDave Kerpen is the Founder and CEO of Likeable Local, and the Co-Founder and Chairman of Likeable Media. Dave is the  NY Times Bestselling author of 3 books and the #1 LinkedIn Influencer of all time in page views, ahead of Bill Gates, Jack Welch, Mark Cuban and President Obama.

 

Additional Resources

How to Leverage Twitter for Lead Generation with Sarah Goliger

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If you are one of the kind of people who think Twitter is just for kids to tell each other they had macaroni for dinner (that used to be me), I think you should really take the time to listen to how effective Twitter can be as a marketing tool. Sarah’s team at Hubspot is focused on Lead Generation, and with her different tools and social media platforms, Hubspot finds about 50,000 new leads a month. Wow.

In this podcast we go over the ways Twitter can be effectively utilized, how important content is for a Twitter campaign, and other winning lead generation strategies. I learned a lot in this interview and I think you will too.

Listen now and you’ll hear Sarah and I talk about:

  • (02:00) Introduction
  • (05:00) Why use Twitter for lead generation?
  • (07:20) How to determine a Twitter-Friendly content strategy
  • (10:20) Has removing the opt-in form ever proved beneficial?
  • (13:20) How do you get started with paid ads?
  • (20:20) How to optimize your campaigns
  • (22:20) What other tips do you have for Twitter campaigns?
  • (24:20) Does using images help?
  • (28:20) What tools are available for keywords?

Resources Mentioned

More About This Episode

The Bright Ideas podcast is the podcast for business owners and marketers who want to discover how to use online marketing and sales automation tactics to massively grow their business.

It’s designed to help marketing agencies and small business owners discover which online marketing strategies are working most effectively today – all from the mouths of expert entrepreneurs who are already making it big.

Listen Now

Leave some feedback:

Connect with Trent Dyrsmid:

Transcript

Trent: Hey there, Bright Idea hunters. Welcome to the “Bright Ideas”

podcast. I am your host,

Trent Dyrsmid. This is the podcast where we feature interviews with

the entrepreneurs behind some of today’s fastest growing companies.If you’re looking for proven tactics and strategies to help you start

a new business or grow an existing one, you are in the right place.The way that we do this is we interview proven experts on the show and

today is no different. My guest today is Sarah Goliger, she is the

head of paid marketing at HubSpot, one of the fastest-growing

marketing software companies on the planet.In this interview, we are going to dive deep into how to use Twitter

and paid traffic on Twitter. Not just paid, but paid and organic, to

generate more leads for your brand.And this was a really enjoyable interview, I learned a whole bunch.

So, in the roughly half hour it takes to listen to it, I guarantee

you, you are going to learn some actionable ideas that you are going

to be able to use in your business.Before we get to that, a quick announcement. If you are looking for

ways to take advantage of digital marketing to attract more interest

to your business, then you’re going to want to check out my recently

published digital marketing handbook. And you get to it and

brightideas.co/book.In the book, I explain everything that I have done to build my

business up in the very first year to a tribe of 10,000-plus

followers. We’ve had a whole lot of success. Also, I have invited a

number of my past guests to contribute to the book. You’ll get their

ideas in there as well.Again, get that at brightideas.co/book. And you can get even get a

free chapter. So, with that said, please join me in welcoming Sarah to

show. Hey, Sarah, welcome to the show.Sarah: Hi, Trent. Thanks so much for having me. I’m excited to be

here.Trent: I am equally excited to have you here. So, thanks for making

the time. There’s obviously

lots of folks in my audience who don’t yet know who you are.Before we get into the meat of our interview on how to leverage

Twitter as a lead generation machine, let’s have you just take a

moment and please introduce yourself on who you are and what you do.Sarah: Sure. I work at HubSpot and we sell marketing software. I

manage our paid

marketing channel, which basically means that I’m responsible for all

of our PPC efforts and also working with some of our partners in the

marketing industry to coordinate opportunities to work together and to

promote our content to their audiences.The focus of all these efforts is lead generation. So, I work closely

with the other folks on our lead gen team who run our organic

channels; social media, e-mail marketing, landing page optimization.

And together, we generate over 50,000 new leads for our sales team

every month.It’s a pretty incredible place to be. We move really fast here and

we’re always trying to stay a step ahead in our marketing, so that we

can not only do marketing well ourselves and keep innovating, but

also, so that we can teach marketing to our readers and ultimately be

able to sell our software.I’ve been with HubSpot for two and a half years now. And I’ve actually

worked on a lot of different parts of our marketing team. So, right

now, I’m focused on PPC and paid marketing. But I’ve also done some

SEO, some blogging. For a while, I was focused on e-mail marketing and

lead nurturing. I did a bit of sales training.It’s been really helpful for sort of getting that full experience

across the board with marketing. But I would say that PPC has

definitely been one of the most interesting channels.It’s so different from the others and I love that there’s so much

flexibility with it. Really, just a ton of opportunity to do it well

and make it work for your marketing, to sort of play around and

experiment and figure out what works.It’s kind of like a big puzzle in a way. So, I’m definitely excited to

get into some detail here and chat about this stuff with you.Trent: I’m equally excited to get into detail. So, before we jump into

this, I’ve always wanted to

ask this one question to a HubSpotter. What do you guys call

yourselves, anyway? A HubSpotter or…Sarah: Yes. A “HubSpotter.” That’s the correct terminology.Trent: Your company is a content-producing machine. How many staff

writers do you guys have?Sarah: We only have a handful on the content team. I have to say,

they’re all incredibly talented

writers. We have probably four or five on our blogging team and then

another three or four who produce our eBooks. It’s a fairly small

team, but they crank out a ton of content every single month.Trent: Do they ever, all right. That was a total side-distraction from

the interview, but I

wanted to find out anyways. Now, we’re going to talk about Twitter

marketing. First off, the first question is why? Why use Twitter to

generate leads?

Sarah: I think that a lot of people still think about Twitter in the

way that individuals use it for

social purposes. They think “No one needs to know what I’m doing right

now. And I don’t really care about what other people are doing. I

didn’t really need to know that you ate macaroni for dinner. Thanks a

lot.”

These are kind of the status update kinds of posts that many people

think of when they think of Twitter. But these people are actually

missing out, because Twitter is hugely valuable for businesses.

And much like the other popular social networks–Facebook, LinkedIn–

you can use Twitter to gain a following, to share messages, to connect

and communicate with your fans and your customers.

The beauty of Twitter compared to the other social networks is that

Tweets are, of course, limited to 140 characters each, meaning that

you have to keep your message concise. But you can also share more

updates, more often because this is the nature of the platform.

So, in a given day, you could easily tweet 20 or 30 times without your

followers so much as batting an eyelash. But if you try that on

Facebook, you’re pretty much bound to watch your fan count tick

downward, right?

Trent: Yeah. That would be an understatement.

Sarah: Yeah. The other thing is that Twitter is such a vibrant space.

It’s a real community.

People go to Twitter to learn more about their fields of interest.

They go to Twitter to learn about brands and find out what their

friends think about those brands and have to say about them.

Really, as a marketer, who wouldn’t want to be on Twitter? Who

wouldn’t want to be active in that space? So, I think it’s really an

absolute must for businesses these days to be there, to be on Twitter.

Trent: I want to echo that statement. I used to really think Twitter

was the dumbest invention

ever before I got it, before the light bulb went on. Because, again, I

didn’t want to know when you were eating your macaroni or what movie

you were watching.

I’m happy to say now that Twitter is my number one social referral

source. So, folks, if you’re listening to this and you haven’t yet

embraced Twitter and you think like I used to think, I encourage you

to keep on listening.

I think, by the end of this, my hope is that the light bulb will come

on for you and you’re going to start to use it.

If you’re going to make Twitter work, you also need to have a strong

content strategy. Because you can’t just be Tweeting nothing, you’ve

got to have something that you’re sharing. Can you talk about how

Twitter and the content strategy go together?

Sarah: Absolutely. Yeah, before you really dive into Twitter

advertising or, for that matter,

any sort of promotional campaign, you really need to figure out what

it is you’re going to promote. You have to have some sort of content

to feed your campaign. Like you said, you can’t just tweet nothing.

And so, as obvious as that may sound, a lot of marketers will really

skip right over this step and just sort of say “Oh, I need to be on

Facebook and I want to set up Twitter campaigns. And I should really

start writing those marketing e-mails.”

But they won’t sit down beforehand and map out the content that

they’re going to use in those campaigns. And that’s when things get

really difficult. Because when you get ahead of yourself like that,

your content really is the backbone of nearly every kind of marketing

campaign that you could possibly run.

And so, it’s so important that you sit down and really make that

effort in advance to figure out what it is you’re going to promote.

And also, the content that you choose to promote on a given platform

is likely going to determine your positioning, your copy, your

targeting, your audience. So, you need to have this part figured out

before you can even begin setting up your campaigns.

I won’t get into too much detail about what types of content you

should be using. Because that’s a whole other topic for another time.

But, basically, you want to figure out what the goal of your campaign

is and then choose content that supports that goal.

If your goal is to generate leads for your business like my goal is,

you’ll want to promote lead generation content. That is, content

that’s behind lead capture form. Whether that’s “Hey, we’ve got this

free eBook for you to download. In order to read it, we just ask that

you give us these few pieces of information about yourself.”

Or it may be “Fill out this form to sign up to join us on this webinar

that we’re hosting. Whatever it may be, you want to be capturing

information. You want to be capturing those leads through that

content.

But, conversely, if your objective is more branding and awareness-

focused, you’ll want to promote content about your business. Content

that conveys your brand message.

Or maybe your goal is actually to turn more of your followers into

customers. In which case, you’ll want to promote more content about

your product or your service. Maybe offer a free trial or demo.

Once you’ve identified your goal, you really want to focus in on

creating high-quality content pieces that you can use to help you

achieve that goal, help you get there.

Trent: Have you guys ever tested, done a split test with a piece of

lead gen content that is

behind an opt-in form? Versus just being freely available? I’ve read

some stuff and I’ve never tested this myself. And so, I’m very curious

if you have.

Some people, they land, they click the tweet, they get through to the

landing page and they’re like “Eh. I don’t want to fill in

information.” So, they don’t interact with that piece of content, they

never see it, they never see how good it is.

Whereas if the content was simply available, granted, you don’t get

their information, per se. But so, potentially, so many more people

could see the content because a person who sees that first tweet gets

the content. They interact with it, they think it’s great, they share

it and so on. Have you guys ever done any testing on that?

Sarah: Yeah, I mean, we definitely find that the longer your forms

are, the more friction there

is, right? People don’t want to spend the time to sit there and fill

out all of their information to give to you and people are also

skeptical of giving companies their information.

As little privacy as we all have these days, it’s still something that

makes people inherently uncomfortable.

We have found that the fewer form fields you use or even just taking

out the form entirely will tend to result in more submissions or more

downloads. But the trade-off is that, what you could do, conversely,

is create content that’s really, truly valuable to your readers.

That’s what we focus on here. Every single piece of content that we

put out, every blog post we write, we audit it for quality before it

goes out.

We make sure that this is something that people would be willing to

sit down and fill out a form in order to read. Our blog posts aren’t

gated but our eBooks, we really make sure that they’re enticing enough

and the content is legitimate and it’s valid, and it’s substantial

enough that people would take that time to go through the form process

in order to get it.

Then, of course, that helps our business because we need to be able to

feed our sales team at the same time.

Trent: You guys don’t happen to have an eBook that explains the

process that you go through

to reveal your eBooks before they get published, do you?

Sarah: You know, we actually have an eBook on how to create eBooks,

believe it or not.

Trent: Could you make sure you send me a link to that so I can include

it in the show notes of

this episode?

Sarah: Sure thing.

Trent: Thank you. All right, so, should you be running paid ads on top

of your organic efforts

on Twitter and if you are going to do that, how do you which one to

focus on?

Sarah: You always want to focus on organic promotion first. For no

other reason than the

obvious that that’s the free one. So, you want to make sure, first,

that you have a solid, organic Twitter strategy in place. That you

have a strong number of followers and that you’re regularly tweeting

valuable content to them.

You should already be working toward your goal, whether it’s lead gen

branding, what have you. You should already be working toward it from

an organic perspective before you consider starting with paid ads.

Then, once you have things running smoothly with your organic

strategy, if you have some budget to work with, paid advertising is

actually a really excellent way to supplement your efforts.

And note, that I chose my words very carefully there. You always want

to use paid advertising to supplement your organic efforts, not

replace them. And this is, of course, true across the board. Not just

with Twitter.

Trent: Okay. How do you go about getting started with paid ads? How do

you set up a

campaign?

Sarah: There are a couple things you need to figure out before you

dive in. So, like I

mentioned earlier, you want to start by deciding what your goal is.

Whether it’s lead gen, brand awareness, lead to customer conversion.

And then, once you have your goal nailed down, the second step is to

decide what type of campaign you want to run. If you’re looking to

increase brand awareness and gain more followers, you can run what’s

called a “promoted account” campaign. Which displays your account in

the “Who to follow” sidebar.

It also allows you to craft messaging about why people should follow

your brand, which is then displayed next to a “follow” button. You

might say something like “Looking to stay updated on the latest

marketing tips and trends? Follow HubSpot to stay in the loop.”

And then, that will appear right next to a “Follow” button so you can

follow the HubSpot account right from there.

Trent: And what did you call that again?

Sarah: That’s promoted accounts. So, that’s better for branding. But

if your goal is lead

generation or really, anything other than brand awareness, you’ll want

to run promoted tweet campaigns.

These put your tweets right in the feeds of the users that you’re

targeting. And if this is the option that you choose, then the next

thing you’re going to want to do is select the content that you’re

going to promote in those tweets. Make sure that the content aligns

with your goals, like we discussed before.

And then, the next step is to choose your targeting. So, this is where

things start to get a little bit complicated, but bear with me. So,

Twitter is actually really good as far as targeting goes. You have a

few different options.

One, is you can target based on keywords, which lets you target users

who search for or tweet about those keywords or engage with them in

some way.

This type of targeting is really great if you’re running an event, if

you’re doing event promotion or if you are running product-specific

campaigns because then you can really zone in on those keywords that

are relevant to that product that you’re promoting.

It’s also really good for going after folks with purchase intent. So,

if you’re looking to sort of narrow in and focus on those people who

are most likely to purchase from you, this is a great option for that

as well.

This option, going based on keywords, will usually give you a

narrower, but more focused and higher-quality audience.

Then, you can also choose to target by interests and followers. And

this option lets you search for interest categories to target. For

example, I can target anyone who’s interested in marketing or home

repair or French cuisine or whatever it is that is most relevant to

you. That’s the interest side of the equation.

And then, it also lets you input any Twitter usernames. And it’ll then

target users who look like those people’s followers. So, for example,

when I run campaigns with this type of targeting, I’ll put in a bunch

of usernames of people who are really well-known in the marketing

industry and have a lot of followers. It’ll find other Twitter users

like those people’s followers.

This option is much better for a less qualified, but much broader

audience. And then, on top of this, you can also target by location,

you can target by gender, you can target by device.

If you only want to reach people who are on desktop or only on mobile,

you can do that, too. To really have a ton of flexibility here to

build an audience based on the criteria that you care the most about.

Then, they also, just last month, actually, released a brand-new

targeting option called “Tailored Audiences,” which lets you directly

target your site visitors. And this option is really great for re-

targeting.

We did the beta testing when they first rolled this out to the beta

users. So, we’ve been in this for a few months now and we’ve been

collecting some data.

We found in our own efforts that our re-targeting campaigns have had

45 percent higher engagement than our regular promoted tweet

campaigns. So, if you’re looking to convert more of your existing

database into customers and sort of focus more on them, then Tailored

Audiences is a really great option to use here.

Trent: Let’s dive into that one a little deeper for a minute. So, I’ll

just use myself as the guinea

pig. I’ve got my 4,000 or so Twitter followers. When you talk about

the Tailored Audiences, am I tweeting more to the people that already

follow me? I’m not sure that I fully get it yet.

Sarah: You’re basically tweeting to the people who are in your

database or who have visited

your site. You could set it up to say “Anyone who has come to my

website, I want to capture them in this audience.” And then I want

them to be in this group of people to whom we’re displaying these

tweets.

Trent: When they come to my site, they’re going to get cookied. And

that cookie is then going

to trigger a re-targeting within their Twitter stream.

Sarah: Yes. So, it’ll build the audience for you. It’ll grab everybody

who has visited your site

and then, that will be the audience that you select for the targeting

purposes.

Trent: Okay, cool. I like that. All right.

Sarah: Just to wrap up here, to finish the building out your campaign,

really, the last thing

that you need to decide on is your budget. And I think this is where a

lot of marketers get stumped or concerned or nervous.

Everyone sort of asks “What’s the right amount to spend on paid

advertising” and “What’s the right amount to start off my campaign”?

The unfortunate fact of the matter is there really is no right amount.

It’s different for everyone, it’s different for every marketer, for

every budget, for every campaign. And if you’re really planning to

spend a lot, I don’t know exactly what the minimum is, but they’ll set

you up with a dedicated account rep who is going to help you on the

best ways to spend that money.

But otherwise, you’ll pretty much have to figure it out on your own.

But I promise, it’s really not as hard as it sounds. So, you want to

just decide how much you’re willing to spend on Twitter ads in a

month. And then break that down, you can divide it out by business

days if you want.

Try spending that much in a day and if it’s too little, if it’s not

working, you’re not seeing any results, you can condense that spend

into maybe a week or two. It’s much better to spend more at once and

see actual results than to drag out your spend in tiny increments.

So as you go, you’ll sort of start to get a feel for how much you need

to spend in order to make your campaigns effective. And that’ll help

you plan your spending going forward. Then, once you have all of this

mapped out, you just set your bids for the campaign. When you choose

your targeting criteria, it’ll give you a recommended bidding range.

I would say go for at least the average of that, if not higher. If you

have more to spend and you can be a little bit more free with your

money, then go ahead and set it maybe even a little bit above the

bidding range.

Once you choose your bid, I think you’ve pretty much filled out the

whole setup process. You just write those tweets and you can go ahead

and launch your campaigns.

Trent: If you had one landing page that was your number one lead

generator that you were

promoting, you could have any number of different tweets that would

all be linking back to that one landing page?

Sarah: Oh, absolutely, yeah. And I would actually recommend that. When

you’re building a

campaign, you want to have more than one tweet running in that

campaign. Because the interface that you’re looking at within the

Twitter ads platform will show you the number of impressions and the

click-through rates by each tweet individually.

You want to be testing more than one so you can figure out what kind

of language resonates the best with your followers and keep optimizing

from there.

Trent: Okay. All right, so far, it’s making sense. So, now, we’ve got

our ads. They’re up and

running. Obviously, they’re not as good yet as they could be. Do we

have to go through some kind of optimization? So, I’m sure you’ve got

some ideas you can share with us on that.

Sarah: Yeah, absolutely. It’s kind of like what I was just saying. You

want to be trying different

things, have those different tweets, be looking at the metrics and see

what’s working. But sort of from a more macro perspective, you want to

keep an eye on these campaigns.

You don’t want to just set them up and let them run and leave them

unattended. You should really be constantly optimizing for your

overall metrics.

So, when you’re choosing what metrics to sell for, you want to align

those with your goals. So, if your goal is lead generation, you want

to be maximizing the number of leads that you generate and also,

minimizing your CPL or cost per lead. And so, these are the two main

metrics that I look at for our campaigns.

It’s also important to look at these metrics across all of your

campaigns, but also, on the individual campaign level. So that that

way, you can see which campaigns are performing well and which ones

are bringing down your averages.

What I do is I use a different tracking token in the links for each of

the campaigns I run, so I can see on a campaign level, which content

pieces are generating how many leads.

Since I’m also able to see how much I’m spending on each campaign

through Twitter, I’m able to very easily calculate the cost per lead

of each individual campaign. And then, if it’s too high and the

campaign is either not generating enough leads or costing too much,

then I’ll pause it and shift its budget over to a higher-performing

campaign.

You want to always be doing this and always be sort of optimizing for

the top performers of the bunch.

Trent: You mentioned the term “tracking token.” Is that using the

Google URL builder, or is

that something that is within the Twitter interface that allows you to

create that?

Sarah: It’s not within the Twitter interface. You can build your own

URL tracking token. I type

ours in myself. It’s fairly simple. You can usually just do little

question mark source equals and type it in. It depends on what sort of

analytics software you’re using to track it.

We use HubSpot. So, I know that I’m able to go into our reporting

tools and very easily see how everything breaks down. And we also run

Salesforce reports, so I’m able to sort of do the campaign by campaign

breakdown there, too.

Trent: Okay. Now, do you guys have any blog posts that you could link

me to that would

provide more information on the tracking tokens and campaign

optimization?

Sarah: Absolutely, sure.

Trent: Make sure that you get me those links, too, please.

Sarah: Okay, will do.

Trent: All right, what’s next on my list? What other tips do you have

for running an effective

Twitter campaign?

Sarah: In terms of the copy, I would say the biggest tip that I have

is don’t be too sales-y.

Your copy should always focused on providing value to your readers. As

is true, of course, in all marketing contacts, not just on Twitter.

But if your tweets come off as pushy and super product-focused, then

chances are, they’re really not going to get much engagement. You want

to really let your brand personality show through. And talk to your

followers as if they’re real human beings and not just leads in your

database.

Trent: So, have you got some phraseology examples that you could give

us? Is it a lot of how-

to-type [inaudible at 00:23:42]?

Sarah: Yeah. People like “How to,” people like “101 examples of

companies that are rocking

social media.” Any way that you can phrase it that very clearly

conveys the value to the readers. Whether it’s because it’s

interesting or because it is a how to or because it’s just very

relevant to them and their industry. You want to make sure that it’s

enticing content.

Trent: Okay. All right, where do I want to go here?

Sarah: So, other tips.

Trent: Yeah, let’s keep going with tips.

Sarah: Another tip would be to spice it up a bit. I think that text

can be great. But it can also get

kind of boring and can blend in with all the other tweets in your

users’ feeds. And we found that images work really well.

We’ve actually found that using images in tweets increases lead gen by

57 percent, which is huge. So, try some images, try some Vine videos.

It never hurts to give your brand some personality. People love that

stuff.

So, go for it. Try crazy things. Be enticing, be engaging. Be fun.

Trent: A Vine video. Can’t say I’m familiar with a Vine video. I’m

probably embarrassed to

say that, but what’s a Vine video?

Sarah: It’s quite all right. Vine is a six-second video platform. It’s

tied into Twitter, so you

can record a six-second video. And it also lets you break it up. I

think you can only do it on your iPhone. I’m also not 100 percent on

top of Vine, so we’re in the same boat there.

You can sort of hold your finger down and then let it go, so you can

break up the six seconds. It doesn’t have to be continuous. But

anyway, you can do very fun things and short videos and include those

in your tweets very easily. It’s sort of a quick way to entice people

to watch something.

Trent: Is Vine a platform that’s owned by Twitter?

Sarah: Yes, yes.

Trent: It is? Okay. All right, so when you’re up and running,

obviously you don’t want to just

keep doing the same thing over and over, because that always gets old.

What are some things that you guys have done which you didn’t

necessarily think you were surprised by the results? Surprised to the

upside. I’m looking for the examples of the best and most successful.

Sarah: Sure. So, like I said, the images were probably our most

surprising test. I had no idea

that they would increase lead gen by 57 percent. I mean, when that

stat came out, we had team meetings about it because it was just so

incredible. So, that was really exciting.

We also started doing promoted accounts recently. So, my main focus

has always been lead generation. So, we’ve pretty much strayed away

from the promoted accounts because that’s obviously focused on growing

your follower base.

I decided to give it a test recently and it’s actually been working

very well. We’ve been able to cut the amount that we have to spend to

gain a follower basically in half from what it used to be.

That’s been really effective as well and I would say that if you have

the budget for it, it’s definitely worth a test.

Trent: Hang on, I want to make sure I understood what you just said.

You decreased your cost

of adding followers by using promoted tweets instead of promoted

accounts?

Sarah: The other way around. So, promoted tweets are what we typically

use for our normal

campaigns. Those are sort of our lead gen tweets, if you will. It’s

where we share our content and we say “Oh, if you want to learn more

about how to use Facebook for marketing, you should download this

eBook.” With better copy, of course, but that’s the general idea.

Whereas promoted accounts, the idea there is that you are just trying

to get more people to follow your account. That’s what I was saying

before about “If you want to stay updated with the latest tips in the

industry, follow Hubspot and we’ll keep you posted on that stuff.”

More of that kind of thing.

So, what you’re paying for is essentially more follower acquisition.

Trent: What did you do that drastically cut the cost of follower

acquisition?

Sarah: Just starting to do that. I’m not actually sure what types of

efforts we were running

before. We may have done promoted accounts in the past before I was

managing this channel. But when I came back to my manager and I said

“Hey, this is the amount we’re paying to acquire a new follower,” he

said “Oh, wow. That’s half of what we used to do.”

So, I’m not sure exactly what we’re comparing apples to apples here.

But it’s been very effective. Not even comparing it, but even just

looking at the numbers as they stand by themselves. It’s been very

good.

Trent: Now, earlier in the interview, you talked about targeting with

keywords. Is there a

keyword research tool within the Twitter campaign builder at all so

that you can figure out search volumes for keywords?

Sarah: Yeah. So, if you enter in a keyword or a few keywords, there’s

a button that allows you

to find similar and related keywords. So, that’s really great for just

sort of thinking of those things that you haven’t thought of.

The other thing is, if you used AdWords, they have a really great

keyword recommendation tool. So, you can always look there. I’m sure

there are other sites that also will find similar keywords. But, yes.

They do have it built in right into Twitter.

Trent: Okay. All right, so let’s wrap up with my lightning round.

These are just a couple of

really quick questions. What’s the most recent business book that

you’ve read?

Sarah: Most recent business book that I read? Well, just this morning,

actually, I was

discussing “Blue Ocean Strategy”. And that is definitely a classic, I

would say, business book. I would definitely recommend that one.

Trent: What’s your favorite blog and you can’t say HubSpot.

Sarah: I can’t say HubSpot. What’s my favorite blog? You know, I

really like Seth Godin. He’s

one of our unsung heroes around here. Or maybe for you, I guess he’s a

sung hero. We definitely love Seth Godin around here and he writes

very short snippets, but they’re great. Very entertaining.

Trent: All right. And if people want to interact with you at all, how

do they do that?

Sarah: I’m on Twitter. @SarahBethGo and you can find me there. Or you

can find me on

my website, sarahgoliger.com.

Trent: All right. Sarah, thank you so much for making some time to

come on to the “Bright

Ideas” podcast and share some insight and tips on how we can all use

Twitter to generate more leads for our businesses. Much appreciated.

Sarah: Absolutely. It was my pleasure. Thanks so much for having me.

Trent: To get to the show notes for this episode, go to

brightideas.co/98. If you enjoyed the

episode, please also take a moment and go to brightideas.com/love

where you’ll find a link and a video to show you how to leave feedback

for this show in the iTunes store.

And if you take a moment to do that, you have my eternal thanks

because every time someone does, we get a little bit more exposure in

the iTunes store. That draws more listeners and then more listeners

get to benefit from hearing all of the bright ideas that are shared by

my guests here on the show.

That’s it for this episode. I am your host Trent Dyrsmid. Thank you so

much for tuning in. And I look forward to producing another episode

for you in the very near future. Take care.

About Sarah Goliger

Sarah-Goliger

Sarah Goliger is the Head of Paid Marketing at HubSpot. She is responsible for coordinating marketing campaigns with external vendors and running display and retargeting campaigns through both search and social networks with an ultimate goal of lead generation.
Previously, Sarah managed email marketing and lead nurturing for HubSpot’s mid-sized business segment. Sarah also offers individual email marketing consulting. You can learn more about Sarah on her website and connect with her on Twitter at @sarahbethgo.

Additional Resources

How Tealet.com is Creating a Bridge Between Tea Growers and Tea Drinkers with Elyse Petersen

elyse-petersen_0

At Bright Ideas, we’ve talked with some great startups who’ve received support ftom 500 startups. This time it’s Tealet.com, a direct-from-farmers tea company dedicated to the growers around the world. Founder Elyse Peterson has devoted her time to creating a worldwide appreciation for the local farmers across the globe and in other food security campaigns.

From crowd-funding, kickstarter, 500 startups, and more, learn how Elyse used the digital landscape to get her business running. If you’re interested in alternate funding sources for businesses, you’ll want to check out this interview.

Listen now and you’ll hear Elyse and I talk about:

  • (02:00) Introductions
  • (07:00) How did you get the business started?
  • (10:00) How did you use crowd funding?
  • (12:50) How did you bring awareness to that Indiegogo campaign?
  • (16:00) What was in it for the campaign backers?
  • (20:00) What’s it like to get funded by 500 startups?
  • (27:00) What happened after 500 startups?
  • (31:00) What does it mean to be a part of the Las Vegas Downtown Project?
  • (32:30) How has Bitcoin inpacted your business?
  • (37:00) Please tell me about your community

Resources Mentioned

More About This Episode

The Bright Ideas podcast is the podcast for business owners and marketers who want to discover how to use online marketing and sales automation tactics to massively grow their business.

It’s designed to help marketing agencies and small business owners discover which online marketing strategies are working most effectively today – all from the mouths of expert entrepreneurs who are already making it big.

Listen Now

Leave some feedback:

Connect with Trent Dyrsmid:

 

About Elyse Petersen

Elyse PetersenElyse Petersen is a Global Tea Ambassador with the International Tea Farms Alliance. She spent time working with tea farmers in Wazuka, Kyoto, Japan, and this experience inspired her to help grow tea culture across the U.S. and around the world. Petersen is an experienced international development worker in the area of food security, natural resource management, and sustainable food preservation; having served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Niger, West Africa and Antigua and Barbuda, and the Eastern Caribbean. Petersen graduated from Shidler College of Business with a Japan-focused M.B.A, and from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, with a B.S. in Food Science and Technology.

Additional Resources

How Shopseen Attracted 2200 Customers in Just Six Months

adeel-ahmad_0

Sometimes, you can’t help but root for the little guy.

Adeel Ahmad was looking for a way to optimize the business end of things for small retailers, and with that idea, Shopseen was born. In this interview Adeel and I talk about how he saw the need for change, created his startup, and drew in a large customer base in a short period of time.

If you’re looking for ideas on startups, especially SaaS startups, you should check out this podcast.

Listen now and you’ll hear Adeel and I talk about:

  • (02:05) Who are you and what do you do?
  • (05:25) How did you got 2200 users in 6 months?
  • (08:25) How did you validate your idea?
  • (16:25) How did you get their first 10 customers?
  • (18:25) How did you determine how to price your product?
  • (22:25) Tell us about a time when an assumption you made was way off
  • (25:15) How has investor funding played out?
  • (30:25) How has your past been of help to you with Shopseen?

Resources Mentioned

More About This Episode

The Bright Ideas podcast is the podcast for business owners and marketers who want to discover how to use online marketing and sales automation tactics to massively grow their business.

It’s designed to help marketing agencies and small business owners discover which online marketing strategies are working most effectively today – all from the mouths of expert entrepreneurs who are already making it big.

Listen Now

Leave some feedback:

Connect with Trent Dyrsmid:

 

About Adeel Ahmad

AdeelAhmad2Adeel started Shopseen soon after opening a vintage clothing shop in downtown San Francisco. Shopseen was built to solve the problems of operating a small modern retail  business, and soon it was spun off into its own startup. Previously, Adeel was an early software engineer at Context Optional, a pioneering social media management company that built a platform for large brands to reach and engage with a broad audience on social networks.

Additional Resources

How Ethan Anderson is Growing MyTime.com into an Amazon for Local Services Merchants

ethan-anderson_0

Co-founder and CEO of a successful startup, Google Product Manager, Harvard Business School graduate, and previously named to the Silicon Valley 100, Ethan Anderson has been making waves in the digital marketplace.

Learn how Ethan came up with the concept for MyTime, an appointment setting website that connects businesses and customers through a simple and timely web interface. Discover how Ethan came up with the idea, how he saw an opportunity in the market, and how he established a well funded campaign to get it off the ground.

This interview is a must-listen for those interested in startups and SaaS development.

Listen now and you’ll hear Ethan and I talk about:

  • (2:00) Introductions
  • (3:10) What is MyTime?
  • (6:00) How did you research the idea?
  • (10:00) How did you attract interest very early on?
  • (12:00) Why did you raise money so early?
  • (14:00) How did you start selling to early adopters?
  • (20:30) How are you using crowd-sourcing?

Resources Mentioned

More About This Episode

The Bright Ideas podcast is the podcast for business owners and marketers who want to discover how to use online marketing and sales automation tactics to massively grow their business.

It’s designed to help marketing agencies and small business owners discover which online marketing strategies are working most effectively today – all from the mouths of expert entrepreneurs who are already making it big.

Listen Now

Leave some feedback:

Connect with Trent Dyrsmid:

About Ethan Anderson

Ethan Anderson, RedBeaconIMG_0307Ethan is the Founder of MyTime, a startup that allows consumers to instantly purchase services and book appointments from nearby businesses. He was also Cofounder & CEO of Redbeacon, which allowed consumers to request bids for home services. Redbeacon was venture backed and won numerous awards including the Grand Prize at the 2009 TechCrunch50 competition and Business Insider’s Startup 2010 before being acquired by The Home Depot. Prior to Redbeacon, Ethan worked at Google as Product Manager for Image Search and Google Video.  Ethan also worked in a number of internet strategy and marketing roles at The Clorox Company, Buy.com, and McKinsey & Company. He graduated with Honors from Harvard Business School and Magna Cum Laude from Duke University, where he studied Economics and Public Policy Studies.  He was recently honored to be named to the Silicon Valley 100 and 16 Up-and-Coming Silicon Valley Entrepreneurs You Need to Meet.

Additional Resources

How Circleci.com Attracted 1,000 Customers in Its First 2 Years

paul-biggar_0

You probably wouldn’t know just to look at him but Paul – at least according to his friends – is an intimidating card shark.

What’s also not obvious at first glance is how this savvy entrepreneur created and funded his company, attracting an impressive 1,000 customers in the first two years. Paul shares with us the details on cirlceci‘s beginning and  rapid growth, including key pricing, marketing, and investor strategies.

He shares what they did that endeared them to their customers (and what he thinks all software companies need do in order to maintain customers).

If you’re interested in software startups, I suggest you take a listen to this podcast. (And check out all our software posts and interviews.)

Listen now and you’ll hear Paul and I talk about:

  • (02:55) Introductions
  • (03:55) What did you do before this?
  • (06:00) How did you get started?
  • (09:50) How did you create a competitive advantage?
  • (12:10) How did you achieve product/market fit?
  • (16:20) How does pricing play a role in product validation?
  • (19:50) Tell us about how your assumptions have gone wrong
  • (25:50) How did you start to generate sales?
  • (27:00) How did Twitter play a role in marketing?
  • (27:20) How did you fund it in the beginning?
  • (28:50) How did you endear your early customers?
  • (29:50) How did you go out and raise money from investors?
  • (32:20) What did you learn from pitching investors?
  • (33:45) What is the most fun part of your job?

Resources Mentioned

More About This Episode

The Bright Ideas podcast is the podcast for business owners and marketers who want to discover how to use online marketing and sales automation tactics to massively grow their business.

It’s designed to help marketing agencies and small business owners discover which online marketing strategies are working most effectively today – all from the mouths of expert entrepreneurs who are already making it big.

Listen Now

Leave some feedback:

Connect with Trent Dyrsmid:

 

About Paul Biggar

Paul BiggarPaul Biggar is the co-founder of circleci, a state of the art automated testing and continuous integration and deployment tool. An expert in his field, Paul has been interviewed by the Wall Street Journal and has been featured on multiple HuffPost Live panels. His presentation at Google on compilers and programming languages was published as part of Google’s lauded Google Tech Talk Series, where it has been seen by over 20,000 people.
Prior to designing and developing circleci, Paul wrote phc, an open source PHP compiler, while doing his PhD on compilers and static analysis in Dublin. After moving to the Bay Area, Paul worked on the Firefox Javascript engine. He’s graduated from YCombinator, and now spends his time focused on developer productivity. He is an active speaker at tech conferences worldwide and spends his free time advising slightly younger companies on how to get started.

Additional Resources

 

Paul Clifford_0

Digital Marketing Strategy: How Paul Clifford and I Launched Our Software Company

Paul Clifford_0

Meet the man who helped me launch my new software, KontentFlow. Paul and I have been working on KontentFlow for a while, and I can happily say it’s now going beta. Paul and I are thrilled.

Unlike myself, Paul has developed multiple successful software applications including many enterprise-level systems. He’s also a savvy business person. So when I had the idea for KontentFlow, I knew he would make an excellent partner.

Listen to this podcast as we peel back the curtain and give insight into the process of software development. We discuss how we got started, how we outsourced our project (effectively or not), when we began marketing (well before the software was completed), and much more. I am excited to see things coming together and I’m sure the experience Paul and I had will provide you with some excellent food for thought.

Listen now and you’ll hear Paul and I talk about:

  • (03:45) Introductions
  • (04:45) What is disruptware?
  • (08:05) How should an entrepreneur get started in software?
  • (11:25) How should you interview a target market to find problems to solve?
  • (16:45) Why do some startups succeed and so many fail?
  • (19:45) After the interviews are complete, what is the next step to take?
  • (24:45) How can you raise some early money?
  • (26:45) How did we find our developers for our app?
  • (28:45) What did we outsource first?
  • (30:00) How should you manage ownership of code during the project?
  • (32:00) How should you manage the relationships with your developer?
  • (34:45) How should you handle QA (testing and bugs)?
  • (39:45) What should you do when you are ready to show customers?
  • (41:45) When should you start the marketing?
  • (49:45) Where can people go to learn more about the software business?
  • (51:45) What is an easier way to get started that involves less risk?
  • (55:45) How does open source play a role in this business?

Resources Mentioned

More About This Episode

The Bright Ideas podcast is the podcast for business owners and marketers who want to discover how to use online marketing and sales automation tactics to massively grow their business. It’s designed to help marketing agencies and small business owners discover which online marketing strategies are working most effectively today – all from the mouths of expert entrepreneurs who are already making it big.  

Listen Now

 

Leave some feedback:

Connect with Trent Dyrsmid:

About Paul Clifford

paulcliffordPaul Clifford is the founder of Disruptware and has 25 years experience as a Chief Technology Officer and a Chief Customer Officer (responsible for customer success) for many large software startups – all of which have been sold successfully.

Paul’s first software tool was a desktop software app (Colleague) in the recruitment industry.  He scaled this and sold it with the founder to a large public company in the UK.  Its since be re-purchased and is still highly successful and a market leader after 20 years.

Paul then built several SaaS applications in contract management, HR and recruitment selling to enterprise customers across 45 countries.  Each business was successfully sold for between $1.6 and $38million.  While doing this Paul was managing large teams of engineers across multiple countries.

Related Posts

Digital Marketing Strategy: Lee Frederiksen on How He Used Content Marketing to Attract $100M Clients

lee-frederiksen_0

Lee Frederiksen is an acclaimed author and Managing Partner at Hinge, a re-branding and consulting agency for professional services firms.

I had the distinct pleasure to talk with this very intelligent and successful guest and learn how he used content marketing to attract high revenue clients. Lee shared some truly brilliant marketing ideas with me; I was so impressed that I went back and re-listened to our entire interview.

With clients reaching the billion dollar mark in sales, Lee is an expert in bringing on quality leads and establishing solid relationships. Listen as we discuss lead generation techniques, finding the right firms, and creating a winning content marketing strategy.

(If you want to hear more from agency leaders on lead generation and digital marketing strategy, be sure and check out this podcast episode with Toby Jenkins.)

Listen now and you’ll hear Lee and I talk about:

  • (02:30) Guest background and introduction
  • (04:30) What are some of the marketing challenges faced by professional services firms?
  • (06:00) What are the marketing activities professional services firms should be using?
  • (13:30) Can you tell us about your content marketing strategy?
  • (23:30) Can you tell us how you ensure your content is seen by your audience?
  • (26:30) Please tell us how you capture leads from your site
  • (28:30) How do you nurture your leads?
  • (34:30) What advice do you have for new content marketers?
  • (38:30) Why is niche specialization so important?
  • (44:30) Why did you choose professional services opposed to a sub-niche?
  • (46:30) How does paid traffic play a role?

Resources Mentioned

More About This Episode

The Bright Ideas podcast is the podcast for business owners and marketers who want to discover how to use online marketing and sales automation tactics to massively grow their business.

It’s designed to help marketing agencies and small business owners discover which online marketing strategies are working most effectively today – all from the mouths of expert entrepreneurs who are already making it big.

Listen Now

How Lee Frederiksen Used Content Marketing to Attract $100M Clients http://t.co/3Mpi1QsFqQ via @trentdyrsmid

— Trent Dyrsmid (@TrentDyrsmid) February 25, 2014

Leave some feedback:

Connect with Trent Dyrsmid:

Transcript

Trent: Hey there, bright idea hunters. Welcome to the Bright Ideas

podcast. I am your host,

Trent Dyrsmid, and this is the podcast where we feature interviews

with entrepreneurs behind some of today’s fastest growing companies.If you’re looking for proven tactics and strategies to help you start

a new business or grow an existing one, you are in the right place.In each and every episode we do an interview with a proven expert, and

I get them to share all the nuts and bolts and the strategies and the

tactics that they have used to achieve that success. In this episode,

that is going to be exactly what you’ve got coming your way.My guest in this episode is a fellow by the name of Lee Frederickson.

He is a managing partner behind a very successful marketing firm

called Hinge.They have a roster of clients that are in the professional services

space from anywhere from about $10 million in annual sales up to over

$1 billion. The client engagements, just for example, one of the types

of engagements that we talked about in this interview is a re-branding

engagement. Those typically will sell for between $80,000 and

$120,000.The way that they have achieved their success and the way that they

attract their clients is through a very, very specific content

marketing strategy, which we dive into in great detail here in this

episode.Lee is a Ph.D., and he is an author of three books on the topic. If

you go to the “About” page of Hinge and you read his bio, you’re going

to see that he is an incredibly well educated and successful

individual.Getting to have a whole hour of his free consulting time here is going

to be incredibly valuable. We’re going to get to that in just a

second.Before we do, speaking of content marketing, if you’re new to the show

and you don’t already know, I have also written a book on content

marketing called the “Digital Marketing Handbook’.You can learn more about that at BrightIdeas.co/book. With that said,

please join me in welcoming Lee to the show.Hi, Lee. Welcome to the show.Lee: Well, hello. It’s a pleasure being here.Trent: Thank you so much for making some time to come on with me and

talk about how

professional services firms can successfully attract more clients.Now, before we get into all of the details of what I’m sure is going

to be a very interesting discussion, I’m sure that many of the folks

in my audience don’t yet know who you are, and so I’d like to give you

an opportunity in your own words to just introduce yourself, who you

are, and what you do.Lee: Okay. I am the managing partner of a firm called Hinge. We are a

branding and

marketing firm that specializes exclusively in professional services

organizations. Our clients are management consultants, marketing

firms, accountants, technology companies, architects, engineers, the

kind of people who sell their expertise.That is the only kind of firm we work for. The kinds of things we do

is we help them research their clients, position and brand their

firms, and do marketing programs to generate new leads and

opportunities and turn those into clients.Trent: Okay. So profession services firms. There’s obviously lots of

opportunity there. I know

that applies to a wide range of companies like the ones that you’ve

just listed off. In our pre-chat you had mentioned that you’ve written

three different books to help that particular tribe of individuals to

be more successful at this.Why don’t we kind of dive in right at the very top. Lee, so for

professional services firms, what do you think are some of the biggest

challenges that they face when it comes to client attraction?Lee: Well, there’s actually a lot of commonality across firms. Usually the

biggest thing is how

do I found and attract leads. I think people are sort of stuck in the

notion that the way they do that is they go out and they find people

and they try to convince them that they need to become clients of

those.While that’s certainly a traditional way of doing it, it’s not a very

effective or efficient way. I think the thing is, how do they generate

the leads that get them to the point where they can have a real

substantive conversation about it? They seem less concerned on the

whole with closing the sale than they are with generating the

opportunity in the first place.Trent: Okay. What you’re looking, if I’m understanding you correctly,

the big challenge is you

want to find people who already know that they’re looking. They

already know that they have a problem to solve, and you need to get in

their path of research so that you have an opportunity to have a

conversation with them?Lee: Yes. I think that’s exactly right. Actually, you raised a very

important point there that’s

kind of nuanced but it’s critical, and that is find a person who knows

that they have a problem. Here’s the thing with professional services.

For many problems or business issues that clients face, there’s more

than one potential solution.

For example, if you’re a firm and your margins are weak, you maybe

could have someone help you with cost cutting to improve your margins,

or someone to help you with your process, or someone to automate part

of it, or someone to bring you in new clients with higher margins.

Right away you have four or five potential solutions right off the

top, different directions. The key for professional services is how do

you get in the discussion early enough so you can help shape the

discussion of what is the appropriate solution for that potential

problem.

I think what happens is people often start too late. They’re focusing

on, “Well, let me find someone who’s ready to hire a new accounting

firm right now.” Well, there’s only a small proportion of your

potential clients who are ready at the particular moment you want it,

so you may be aiming too late at the process with your efforts.

Trent: Yes, that makes a whole lot of sense. What are some of the

things then that you, in your

books, talk about, are the activities that professional services firms

should be engaged in early on to get themselves on the radar screen of

their prospective clients before it’s too late?

Lee: That’s an excellent question. Let me back up a little bit and give

you a context for what I

think is the right answer to that.

The thing I love about Hinge is that we have an interesting kind of

situation. We decided early on that what we were going to do is we

were going to start out by researching the clients, potential clients,

as thoroughly as we could.

Then, when we found something that was going to be a good potential

solution for professional services firms, we would try it ourselves.

Once we have tried it and we have mastered it for our own, then we

would offer it to our clients. That allowed us then to go into the

situation with potential clients and say, “We’ve got experience with

this. We’ve done it ourselves. It’s based on research. We know how it

works.” That turns out to be an incredibly effective way for us to get

new business.

I think if you apply that lesson in what we learned, it’s if you can

find a group of potential clients for which you have not only a

solution that will work with them but have a very credible story to

talk about, then you’re in a position to begin the educational part of

the relationship, which transitions very nicely into actually having

them become a client.

The thing you’re trying to do is demonstrate to your potential client

that you understand the issue thoroughly, that you have a potential

solution, and that you can effectively solve their problem. I’m afraid

that’s a little bit of a roundabout answer, but I think it really gets

the essence to what you need to do.

Trent: Absolutely. Give me an example of what you’re talking about in

something that you guys

did for yourselves. You tested it, you got the research, and then you

started to use that to attract clients.

Lee: I’ll give you one simple example. When we’re doing research on

high growth professional services firms, we found out that they tended

to spend much more of their marketing budget, and their resources

focused on online marketing. We did a piece of research that really

focused in on online marketing for professional services.

We looked at over 500 firms and what they did on online marketing.

What we found was that there was a certain kind of commonality in the

kinds of techniques they used online, that when you boiled it down,

what came up was really a model for content marketing. We embraced

that model, and we started to do it ourselves.

The more we started to do it, the more we got success. The size of our

clients began to increase. The geographic range of them, the budgets,

t sophistication, it’s really been one of the primary drivers of our

growth, and that came from really what the research showed us about

what high performing professional services firms do. We followed that

path and it led to success.

Trent: Let’s dive a little deeper into that, because obviously I’m a

big fan of content marketing.

We have an agency where we do consulting, like you guys do, and all of

our leads come from content that I create very much like this podcast

and posts and so forth.

I’m definitely drinking the Kool-Aid, and I think that there’s a lot

of people here who are listening to this who would love to have more

success with content marketing.

First off I want to ask you, what types of…You’d mentioned you’ve

had success attracting larger clients. Let’s put a little bit of a

definition to what is a “larger client” in terms of annual revenue

that they would generate or annual billings for you. Either way you

want to describe it.

Lee: Well, right now our clients are primarily concentrated in the top 100

firms within their

respective industries. For example, in accounting, if you look at the

top 100 accounting firms nationally, that tends to be where our

clients come from. That’s true of also architecture, engineering,

technology, and so forth.

That’s what I mean, whereas when we started down this path our clients

were primarily local clients. They might have a firm or revenue of a

couple million dollars, five million dollars.

Now our client revenues are in the tens and hundreds of millions of

dollars and many times well above a billion dollars. It’s a much

larger group of firms, and they’re more geographically dispersed.

We’re getting clients literally from all around the world contacting

us with their particular marketing challenges.

Trent: Okay, so these sound like they’re probably pretty good clients

to have. Folks, just so we

know, I’m just setting the stage for the type of client. We are going

to dive into more of the types of content marketing activities that

Lee is doing to get these clients.

But the services that you’re delivering to them, Lee, are they for the

most part retainer type services, where they’re paying you monthly to

do something on an ongoing basis, because content marketing, it’s not

a one-time project?

I’m assuming, looking at your site, that much of the stuff that you’re

doing is in the umbrella of content marketing.

Lee: Yes. It is a balance of both content marketing, ongoing marketing

programs, and one-

time kind of projects. These one-time kind of projects, they’re often

pretty significant. The most common type of one-time project we do is

re-branding, and that will involve doing research, positioning and

messaging, doing all the website and collateral identity work, logo

design, and how that is going to be rolled out. Even though it’s a one-

time project, it can be a pretty substantial project.

Trent: Before we move on from that, if I might, there’s folks in my

audience who haven’t done

that yet, and this might be their first opportunity to think about,

“Hey, maybe I should be doing some of this kind of stuff.” Just for

their curiosity and mine, for a $10 million client, just ballpark.

What would a re-branding project be worth?

Lee: They’re roughly about, I would say $80,000 to $120,000.

Trent: Okay, and that would take you how long to deliver something

like that, from the very

start when they say, “Go ahead,” to “Okay, we’re done.”

Lee: It’s usually within the window of six months to a year.

Trent: Okay.

Lee: Generally, the smaller and the more quickly they can make decisions,

the less time it

takes.

Trent: Of course. I would assume that probably the biggest roadblock

to any project being

completed is just the client not being able to respond quick enough.

Lee: Yes, yes. Exactly.

Trent: Okay.

Lee: They’re all busy, almost by definition, all of the time.

Trent: Absolutely.

Lee: Many times marketing, for the top management, marketing isn’t

something where they

have the deepest background. Sometimes things can go wrong and it can

become a stand-in for other kinds of issues that an organization is

struggling with when you’re re-branding or repositioning, but that’s

relatively rare.

Most of them have pretty clear reasons why they need to re-brand, and

want to move along quickly.

Trent: Okay. Now let’s talk about the content that you’re using to

attract these folks. I want to

give this a bit of a framework as well. A book is what I’ll call big

content. A blog post or a video or a podcast like this is what I call

kind of middle content.

Then tweets and social sharing is what I call tiny content. First off,

you’re obviously doing a mix of all three of those, because you’ve got

three books, you’ve got a blog, and you have social profiles.

Lee: Correct.

Trent: In terms of attracting this kind of client, can you just kind

of walk us through your

content marketing strategy at the high level? So the concept first,

and then I’ll ask some follow on questions to dig into some details.

Lee: Sure. Well, the concept is that you need content at all of those

levels, each of those levels.

You need to have the very small content, the mid-level, and all the

way to the deeper content to have a full bodied program. Yes, we have

content at all of those levels.

But if you step back a second and you say which are the streams of

content you have, if you look at those as sort of like individual

programs, you start with what are the types of services and solutions

that I want to offer to a client population, and what is the specific

population or target group that I want to offer it to.

Those kinds of decisions, those generally get made by some kind of a

marketing analysis, or it may already be obvious to you because of

your background as a firm or as an individual where your sweet spot

is, where you can deliver the most value. That’s kind of where you

start.

You say, “If the endpoint is someone who needs to engage me to deliver

this kind of service, what’s the starting point? What are the earliest

symptoms that they would have where this might be the possible

solution?”

That’s at the front end of your funnel. Your small content and your

blog posts, beyond that, those are the kinds of things that deal

generally with the issues at the issue level. You’re not at the

solution level yet. You’re at the issue and diagnosis.

As you go further down the funnel you deal with more about, “Of this

issue, what are the possible solutions, and what are the things that

indicate this is the right solution?” How do you think about this

problem in a way that will help you solve it? What are the

alternatives that you could consider, and when is the solution that I,

as an organization, want to offer? When is that the appropriate one,

because you don’t want to try and get the wrong people?

Content marketing is as much about qualifying leads as it is

attracting them. At the end of the process, as you get further down

into it, you’re dealing more and more with the specifics of what is

the solution.

Then, eventually, the person will say, “I want to talk to you about

this. I want a proposal. I want to explore working together.” At that

point, then you get into the discussions about specifically how you do

it and how much your services cost and why you might or might not be a

good match for this person.

I think the mistake a lot of people make is they try to jump to the

end in the very beginning. They say, “Hey, we’ve got great services.

You should work with us,” which is silly. Nobody’s going to do that.

Trent: Yes, yes. It’s like walking into a cocktail party and saying,

“Here’s my card. Let’s do

business.”

Lee: I use the slightly cruder metaphor of it’s like going on your first

date and asking the

person whether they would like to marry you.

Trent: Yes, doesn’t work.

Lee: It’s jumping way too far ahead too fast.

Trent: Okay, so let’s use the accounting niche as the guinea pig

vertical for the next couple of

my questions.

Lee: Okay.

Trent: Folks in the audience here, they’re thinking, “Yes, okay,” I

want to go after accountants,

“What should I be blogging about so that I can start to get in the

path of their discovery?”

Lee: Okay.

Trent: So what topics would you be writing about?

Lee: Well, again, I think you need to start with the services that you’re

going to offer as you’re

thinking. In the context of your question, let’s say that you wanted

to do consulting with them on IT security for example. I’ll just use

that.

Trent: Can I interrupt? Most of…

Lee: Sure.

Trent: …the people listening to this will be in the business that

you’re in. They sell marketing

services, so why don’t we just talk about what you blogged about to

get into the path for these people?

Lee: Okay. Well, in our case we were looking at branding and marketing

services. We asked

ourselves, “Okay. Who is in a position to need branding services in

accounting?” We’ll just take that to simplify the discussion.

We said, “Well, okay. These are firms that might have gone through a

merger or are considering it. These are firms that potentially want to

accelerate their growth to grow faster. Or these are firms that might

want to reposition themselves to go after a different audience.

Or these could be firms that just haven’t addressed this for a while,

and they are just out of date. Their websites and their marketing

materials are out of date.” Right away we have four or five different

topic areas that could all be appropriate reasons.

We say, “Okay. What are the types of topics that people who are going

through a merger or considering going through a merger would be

interested in?” We would write blog posts about post-merger

integration, or how is your brand impacted by a merger, or what are

the challenges of generating leads in a merged firm.

All of these things are things that someone in a position to hire us

would be interested in and would likely be thinking about and be on

their mind. We’re not dealing with how we help you re-brand. We’re

dealing with what are the issues that you’re facing when you have the

kind of problem that would lead you to consider working with us.

Trent: Yes. It’s really quite straightforward hearing you explain it.

You’re identifying who is my

target audience, and what are the problems that they have. I am going

to blog about ways to solve those problems. Boil it down, real simple,

that’s what you’ve just said.

Lee: Yes, exactly. That’s what we’ve said. It seems too simple on one

level. It’s so interesting.

I find that people just really oftentimes don’t think about it that

way, because they get so focused on their own services that they lose

sight of who the client is and what their world is really like.

They’re the same.

They’re also professional services providers, just like us. They have

the same crazy schedule. They don’t have enough time. They can’t

research something thoroughly.

They’re not going to sit down and read your wonderful website that’s

got 17 paragraphs of content about why they should work with you.

They’re not going to do that. They’re going to do what you do.

Go to a website. They’re going to skim it. They’re going to look at

  1. They’re going to try and get what does this person do? Can they

help me? Is this useful?

Trent: How do you ensure, because you said some very interesting

things there. They’re busy,

which means they’re probably not sitting at their desk all day just

reading other people’s blogs. Content that isn’t consumed, it might as

well not have been written in the first place.

We’ll stick with the post-merger theme here just for the next part of

this discussion. Do you combine outbound outreach of some kind with

this content that you’re creating so that the people you’re creating

it for discover that the content even exists? How do you get them

there?

Lee: What our research showed, and again, we are pretty disciplined about

when we find

something in research, that’s the direction we go, we found that the

important keys were, number one is SEO, search engine optimization.

In other words, you have to write the content that is on the front end

of your funnel, and not so much the back end, but it’s on the front

end of your funnel, has to be written in a way so that when people are

searching for a topic, like post-merger integration or re-branding,

that they come across your blog posts or the kinds of things that

you’re doing. That’s kind of number one. That’s the must have.

The second thing that we do is we use social media. LinkedIn, Twitter,

to a lesser extent Facebook for our audience. Some of the verticals

are on Facebook, so we do some sharing on there. We share as widely as

we can in social media and discuss it in LinkedIn groups and so forth.

Then we do other kinds of outreach like speaking engagements, that

kind of thing. What we don’t do is we don’t do cold calling. We don’t

do rented lists. We don’t do very much networking other than to

maintain relationships and so forth when we have it. We don’t spend a

lot of time going out to networking and hoping to run into people.

Trent: Yes, that’s kind of a glorified cold call.

Lee: Yes, yes. Our whole goal with this is, can we get something that’s

useful and interesting

that’s going to capture your attention in front of you? Can we share

something that you would find useful?

Trent: All right. We’ll assume that you’ve got some success getting

the right eyeballs on the

right content, but you still need to move the ball forward, because if

they read it and they don’t do anything, that’s obviously not helping

them and it’s not helping you.

What are some of the ways that you ensure that a piece of content

causes, I’m going to call it a conversion, are somehow moving them

forward? Talk to me about how you do that.

Lee: Well, every piece of content should have a next step, should have,

“What should I do

next?” For content that’s at the early end of the funnel, that next

step is usually content that is somewhat more engaging. For example,

with a blog post, we might offer a guide that we have.

Our guides tend to be 25 to 35 pages long, that kind of talks about a

subject in more depth, whether that might be a subject like re-

branding or content marketing or SEO, and these are all kind of

related to services that we offer. That might be a next step.

Another next step could be a webinar or some other kind of educational

event that we’re doing, or it could be an e-book that we’re

publishing, or it could be a more extended piece of research. Any of

the things that would be more useful to a person who’s more interested

in that topic to take the next step.

Trent: Okay. Now, behind the scenes, what I call behind the screen,

when someone registers to

download one of your lead magnets, be it a webinar, an e-book or what

have you, what are some of the things…

Do you have an automated marketing funnel that’s attempting to nurture

and segment these people, or does that lead go to people in your team

who would then make a follow-up phone call? What happens?

Lee: Well, the one thing it doesn’t do, when someone downloads a piece of

content, we do not

jump on that person and make an outbound phone call or do anything to

try to convert them at that point.

We feel like that is really not what the person is asking for, because

if they’re asking to talk to us to discuss how we might help them,

they are going to reach out to us, we found out. If they’re not asking

for them, we don’t find that you talk people into re-branding or

marketing their firm or anything like that.

These are not impulse purchases, or they’re not something where you’re

going to talk them into it. These are things that people come to

through their education and understanding of what the situation is

they’re facing, and it has to be a high enough priority for them. If

it’s not, what you will end up with is a lot of leads that go nowhere,

that aren’t really opportunities.

You may have a person temporarily interested, but the next time

something comes up and distracts them, they’ll be on to something

else. You have to really deal with people who have a real business

challenge for which you are a genuine appropriate timely important

solution.

Trent: That makes perfect sense. I want to be clear. Then, when

someone downloads the report

from your site, obviously they go into your database. They get the

report via an email. Do they get any more follow-up emails or anything

after that, or is the onus simply now on them to contact you if

they’re really that interested?

Lee: They do get follow-up emails, but what the emails are isn’t an

attempt to convert them.

It’s offers for more engaging content. For example, if you downloaded

a white paper or, let’s say a guide or something, you might get an

offer for, “Here’s our latest e-book,” or “Here’s some research on a

related topic,” or “Here’s a webinar.”

We have tested some programs where we’ve been very specific about what

the person gets, but we find in general, if you expose them to a range

of other content and other opportunities, the thing that they

downloaded first may not be the thing that is their current interest

or becomes the thing they work with you on.

Sometimes it is, but sometimes it isn’t. They may have downloaded

something on how to differentiate their firm, but in the end they

really need a new website.

Trent: So you’re basically segmenting them by the activity that they

take, which is the reports

that they download, and each progressive report that they download,

does that have an influence on the next set of reports that you would

send to them?

Have you built that kind of logic into the funnel, or is it simply a

linear process that everyone goes through and they just pick whichever

report they want?

Lee: I think in general it tends to be a linear process, but that’s not

completely because it

sometimes is very dependent on what they’re done. For example, we use

the example of someone who downloaded a report.

Let’s say the next step they do is they attend a webinar on marketing

planning. At that webinar we’ll often make an offer that we’ll do a

phone consultation with you to go over your marketing plan and give

you some feedback on it.

That would not be an offer that we would necessarily make to everyone.

We’re making it to someone who has had that level of engagement.

They’ve taken that next step.

Then some proportion of people will say, “Yes, I want to do that.”

Then that gives us an opportunity to engage with them more, determine

whether they have a good fit, whether there’s a need, and some of them

will.

It becomes somebody calls. They will say, “Well, you know what? We

wanted to talk about the marketing plan, but what I really want to

talk to you about is re-branding.”

Trent: Okay. For folks who are earlier on, and I’m going back here

because I know I have a

meaningful portion of my audience that’s going to be going, “Wow, this

sounds awesome, but it also sounds a little bit overwhelming. How am I

going to get all the time to create all this content?” Everything

starts, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

I guess, what advice would you give someone who is either not yet

started with content marketing or they’re relatively early? They’ve

just maybe started to blog. What activities do you think would be the

highest and best use of their time?

Lee: I think, and this might be counter-intuitive, but I think the most

valuable thing they could

do when they’re just getting started is research on their target

audience. The reason I say that is because that is where you get two

benefits from that.

Number one, you’re going to get a better feeling for what are the real

issues and opportunities for your kinds of services with that target

client group.

That is so important because, as human beings, we don’t know what we

don’t know. We spend so much time justifying it that we don’t need to

do things because we already know them.

What our research clearly shows is that we don’t know our potential

clients as well as we think we do. We just don’t. You have to accept

that. That’s a part of being human. You think you know them, but there

are probably gaps in your knowledge that you can fill in by doing that

research.

The second thing it does is, by gathering that research, that gives

you something substantive to talk about, to write about. You go to,

let’s say that you want to consult on marketing with hospitals. We’ll

use that as another example.

If you go and you talk to those hospital administrators and those

marketing directors and you truly understand what they’re struggling

with, even though it may not seem like it has anything to do with

marketing or branding or any of that, it’s a rare organization that

some of their key problems are not in some way related to marketing.

It really is.

Even if those are some of the things getting in the way, your ability

to talk about those problems, those issues, and how they’re related to

what you do is one of the keys.

How do you relate the kind of services you do to the things that

they’re talking about in their organization? That is going to right

away make you more relevant and make your blog posts and the things

you’re doing as the things they’re most focused on, where their heads

are at today.

Trent: That makes an awful lot of sense. If folks don’t have this type

of research, do you simply

reach out to people, cold email or social media, and say, “Hey, we

need to gather some data. We’re producing another research report?”

What is it that you say to get a stranger to say, “Yes, okay. I’ll

spend some time helping you with answers to your questions?”

Lee: Well, I think you’ll find that people are pretty generally willing to

share their information

or to share some research related thing if they’re going to get the

results or if they feel like knowing those results will be helpful to

them.

Even then, if you approach them kind of openly about what you’re

doing, we find that many, many people are willing to talk to you.

Plus, if you’re going after this area, you probably already have

contacts in there and you can network your way into it, and you can

begin small and build up from there.

The impediment to doing it is not that you can’t get people to

cooperate. The impediment to doing it is what’s between your ears,

where you talk yourself out of it and say, “Oh, they won’t talk to me.

They won’t do this. They won’t do that. This couldn’t happen. That

can’t happen.” That’s the thing that gets in your way; not the reality

of it.

Trent: Yes, I’m glad you pointed that out because I agree completely.

You don’t need to get to

talk to 10 strangers. You need to get to talk to one, and if you have

a nice conversation, more than likely when you say, “Who else should I

talk to?” they’re going to refer you to the next one.

Lee: Exactly, exactly.

Trent: Yes, okay. What haven’t I asked you about that you think is an

important piece to include

in this discussion? I think we’ve covered a lot of really great stuff

already, but you’ve got three books on this topic, and I don’t have

all three of them in front of me at the moment, so I’m sure there’s

some more.

Lee: Yes. There are a lot of things. I think one of the things that is the

biggest barrier for a lot

of people is the whole concept of specialization. I want to focus on

that because it’s a scary topic to people.

People, even marketing people who intellectually know that

specializing and focusing is a better way, they may know that

intellectually, but on an emotional level, they’re just afraid to give

up business.

They’re afraid that, “If I say I specialize in working with hospitals,

what if someone from a catering service calls me and they want to work

with me? What then?”

What they don’t realize is that the benefits of specializing so far

outweigh the cost with any business that you will potentially give up

that it is an even close. That’s one of the things that not only our

research shows but our experience shows, that specializing, while it

is not an emotionally easy thing to do and feels risky, is really the

safest thing you can do.

Now, someone says, “Well, what if I specialize in the wrong thing?

What if I specialize in this?” What we’ve found out is that generally,

the specialist, if you’re in the marketing area or in in general the

business development, helping them grow, it’s awfully recession

resistant.

Sometimes it’s actually industries that are in trouble that are the

best clients that are looking for help more than industries that are

thriving.

We saw that in the last recession, where the architecture, engineering

and construction segment just got absolutely battered in the last

recession. Turned out to be an excellent group of clients, because

those that made it through the first wave, they said, “You know, I

didn’t have to do anything before. Just show up and I would get

business. Now I have to actually figure out what I’m going to do.”

Trent: Yes.

Lee: It’s not always intuitive. If you really are in tune with an

industry, you do find out where

those opportunities are, and you have a tremendous advantage over

someone who’s a generalist.

Trent: Yes, no kidding. Sorry, I’m just jotting notes here down. That

is such incredibly sage

advice, and I’m glad that you thought to bring that up.

Now, for someone who is saying, “Okay, yes. I’m sold on this

specialization thing. Give me some criteria. There’s all these

industries to choose from. Help me narrow the list down to at least a

subset so that I can start to go do some research on that subset,”

what are some of the criteria that you would suggest that people

consider when trying to go from the whole field to that slice of the

pie they’re going to maybe start to do the research on?

Lee: Well, it starts out with looking where you have a competitive

advantage. If you peel back

how people specialize, almost always what you find out is, “Oh, I used

to work in that industry. “My spouse works in that industry”. “We’ve

got several clients in that and it’s really interesting.”

It’s some kind of an advantage or an entree you have into an industry

that gives you the ability to look at it differently than a generalist

would look at it. That’s where I would focus first.

If it’s not that, then you’re just looking at very general things,

like, where is there a market, where do I think the industry is going

to be down the road. I’m constantly amazed at the niches people have

found.

There are the environment with the range of industries, and which ones

you could focus on is so broad and so deep that there is most likely

going to be something when you even pause for a moment and look at

where you have the experience, where you have the interest and

excitement.

Trent: Yes, and that makes perfect sense as well. In looking at your

homepage, there’s a number

of things that scroll through in the featured section, and one of them

is of course that we specialize in professional services, marketing,

and branding, with that cool little airplane.

Was there a reason why you didn’t go more niche and say, and maybe you

did this in the past, “We specialize in engineering firms,” because in

North America there are lots of engineering firms?

Lee: Right.

Trent: Your message would have been even more relevant to that sub-

niche of the professional

services space.

Lee: That’s a very perceptive question, and it is exactly precisely the

strategic discussion that

we have when we said, “Is professional services too broad a niche? Do

we need to go narrower?” because we observed that there were a lot of

people who were just focusing on one vertical. I think the answer to

that question about how broad or how narrow is your niche has to do

with how people see themselves.

Are they part of a broader industry or not? In other words, the

clothing store, do they see themselves as being a retailer or a

clothing retailer? Where is their primary identification? That kind of

tells you what the client will accept as being relevant to them.

It’s a battle. We took a calculated risk that we could build a brand

that cut across professional services that included multiple ones.

When we did it, we didn’t know whether it was going to work or not,

whether the psychology of our buyers would allow it.

Well, in the end it was successful for us, but we also didn’t just

rely on that, because we have verticals within the architecture,

engineering and construction or the technology area, and we have

people that are devoted just to those verticals.

We believed that the brand could handle all of professional services,

and so far it seems to have worked. But we didn’t start there. We also

built within the individual niches.

Trent: Do you have landing pages and special reports that are devoted

to the sub-niches of

professional services that I simply just can’t easily navigate my way

through to from the homepage of the blog?

Lee: Yes. We have landing pages. We have research reports. We have case

studies. We have

things that are devoted to each of the niches. That’s actually

something that we’re continuing to strengthen. Sort of every year by

year we go deeper and broader within the niches within the things we

offer, the people we partner with, and so forth.

Trent: Does paid traffic play a role at all in getting the right

eyeballs onto the right offers,

meaning those landing pages that are top of funnel for you?

Lee: It can. It can, and particularly in certain situations, where you

have keywords that you

want to be found for but you can’t get to when you have, we’ve used it

in the promotion of some of our books as they’ve been released to get

a little bit broader release of them. It’s certainly a component. It

isn’t necessarily the most efficient way.

But having said that, we have a number of clients or people that we’ve

studied who have relied very heavily on paid promotion, and it’s

worked well for them where they’ve promoted that content. Certainly

don’t rule it out, but it’s not generally where you look first.

Trent: A follow on question to that is, have you ever for yourselves

or for your clients used paid

traffic as a means of testing the viability of a keyword, a major

keyword, before embarking on a content creation strategy for that

keyword?

Why I ask that question, as I’m sure you’re aware, not all keywords

have the same value. Some of them have a much higher converting value

just by the nature of the keyword. The people who are searching for

that are more likely to become a buyer of whatever it is you’re

selling versus some other keyword.

Lee: Sure.

Trent: Paid traffic’s a very fast way to test it. Do you do that?

Lee: We’ve done a little of that, but generally we’ve found that we’re

focused on getting the

right kind of content. If we can’t draw the traffic with SEO, then

we’ll use that particular topic, we might use that as a guest post in

somewhere where we can draw the traffic, or as a conference speech or

an article or something.

So there’s more than one way to draw traffic. Keywords, that’s what

does the bulk of the work day in and day out, but it’s certainly not

the only way to draw attention or traffic to an idea.

Trent: Well, Lee, I think we should probably wrap up pretty quick

here. We’ve been about 46

minutes so far. Before we do that, a couple of very quick questions.

Obviously, if people want to get a hold of you, they go to

hingemarketing.com, and then there’s all sorts of ways that they can

learn more about your organization and interact with you.

The books that you offer, if anyone wants to get, what are the titles

of the three books, and then how can people get them if they want to?

Lee: Okay. They’re available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or also as

downloads from our

website. They’re free electronic versions at the website. The first

book is called “Spiraling Up”, and it deals with high growth

professional services firms. We looked at what they do differently

than average firms.

The second one is called “Online Marketing for Professional Services”.

That is based on a study of 500 professional services firms and how

they use online marketing and what the fastest growing ones do.

The third book is called “Inside the Buyer’s Brain”. That is a

combination of over 1,300 interviews of buyers of professional

services, also called clients, people who purchase services, and

sellers, and how they see the world differently and the blind spots

that the sellers have.

All three of them are available in those sources, and they’re all

really based on research, as all of our things are.

Trent: Okay, fantastic. As you’ve been talking, I’m trying to download

all these things. “Inside

the Buyer’s Brain” was very easy to find. Just so that I and the

listeners can find the other two on your site, how do I get there?

Lee: You go to the Library.

Trent: Oh.

Lee: In the Library, you’ll see where it will say “Books”.

Trent: You know, I’m sometimes blind as a bat. Didn’t even see the

Library button beside the

Blog button. All right.

Lee: They’re different, and that’s why you have to be clear with your

navigation. That’s the one

thing you don’t want to be innovative about, is your navigation

system.

Trent: Yes, I would agree. Do what everybody else is doing, because

people expect that the

doorknob’s going to be in the middle of the door; not up at the top or

the bottom.

Lee: That’s right.

Trent: Lee, I want to thank you very much. I learned some really good

golden nuggets

from this interview, and so I have no doubt that my audience did as

well. I do want to thank you very much more making the time to come

and spend some time with us here on the show.

Lee: Thank you very much for having me. It was a pleasure chatting with

you.

Trent: All right. You take care and have a wonderful day.

Lee: Okay, thank you. Bye-bye.

Trent: Okay, to get to the show notes for this episode, go to

BrightIdeas.co/93. If you really

enjoyed this episode, which I sure hope you did, please go to

BrightIdeas.co/love, and there you will find a very easy way to leave

feedback for this episode in the iTunes store.

That is really, really important because with each feedback we get

more awareness, we rank higher in the iTunes store, and that helps

more entrepreneurs just like you to discover the Bright Ideas podcast.

When they do, we get to help more people to massively boost their

business with all of the bright ideas that get shared by my guests

here on the show.

That’s it for this episode. I am your host, Trent Dyrsmid. Thank you

so much for tuning in. I look forward to seeing you again in the next

episode. Take care.

About Lee Frederiksen

LeeFrederiksenLee Frederiksen, Ph.D., is an award-winning marketer and renowned business strategist who helped pioneer the field of research-driven marketing. A rare combination of businessman and research scientist, Lee draws on his Ph.D. in behavioral psychology and his entrepreneurial experience as CEO of three successful firms to help clients achieve high growth and profitability. His research also forms the basis for his six highly acclaimed books on the topics of organizational growth, marketing, and business strategy.

Lee has authored or edited several books on marketing and management, including Handbook of Organizational Behavior, Marketing Health Behavior: Principles, Techniques and Applications, and Computers, People and Productivity. He’s been widely quoted in the business press, including Fortune, New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Entrepreneur, Business 2.0 and Advertising Age, as well as numerous trade and professional journals. Most recently, Lee co-authored the book Spiraling Up: How to Create a High Growth, High Value Professional Services Firm.

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Vitaly Golomb on How to Raise Funding for Your Startup

vitaly-golomb_0

Someone people say said is print is dead…

Apparently, Vitaly Golomb didn’t hear them.

Vitaly has been a part of one of the greatest moves towards this industry’s revival in the past decade. Find out how he lead the charge to create an InterTech Technology Award-Winning start-up (with other winners including Photoshop in 1991) and change the face of the print business. His thoughts on entrepreneurship and product creation are worth a listen.

Listen now and you’ll hear Vitaly and I talk about:

  • (02:30) Introductions
  • (03:30) How to choose a fundable idea?
  • (05:00) Can you go from a landing page and pre-orders to funding?
  • (13:00) Can you be a founder and be a developer?
  • (15:30) Can you give an example of success?
  • (17:40) What are the 4 paradigms of design?
  • (20:30) What is capital efficiency?
  • (21:30) What are the biggest mistakes you see founders making today?
  • (24:30) How does a lifestyle business differ from a venture-backed business?
  • (27:00) Is the venture-backed path better that a lifestyle business?

Resources Mentioned

More About This Episode

The Bright Ideas podcast is the podcast for business owners and marketers who want to discover how to use online marketing and sales automation tactics to massively grow their business.

It’s designed to help marketing agencies and small business owners discover which online marketing strategies are working most effectively today – all from the mouths of expert entrepreneurs who are already making it big.

Click to Tweet: Vitaly Golomb on How to Raise Funding for Your Startup

Listen Now

Leave some feedback:

Connect with Trent Dyrsmid:

 

About Vitaly Golomb

VitalyGolomb3Vitaly is the Founder and CEO of Keen Systems, a leading ecommerce platform in the $640B printing industry and the Executive Producer of Europe Venture Summit, a major conference for the CEE startup ecosystem.
Vitaly is an award-winning designer and startup veteran since the age of 13. He is an Advisor and Mentor at 500 Startups, Board Member at Happy Farm Incubator (Ukraine), and Mentor at Innovation Nest (Poland) and TechPeaks (Italy). Additionally, Vitaly is a frequent conference speaker, business school guest lecturer, and tweeter (@vitalyg) on design and startups.

How Bernard Yoo Turned a Failed Startup Into a 7 Figure Success

bernie-yoo_1

For some, the idea of a personal stylist may seem like a whimsical dream for movie stars or millionaires. Still, it was something they would like to have, if only it weren’t so expensive.

Bernard Yoo saw an opportunity to cater to this market and launched his company with just a small amount of capital and a great idea. Learn how he made headway in the start-up phase and got accepted into the elite 500 start-ups. From identifying his clientele to learning from failure, Bernard shares how he grew his company and the successes he expects in the future.

Listen now and you’ll hear Bernard and I talk about:

  • (02:20) Introductions
  • (04:20) How they launched with just 15k
  • (05:40) An overview of his background
  • (09:45) How they learned about their customer
  • (11:40) How their first failure led to the Bombfell idea
  • (16:20) What they did after proof of concept was complete
  • (19:00) What happened between public beta and getting accepted in 500 Startups
  • (21:00) How they calculated lifetime customer value early on
  • (25:00) How they got into 500 Startups
  • (28:00) How life changed once the investor money started to come in
  • (30.11) The activities that caused the most growth
  • (31:40) How they were able to get free press
  • (35:40) How they employed discount programs with other tech companies
  • (39:00) An overview of how they are using paid traffic to drive customer acquisition
  • (40:30) What his life is like 2 years into a successful startup
  • (44:00) What are the downside(s) of raising investor money

Resources Mentioned

More About This Episode

The Bright Ideas podcast is the podcast for business owners and marketers who want to discover how to use online marketing and sales automation tactics to massively grow their business.

It’s designed to help marketing agencies and small business owners discover which online marketing strategies are working most effectively today – all from the mouths of expert entrepreneurs who are already making it big.

Click to Tweet: How Bernard Yoo Turned a Failed Startup Into a 7 Figure Success

Listen Now

Leave some feedback:

Connect with Trent Dyrsmid:

 

About Bernard Yoo

Bernard Yoo Bernie Yoo is co-founder of the personalized men’s clothing retailer Bombfell. Bombfell sends men regular shipments of clothes picked just for their size and style by a personal stylist, and has been featured in TIME Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, ABC News, Life & Style Magazine, Forbes, WWD, AskMen and TechCrunch.

Prior to Bombfell, Bernie headed business development for AddictingGames.com and Shockwave.com, worked on the strategy team at MTV Networks / Nickelodeon and mined the investment banking coal mines at Morgan Stanley.