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S3 Summer Edition Michelle Rossini
18 Plays23 days ago
In this episode of Dial It In, Trygve Olsen and Dave Meyer have a conversation with Michelle Hanson, the Director of Digital Marketing at BizzyWeb. They discuss the challenges and importance of self-promotion, effective digital marketing strategies, and the evolving landscape of SEO. Michelle emphasizes understanding company goals, identifying target audiences, and the balance between art and science in marketing. They also touch on the changing dynamics of SEO with AI and SERP features and the importance of setting realistic marketing budgets. The episode is sponsored by FractionalTactical.com, providing insights into fractional CMO partnerships.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Dial It In' Podcast
00:00:08
Speaker
Welcome to dial it in a podcast where we talk to fascinating people about marketing sales process improvements and tricks that they use to grow their businesses. Join me Dave Meyer and Trigby Olson of busy web as we bring you interviews on how the best in their fields are dialing it in for their organizations.
00:00:26
Speaker
Let's ring up another episode.
Guest Introduction: Michelle Hansen
00:00:30
Speaker
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of Dial It In, the Summer Stock Series. This week's episode is with my friend and colleague, Michelle Hansen. I worked with Michelle for a while, and one of the things that she struggles with is what a lot of people who live in the upper Midwest do, which is self-promotion.
00:00:50
Speaker
And if you talk to her as a person, she'll really never admit she's extremely good at her job and genuinely wants to do right by her clients. So if you ask her about this episode, she'll say this was a really painful experience, but it's one I'm really proud of because I was glad to get the opportunity to showcase her talents and let everybody know she is one of the hidden and secrets of BusyWeb.
00:01:12
Speaker
And if you spend time with her, and listen to what she's trying to counsel you on, you're going to get better. So hopefully you do too after this episode. Enjoy. Dave, I feel like the more and more older, the more and more i appreciate good dad joke.
00:01:28
Speaker
How about you? Um, JP? What? He's not here, man. are Hey, Nicole, how are you? I'm great. How are you?
00:01:38
Speaker
I'm great. So excited to be here. Dave is actually in a place where he's, he's and one of those doctor's appointments where he's, oh, I want to tell you guys what's on. And we're like, no, you don't. Don't. Fine. And we wish him well, but it's just us chickens.
00:01:54
Speaker
I'm super excited for our guests.
Michelle's Role and Expertise
00:01:56
Speaker
It's, but before we do that, we do have a, Our sponsor our show today sponsor of our show today is FractionalTactical.com. As a fractional CMO, your number one goal is to deliver success to each one of your clients.
00:02:08
Speaker
Limited time and resources, you need marketing solutions that are data proven, easy to execute, and repeatable. BusyWeb understands that the unique challenges marketing executives face. That's why we offer customized solutions for our fractional CMO partners.
00:02:23
Speaker
You tell us the results you need, and and we create the strategy and MarTech stack to get there. You have a concrete plan. Your clients have measurable results, and you look great.
00:02:35
Speaker
We help you get there. Everyone wins. Is it fractional tactical.com to find your fractional tactical marketing partner today. And we're so excited because they are turning into long-term sponsors.
00:02:48
Speaker
Excellent. And we're, and that's what we're going to be talking about ah today. Our guests today. Really? That's what we got for a guest. Isn't it fabulous?
00:02:58
Speaker
I'm so excited. Michelle Hansen is the director of digital marketing at BusyWeb, where she leverages her strategic experience and passion for client success to create impactful results-driven marketing strategies.
00:03:11
Speaker
With a deep understanding of trends, planning, and budgeting, Michelle equips businesses with the tools they need to thrive in an ever-changing digital landscape. Known for her insightful approach, she has guided numerous clients in aligning their marketing efforts with long-term goals, ensuring every strategy is both effective and sustainable.
00:03:31
Speaker
Michelle's dedication empowering clients make her a vital resource for businesses looking to make the most of their digital marketing investments.
Challenges in Marketing Conversations
00:03:41
Speaker
Ladies and gentlemen, Jessie's girl herself,
00:03:46
Speaker
Michelle Hansen, Hi, Trigby. Hi, Nicole. I'm so excited to be here. And we're excited to have you. I think this is your worst nightmare, right? That you finally made the podcast because... Yeah, pretty much. A freewheeling conversation that isn't structured.
00:04:03
Speaker
Yes, and i am more of a planner. And as I told Nicole before we started the episode, my preference is to be behind the camera or the microphone, not in front of it.
Navigating Marketing Trends
00:04:14
Speaker
I want to talk about a number of things today, because I think one of the things that we see in our day jobs at BusyWeb is I don't think people have an appreciation for how how hard some of this stuff is.
00:04:27
Speaker
There's an opportunity for people to sell to the mean, which means there's entire businesses who do what we do, who cycle people and out after six months. They sell them a bit of goods. They do some automation, and it doesn't turn out.
00:04:43
Speaker
And they decline, and they go, and people get burned as a result. We don't like doing that. We like doing it differently. And you are... primarily one of the architects.
00:04:55
Speaker
Correct. I think it's important that as we're talking, as we're recording this, we're starting a new year. And as people are thinking about how are they going to recover after the election? How are we going to ah work in this new world order?
00:05:11
Speaker
What do I really do? So let's start there. So what have a small business? What, ah what do I do, Michelle? Interesting that you mentioned the volatility that we have seen in the marketing landscape over the last six months. It happens every four years.
00:05:27
Speaker
It doesn't matter you know what the situation is. It's the unknown. That's what everyone gets nervous about because it's unknown. Once it's known, no matter which way it goes, things seem to settle back back into normal. Really, i just i encourage everyone to stick with what they're doing, weather the storm, and double down on what's working.
00:05:49
Speaker
How do I know what's working? Marketing is an interesting blend of art and science. Most people, when you think of marketing, you're thinking of the flashy graphics and the messaging and all of that. But there's a lot of technical that goes on behind the scenes that gives us data and analytics that tell us what is working.
00:06:09
Speaker
While there is no set in stone, it's not a one plus one equals two kind of thing. You can mix both the art and the science of it to make some pretty accurate predictions as to what is going to
Aligning Marketing with Business Goals
00:06:22
Speaker
happen. One of the things that I remember from Christmas season is the line that always haunts me from A Christmas Carol is Dickens says that the weren't enough is the most enigmatic word in the English language because it means something different.
00:06:39
Speaker
So when you have a new client, and how do you help them define what success act actually is? We have lots of conversations upfront and a lot of it is discussing where they want to go with their business, what their overall business goals are, and then figuring out how marketing can support those business goals.
00:06:59
Speaker
But at the same time, we're not the end all and the be all, we're one wheel in the cog. that makes like giant machine run. It's really having all of that insight into your sales process, your corporate goals, and supporting that in a way that helps them them achieve it.
00:07:18
Speaker
We can also use the data and the analytics that are out there for their industry to help them develop realistic goals. If you come to me and you tell me, i do a million dollars in business a year and I want to triple that in the next year,
00:07:35
Speaker
Probably not realistic, but I can help you figure out how we can get to that end goal and and the roadmap for getting there. It may not be one year, it may be two or three years, but sustainable growth that can be repeated and built on ah year over year.
00:07:52
Speaker
It's interesting you talk about a cog in the wheel because I remember a client that you and I worked with years ago. That drove a little. I don't have to be more specific, but we got, it was a promotions company and got hired to do lead generation and we got fired six months in.
00:08:19
Speaker
And do you remember, you know I'm talking about? I do. How many leads were you getting for them approximately? Oh, i but dozens and dozens.
00:08:30
Speaker
It was a very robust lead generation program that was way exceeding anything that they had done in the past. And why'd you get fired? Because they weren't turning into sales.
00:08:44
Speaker
What? Yeah. Bad leads? No, they were great leads. So what happened? What was the problem? The problem was the next step.
00:08:54
Speaker
Once the lead comes across the desk, how it's handled. We were generating these leads. We were sending out information on on specific products and leads that they could be used, the usual.
00:09:08
Speaker
And then someone would fill out a form and say, yes, I'm interested in learning more about your promotional products and how they can help me generate more revenue, build brand, whatever the use case would be.
00:09:21
Speaker
And what would happen with that lead once it came in the door was they would mail them a catalog. There was no other follow up. There was no phone call. There was no more email.
00:09:34
Speaker
They just sent them a catalog and then
Setting Effective Marketing Strategies
00:09:37
Speaker
couldn't figure out why nobody was ordering. it It still boggles the mind to this day, but it it I think it does illustrate a really important distinction, which is why I wanted to bring it up, is marketing is not a savior a business.
00:09:53
Speaker
The whole of it is actually somebody's got to sell something. Correct. And if you're pooching good leads, it doesn't mean the leads weren't but it means they're just not selling, so that's not necessarily marketing's fault either.
00:10:09
Speaker
Correct. And that is a conversation that we have with our clients. Part of what we do here is education as well. We want our clients to understand how it works and what they can expect from it and what success looks like in the marketing realm.
00:10:26
Speaker
So in that case, it's These are good leads. These are your buyers. They fit your personas. They're interested in learning more about you. i have done everything i can do to prep this prospect for you to sell to.
00:10:41
Speaker
but you need to sell to them. So I can bring you the lead, but I can't close the business. That is on on your side. And so we'll work with you to get through that sales process. We can give you advice and take a look at that, but I can't sell for you.
00:10:58
Speaker
I can market it for you. And that's foundationally, I think, a big change because there's always the cliche right the that the sales team will never actually admit that the marketing leads are any good. And the marketing lead people will always say the sales team are pooching.
00:11:15
Speaker
That's not the way it is. what you're preaching in 2025 and beyond, right? Exactly. Yes. As we're talking about how to figure out to get back to the original question of what do I do, where we tend to lead that is towards let's actually figure out the landscape, right?
00:11:33
Speaker
Yes. And what are what are the foundational elements of a really solid marketing strategy? To start with, it's having your goals. And like I mentioned before, marketing is in support of your company goals.
00:11:48
Speaker
So let's start with what your company goals are ah for the next year, or even if we're planning further out than that, three, five years down the road in the landscape, where do you want to be? How do you think your business is going to grow and scale?
00:12:01
Speaker
And then where does marketing fit into that? How can we support that? and help you along that path. So you have to have goals for your company, whether they're revenue goals or the number of clients, or if it's stemming attrition, customer loyalty and retention kind of things.
Avoiding Distractions in Marketing
00:12:20
Speaker
Brand awareness for newer businesses, they may need to just get their name out there. So it's all about taking those company goals, figuring out how marketing can help drive success for those goals,
00:12:34
Speaker
And then working backwards from there. But it's in a part with all of the other parts of the business. So you have to start with your company goals. And they need to be smart goals. And we talk about smart goals all the time, specific, measurable, et cetera, et cetera, so that it makes sense. What we're doing makes sense with the corporate business.
00:12:55
Speaker
roadmap, we have these goals that we're working towards. The next step after that then would be figuring out who your buyer persona is, who is your best customer, who do you want to attract, what are their problems, how can we solve them, what do we offer them, what kind of value, and taking going through that and figuring out who you're targeting to get to those goals.
00:13:18
Speaker
So it's not just about, oh, I'm going to go out and do a bunch of flashy social media, or I'm going go out and I'm going to throw a whole bunch of money at at Google pay-per-click advertising.
00:13:29
Speaker
If you don't know what you're trying to achieve and who your target target is, you're going to flounder. That sounds exhausting. Why wouldn't I just want to get started?
00:13:41
Speaker
um Because if you don't have those things in place, you don't have a clear roadmap of where you want to go. So you're hopping your car and you start driving. well You usually know how to get to your destination.
00:13:53
Speaker
So if you don't have a plan and you don't have goals, you don't have a roadmap. he You're going to be taking all of these side trips that are going to, it's going to take you much longer to get to your end destination. If you're getting off on every exit to see what's available there.
00:14:12
Speaker
It's interesting. You use that analogy about every exit. So you're talking about what's available that kind of gets into what we call the shiny key syndrome, right? Hey, there's a new platform. Oh my God, do I need to be on that? Why aren't I on that? Why isn't that delivering? Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.
00:14:26
Speaker
want to circle back to that. But I think playing devil's advocate based on what you were sharing about strategic thinking, lot of times what companies will say is, I know what my customers want.
00:14:41
Speaker
Why I have to tell
00:14:43
Speaker
And my response back to that is, well, how's it been working for you so far? Let us help you. Let us help you. i think fundamentally to appreciate your thoughts on this is there's often a difference between what a CEO thinks their customers want. customers Correct.
00:15:03
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. And so actually understanding what customers really want and how much of that is overlapping with what you are wanting to deliver is where strategic thinking really starts.
00:15:18
Speaker
it It's a different approach. A CEO or a C-level business owner, they're going to look at it from, I know what my customers want because they have a product or a service that they're selling.
00:15:31
Speaker
So I'm approaching it from the other end of what is the problem that the customer is having and how and how can we help them solve it? So it's more where you're looking at the businesses. The business owner is looking at, here's what my business can do for you.
00:15:49
Speaker
The customer or the prospect is looking, they have an issue and they want help solving it. So it's bringing the two of those together. And when the business owner offers a product or a service in a way that speaks to a prospect that it's going to solve their problem, then that's when you've got your great marketing match.
00:16:09
Speaker
And oftentimes and in the evolution of a business, the CEO is usually had a hand in the 1.0, the for a crack. And for, to, to need to come that CEO bristles because as they have recognized they have a need that in in one part of the business and you're talking about the other part of the business, they're going, Hey, my baby's not ugly.
00:16:31
Speaker
It got it to, got me to this part here. But didn't get you to the next part. Right. That's why you're. Yes. To help in the evolution of their business as they grow and scale.
00:16:45
Speaker
So when a company has decided that, okay, I get, I have to
Understanding Competitors and SEO
00:16:50
Speaker
do this. What should they really prioritize first when they've decided they're going to play?
00:16:59
Speaker
Especially if they have like limited resources. So where where you want to start is, again, it's with those goals. It's being realistic about where your business is in the digital landscape, since we're focused on digital marketing, not the traditional offline methods.
00:17:17
Speaker
It's being realistic about where you're at in the market and where where your competitors are at and how you can get that attention of the prospect. Hold on, before you move off of that point, you introduced a new element in the bouillabaisse here. What do you mean competitors? Why is that real?
00:17:35
Speaker
ah Because when you are talking specifically about digital marketing, and its yeah there's a your platform that you're going for. So you are not the only person out there offering this service. For example, BusyWeb. We are not the only agency in in the metro area offering marketing services.
00:17:55
Speaker
So how do we stand out from our competition? You need to understand where your competition is at and what they're offering so that you can position yourself uniquely um so that you get the attention of the prospect and become the better solution.
00:18:12
Speaker
How do you do that in a landscape that's filled with such noise? Oh, the mixing the art with the science. And some of it is taking educated gambles and risks.
00:18:24
Speaker
and You need to be realistic. We see it a lot when we have new clients coming on and we ask them, who are your three top competitors? Who are you losing business to in the marketplace when you're out there bidding something out or trying to make that sale? What are the other businesses that you're seeing in your dayto- day to day?
00:18:42
Speaker
That may be vastly different than what we find online when we're doing that research. We may find a completely different array of competitors online than in the rest of the marketplace.
00:18:56
Speaker
So it but really depends on if you've got ah if you've got a public retail space or a B2B service business where you have people coming into your business all the time versus something that's completely online.
00:19:08
Speaker
You're competing with two different markets there with your co-charters. You introduced another term. You ran over it. want to back up. What is bidding? What is that? Why do you have to bid Oh, goodness.
00:19:22
Speaker
As we you think we all know, Google really dominates the online space. So in that, when we're talking about that, you may be looking at your customers and your competitors as those actual human beings or physical presences.
00:19:37
Speaker
Whereas we are also serving Google as one of your biggest customers. We need to make Google love your online offering so that they share it with other people.
00:19:49
Speaker
So we're not... um We're looking at the two of them. So it all comes you know back to around to that SEO strategy and keywords and long tail keyword phrases and how are people searching for, how are they searching their problems and how can I get myself in front of them as a solution?
00:20:08
Speaker
So we need to, we as in marketers need to be out there in that space using the science part of all of this and the different technologies and softwares that we have to monitor what's going on in the background online and where you you are in relation to your competitors in Google's view.
00:20:29
Speaker
so that we get you served up in search results in front of your competitors. The bidding strategy is, because everyone is familiar, mainly with the pay-per-click, how much is it going to cost when to get someone to click on this ad?
00:20:44
Speaker
And the more activity there is in the marketplace, the more bidding that goes on, it drives costs up. And so you need to be really smart with the budget in that way and figure out where where those deals are and their opportunities is where we look at it.
00:21:04
Speaker
and Did that answer your question? Yeah, but I got exhausted halfway through because it sounded really hard. but It is. And that's why we have that's why we exist. We're here to help people do that. The business owner or the C-level executive doesn't have time to dig in and stay current with all of the new technologies and resources that are available out there.
00:21:32
Speaker
So let us do it for you. That's what we specialize in. As an example, like you're the dentist. I can go online and research and and diagnose what my dental issue is, but I can't fix it. I'm going to go to the expert to fix it and I will gladly pay you to take away my tooth pain.
00:21:49
Speaker
Someone who is a business owner, do they have time to spend months and months studying up and learning all these things? No, they should be concerned about other things and running their business, not learning SEO.
00:22:02
Speaker
Let the experts come in and do it for you. have guy who works for me who just got a crown put in yesterday and he was comp complaining to me this morning that it cost $530. I was trying to be sympathetic. I was trying to be empathetic, but in the back of my head, I was thinking,
00:22:16
Speaker
God, I pay too much for my dentistry.
00:22:21
Speaker
Okay, but back on topic, you mentioned budgets and you talk about bidding and talking about tweaking. How does one set a budget for digital markets?
00:22:35
Speaker
Traditionally, the rule of thumb has been 10% of your annual revenues should go back to a dedicated marketing budget. And 10% is rule of thumb. For smaller businesses, it may be more in the seven to eight. But the issue is most of the time is just looked at as an expense when it's really an investment spent in growth.
00:22:58
Speaker
your marketing should pay for itself it should be you should have a 5x or a 10x return on what you spend on marketing so it's really more of a don't look at it as a cost of that's just going on out the door every month we're paying this money to do this no you're investing in okay so if i have a budget in mind and you come and tell me, oh, really you need to spend and twice your chief goals.
00:23:31
Speaker
What if I just can't, what happens? Uh, then we need to be realistic about what your investment actually is and go back to your goals and adjust the goals to fit what your budget is for investment.
00:23:49
Speaker
Gotcha. Gotcha. So to say that another way, it just means that to achieve my goals, it's going to get pushed out significantly. Potentially. i wouldn't be careful with the significantly word.
00:24:01
Speaker
It is going to get pushed down. We'll figure out a roadmap to get you there. It may take a little longer than you thought. Gotcha. I want to go rogue a little, which I know you're just super going to enjoy because you were having an interesting conversation about SEO, the how typical cliche, as see those with the different, with all sorts of new and interesting terms like and.
00:24:27
Speaker
sir and All that kind of stuff. So can you give us just like a basic of what SEO program really look like and what all goes in?
00:24:38
Speaker
Because it's not just as simple as plugging in a form and plugging in an automatic program and then running a report. No, actually SEO is one of the biggest growth areas and with the constant changes and in how things are being done.
00:24:57
Speaker
But it's also really the ah heart of any marketing program ah because it covers so many different areas. So search engine optimization, people think of it as, oh, I want it's keywords. I want to rank number one on Google for this keyword.
00:25:16
Speaker
And that is number one, an outdated approach. And number two, such a small portion of what SEO actually is. So with all of the advances and with AI, which probably I'm sure get into down the road here, but the advances are it's no longer enough to rank on first page.
00:25:38
Speaker
page count just a bright and and that' it's It's gone and it's come back again. So Google took away initially or a while back, Google took away pages and it was just a continuous scroll.
00:25:51
Speaker
And then they brought the pages back because I think of pressure that people were like, oh, I need to be on page one and not. But the reason why that doesn't matter anymore is what you alluded to all of these other things that are taking the place. So when you do a Google search and your results come back, what you now have at the top is an AI overview. It used to be called an SGE, search generative excerpt, but it's now an AI overview. So that's going to come first.
00:26:19
Speaker
And then they're going to have a bunch of other AI and SERP features that show up, like on the right-hand side, you're going to have your knowledge panel. There may be people also ask. There may be map.
00:26:31
Speaker
If it's for something that you can buy in retail, a map may show up saying, here's where you can go get this. And then underneath all of that, then you start getting your paid results. which is where the bidding comes in for the keywords and the whole strategy of doing that.
00:26:47
Speaker
And finally, right down the page is where the organic results start popping in. and what happened was Google has put so much at the top ahead of the organic results that they had to take those pages away because there wasn't anything ranking organically on page one because it was all taken up by AI stuff. Okay.
00:27:07
Speaker
Yeah. okay Right. Yeah, there's just a lot of different changes. So that's that's just the stuff that you can see up front. There's also all of the technical and SEO that goes on behind the scenes.
00:27:21
Speaker
That is all of the how Google reads your website, the coding and the different schemas and markups that are in there that helps Google understand the words that are on your website. And that is how they...
00:27:33
Speaker
judge what the quality of your website is and how they serve up the results. So focus has really gone away from I want to rank on the first page for these 10 keywords to i would like to capture these serves.
00:27:47
Speaker
I would like to be on the knowledge panel. I would like to be included in the AI overview. I would like a map with directions to my business showing up.
Budgeting and Resource Allocation in Marketing
00:27:55
Speaker
Those are all have all risen now above the i want to rank number one.
00:28:02
Speaker
What is the purple monkey dinosaur? the tale of the purple monkey dinosaur. So because I think it's illustrative when we're trying to talk about value.
00:28:17
Speaker
We have a busy, we are in, we are professionals that in terms of getting people high search ranking and we only have one high search purple monkey. What is that? Yes. So that was, it is an illustrat and illustrative example of a response to people saying, I want to, and specifically when they came in and said, I want to rank number one or first page on Google for this keyword.
00:28:45
Speaker
And that was it. That's what they wanted. We could go back and use the different technologies that we have to figure out what the monthly search volume is for that keyword.
00:28:57
Speaker
Well, the monthly search volume for purple monkey dinosaur is zero. Nobody searches for purple monkey dinosaur. And that's just being the example that the company brought to us and said, I want to rank number one for purple monkey dinosaur. That's, I think, what people are doing.
00:29:13
Speaker
There's besides search volume, you have keyword difficulty. How many other people are trying to get found for purple monkey dinosaur? How hard is it going to be for you to rank? And then we look at how much content do you have on your site that supports purple monkey dinosaur?
00:29:28
Speaker
In this case, there's no search for it. There's no keyword difficulty assigned to it. So the simple answer is we throw a page on the website that has the story of the purple monkey dinosaur.
00:29:39
Speaker
And guess what? We rank number one. Now, how many people actually search on that every month? Zero. What value does it have for your business? None. And me as a marketing team, one though, because you're number one for that.
00:29:53
Speaker
Yes, exactly. what's Follow up to that is it's it's that blend of art and science. We have all kinds of information in the background that can help us figure out where the keyword volume is, what people are searching on, how hard it's going to be to get your website to rank for that keyword and how much effort we need to put into it.
00:30:13
Speaker
It's not going to make you any money, so it it doesn't make any difference. So just having number one ranking enough, it has to be rankings on what people are actually looking for.
00:30:24
Speaker
Yes. and there it gets back to the strategic mindset, actually needing to think about what we're doing. So just we're in a dark room and saying we're number one is great, but not if no but for nobody else is there.
00:30:39
Speaker
Exactly. So that's where we come in and and can work with you on here are the keywords the business owner thinks that they need to rank for. We can go out, find all of that information and say, yes, this is a valuable keyword for your business. We should go for it. Or no, this keyword has no value for you at all. So you shouldn't spend any time worrying about it.
00:31:03
Speaker
And then the other scenario is, yes, that keyword has great volume. The keyword difficulty high on that. It's not going to be easy to do. Do we want to put so paid money, so money behind that to do so paid search?
00:31:15
Speaker
But yeah what is the cost of that term to do that? And is it reasonable within your budget to spend that kind of money supporting that word? If someone came to me and they have and said, hey, I've got a great new organic tomato soup that is just delicious and to die for and I want to sell it to the world and i want everyone to buy my tomato soup.
00:31:37
Speaker
Can you get me to rank? For forgetting something, it was also vegan. ah Yes, it was organic. And it was delicious because I tried it. It was delicious.
00:31:48
Speaker
But I am not going to be able to compete online with Campbell's Soup for the term tomato soup. It's just not realistic. So there's always that dose of realism in there. Now...
00:32:00
Speaker
Am i you know going to be able to help you get ranking and bring people into your website for terms like vegan, organic soup and different terms around that? Yes. So that's the art.
00:32:11
Speaker
We get all the science, we get all the numbers. And then the art of that is finding... Other keywords, alternatives, long tail keywords, groupings of different things that are going to give you as much keyword search volume and as tomato soup, but at a much lower cost and a much lower difficulty level. So another way to say all this is to paraphrase Keith Richards is a lot.
00:32:36
Speaker
It sounds like a lot of what your job is, is the lead strategist is to, if it's come to you with a need, that means that they don't actually get sometimes. Yes.
00:32:47
Speaker
Okay. Cool. So we talked a little bit about budgets. You're setting a budget. How long does really last before you look at budgeting?
00:33:00
Speaker
i I would look at your budget on a quarterly basis. As fast paced as everything seems to be this day these days, you still need to allow a reasonable amount of time for tactics to take seed, germinate, grow, start bringing in results.
00:33:18
Speaker
So I would be looking every 90 days at where the allocations are, what's working, what's not working, and where do we need to shift. Okay. And from a tool set perspective,
00:33:31
Speaker
You know, we we spend a little of time talking about SEO. How many different, what's your tech stack look like? How many, and you don't need to necessarily name them. How many different tools do you and your team use in order to come strategically best case scenarios for for you?
00:33:49
Speaker
Oh my goodness. Let's maybe do this in pieces. ah SEO, how many ah SEO tools does your team use? On a regular weekly, if not daily basis, I would say there are probably a half dozen go-to tools for SEO.
00:34:08
Speaker
And it's a matter of getting the information out of all of those and then, ah you know, averaging whatever it is, because everyone has a different strength. So it's looking at the combined results of those tools.
00:34:21
Speaker
So that's six. How many different tools you use for doing pay-per-click marketing strategies? Oh my gosh. Obviously, at least one tool for every different platform for Pay Per Click.
00:34:32
Speaker
That includes not just Google, but your Bing, where your Microsoft people we're the only one who uses Bing. we actually have several clients who are Microsoft houses, and we actually even have one client who provides Microsoft services.
00:34:49
Speaker
You don't advertise to those people on Google.
Staying Updated with Marketing Trends
00:34:52
Speaker
You advertise to them on Microsoft Bing. Do they get a free Zoom if they click on the app?
00:35:00
Speaker
It's what one free year of our art membership. Oh, geez. All right. So for the record, because she brought that up to make fun of me, when Michelle turned a certain age, I bought her an art membership, but I didn't put her name. So three years later, realized my wife came to me and said, why do I have an art membership? I'm not that age yet.
00:35:20
Speaker
And it's because I had it on auto redo and I accidentally put it on my wife's card. So I had bought her an art membership for three years, but it was a good prank. It just didn't follow through.
00:35:30
Speaker
right. poet Poetic justice. Yeah. Yeah. I was trying to get you free coffee at McDonald's. I'm a helper. All right. So we're up to 12. twelve How about for content and strategies and content creation? Uh, for content creation. just use AI for that, right? You just have AI puke out a blog every five minutes?
00:35:47
Speaker
No, absolutely not. Which let's reserve the AI discussion for the AI portion of the show. Let's get through this. So for content, I am boy, just the amount of research that goes into, into preparing to write a blog.
00:36:04
Speaker
So lots of research online in addition to, Oh boy. then we have the images and we have this SEO and I would say probably easily three, four, five different softwares to do a blog in addition to online research.
00:36:21
Speaker
So I really need you if I just buy 15 software tools to do all the stuff that Is that right? Do I have that total right? i've got I've got a garage full of tools. i can't build you a house.
00:36:38
Speaker
Nah, I like that. I like that analogy. A couple of follow-up questions before we go is how much time in a week Cause this is your job is being on the forefront of all of this stuff.
00:36:53
Speaker
And that's non-productive, non-client facing. How much time do you spend in just reading and learning to stay on the forefront of all this stuff? Oh boy, in my work week, least 10 hours a week.
00:37:09
Speaker
And that would be a busy week that I didn't have a lot of time to dedicate to it. I could spend my entire work week out there learning about client client industries, marketing trends, AI advances, new tools to explore.
Industry-specific Marketing Approaches
00:37:27
Speaker
yeah I could spend an entire 40-hour work week doing that. Realistically, probably 10 to 15. I think you mentioned something that we hadn't really touched on in the whole concept of strategic marketing because we talked a lot about competition and the ideal customer profile, but he just ah sta you you mentioned industries.
00:37:53
Speaker
Is all this standard vary across industries? Oh, it varies across industries. Absolutely. Can you give us an example? and Just even in the the analytics, the performance indicators that we track for our clients, we have to do that research by industry because you're...
00:38:14
Speaker
Buyer persona in every industry is different and they have different personal habits and they find things different ways. And so it really depends on the industry. And so we need to stay on top of all of those changes and figure out what is appropriate in in each industry.
00:38:32
Speaker
Say with emails, you're looking at your open rates, eh, not so much anymore with the consent or the Apple privacy and everything that came through. So your open rate has turned into a vanity metric. You still want to watch it.
00:38:45
Speaker
Zero is not good. but But you want to look at your click-through rates. How many people took an action off of that email? How much traffic did we drive back to the website? And that's going to be vastly different by industry.
00:38:58
Speaker
Wow. Okay. I have two questions before we finish up. One is a fun one. One is a work related one. So the work related one is this. I think everybody owns a business.
00:39:09
Speaker
It's an email two to three times a week saying that your SEO is horrible and the current company you're working with is completely doing bad things in the bed. What is your response?
00:39:21
Speaker
Is any of that true? If when people are getting those emails? No, actually, that's just a it's a sales tactic to get in the door. So whether or not they really truly have SEO issues or not is irrelevant. It's a scare tactic to get the business owner to go, oh, my gosh, because it's something that most business owners don't understand at a deep level.
Dealing with SEO Scare Tactics
00:39:45
Speaker
So using the scare tactic of your SEO is broken, nobody's going to your website, all these things. There are so many different, ah like we talked about before, there are so many different aspects to SEO and so many different areas that need to pay attention to that it's not very hard for those bad actors to cherry pick a statistic.
00:40:11
Speaker
I think Trigby, you have the best example of one of those that we've received in a long time. And it was the one that came in the email that you got that said our SEO was awful because we didn't rank for, was it private jet rental? Private airfields. Yeah. Private airfields. Our marketing company didn't rank for private airfields. We didn't rank for private airfields and they could get us to rank number one on Google for private airfields and blah, blah, blah. And it was like, that'd be great if that was part of our business, but we're a digital marketing agency.
00:40:45
Speaker
We have no... no desire to rank number one for private airfields. What I always tell my clients when they invariably receive those emails, because they all do, is when you get those, just give me a call and we'll talk through it and I'll explain to you what they're saying to you and what they're trying to sell you. And then you could make a decision based on that.
00:41:09
Speaker
There's two things that I want to add to that is is number one, and Michelle touched on this a little, is the idea of the privacy laws in Europe and the privacy laws in California have often changed basic simple metrics of something simple like what ah constitutes system.
00:41:28
Speaker
Depending on what tool you use, they're going to give a different answer because they're evaluating the data in a different way in order to run. And so what that means easy propensity to be lied to with statistics.
00:41:42
Speaker
It's important you really understand what you're evaluating when you're looking at those people. The other thing I would say is if you ever get those emails, universally answer yes, like to see the report.
00:41:54
Speaker
Always, if they say they will send you a report, always ask for it. And 99 times out of 100, they will not send you a follow-up. Yeah. That's always ask if they actually want to earn your business, they should work.
00:42:09
Speaker
They say, I'm going to send you a free report. Wait, where is it? Let me see. If they don't offer it, like... private airfield guy when they i got that email i said heck yeah i want to see what else we're not ranking for because really need an orlando vacation and if we're not ranking high for it i'm supposed to get great dane puppies what how am i supposed to sell great dane puppies if we're not ranking on before okay cool that that that's a big thing that i think everybody universally has a problem with and i appreciate your insight on all right last question i promise
00:42:43
Speaker
I will give you an opportunity for manner of revenge. We have worked together for our going on 10 years next year. What's the weirdest thing ever brought a client to you that you had?
00:42:59
Speaker
Oh, my goodness. There are so many people. ah I've got two in mind. What are your two? Oh, the, but if you ever talk to any of my coworkers about me, trigby in particular, maybe on occasion, Andy or Dave, they're going to tell you that I know how to field strip an AK 47. That's true. She does.
00:43:23
Speaker
Yeah, that was early on. We were dealing with someone who who had accessories for rifles and and things like that. And he's foreign assault. He he specialized in anti-Russian assault weaponry for some for a lot of SEO value.
00:43:42
Speaker
I wrote a four part series on the history of the AK 47. And part of that was a detailed field stripping. Yeah. though That's one of those things I never thought I would know about.
00:43:53
Speaker
Yeah. We had to expense books for her. i'm The history of the AK 47. Yeah. and t one Well, it it's an interesting use case because the gun industry in particular is one that is fairly heavily regulated.
00:44:09
Speaker
Yes. line And so it is incredibly difficult to write because there there is such a... no Yes, it was a little absurd, but it was also notably challenging.
00:44:23
Speaker
It was, yes. Some other interesting ones we've done. the kombucha guy. Oh yeah. forgot about him. Yes. With all of the different ways to ferment and preserve foods and tea.
00:44:41
Speaker
Yeah. Beautiful website. Great product. It was so interesting, but it was very niche. Yes. and Yes, he couldn't understand why more people didn't want to drink fermented at-home beverages.
00:44:54
Speaker
I think the kind of the the Lulu list would be the guy who wanted to wanted us to market his Justin Bieber t-shirts, the face of Justin Bieber that said... that was a good one.
00:45:06
Speaker
Yeah, something about Justin Bieber loves Jesus or something like that. and was Yeah, that didn't even get you. I didn't let that guy get to you. His whole goal was he wanted to make t-shirts with Justin Bieber's face on it that said, I love Jesus.
00:45:21
Speaker
I said, can't really do that. said, no, it's fine because I heard him say it. So it's true. Yeah, but that's a licensed thing. You're going to get shut down for that. We'll build you the thing, but it's not going to last. No, it'll be fine.
00:45:36
Speaker
How about the HR conference? We had a... my goodness. i That was... but Were you a part of that? That was a legendary meeting on and so many different fronts. It was. It was. But yeah, he he wanted us to develop, market, and get registrations for an HR conference that he wanted to put on on on US HR laws in London.
00:46:05
Speaker
to European HR people who have very different HR laws than we do. And he wanted us to sell this conference, fill it up in a matter of, he wanted us to what, build and launch and fill it up in six weeks? Six, six weeks.
00:46:23
Speaker
Which was a crazy timeline. He wanted to charge 500 pounds head. so that was about $800 a seat. For European hr people to learn about US HR law.
00:46:36
Speaker
And when we scratched another layer and another layer and got down to the root reason that he wanted to do this, it was because he wanted to go to a concert in London and he wanted to figure out how he- His wife wouldn't let him go and unless and he made the work. Yeah. So he wanted to put this conference on while he was over there to earn enough money to cover the costs of his trip to go see this singer.
00:47:02
Speaker
That was a good one. And he was so upset because that we said, no, we can't really do that because he didn't have a network and be, why would anybody in the UK care about us in, in
Conclusion and Contact Information
00:47:14
Speaker
six weeks? But he was so upset because he had already booked the hotel ballroom got and got an array.
00:47:20
Speaker
Why was it available on such short notice? It was because it was a holiday weekend in the UK. So everybody was off on top of everything. So to round up, I got an Massive price, no network, short turnaround on a holiday weekend for a a title, for a concept that nobody was really interested in.
00:47:40
Speaker
And that couldn't market. and so We started this conversation with what are your company goals and then making them smart goals. And then figuring out how to accomplish them. And we had to break the guy's heart and just say, this is just not going to fly.
00:47:56
Speaker
but do za It was actually considerably worse because he got insulting. So finally, I had to walk him out of the building. And ah as I i did, i was I said, just do what every other American would do in this situation, man. Just lie to your wife.
00:48:12
Speaker
sir Michelle, thank you so much. ah If people are interested in talking with you further and ah wanting to learn more about how they can strategize for their business, how do they find you?
00:48:23
Speaker
ah You can email me directly at michelle.hanson at busyweb.com. You can go out to our website, busyweb.com, and navigate over to our team page. It has contact information for not only me, but anyone else that you might be interested in speaking with.
00:48:39
Speaker
Awesome. Thank you, Nicole. Thanks for joining. Dave, we'll be back the next time. and I'm Trigby. This has been and another episode of Dial It In. And thanks to our sponsor, FractionalTactical.com.
00:48:51
Speaker
With apologies to Tony Kornheiser, we will also try to do better the next time.