Performance Delivered

In this episode, we launch our new series: Polishing Your Digital Marketing! This series is aimed at helping business owners overcome digital marketing related challenges and identify opportunities. You’ll join Steffen and Shawn in a casual discussion about digital marketing topics you’re always wondering about— and leave feeling informed and empowered to make marketing decisions in your business....

In her work as VP of Client Strategy at digital marketing agency Transistor, Lindsie Nelson focuses mostly on SEO, using search trends and keywords to develop content that drives traffic.    One thing she says digital marketers and their clients must never forget is that content can’t just speak to search engines – it needs to connect with people in a meaningful way as well so that they get the in...

Does your marketing actually engage your potential customers? Elevate My Brand CEO Laurel Mintz says that too many companies have embraced digital marketing but have forgotten the basics of how to connect with their target market.   Laurel says it’s all about being “real”… sometimes even outrageous… and you have to combine online efforts with real world engagement to effectively build your brand. ...

Copywriter and comedian Lianna Patch is on a mission: to inject humor into your marketing to make it more engaging, actionable, and profitable.   Humor shouldn’t be used in all industries, of course. But Lianna says you’d be surprised in which niches prospects are open to having their funny bones tickled a bit.    It’s not all fun and games. Humor in sales copy goes a long way to building strong,...

LinkedIn is the easiest social network to go viral on, says AJ Wilcox of B2Linked. And that means it has tremendous potential to expand your business’s organic reach. But to make this free marketing method work, you have to take a very specific approach, adds AJ.    In part 1 of this interview, AJ highlighted the advantages of LinkedIn over Facebook and Google, the best ad formats, and why this bu...

Even though LinkedIn advertising can be incredibly effective for certain industries and businesses, not many agencies specialize in serving clients using this social network.    There’s no better authority to speak with than AJ Wilcox, of B2Linked, who, at one point, managed five of LinkedIn’s top 10 ad customers.    Like with many ad networks, being effective on LinkedIn is all about getting qual...

Elisabeth Willits, a senior content marketing specialist with AWeber, is back again sharing her top tips for email marketing based on the data she’s gleaned about what works and what doesn’t based on sending out millions of emails.    In the first part, we talked about why email marketing is the ideal way to grow an ecommerce business. We also cleared up some misconceptions about email that all to...

For years, so-called experts have been touting the demise of email marketing. But, says Elisabeth Willits, this marketing channel is far from dead. In fact, in many ways it’s more relevant than ever.   As a senior content marketing specialist at AWeber, over the last six years Elisabeth has seen the industry up close and personal every day. Along the way, she’s collected data from emails sent to m...

In my second chat with Daniel Englebretson, we’re taking a deeper dive into the world of account-based marketing—specifically how to get started with this channel, from identifying targets to what metrics to track to measure success.   It’s pretty in-depth – if you want to do it right, at least. Daniel shares the step-by-step process he uses to figure out which accounts to go after and the key rol...

Joris Bryon, founder of the Dexter Agency, is passionate about helping eCommerce business owners grow methodically using almost “scientific” methods.   In the first episode with Joris, we talked about a potential untapped goldmine for eCommerce businesses: converting more of your current traffic to boost profits instead of buying additional traffic, which gets very expensive – especially these day...

Joris Bryon, founder of Dexter Agency, sees a lot of ecommerce entrepreneurs taking the wrong approach to designing their online presence.  They base the design on personal preference instead of data, so instead of being able to make changes that continually boost response – and profits – they spin their wheels.   Another issue: too much money and effort is spent on generating traffic without a so...

Many eCommerce entrepreneurs forget that the fundamental accounting principles and financial metrics that gauge the health of your business and should guide your future plans always remain the same, no matter what industry or sector you’re in.   That being said,   book-keeping specialist Cyndi Thomason knows there are key ways online businesses differ, not to mention they face unique challenges. W...

As founder of The CFO Project, Adam Lean consults with small businesses who’ve stalled and helps them to grow while maintaining a healthy profit – something the owners haven’t been able to do themselves.    Every business has its own set of obstacles to achieving that goal, of course. But, says Adam, there are several specific things that he sees most businesses doing wrong… or not doing at all wh...

When starting a business, many entrepreneurs think their first step should be to sink a bunch of money into advertising and marketing to get the word out.   But what if you don’t have much – if any – startup cash? Or you simply realize putting money into marketing doesn’t guarantee a return, especially with an untested product.   Eric Bandholz, founder of Beardbrand, turned this challenge into an...

Eric Bandholz, founder and creative director of Beardbrand, doesn’t just sell men’s grooming products. He gives his customers confidence, a feeling of well-being, and a sense of community.    That’s what every brand should do. Unfortunately too many are just customers and transactions. We talk about how Eric and his partners have built an engaged community of followers using social media and other...

Brad Moss, CEO of Product Labs, and I continue our conversation about Amazon advertising. If you haven’t checked out our previous podcast on the topic, check out Part 1 here.   This time we talk about how companies can start selling on Amazon – and what contemporary methods they need to utilize to be successful. One of the first things is to set up an effective keyword strategy... and even conside...

Amazon is a crowded place. As a veteran of Amazon, having managed the third-party seller platform, Brad Moss should know. It’s used in 10 countries, by over 2 million merchants, with more than 200 million customers and over 60 billion products.   This episode is all about the Amazon advertising strategies Brad recommends to his clients as CEO of consulting firm Product Labs.    Even if you don’t s...

Si Quan Ong, of SEO firm Ahrefs is back. During our first conversation, we discussed how to come up with evergreen topics for SEO-friendly content for your website. This time around, we’re talking about how to actually create that evergreen content.   The main issue, says SQ, is that many businesses go about content marketing all wrong. They do what everybody else is doing… don’t see great results...

When Google tweaks their algorithm, many website owners scramble to figure out new tricks to stay on top of the search results. But not Si Quan Ong and his colleagues at SEO firm Ahrefs.  They know whatever Google does, quality content will always be a key part of an effective SEO strategy. However, they don’t focus on posting every day or publishing timely content. Instead, they post blogs and ar...

Machine learning and A.I. is already in the world of media and online communication all around us. But it’s broken into marketing and advertising too, even if you don’t realize it.   Will A.I. ever replace a human’s expertise when buying ads? Bant Breen, founder of innovative reputation management firm Qnary, discusses this question. And it’s not cut-and-dry. One thing’s for sure. Just because it’...

Can artificial intelligence be creative… be original? Could AI come up with effective marketing? Those are the big questions that Bant Breen, founder of reputation management firm Qnary, studies. He says too many people in business – and marketing in particular – lack a true understanding of what AI is… and what it’s capable of. Not to mention the key ways it’s used in marketing already and the po...

Ray Carbonell and the team at Qnary have helped radically change the way we think of thought leadership and reputation management. Ray says thought leadership isn’t about a TED Talk that goes viral… and if you only worry about reputation management when something goes wrong – then you’ve missed a big opportunity. They show companies in a wide variety of industries how they can use thought leadersh...

Marketing automation is the only way to accelerate the growth of your business and get it to the next level, says Robin Alex, president of agency Innovate Fast. But simply installing automation software and systems to drive new leads isn’t enough, says Robin, and won’t have any impact unless you take an extra step. We talk about how to effectively integrate marketing automation into a business, ho...

Tech startup Phononic has semiconductor products that could well revolutionize the refrigeration and cooling industries. As Director of Integrated Marketing for the company, it’s Daniel Englebretson’s job to make sure the world takes notice. He’s found the best way to target ideal prospects – the right companies and the right decision-makers at those companies – is with an account-based marketing...

One of Heather Molina’s bosses early in her career had a big influence on how she leads her team today as VP of cross channel marketing at Red Door Interactive.  No, it wasn’t a valued mentor (although plenty of those too) but rather a bad manager. She says she thinks about how he handled situations… and does the opposite. In her role, she oversees teams doing everything from SEO to social media t...