Podcasts about b2b marketing

In this "LinkedIn Premium vs. Clubhouse Plus: Paid Social Business App Features Comparison" episode, Favour Obasi-ike, MBA, MS leads a detailed discussion comparing the premium subscription services of two major professional and social platforms: LinkedIn Premium and Clubhouse Plus. The conversation delves into the value proposition, pricing, and return on investment (ROI) for each service, offering listeners a clear framework for deciding which, if any, is the right investment for their professional goals. With contributions from guest speaker Jason and Celeste, the episode provides a balanced view, weighing the feature sets of both platforms against the practical needs of users, from small business owners to large corporate professionals. The discussion also highlights the importance of intentionality and active participation to maximize the benefits of these powerful networking tools.Podcast Episode: Learning TopicsThis episode offers valuable insights into several key areas of professional development and social media strategy. Listeners will gain a deeper understanding of the following topics:Platform Investment Strategy: Learn how to evaluate the costs and benefits of premium social media features to make informed investment decisions.Social Platform ROI: Discover methods for calculating the return on your investment of time, energy, and money on platforms like LinkedIn and Clubhouse.LinkedIn Optimization: Uncover underutilized free features, such as LinkedIn Projects, and learn how to build a compelling profile that attracts employers.Professional Networking: Gain best practices for building and maintaining a strong professional network, both online and off.Market Analysis Frameworks: An introduction to the TAM, SAM, and SOM (Total Addressable Market, Service Addressable Market, and Service Obtainable Market) framework for strategic planning.Need to Book An SEO Discovery Call for Advertising or Marketing Services?>> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Book a Complimentary SEO Discovery Call with Favour Obasi-Ike⁠>> Visit Work and PLAY Entertainment website to learn about our digital marketing services>> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Join our exclusive SEO Marketing community⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠>> Read SEO Articles>> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Subscribe to the We Don't PLAY Podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠>> Purchase Flaev Beatz Beats OnlinePodcast Episode Key TimestampsNavigate the episode with these key timestamps to find the most relevant discussions for you:[00:00 - 02:00] Introduction to the discussion on LinkedIn Premium vs. Clubhouse Plus.[03:30 - 04:00] A direct comparison of the pricing structures for both services.[06:00 - 07:00] The history of LinkedIn Audio and its place in the social audio landscape.[07:00 - 08:00] The host shares their extensive history and experience with both platforms.[28:00 - 35:00] Guest speaker Jason offers a critical perspective on the timing of Clubhouse Plus and the ROI of LinkedIn Premium for small businesses.[36:00 - 38:30] A deep dive into the powerful and underutilized "Projects" feature on LinkedIn.[38:40 - 40:00] Closing thoughts and the application of the TAM/SAM/SOM framework to personal branding.Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)1. What is the main difference between LinkedIn Premium and Clubhouse Plus?The primary difference lies in their core purpose. LinkedIn Premium is geared towards professional advancement, offering tools for job seeking, sales, and recruitment. Clubhouse Plus enhances the social audio experience, providing features for dedicated users to improve their networking and content creation on the platform.2. Is LinkedIn Premium worth it for small businesses?According to guest speaker Jason, the ROI for small businesses might be limited. While it offers powerful search and recruiting tools, many of the key benefits for networking and profile enhancement can be achieved using the platform's free features effectively.3. What are the most valuable free features on LinkedIn?The "Projects" feature is highlighted as a powerful tool to showcase your work and skills in detail. Additionally, collecting recommendations and building a comprehensive profile are highly effective free strategies for professional growth.4. How can I maximize my presence on these platforms without paying?The key is active and intentional participation. On LinkedIn, this means fully utilizing all profile sections, engaging with content, and connecting with other professionals. On Clubhouse, it involves joining relevant conversations, contributing valuable insights, and building a network through active participation.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Kathy Floam Greenspan is a veteran B2B marketing expert with over 25 years of experience helping organizations align marketing with real business outcomes. As president of POM Agency, she is passionate about cutting through the noise in fast-moving industries like tech, cybersecurity, and government contracting. Kathy specializes in helping lean marketing teams deliver impactful results despite resource constraints and is a strong advocate of clarity, focus, and practical use of AI to drive growth. In this episode of Marketer of the Day, Kathy Floam Greenspan joins Robert Plank to discuss the growing pressures on marketing teams, rising expectations, limited capacity, and constant change. Based on a survey of over 100 B2B marketers, Kathy reveals why misalignment, resource gaps, and unclear goals hinder performance and shares four strategic shifts to help teams reclaim focus and momentum in 2026. Learn how to partner smarter, clean up your data ecosystem, and use AI as a collaborator, not a crutch. Kathy offers actionable advice for marketers striving to stay the course, protect priorities, and create lasting impact in chaotic times. Quotes: “If everything is a priority, nothing is. Our role as marketers is to protect focus and stay the course, especially these days.” “Marketers are being asked to deliver more impact without more capacity, forcing tough trade-offs and constant prioritization.” “AI is incredibly powerful, but marketing is still very human work. Use AI as a collaborator, not a crutch to walk before you run.” Resources: POM Marketing (official site) Kathy Floam Greenspan on LinkedIn

There are some people that are hard wired to be content creators.Justin is one of those people. I have learned soooo much from Justin and I hope you do too!Ready to start implementing video into your marketing? Start a free 7-day trial at: https://campers.msp-camp.com/

In this episode of the Marketing Club on Clubhouse, host Favour Obasi-ike, MBA, MS discusses "Social Business: LinkedIn SEO Best Practices with Marketing Tactical Strategies". The conversation, with industry friends and guests Jolanta, Celeste, and David Baker, delves into the nuances of optimizing your LinkedIn presence to increase visibility and build a strong personal brand. The episode covers a range of topics, from the importance of a clean and professional LinkedIn profile URL to the strategic use of LinkedIn features like newsletters and polls. The speakers emphasize the long-term value of content creation, the significance of building an email list, and the power of leveraging AI tools to enhance your marketing efforts.This podcast episode is packed with actionable advice for anyone looking to leverage LinkedIn for business growth and personal branding and social business building.Learning TopicsLinkedIn Profile Optimization: Learn how to optimize your LinkedIn profile for maximum visibility, including the importance of a clean URL and a well-crafted headline.Content Strategy: Discover effective content strategies for LinkedIn, including the use of polls, GIFs, and newsletters to engage your audience.The Power of Email Marketing: Understand why building an email list is crucial for long-term business success and how to integrate it with your LinkedIn strategy.Leveraging AI Tools: Get insights into using AI tools like Shield App to analyze your LinkedIn performance and gain a competitive edge.Long-Term SEO Value: Learn about the long-term benefits of creating high-quality content and how it contributes to your overall SEO strategy.Need to Book An SEO Discovery Call for Advertising or Marketing Services?>> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Book a Complimentary SEO Discovery Call with Favour Obasi-Ike⁠>> Visit Work and PLAY Entertainment website to learn about our digital marketing services>> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Join our exclusive SEO Marketing community⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠>> Read SEO Articles>> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Subscribe to the We Don't PLAY Podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠>> Purchase Flaev Beatz Beats OnlineEpisode Timestamps[00:00 - 01:53] Introduction to LinkedIn SEO and its importance for business growth.[01:53 - 05:26] The importance of a clean and professional LinkedIn profile URL.[05:26 - 08:08] How to optimize your LinkedIn headline and avoid keyword stuffing.[08:08 - 15:45] The long-term value of content and the 24-month yield of an article.[15:45 - 23:10] The importance of building an email list and not relying solely on social media platforms.[23:10 - 33:31] How to use LinkedIn polls to engage your audience and gather insights.[33:31 - 40:12] Using GIFs on LinkedIn to make your posts more visually appealing.[40:12 - 50:30] The benefits of creating a LinkedIn company profile and using newsletters.[50:30 - 01:05:00] Discussion on various AI tools and search engines like Perplexity, ChatGPT, and Gemini.[01:05:00 - 01:15:00] Guest David Baker shares his story about getting locked out of his LinkedIn account and the importance of owning your audience.[01:15:00 - 01:25:00] Introduction to Shield App, an AI tool for LinkedIn analytics.[01:25:00 - 01:36:45] Final thoughts and key takeaways from the speakers.Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)Q: Why is it important to have a clean LinkedIn URL?A: A clean LinkedIn URL (e.g., linkedin.com/in/yourname) is crucial for SEO and personal branding. It makes your profile look more professional and easier to find. Avoid URLs with random numbers or characters, as they can hurt your visibility.Q: Should I use hashtags on LinkedIn?A: The speakers suggest that hashtags are not essential on LinkedIn. It's more important to create high-quality content that resonates with your target audience. However, if you do use hashtags, use them sparingly and strategically.Q: How can I make my LinkedIn posts more engaging?A: You can use polls, GIFs, and visually appealing content to make your posts more engaging. Polls are a great way to interact with your audience and gather feedback, while GIFs can add a touch of personality to your posts.Q: What is the Shield App?A: Shield App is an AI-powered analytics tool for LinkedIn. It helps you track your content performance, understand your audience, and gain insights to improve your LinkedIn strategy. The speakers recommend it as a valuable tool for serious LinkedIn users.Q: Why is building an email list so important?A: You don't own your social media followers. If you get locked out of your account or the platform changes its algorithm, you could lose your audience. An email list gives you a direct line of communication with your followers that you control.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

How to Use AI for B2B Storytelling Without Losing Your Brand So many B2B companies and marketing teams waste budget on generic content that fails to resonate or support core business goals. In an era where AI-generated is everywhere, smaller B2B brands often struggle to maintain a unique identity while competing against larger firms with massive content engines. The key to staying relevant lies in a B2B brand’s ability to be authentic, human-centric, and strategically consistent despite the pressure to automate everything. So how can B2B brands effectively integrate AI into their marketing workflows without losing their unique voice and brand integrity? That's why we're talking to Nick Usborne (Founder, Story Aligned), who shared his expertise on leveraging AI through the lens of strategic storytelling. During our conversation, Nick discussed the critical distinction between simple narrative and a brand’s unique story, highlighting a significant gap where only 7% of top AI prompt libraries actually focus on storytelling. He shared actionable advice on building a “story vault,” training staff to avoid “brand drift,” and enforcing consistent AI usage to maintain the trust of the audience. Nick also underscored the importance of keeping human elements at the forefront of content creation to prevent AI from feeling overly mechanical, and advocated for a balanced approach that ensures scalable growth without sacrificing a brand's authenticity. https://youtu.be/dtgvg2-XXoU Topics discussed in episode: [02:53] The “Why” Behind AI Adoption: Why companies must embrace AI not just for efficiency, but to avoid being left behind by competitors who are already scaling their reach.  [04:10] The “Moat” of Storytelling: Why narrative and voice can be easily copied by AI, but your brand's unique “lived story” is the only defensible moat you have.  [11:27] Pitfalls of Inconsistent AI Use: The dangers of “shadow AI” use by employees (e.g., Using personal accounts vs. company custom GPTs) and how it leads to brand drift.  [16:46] The Human Element vs. AI: Nick explains why AI can describe the beach but can't “feel the sand between its toes,” and why human “messiness” is key to connection.  [24:26] Building a Story Vault: Nick provides a practical framework for formalizing your brand's folklore—from founder stories to customer service wins—so they can be systematically used in AI content.  [28:17] Actionable Steps for Marketers: Three immediate steps to take: build your story vault, interview key stakeholders (founders, early employees), and analyze customer service transcripts for sentiment.  [30:11] The Problem with “Killer Prompt” Libraries: Why copying “top 20 prompt” lists is a strategic mistake that leads to generic, non-differentiated content. Companies and links mentioned: Nick Usborne on LinkedIn  Story Aligned  Transcript Nick Usborne, Christian Klepp Nick Usborne  00:00 AI can do a wonderful job in many ways, but it’s never walked down the beach and felt the sand between its toes. It’s read about it. It’s never eaten ice cream. It’s read about that, but it’s never felt it. So that’s what I mean by lived experience. I think that content and stories that truly resonate with people you use those kind of touch points the the deeply human side of being alive. And like, say, I think AI can get close when you prompt it really well, but also, there’s a messiness that makes us recognize one another, the little mistakes we make. That’s what makes us human. We are messy. AI, it’s not very good at being messy. You can ask it to be messy, and it’ll try to figure that out, but it’s really not the same. And like I say, I think people are very sensitive to this kind of nuance. Christian Klepp  00:51 When brands rely on the same AI tools and prompts, they start to sound like everyone else. That loss of voice can hurt trust and lead to something called Brand drift. So how can B2B Marketing teams scale content with AI while staying true to their story? Welcome to this episode of the B2B Marketers in the Mission podcast, and I’m your host, Christian Klepp, today, I’ll be talking to Nick Usborne, who will be answering this question. He’s the Founder of Story Aligned, a training program for Marketing teams that want to scale content using AI while protecting the integrity of their brand story and voice. Tune in to find out more about what this B2B Marketers Mission is. Mr. Nick Usborne, welcome to the show, sir.  Nick Usborne  01:32 Thank you very much. Thank you Christian. Thank you for having me.  Christian Klepp  01:35 Pleasure to have you on the show. Nick, you know we had such a fantastic pre interview call. It was a bit of a you did drop a few hints and clues about what was to come, and I’m really looking forward to this conversation. I’m going to keep the audience in suspense a little while longer as I move us into the first question. So off we go.  Nick Usborne  01:55 Okay. Christian Klepp  01:56 All right, so, Nick, you’re on a mission to equip Marketing teams to scale AI powered content while staying aligned with their organization, story and voice. So for this conversation, let’s focus on the topic of how to use AI for B2B content without losing trust. And it is at the time of the recording, the end of 2025 and of course, we’re going to talk about AI, but we’re going to zoom in on something specific as it pertains to B2B content and a little bit of branding in there as well. But I wanted to kick off this conversation with two questions, and I’m happy to repeat them. So the first question is, why do you believe it’s so important for brands and their Marketing teams to embrace AI so that they can scale? And the second question is, why does this approach require the right prompts and guardrails? I think that’s one thing that you mentioned in our previous conversation, the whole the whole piece about prompts and guardrails. Nick Usborne  02:53 Well, the first question, why do companies need to embrace AI? And the ridiculous answer to that. It’s not a good answer, but it’s true is that because everyone else is, because your competitors are, and they will create content at scale while you are not, and they will achieve reach that you can’t achieve without AI. And in fact, if they do it well, their content, their new content, will be very good, content deeply researched beyond perhaps what you can do. So it’s like everything within AI right now, like, like, Why? Why do all the companies like open AI and Google and Meta, why they all racing? Because if they don’t, someone else will get there first. And it’s, I’m not saying it’s a great reason, but I think it is the fundamental reason for companies to embrace AI, is that you will be left behind if you don’t. This is a transformational moment, and as much as we’d like to have choice, I think in this matter, we don’t have a lot of choice. So that’s my answer to that question. Repeat the second question for me. Christian Klepp  04:00 Absolutely, absolutely so based on, based on that, like, why does this approach require the right prompts and guardrails? Nick Usborne  04:10 As part of my business, I’m constantly researching this, and in particular, I’m researching the prompts people do so when say, could be writers coders, but in our world. Let’s say writers, principally, or marketers, are using AI. They’re using prompts, and they’re generally prompting about two things. One is narrative, like, what should we say? Or, you know, please write us a blog post about x. So that’s the that’s the topic, that’s the narrative. And then they’ll put in something say, oh, please do it in a voice that is authoritative and yet accessible. All right, so now that’s a voice. What they haven’t mentioned is what I think is the foundational layer, which is, which is story. And that’s important, because story is the only thing that is uniquely yours, if you have an narrative, if you, if you have voice, if you talk about something in a particular way, I can copy that with AI. I can copy it at scale. I can, I can look at the transcripts of Christian podcasts, and I can say, oh, I want to do one in exactly. Tell her the same topic. I can, you know, so when you focus on narrative, on what you write about in voice. I can copy it. There’s no moat. The only moat you have is with story, because every company’s story is unique. We can look at origin stories, foundation stories, we can look at customer stories through case studies, things like that. Those are always unique. No one else has Apple’s origin story. No one else has virgin Atlantic’s Founder’s story, etc. But we did some research recently. Actually, we did some research months ago, and I reconfirmed it earlier this week. I ran it. I ran it all again to look at the data. If you look at the top 20 prompt libraries that you know the big, trustworthy companies and organizations that put out prompt libraries for companies. If you look at the top 20 libraries and the 1000s and 1000s of prompts within there, 76% of those prompts are about the narrative. What to say? 17 are about voice. How do you sound? Only 7% relate to story. So this, to my mind, is where we have a problem. We have a disconnect. Everyone is going crazy, prompting for narrative and story, both of which have 0, zero mode, anyone can copy them at scale. And only 7% this very small percentage, are actually focusing on the one thing that is uniquely theirs and cannot be copied or challenged. So that when you say, when you, when you say I’m on a mission, that’s the mission for me to say, Hey guys, wake up. You’re You’re prompting the wrong things in the wrong way. Let’s like, go back and look at story Christian Klepp  07:12 Absolutely, absolutely. It almost sounds like an oxymoron to us to a certain degree, because you’re saying scaling B2B content using AI without losing trust. Because, you know, the narrative that I keep seeing on social media, particularly LinkedIn, is that if people are using AI, there is a bit of a trust factor there. But I think it’s to your point and correct me if I’m wrong, it’s being able to embrace AI and you leveraging it the right way, so it’s not, it’s not, it’s not to replace, it’s not to replace the writers, right, or to replace the Marketers, I hope not. Nick Usborne  07:50 It may replace some. But, yeah, yeah. I mean, I mean, you’re right, and the keyword you mentioned there is trust. I think, I think trust is going to be the most valuable commodity that a company can have in the months and years to come, because people don’t actually don’t if we’re talking about brand. So we’re trying to protect brand with story, right? And brand is something that a lot of companies have spent millions of dollars building and protecting over years or decades and well, one of the things let me come back to trust in a moment. But if I’m looking at brand, and I’m looking at all the stuff goes out there, it either builds brand or it burns brand. And if you burn brand, you lose trust. So if you’re going out with a whole bunch of content that sounds like everyone else is that it’s kind of meh. It’s ordinary. It’s in the middle, which is what AI is really good at. Without the right prompting, it will give you kind of in the middle, mediocre output. So you got to be much better at prompting than just like a, I don’t know, being careless about it, or taking a shortcut, shortcuts, or being lazy about it, because then you get brand drift, and all of a sudden the brand doesn’t sound quite right. And when that happens, you lose trust. And when you lose trust, you lose revenue. I mean, you really do. And people are getting very sensitive to brand of brand trust we saw recently. Was it tracker barrel tried to just change its logo. People freaked out. People freaked out.  Christian Klepp  09:27 It was an awful rebrand, but, yes.  Nick Usborne  09:30 Yeah, but it wasn’t. These weren’t. These weren’t. Saying is, I don’t think the design is up to snuff. It’s like, don’t mess with my tracker barrel. We actually feel very strongly about the brands. Talk to people who are absolute fans of Apple. Doesn’t matter that it costs twice as much, perhaps as not quite as good. It’s Apple. It’s my brand. Don’t mess with my brand. So we’re very sensitive to our loyalty to brands. And in fact, in some sense, it’s brand define us like a football team, a baseball team, in part, we can be defined by the brands that we support, local, Pepsi. You know, it’s like everywhere. So when a company uses AI carelessly at scale and all of a sudden that blog post, it kind of sounds like them, but something’s a tiny bit off. And then that LinkedIn update. Again, yeah, it’s them, but again, it’s, did I say is that the same as they were six months ago? You get the you get these little these little things that sound off, and now you get brand drift. And now you get people feeling uneasy, and the public are sometimes we think we can just make the public believe whatever we want them to believe, or companies to believe whatever we want them to believe, but actually, individuals, in their home lives and in their business lives are very, very sensitive to brand and they’re very, very sensitive to voice and what they hear, and if it’s off, they really don’t like it, and that does translate into loss of trust, and that does directly translate into loss of revenue.  Christian Klepp  11:07 Absolutely. I’m going to move us on to the next set of questions, particularly that one pertaining to key pitfalls that Marketers need to avoid when they’re trying to scale their B2B content using AI without losing trust. So what are some of these key pitfalls they should avoid, and what should they be doing instead? Nick Usborne  11:27 What I’m hearing from inside a number of companies is that there is an inconsistency in how people are using AI and even when systems are in place, that not everyone follows the system. So it’s early days. It is. These are messy times for, you know, working with AI within companies. So I think it’s really important that companies do have some frameworks in place, that people within the organization are using the same tools in the same way, and that they are encouraged to be consistent in what they do. So I’ve heard stories of where companies are set up, you know, they’re using Copilot, or whatever they use, and then some of the manager will walk by someone’s desk, and they’re actually, actually, they’re using Claude on their phone. That person like phone, and it’s like, well, yeah, but no, this is now, you know, you have no control. You also have to get people to do what they ask. I was talking to a Founder the other day. She has a PR (Public Relations) company, plenty of clients, and she’s smart. She’s created custom GPTs for each client. So each custom GPT is trained on with with a kind of database of information on that client and the content, so that you know when you when you ask it to do something else, it’s already has the context and the voice instructions and everything, and you can and it’s great, you get this consistency. But she says, what’s happening is some of her employees come in in the morning, they start work on client X, and they’re using that custom GPT. Then they move on to client Y, but they keep using the original custom GPT and not switching out. So the management has put in the structure in place to be consistent and to output the best, you know, the best content, but the employees are not always playing game, you know, going along with that. So so I do think we’re in a messy period now where companies are not entirely sure how to apply this, how to structure it, what kind of frameworks and guidance to put in place. What guardrails to put in place? Like? Again, I’ve heard horror stories of people grabbing content that should not be shared and putting it into a large language model and then turning that into customer facing or public facing content.  Christian Klepp  13:57 Oh, plagiarism.  Nick Usborne  14:04 So yeah, it is messy. So what I would say is, before you even try to make the best of the use of AI that you do, need to put systems and frameworks in place and educate your staff. So if you want your staff to use AI effectively give them access to training. Don’t just throw them at a tool and say, go for it, because they won’t know what to do with it, or they’ll be able to create stuff, but they won’t be able to create good stuff. So invest in the systems, invest in the frameworks and instructions, and invest in training for the people who are going to be using the tools.  Christian Klepp  14:46 Definitely some relevant points. I wanted to go back to something you said, though, because I think it’s really important. It’s certainly one thing to have the prompts and the guardrails in place and some kind of like, framework and structures. But to your earlier point, how do you enforce that? And I think you gave a really good example about like, if you have a custom GPT, and then they resort to like, using. Um Claude on their personal accounts, and then it’s a little bit like the wild west out there, isn’t it? Nick Usborne  15:06 It is, it is, and it’s and it’s, how do you enforce it? Well, that’s going to be a company by company decision. Like, like the Founder with the PR of the PR company, when she was telling me about how her employees just weren’t doing what they were asked. I was like, part of you is thinking about, why haven’t you kind of cracked down on this? But again, it depends on the company and what options you have when it comes to enforcing stuff like this. But I do think you need to, because then if we circle right back, if you have people who are untrained, and that’s the company’s responsibility to train their employees. If you have people who are untrained and they’re using these tools inconsistently, that is when you far more likely then to see errors for, you know, unforced errors like publishing stuff that you shouldn’t but you’re also going to see more brand drift, because you’re going to get this inconsistency between output and that is a disaster. Like I say, companies have sometimes spent, in a decade, several years in establishing and building a trustworthy brand. And people are very unforgiving. You can, you can lose all that goodwill very, very quickly. So, yeah, training frameworks make sure people are, you know, working within those boundaries, but as a company, it’s your responsibility to help make that happen. Christian Klepp  16:29 Yeah, yeah. Oh, absolutely, absolutely. You kind of brought this up already, but you mentioned that AI can help to scale content, but it can’t replicate your lived story, so please explain what you meant by that, and provide an example. If you can, Nick Usborne  16:46 AI can do a wonderful job in many ways, but you know, it’s never walked down the beach and felt the sand between its toes. It’s read about it. It’s never eaten ice cream. It’s read about that, but it’s never felt it. So that’s what I mean by lived experience. So I think that content and stories that truly resonate with people, you use those kind of touch points, the deeply human side of being alive and like say, I think AI can get close when you prompt it really well, but also there’s a messiness that makes us recognize one another, the little mistakes we make, that’s what makes us human. We are messy, and it’s not very good at being messy. You can ask it to be messy, and it’ll try to figure that out, but it’s really not the same. And like I say, I think people are very sensitive to this kind of nuance and the lived story. It’s the it’s the weird stuff. I think that resonates. So I’ve spent quite a bit of my career doing copywriting for companies, and for a long period, I was doing some freelance, a lot of freelance copywriting. So this is just a little side note, a little side story for you. I used to live on a hobby farm. We had some sheep and pigs and chickens and all that good stuff, the good life. And also had freelance customers. And I went in, and I was and I went, you know, you go out, you feed the animals, you come in, I sit down to work, and my client said, this is just on the phone. This is even before the internet. Client said, Hey, you’re late. I was just out farming the pig and feeding the pigs. And the guy says, what? And this, I hadn’t realized. I never told him that I lived on a farm. He thought somewhere. So anyway, we talked a little bit about the pigs, then we get to work. So the project we’re working on worked out really well, and it won an award. So we fly off to your hometown, Toronto, for the awards ceremony, direct marketing awards ceremony, and he stands up and he says, Thank you very much. Blah, blah, blah. And special thanks to Nick Usborne, the pig farming copywriter. And I’m like, I’m like, in the audience, and I’m thinking, oh, please no. This guy is like, rebranding me constantly in front of all my peers, all my potential clients for next year. Big drama turns out so, so that that’s messy, all right? AI wouldn’t do that, you wouldn’t imagine that it wouldn’t do that. That’s a deeply human moment of my humiliation and him laughing, and everyone slapping me on the back and laughing and asking about my pigs. Turns out, over the next 12 months, I got a few phone calls out of the blue. And I say, Hello, Nick Usborne. I said, Oh, is that Nick Usborne? The cover of James Barber. And I say, why? Yes. And so I actually got work out of that, because it was such a distinct difference from every other copywriter out there. I was the only copywriter who had pigs. So that was just a fun story, but it also speaks to the difference between humans and AI, and it’s a live that’s a lived experience, and it’s a lived anecdote, and I tell the story, and it’s a true story that is really important, I think so, even when we use AI, even when we use it at its best, and it can be really good when you use it well, I think everyone should keep leave space for the human in the loop, as they say, keep that human element in there, big for those stories. So I so I encourage companies to create what I call like a story vault. So there’s the obvious stories, like the Founder story, the origin story, the six original success story, also put in the little quirky stories, like that one I just described, and and make that part of your process. And also go, you know, if you’re creating something with AI and it’s a big project, take the time to go and interview someone, talk to someone, get a human story, put it in just because you’re using AI, doesn’t mean to say that everything you create has to be 100% AI, you can, you can? I do this all the time. I look for it a draft with AI, then I’d go back in and I’ll rewrite the beginning with an anecdote, like the small s story, not a big dramatic story, just a little story. And what it does then is that then connects it with us, because as people, we recognize stories. Story is profound to all of us. I think in every country in the world, parents read their children bedtime stories. It’s something we share in common. It’s how we communicate, and it’s how we recognize our humanity in a sense of like, if you tell me a story, you connect with me, and vice versa. So that’s why I think stories are so important in this world of AI, because if you just go AI, it can get a little cold, and sometimes, as a reader, you don’t quite understand what’s happening and why, but you kind of feel it. There’s an absence. There’s something missing, and that what’s what you feeling is missing is that human touch, that human element, Christian Klepp  21:59 Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, there’s like, there’s like, telltale signs, right? Like em dash being one of them,  Nick Usborne  22:06 em dash Christian Klepp  22:07 Yes, or Yeah. Or it tends to, like, regurgitate the same type of war. It’s like, I find it loves using the word landscape or navigate, you know, things of that nature, right?  Nick Usborne  22:20 Yeah.  Christian Klepp  22:21 Or uses these funny like, you know, the colon or for, for, for titles of episodes, for examples. Nick Usborne  22:30 In titles, even when I give it clear instructions, do not use them. So sometimes, when I create content like that is, I’ll create it in with one model like say, GPT5, and I’ll take it over to flawed, and I’ll say, hey, please edit and clean this up for me, and remove any, you know, repetition or whatever. And sometimes it comes back say, hey, looks pretty clean, pretty good. Other times it’ll change stuff. And then, of course, always I will, you know, I will review. And that’s the other thing that the companies need to think about. Is that, at the moment, content generation at scale within companies, it is a bit like a conveyor belt in a factory of all these boxes flying off the end into the FedEx back of the FedEx van, and without, without any kind of quality control, which, which is actually what you do have with income within you know, if you’re manufacturing, and you do have quality control, and you pick out every 20th item or whatever to make sure that it’s good, a lot of that isn’t happening, that isn’t happening with a lot of people using AI is people don’t even see it. It’s fully automated, like, like a week’s worth of social media is automated, or a month’s work worth, and no one, no human, has read it or reviewed it. It’s just flying out automatically. And that is where at some point you’re inevitably going to have a problem. And it may not be a big problem, it may be lots and lots of small problems, lots of lots of things sounding not quite right, and then all of a sudden, when you’ve got enough little things not sounding right, then you start getting a medium sized problem. Christian Klepp  24:06 Yeah, yeah. No, exactly, exactly. Okay. Now, you talked about it a little bit in the beginning, but talk to us about some of these, these frameworks and these processes that B2B companies can use to help them, you know, organize themselves and reap those benefits of AI without losing trust. Like, what are some of these processes and frameworks? Nick Usborne  24:26 I do some training, and I have done a few rubrics where people can kind of use those to formalize the process. But I think if we talk about story, and I think I already mentioned the idea of each company having a story vault, so be formal and deliberate about it. Everyone can chat about their company’s stories, but if I say to you, hey, is there a folder? Can I can I get a Google folder and find a compilation of all of these stories? And have you graded those stories in terms of how strong and relevant? And they are, and how engaging they might be, or how evocative they might be, and the answer is almost always no, the story is around. But there’s no story vault, and there’s no rubric in place to grade those stories and decide which might be the most appropriate points at which to share those stories. So it’s that, it’s that formalizing the process, and I don’t like being 100% rules based, but I think in the AI world right now, where we are in that kind of messy middle period, I think it’s really important to have some systems in place so that we do have a consistent output, so that when you so that your brand doesn’t suffer from brand drift, and that you don’t make some significant missteps along the way. So somebody within the organization needs to be responsible for this. Maybe it’s the Chief AI Officer, if you have one, or otherwise, somebody in Marketing. So yeah, help people with training, but also help them by giving them some framework, some rubrics and some just a system like, you know, hey, picked up a story from customer service, put it in the story vault, categorize it. Customer service in the story vault says someone else can come back and find it. So it’s not just word of mouth. It’s not accidental. There’s a place where people can go to and then you’re going to do the same with narrative, the things we say. And you have another vault, as it were, and another rubric to to assess voice, how we say it. So it’s just this formalization of the process, and also trying to make sure that people use these systems as you put them in place. So somebody’s got to be walking along behind, behind and sort of, and again, it’s like, I guess, like early days of anything. Not every, not everyone will love the process. Not everyone loves using AI. But it’ll come. It’ll come. People will get in their heart better, not only using AI, but doing it well and following these processes. Christian Klepp  27:02 Okay, fantastic, fantastic. Let me just quickly recap, because I was writing this down. So obviously, having a story vault, grading them if you can, if possible, having systems and frameworks in place, training the team and getting them to familiarize themselves with the systems having a vault for narrative and voice, I think was the other piece. And finally, using, using the systems, once you have them, not letting them collect dust, as it were, right? Nick Usborne  27:32 Like and it is, I get it right now. I get it. It’s hard for a lot of companies, because I think using AI has been very kind of mixed. Some companies have dived straight in. Others are resistant, particularly companies that have compliance issues, financial, medical stuff like that. They’re being very careful, very cautious, and for very good reason. So the rate of adoption is very uneven at the moment, Christian Klepp  28:01 Absolutely, absolutely, all right. Nick you’ve given us plenty here, right? But if we’re going to talk about actionable tips, like something that somebody who’s listening to this conversation that they can take action on right after listening to this interview, what are like some of the top three things you would advise them to do? Nick Usborne  28:17 Well, I guess first is just we’ve talked quite a bit about the story, the story of collecting stories. Just do that because, like I say, I think story is your is your superpower, because it is the only place where you have a moat you don’t in what you say and how you say it. Anyone can copy you, and I can automate copying you through AI as well, but I cannot steal your story, because it’s just not true if, if it’s not my story. So I’d always start there and again, start, start that. Build the vault, select the story and formalize that process. Interview the Founders, if you can, interview early employees, even if they’re retired, interview the first three clients, if you can access them, interview customer service. So often overlooked, customer service in one way or another, so long as that’s not all automated, if there’s still humans in that loop, then have conversations with them. And you can, you can, you can, get transcripts, customer service transcripts, and feed them into AI and say, hey, please analyze and summarize this. What are, what are the most powerful messages we can get from our customer service? Sort of stream of content? Do? Do a sentiment analysis? What are people upset about? What are people happy about? So, yeah, story, I think, is like, I say, it will be your motive, it will be your savior. So first start to formalize that process of getting story and then making sure that it finds a place, somewhere in your automation of, you know, AI generated content, Christian Klepp  29:58 Fantastic, fantastic stuff. Okay, soapbox time. What is the status quo in your area of expertise that you passionately disagree with, and why? Nick Usborne  30:11 I guess again, I’m just going to overlapping. I don’t know what a status quo, but the thing that I passionately disagree with is is every time you see most or a social media title that says top 20 killer, unbeatable prompts.  Christian Klepp  30:31 Oh, yeah. Nick Usborne  30:32 No, no, no, absolutely, just, just no for two reasons. One is that they’re going to be generic. They’re not going to apply to your company in particular, they’ll be generic, and just because they work for someone else does not mean they’re going to work for you. And like I say, we did, I’ve done research on those prompt libraries, and only 7% of them even touch on story. So if I’m writing stories, the most important thing almost all of those prompt libraries are missing out on that. They’re just focusing on narrative and voice and ignoring stories. So not good and and, yeah, so, so that is, I don’t know whether the status quo, but it’s something I keep seeing, and it irritates me when I get it. I understand why they’re doing it, but not helpful for your company. Christian Klepp  31:18 Yeah, you and me both. I mean, those are the those are the pulse they attempt to ignore immediately. I mean, I just skim through it and see the prompts, and I’m like, Nah, but I think it’s human nature too, isn’t it? Like everybody wants to chase the next hack. They want to find that the you know, the shortcut, like the quickest route to get something done. And I get that, but it sometimes does more harm than good. Nick Usborne  31:43 Easy button, but also to be fair and to be a little bit more generous. This is early days, and so people are looking for help. And if it says top 20, this is, oh my goodness, thank you. I’ll take that now. Over time, that’ll change, and people will become a little more sophisticated, I think, but like us, like you. You know, I get it. I understand why those those posts and titles are attractive, and that’s why people create them. But we can do better. We can do better Christian Klepp  32:12 Absolutely, absolutely we can, and we will, hopefully, all right, here comes the bonus question. I’ve been thinking about this one, but Nick Usborne  32:23 I feel strangely nervous. I feel nervous, but it’s a bonus question. Christian Klepp  32:30 Just breathe. Just breathe. I mean, clearly from this conversation, you know, writing is in your blood, right? It’s something that you are passionate about, but it’s also something you’ve done professionally for a long time, I suppose. The bonus question is, if you had an opportunity to meet your favorite writer or author, living or dead, who would it be, and what would you talk about?  Nick Usborne  32:55 One of the people, I really admire, and I’ve already spoken to him, is David Abbott. So David Abbott is a copywriter from from England, and he had an agency called Abbot Mead Vickers, and he was an amazing writer. So I’ve already met him. Who I haven’t met I would like to re write to meet is Susie Henry. She was the copywriter behind a series of advertisements in the UK for an insurance company, and she is just a delightful writer, so I told you, well, no, I hadn’t told you. Maybe I will tell you I’m like, when I started out copywriting, it was at the tail end of the Mad Men period, and creatives were the Kings and Queens, and copywriting was such a craft, it was something to be absolutely proud of, like we’d go through so many drafts, and it was, I was, you know, I was, I was a craftsman, learning from other craftsmen. And David, ever I met, he was in a fantastic writer, just written Susie Henry so good, very, very conversational writer, which was very unusual for that time. So I’d like to meet and talk with her, and I still can’t remember the fiction writer. He’s science fiction writer. I completely lost blank on his name, and I’ve actually met him once briefly, but I’d like to get back to him and chat, but I can’t, because he’s he’s since passed. Christian Klepp  34:19 Oh, I see, I see, I see. All right, well, that’s quite the list of people, but, um, but yeah. No, fantastic. No. Nick, thank you so much for coming on the show and for sharing your experience and expertise with the listeners. And please quick introduction to yourself and how people can get in touch with you. Nick Usborne  34:37 All right. Hi. My name is Nick Usborne, so my business build Story Aligned. So storyaligned.com and what we do there is pretty much, what I’ve talked about today is we train teams within companies to look at story, narrative and voice with a lot of emphasis on story, because that’s where the note is, so if you get a Story Aligned, you’ll find we have a white paper you can download. We have a blog that you can read, the description of the training. So yeah, if this interests you, if you find this an interesting topic, there’s plenty to do when you get there. So Story Aligned, A, L, I, G, N, E, D, yeah. Story Aligned. Christian Klepp  35:21 Fantastic, fantastic. And we’ll be sure to pop that into the show notes so that it’ll be easy for everyone to access. But once again, Nick, thank you.  Nick Usborne  35:28 Sorry, one last thing, if you want to please opening myself up, if you want to just talk to me directly, you can write to me at nick@storyaligned.com. Christian Klepp  35:38 Perfect, perfect. Nick, once again, thanks so much for your time. Take care, stay safe and talk to you soon. Nick Usborne  35:44 Thank you. Thank you for inviting me. It’s been a pleasure. Christian Klepp  35:47 Thank you. Bye for now. You.

Favour Obasi-ike, MBA, MS takes us on deep dive into the world of digital marketing, with a strong focus on Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). The host breaks down the key differences and relationship between these two critical components of a successful online strategy. The discussion covers the entire customer journey, from the pre-click phase, where the user is first searching for information, to the post-click phase, where the goal is to convert the user into a customer.A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to practical, actionable advice for improving conversion rates. This includes a detailed look at crafting effective Calls to Action (CTAs), optimizing landing pages, and leveraging analytics to make data-driven decisions. The host also shares a valuable tip on using brackets in headlines to increase click-through rates. This episode features a friend / guest from Canada

Chasing unqualified leads is costing you time, money, and momentum. Want better clients—not just more of them?In this episode of The Business Ownership Podcast I interviewed Mark Osborne. Mark is the  Fractional Revenue Leader for Professional Services & B2B SaaS at Modern Revenue Strategies. Recognized by AdAge Magazine as one of the world's Top 25 “Marketing Technology Trailblazers” in 2017 and a #1 Best-Selling Selling Author on B2B Marketing and Sales, Mark Osborne brings decades of experience creating Revenue Growth Systems for B2B SaaS, Tech, and Boutique Professional Services Firms. Mark has delivered tens of millions of dollars in revenue for his clients, often doubling revenues in 90 days through his focus on building Systems that emphasize strategic approaches to growth. He is founder of Modern Revenue Strategies offering a "10X ROI B2B Growth Guarantee" and a Free Diagnostic Tool to identify your fastest path to growth.Stop marketing to everyone. Start winning the right customers. Learn how to find your most profitable customers.Check this out!Show Links:Modern Revenue Startegies: https://modernrevenuestrategies.com/diagnostic/Mark Osborne on LinkedIn:  Mark Osborne, MBA, CEPA® | LinkedInBook a call with Michelle: https://go.appointmentcore.com/book/IcFD4cGJoin our Facebook group for business owners to get help or help other business owners!The Business Ownership Group - Secrets to Scaling: https://www.facebook.com/groups/businessownershipsecretstoscalingLooking to scale your business? Get free gifts here to help you on your way: https://www.awarenessstrategies.com/

Join Favour Obasi-ike, MBA, MS for a masterclass on email marketing strategies that actually drive revenue. In this session, Favour breaks down the power of segmented email campaigns, explains the metrics that matter, and shares how to build a website-first content strategy that turns subscribers into customers. Learn how to leverage free tools, automate your email sequences, and create long-term relationships with your audience through strategic, data-driven email marketing ROI.Whether you're just starting with email marketing or looking to optimize your existing campaigns, this episode delivers actionable insights you can implement immediately to boost engagement and generate sustainable revenue.What You'll Learn✓ How to use segmented emails to increase revenue and engagement✓ The difference between click-through rate and click rate (and why it matters)✓ Why your website is the foundation of successful email marketing✓ Google's E-E-A-T framework for creating helpful content✓ How to repurpose one piece of content across multiple channels✓ Which free tools every email marketer should be using✓ The "website-first" content strategy that saves time and builds SEO✓ How to create automated email sequences that work 24/7Top 7 Email Marketing Best Practices1. Use Segmented Emails StrategicallyCreate segments based on subscriber behavior and preferences. Use polls and interactive elements to gather data, then tag links to track which subscribers are interested in which offerings.2. Build a Helpful, Responsive WebsiteYour website should be fast-loading, mobile-friendly, and provide genuine value. Focus on Google's E-E-A-T framework: Experience, Expertise, Authority, and Trust.3. Create Content on Your Website FirstPublish content on your website before sharing on social media. This builds your owned digital assets, improves SEO, and gives you more control over distribution.4. Leverage Email Metrics for Continuous ImprovementTrack who opens, clicks, and takes action. Identify your most engaged subscribers and create VIP segments for them. Use this data to refine your messaging over time.5. Implement Scheduled and Automated Email SequencesSet up automated sequences that trigger based on subscriber actions. Create welcome series, nurture campaigns, and re-engagement flows that work around the clock.6. Repurpose Content Across Multiple FormatsTake one long-form piece and break it into blog posts, social media updates, podcast episodes, videos, and email newsletters. Maximize your content creation efforts.7. Focus on Long-term Relationship BuildingNot everyone opens emails the day you send them. Be consistent with your schedule, provide ongoing value, and build trust over time rather than chasing quick sales.Key Metrics to TrackDeliverability Rate - Percentage of emails reaching subscriber inboxesOpen Rate - Percentage of delivered emails that get openedClick Rate - Percentage of delivered emails with link clicksClick-Through Rate (CTR) - Percentage of opened emails with link clicksConversion Rate - Percentage completing your desired actionPodcast Episode Timestamps[00:00] Episode introduction: Email marketing best practices that earn revenue[00:40] Why segmented emails are the #1 revenue driver[03:06] How to create segments triggered by scheduled emails[03:37] Example: Segmenting by in-person vs. virtual event preferences[06:00] Using polls to understand what your audience really wants[07:00] Revenue starts at the beginning: building systems for MRR[08:00] Click-through rate vs. click rate explained[09:00] Identifying and segmenting your most engaged subscribers[10:00] Tracking email opens and clicks consistently[10:30] Creating VIP segments for highly engaged subscribers[14:00] Re-engaging inactive subscribers through targeted campaigns[15:00] Email deliverability and its impact on revenue[17:00] Understanding spam filters and how to avoid them[18:00] Email authentication: SPF, DKIM, and DMARC[20:00] Real case study: Client ranking page one for competitive keywords[21:42] Technical SEO: indexing, blogs, location pages, schema markup[23:00] Email marketing as direct response marketing[24:00] Why not everyone opens emails immediately (and that's okay)[25:00] Best Practice #1: Have a helpful, responsive website[25:32] Google's E-E-A-T framework: Experience, Expertise, Authority, Trust[26:22] You have less than 10 seconds to make an impression[27:00] The "website-first" content strategy[27:22] Free analytics tools: Google Search Console, GA4, Bing, Microsoft Clarity[28:00] Repurposing one article into multiple content formats[30:00] Maximizing content value through strategic repurposing[32:00] Creating content pillars and topic clusters[33:00] Planning content calendars aligned with email campaigns[35:00] Balancing evergreen content with timely topics[37:00] Creating lead magnets that attract quality subscribers[39:00] A/B testing email subject lines and content[40:00] Overview of popular email marketing platforms[41:00] Mailchimp: features, pricing, and best use cases[42:00] Constant Contact for small businesses and nonprofits[43:00] Brevo (formerly Sendinblue): affordable with SMS capabilities[44:00] HubSpot: comprehensive CRM and marketing automation[45:00] Choosing the right platform for your business needs[46:00] Free tier options and when to upgrade[50:00] Advanced segmentation for e-commerce businesses[51:00] Using behavioral triggers to increase conversions[52:00] Email in omnichannel marketing strategies[53:00] Measuring ROI from email campaigns[54:00] Common email marketing mistakes to avoid[57:00] Recap of key best practices[59:00] Closing remarks and next session announcement[59:29] Tomorrow's topic: Search Engine Marketing & SEO Best Practices (11 AM Central)Tools & Resources MentionedEmail Marketing Platforms: Flodesk >> Sign up and Get 50% OffAnalytics Tools: Google Search Console, Google Analytics (GA4), Bing Webmaster Tools, Microsoft Clarity, Fathom Analytics, Matomo AnalyticsOther Tools: Eventbrite, PinterestSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this strategic follow-up, Favour Obasi-ike, MBA, MS unveils the powerful, interconnected Microsoft ecosystem and why it's a game-changer for SEO. Move beyond Google and discover how Bing, Perplexity AI, and LinkedIn work together to build your website's authority and visibility in the age of AI search.We delve into the crucial, often-missed strategy for new websites: using Bing Webmaster Tools as a "language bridge" to accelerate Google's recognition of your site. Learn why your website must become your proprietary first-party data asset and how structured content gets cited by platforms like Perplexity.This episode is your roadmap to LLM (Large Language Model) Visibility, providing actionable steps on building trust signals, implementing schema markup, and creating a unified content structure that works across all platforms—not against them.Need to Book An SEO Discovery Call for Advertising or Marketing Services?>> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Book a Complimentary SEO Discovery Call with Favour Obasi-Ike⁠>> Visit Work and PLAY Entertainment website to learn about our digital marketing services>> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Join our exclusive SEO Marketing community⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠>> Read SEO Articles>> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Subscribe to the We Don't PLAY Podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠>> Purchase Flaev Beatz Beats Online

Everybody talks about creativity, but very few are willing to measure it. The real advantage comes from combining imagination with obsession.That's the lesson of MrBeast, the YouTube creator who turned data-driven storytelling into one of the most powerful media brands in the world. In this episode, we explore his marketing playbook with the help of our special guest Rodrigo Fontes, VP of Marketing at QuillBot.Together, we break down what B2B marketers can learn from engineering audience retention, building repeatable content formats, and investing just a little more effort to create work people can't look away from.About our guest, Rodrigo FontesRodrigo Fonte is the VP of Marketing at Quillbot. He is a strategic marketing leader with over 15 years of experience building and scaling brands across both B2C and B2B markets. Rodrigo is currently driving growth in Generative AI and consumer tech at QuillBot (Learneo). He's also leading the global marketing organization behind one of the world's most widely used AI writing assistants, overseeing Brand, Media, Influencers, Social, SEO, ASO, Content, Product Marketing, and International Expansion.What B2B Companies Can Learn From MrBeast:Obsess over audience retention, not just reach. MrBeast doesn't just aim for views, he studies exactly where attention drops and rebuilds content accordingly. Rodrigo says, “His data-driven customer obsession on every detail to make things work, I think that's such an amazing thing for us marketers today to think [about].” B2B teams should move beyond impressions and focus on where prospects lose interest and why. Analyze content the same way you analyze funnels. Retention is the real signal of relevance.Show people something they've never seen before. Originality is MrBeast's core advantage. He doesn't just execute well, he starts with ideas audiences haven't encountered. Rodrigo reminds us, “The fight for attention is brutal today.” If your content looks like your competitors', it's already invisible. Massive budgets aren't required to execute original ideas, as MrBeast proved in his early viral videos. Novelty is a priceless strategic asset.Use culture as a creative multiplier. MrBeast often revamps formats by tapping into existing cultural moments (e.g., Squid Game, Willy Wonka). Rodrigo points out, “He can really revamp a format if he adds culture to [it].” B2B strategy doesn't have to reinvent the wheel. Tie your ideas to what your audience already cares about instead of forcing attention from scratch.Quote“ Go deeper on what really, already has the attention of your target audience, instead of starting from scratch. What are they paying attention to already?”Time Stamps[01:03] Meet Rodrigo Fontes, VP of Marketing at QuillBot[02:13] Why MrBeast?[09:07] Why His Content Works[16:58] The Power of Effort and Originality[22:05] Repeatable Formats and Serialized Content[29:20] Lessons from Branded Content and Influencers[42:45] QuillBot's Content Strategy[47:56] Advice for Marketing Leaders[51:12] Final Thoughts and TakeawaysLinksConnect with Rodrigo on LinkedInLearn more about QuillBotAbout Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. In today's episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Head of Production). Remarkable was produced this week by Jess Avellino, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

SEASON: 6 EPISODE: 11Episode Overview:Welcome back to Becoming Preferred, the podcast that arms you with the strategies to stop chasing and start attracting your ideal clients! I'm your host, Michael Vickers, and if you're a business professional or entrepreneur, you know the struggle: you have an incredible service, but cutting through the noise to establish yourself as the trusted authority feels impossible.Today, we are tackling the single most powerful B2B platform: LinkedIn. It's time to stop using your profile as a dusty online resume and start transforming it into a definitive lead generation engine. Our guest and his team have cracked the code on building genuine authority and measurable revenue through a high-conversion LinkedIn strategy. He's here to share the secrets to becoming the preferred provider in your niche.We're diving into everything: from the critical shift your profile must make, to the high-converting framework for direct messaging, and Shay's simple, actionable advice you can implement today.Get ready to take notes, because this episode is how you master the art of B2B LinkedIn. Join me for my conversation with Shay Thieberg!Guest Bio: Shay is the Co-Founder of MAIA Digital - a LinkedIn Marketing Agency. Specializing in LinkedIn marketing, Shay holds a Masters degree in Social Psychology & Decision-Making. Shay is among 30 Global LinkedIn Certified Experts and Faculty members at Reichmann University where he teaches “B2B Marketing for Tech”.Resource Links:Website: https://team-maia.com/Product Link: https://team-maia.com/b2b-linkedin-strategy/Insight Gold Timestamps:03:31 That was a lesson that I learned by myself that I can control my own life and path05:21 My ADHD is my superpower07:43 LinkedIn picked me10:07 So, we're calling it the LinkedIn trifecta11:33 The only thing that I did is post valuable insightful tips, hacks, and content for people to be able to use17:16 I'm calling it T to B: Trust to Business18:43 He wrote the post, I'm riding his wave, but I'm writing a thoughtful comment23:00 I built a program that analyzes your entire LinkedIn analytics24:37 And it's got to be authentic and you've got to be transparent with it25:58 Stop thinking about posting content and start thinking about sharing your thoughts28:58 I'm also a certified psychologist34:36 People want to purchase, they don't want to be sold38:10 The main two mistakes that people actually do...39:21 Try to diversify your content because eventually people buy from people41:17 I'm measuring my LinkedIn success, my ROL (Return On LinkedIn) by the amount of messages that I'm getting in my inbox46:30 The website is team-maia.comConnect Socially:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shay-thieberg/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MAIA.DIGITAL.LINKEDINYouTube:

In this insightful episode, Favour Obasi-ike, MBA, MS breaks down the critical differences and essential overlaps between traditional Google SEO and the emerging field of ChatGPT SEO (optimization for AI search). The core distinction is framed as Websites vs. Conversation. While Google prioritizes structured, keyword-optimized websites, AI models like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini focus on providing direct, conversational answers.Favour Obasi-ike argues that the future of content visibility lies in establishing your website as the central anchor for all content distribution. By consistently linking your website across all platforms (YouTube, LinkedIn, podcasts, etc.), you build the domain authority and citation structure necessary for AI models to trust and cite your content. He emphasizes that AI-driven search is shifting the user experience from "clicking" on a link to "trusting" a direct answer, making the source's authority more critical than ever. The podcast episode concludes with actionable advice on technical SEO, including optimizing for page speed, Core Web Vitals, and formatting content with listicles and tables to be easily digestible by AI.Need to Book An SEO Discovery Call for Advertising or Marketing Services?>> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Book a Complimentary SEO Discovery Call with Favour Obasi-Ike⁠>> Visit Work and PLAY Entertainment website to learn about our digital marketing services>> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Join our exclusive SEO Marketing community⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠>> Read SEO Articles>> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Subscribe to the We Don't PLAY Podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠>> Purchase Flaev Beatz Beats OnlineKey Episode TakeawaysThe Fundamental Difference: Websites vs. ConversationThe core difference is in the format each search system prioritizes. Google SEO is built around ranking individual websites on search result pages (SERPs) for structured keywords. The user's journey involves clicking through to a website.ChatGPT SEO, on the other hand, is built for a conversational AI interface. The goal is to provide the perfect, direct, and trusted answer within the chat window itself, minimizing the need for a click.The New SEO Ecosystem: LLM VisibilityTo achieve LLM Visibility (Large Language Model Visibility), you must understand that search is now split between two major ecosystems.The Google/OpenAI ecosystem includes Google search, ChatGPT (using the Atlas Browser), and the associated platform, YouTube.The Microsoft/Perplexity ecosystem includes the Perplexity AI platform (using the Comet Browser) and the associated Microsoft-owned platform, LinkedIn.Actionable Steps for 2026 SEO StrategyEstablish Your Anchor: Your website must be the central hub for all your content.Distribute Your Authority: Place your website link on every third-party platform (social media, podcast directories, video descriptions).Optimize for Speed: Prioritize Core Web Vitals and page speed for both mobile and desktop to ensure a positive user experience, which Google rewards.Format for AI: Structure your content using tables, listicles, and concise, keyword-rich formatsto make it easy for AI models to extract and cite direct answers.Build Trust, Not Just Clicks: Focus on building long-term trust and authority with search engines through consistent, high-quality, and structured content.Episode Timestamps[00:00] Introduction: Google SEO vs. ChatGPT SEO, Optimization Showdown.[00:30] Defining the core difference: Google focuses on websites, ChatGPT focuses on conversation.[01:33] The connection: ChatGPT Atlas (browser) citing YouTube (owned by Google).[03:52] The goal: Use your website as an anchor for content distribution.[04:02] Understanding LLM Visibility (Large Language Model Visibility).[04:28] The emerging AI browser landscape: ChatGPT Atlas, Perplexity Comet, and the upcoming Google Disco.[05:30] The two major ecosystems: Google/YouTube/ChatGPT vs. Microsoft/LinkedIn/Perplexity.[06:15] The importance of checking your business's citations with "Google Learn About."[06:56] AI's focus on directness and specificity in answers (Siri, Alexa, etc.).[08:00] The shift from "click" to "trust" in AI-driven search results.[09:00] Why a strong website domain authority is crucial for AI citation.[10:00] The concept of "AI-friendly" content and the need for listicles and tables.[11:00] The future of search: AI-driven answers vs. traditional links.[12:00] The importance of structured data and schema for AI.[13:00] The difference between a website and a social media profile.[14:00] The need for a content mix (audio, video, text, image).[15:00] The role of a website in the new SEO ecosystem.[16:00] The power of a website's domain authority.[17:00] The shift from "click" to "trust" in AI-driven search.[18:00] The importance of technical SEO: Page Speed and Core Web Vitals.[19:00] How to build content that is easy to read and digest.[20:00] The value of brand citations and authority.[21:00] The long-term benefit of placing your website everywhere.[22:00] Final call to action: Check if your content is in table and listicle formats.[23:00] The power of tactics, strategy, and timing in SEO.[24:00] Conclusion: Build structure and trust with search engines, as they are "talking to each other."See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this comprehensive session, Favour Obasi-ike, MBA, MS explores the strategic nuances of email marketing. The discussion transcends basic sales tactics, positioning email as a foundational pillar for business documentation, professional credibility, and high-impact communication. Favour emphasizes that while social media platforms often dominate the marketing conversation, email remains a superior channel for conversion and long-term relationship building. The session provides a detailed roadmap for entrepreneurs and developers alike, covering technical infrastructure, audience psychology, and the necessity of intentional engagement.Strategic Insights and Market ComparisonsThe conversation highlights a stark contrast between the ephemeral nature of social media and the enduring impact of email marketing. Favour notes that social media conversion rates typically languish below 1%, whereas search engine optimization (SEO) and email marketing can achieve conversion rates ranging from 16% to over 33%. This discrepancy is attributed to the "currency" of email: the exclusive time and attention granted by the recipient. Unlike social media posts that are quickly buried by algorithms, an email retains its conversion potential long after it is sent, provided it reaches the recipient's inbox through proper technical execution.Need to Book An SEO Discovery Call for Advertising or Marketing Services?>> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Book a Complimentary SEO Discovery Call with Favour Obasi-Ike⁠>> Visit Work and PLAY Entertainment website to learn about our digital marketing services>> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Join our exclusive SEO Marketing community⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠>> Read SEO Articles>> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Subscribe to the We Don't PLAY Podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠>> Purchase Flaev Beatz Beats Online| Marketing Channel | Average Conversion Rate | Primary Advantage || Social Media | < 1% | High initial visibility and brand awareness. || Email Marketing | 16% - 33%+ | Direct connection, longevity, and high intent. || SEO | 16% - 33%+ | Sustainable organic traffic and credibility. |Technical Infrastructure and DeliverabilityA significant portion of the session is dedicated to the technical "hygiene" required to maintain high deliverability. Favour introduces Google Postmaster as an essential tool for monitoring domain health and ensuring that communications are not flagged as spam. The technical setup involves a rigorous configuration of DNS records, including MX, SPF, and DKIM, which serve as the digital credentials for a legitimate sender. Furthermore, the discussion touches upon the physical properties of an email, such as file size and font optimization, which can inadvertently trigger spam filters if not managed correctly.| Technical Component | Purpose | Best Practice || Google Postmaster| Domain Health Monitoring | Regularly check [postmaster.google.com](https://postmaster.google.com). || MX, SPF, DKIM | Authentication & Compliance | Ensure all DNS records are correctly configured. || List Hygiene | Deliverability Maintenance | Clean the list after every campaign to remove bounces. || Email Size| Spam Prevention | Use standard fonts (16px-20px) to keep file sizes low. || Segmentation| Engagement Tracking | Group audiences by behavior or interest for targeted messaging. |Content Strategy and Audience EngagementFavour and his guests, including the developer Ifeanyi, discuss the shift toward more sophisticated, developer-friendly tools like Resend, which allow for scalable, code-driven email templates. The consensus is that modern audiences do not "read" in the traditional sense; instead, they "skim" for value. Consequently, the use of listicles, bullet points, and concise subject lines is paramount.A professional subject line should ideally be limited to three or four words to avoid appearing "junior," while the preview text should be leveraged to provide the necessary context that encourages a click.The session concludes with a call for intentionality in marketing. Favour suggests a "Want vs. Need" framework: use the subject line to address what the audience *wants* (immediate value or curiosity), and use the body of the email to deliver what they *need* (tutorials, case studies, or interactive elements like polls). This approach ensures that the communication is not just seen, but acted upon.Podcast Episode Timestamps[00:00] – Introduction to the role of email in documentation and professional communication.[01:03] – Favour Obasi-ike's background in intellectual property and search engine marketing.[02:35] – Comparative analysis of conversion rates across social media, SEO, and email.[04:50] – Technical requirements for deliverability: Google Postmaster and MX record configuration.[06:16] – Reflections on the "We Don't PLAY™️" podcast and Favour's six-year tenure on Clubhouse.[22:37] – The impact of font selection and email file size on technical deliverability.[23:53] – Strategies for audience segmentation and the importance of reviewing engagement analytics.[24:26] – Managing hard and soft bounces through consistent list hygiene.[28:44] – Guest contribution from Ifeanyi on using "Resend" and React for scalable email infrastructure.[45:20] – Timing strategies: Measuring audience activity windows for optimal email delivery.[46:25] – The psychology of subject lines: Why brevity (3-4 words) signals professional maturity.[47:43] – The "Want vs. Need" framework for content delivery and engagement.[49:36] – Utilizing polls for market research: A case study on Google vs. Perplexity preferences.[52:02] – The efficacy of listicles and skimming-friendly formats in modern digital communication.About Favour Obasi-ikeFavour Obasi-ike is a prominent business consultant and entrepreneur specializing in helping creators and business owners secure their intellectual property through search engine marketing, Pinterest, and podcasting. He is the host of the "We Don't PLAY™️" podcast, a long-running series with over 610+ episodes spanning seven years.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this insightful session, Favour Obasi-ike, MBA, MS, a seasoned marketing expert, delves into the intricacies of launching and sustaining a profitable podcast. This episode is a goldmine for anyone looking to move beyond just creating content and build a podcast that generates both impact and income. Favour breaks down the essential strategies for creating a podcast that stands out and delivers tangible results.This session is a must-listen for aspiring and current podcasters who want to understand the business of podcasting. Favour provides a clear roadmap for building a strong foundation for your podcast, from establishing a web presence to leveraging SEO for discoverability. If you're ready to take your podcast to the next level, this episode is packed with actionable advice and expert insights.Need to Book An SEO Discovery Call for Advertising or Marketing Services?>> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Book a Complimentary SEO Discovery Call with Favour Obasi-Ike⁠>> Visit Work and PLAY Entertainment website to learn about our digital marketing services>> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Join our exclusive SEO Marketing community⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠>> Read SEO Articles>> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Subscribe to the We Don't PLAY Podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠>> Purchase Flaev Beatz Beats OnlineIn this episode, you'll learn:[03:34] The foundational idea behind a profitable podcast: impact.[05:34] Why your podcast needs its own website and domain.[08:00] The importance of email capture for building a direct relationship with your audience.[10:10] How to think of your podcast as a separate entity from your main business.[11:06] The concept of creating and building capacity for your podcast.[14:00] How to create a content bank and repurpose your podcast content.[20:01] The significance of SEO in podcasting and how to optimize your show notes.[30:04] How to use your podcast to build a community and generate leads.[39:15] The power of anchor text and how to use it to drive traffic to your website.[43:21] The importance of choosing the right genre and categories for your podcast.[50:00] How to create a content strategy that aligns with your business goals.[59:01] The value of guesting on other podcasts to expand your reach.[01:05:00] How to use your podcast to build a personal brand and establish yourself as an expert in your niche.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

I preach about the importance of content a lot. In this episode, I break down specific examples of how and why it works. I know content takes time and came seem like you're spinning your wheels at times.However, if you're connected to your target market and you share valuable content, it has a massive ROI overtime. Content is the new currency. Here is exactly why.Need help to up your content game? Check out MSP Camp at: https://campers.msp-camp.com/

PPC Strategies for Small B2B Brands to Beat Big Competitors So many B2B companies and marketing teams waste budget on tactics that don't drive results or support core business goals. Smaller B2B brands often compete against much larger companies while working with less internal bandwidth, tighter budgets, and limited resources. The key being successful lies in their ability to be strategic, efficient, and resourceful despite these obvious constraints. So how can small B2B brands outmaneuver big competitors using PPC and smarter marketing strategies? That's why we're talking to Andy Janaitis (Founder and Chief Strategist, PPC Pitbulls), who shared his experience and PPC strategies for small B2B brands to beat big competitors. During our conversation, Andy discussed the importance of foundational B2B marketing elements like high-converting landing pages, automated email flows, and a well-structured PPC strategy. He highlighted why targeted messaging and measurement are essential to compete more effectively against competitors. Andy also underscored the value of understanding B2B audience pain points, having a well-designed website, and leveraging key metrics such as first-order profitability and customer lifetime growth. He emphasized the importance of transparency and authenticity in B2B marketing strategies and advocated for a data-driven approach that achieves scalable, profitable growth. https://youtu.be/DR6d_dFfnVI Topics discussed in episode: [03:06] The Small Brand Advantage: Why being smaller allows for more targeted messaging that resonates better than broad, big-brand ads. [05:05] Avoid the Testing Trap: Why splitting a small budget across too many creative tests leads to insufficient data and wasted spend. [07:14] Winning the Auction: How the real-time ad auction rewards quality and specificity, allowing you to pay less than big brands for premium placements. [09:50] The Conversion Ecosystem: The critical role of landing pages and automated email flows in nurturing leads who aren’t ready to buy yet. [14:58] 5 Essentials for Ad Readiness: A checklist of what you need (from audience understanding to goal clarity) before launching your first campaign. [21:55] AI in PPC: How AI-driven automation has powered platforms for years and where it is heading next. [25:34] Better Metrics: Why you should look past ROAS and focus on first-order profitability and customer lifetime growth. Companies and links mentioned: Andy Janaitis on LinkedIn  PPC Pitbulls  Transcript Andy Janaitis, Christian Klepp Andy Janaitis  00:00 If you’re sending people to a landing page that’s not built to convert, if it doesn’t have the social proof that gives somebody the trust in your product or your service, you may be able to get folks to your site, but they’re not ultimately going to purchase for you, and that’s just one other component. Something else we see all the time is email flows, so making sure that you have automated welcome flows, that if they don’t purchase the first time they’re on your site, they have a lower value touch point, whether it be downloading a free lead magnet or something like that, that brings them into your ecosystem and allows you to start nurturing the relationship over time. Those are two things that we see all the time, landing pages and email flows that are fundamentals that get overlooked and people say, hey, the ads aren’t working, you know, I gotta, you know, try more creative. I gotta keep tweaking. I gotta change, you know, the different structure that some YouTube Guru told me that I need to be running, when in reality, it’s like, no, there’s some key fundamentals that you’ve got to get right about your business first. And getting those things right is going to have 100 times more impact than tweaking little bits of the creative here and there. Christian Klepp  01:04 So many B2B companies and their marketing teams waste money on marketing that doesn’t match their business goals. They go up against much larger competitors, while also having to contend with limited budgets, resources and bandwidth. So how can smaller B2B brands outsmart their biggest counterparts and win? Welcome to this episode of the B2B Marketers on the Mission podcast, and I’m your host, Christian Klepp, today, I’ll be talking to Andy Janaitis, who will be answering this question. He’s the Founder and Chief Strategist of PPC Pitbulls, a boutique digital marketing agency that helps B2B businesses grow past seven figures through leveraging Google and Meta ads. Tune in to find out more about what the speed to be Marketers Mission is. All right, and off we go. Mr. Andy Janaitis, welcome to the show, sir. Andy Janaitis  01:50 Thanks for having me, Christian. Christian Klepp  01:51 Really enjoyed our pre-interview conversation, Andy. We talked about a lot of things that range from B2B Marketing to family and hobbies and the different cities that we’re living in, and what have you. But I am really looking forward to this conversation, because it’s something that I think a lot of people in the B2B Marketing world can relate to. And if they can’t relate, they should all right, so let’s dive right in, because I think this is going to be a really interesting conversation, right? Andy Janaitis  02:19 Definitely. Christian Klepp  02:20 Okay. So Andy, you’re on a Mission to help scale independent B2B brands with data driven Google and Meta ads. But for this conversation, I’d like to zero in on the topic of how smaller B2B brands can outsmart the bigger competitors by being strategic with PPC. If we’re going to use military terms, it almost sounds like you have to learn how to use Guerrilla warfare instead of conventional war tactics, right? So I’m going to kick-off the conversation with two questions, and I’m happy to repeat them all right? So the first question is, what is it about PPC or Pay Per Click that you wish more people understood? And the second question is, why do you think small brands fail when they try to copy big brand ad strategies? Andy Janaitis  03:06 There’s a lot, a lot there to unpack, and I think, you know, there’s, I think you touched on it there, but there’s a lot of anxiety among small brands. We work with Founders and Marketing Directors of these independent brands, and oftentimes there’s a fear of a Google Ads or Meta ads, because they say, Hey, there’s some big competitors out there in my space that are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a month. And if I’ve got my little budget, if I’m trying to spend $5 or $10,000 a month, how do I have any chance of competing with them? You know, surely they’re going to outbid me on every single keyword, every single ad placement that I could be in, and what gets missed there is that you actually do have a big advantage in that being smaller. Your product probably has a smaller niche than you think, because you’re not distributed to everybody, you’re speaking to a smaller audience, which allows you to be much more targeted in your messaging. So in that way, where you might have some of these bigger brands that are, of course, way out investing, you that investment is being spread across so many different audiences and so many different placements, whereas you have the ability to say, Hey, I’ve got a limited budget. Let me only target, you know, the most likely people to purchase from me, and the people who are, you know, who I’m most likely to resonate with, and then give them a message that really speaks directly to them. So I think that’s the first and foremost thing to remember, is that you can take this, you know, supposedly disadvantage, and really turn it into an advantage when you when you focus in on, you know, who is your smallest, tightest, ideal client, that that you can target and speak to. I think that’s really, really important and gets missed and to your second question around, you know, the big brand tactics. I think a lot of times people see these in Instagram reels, LinkedIn posts that come up with a lot of different strategies that could work well, but are only going to work well on those larger budgets. So one great example of this. A lot of times I see people talking about creative testing and talking about needing we tested across 100 different assets, talk about, you know, let’s use AI so that we have the model in this particular influencer ad. You know, we can change the hair color and the shirt color and all these different combinations and test all these different things. The problem with that is, if you try that with a much smaller budget, you’re necessarily going to split, you know, the budget that many different ways. So say you run 100 different combinations, 100 different messages targets, you’re splitting your budget that many different ways, and you’re not building up enough data about any one of those individual combinations to make a good decision. So I always kind of tell people focus on the fundamentals. First worry about your top level messaging. What is it that really matters most and makes your product different, you know, and your really key differentiators to your to your most ideal audience, forget about, you know, button colors, or, you know, with these smaller budgets, don’t worry about testing. You know, what’s the color of the shirt that the model is wearing kind of thing, you know, you’ll have time to test those things in the future. But, you know, I think people get too caught up in those, those types of practices that, you know, big brands are spending a lot of time and money on and forget about, you know, the fundamentals themselves. Christian Klepp  06:35 Absolutely, absolutely. You brought up some really great points. I like to go back to like, two of them that you mentioned, I think the first one, short of getting too granular or getting too in the weeds, but you brought up something that I thought was really important to discuss further about, like the worry or the concern the Marketers have that people are gonna outbid us for those, for those keyboards, For example, talk us through, if you can, even from a top level perspective, how does a small B2B Company navigate through that? Because it sounds like it can. It can be an exercise that could potentially become very complex. Andy Janaitis  07:14 And the nice thing about this is it’s all automated these days. So, you know, realistically, when you are putting, you know, saying, hey, I want to run an Ad, whether it be on Google or on Meta. What’s happening is a real time auction where they’re saying, Hey, there’s this particular placement or this particular search, in the case of Google, so anybody who could possibly run an Ad on that, we’re going to let them, you know, put their ad forth and how much they’re willing to bid on it, and see, you know, who kind of gets in the top position and gets to show their ad. Now the thing that’s interesting there is it’s not based only on how much you’re about to pay for the ad. It’s also based on the quality of the ad, or how good of a match the ad is for that particular person or that particular search that’s coming in. And that’s where your ad can be more targeted, can be a higher quality ad, because it’s more specific. So you actually are going to be paying a little bit less for that placement than even some of these really big brands that are necessarily speaking a little bit broader language and not as niche down of a message. So that’s one, one big way. The other big thing is, as I mentioned, it’s in real time on every single on every single potential ad placement, or every potential search. So what that means is you probably aren’t going to compete with the big guys across all of the searches they’re running, but you don’t have to, because you may only show up, you know, you may only overlap in 5% of the placement. So where their budgets are going out there to every single potential placement or search that they could show up for, you only need to compete with them in that small, small percentage that is most relevant to your specific audience. Christian Klepp  08:55 Okay, fantastic, fantastic. Okay, second follow up question, and again, got to be careful, because we could potentially go down the deep rabbit hole with this one. But one thing that we all know about PPC is that there’s a lot behind it. And what I mean by that is, it shouldn’t be viewed as this one and done exercise. There’s a there’s a bit of an ecosystem behind it. And what I mean by that is, if somebody goes and sees the ad on Google or Meta and clicks on it, well, that clicks got to redirect people somewhere, right, be that a landing page or a website or whatnot, what’s on? What’s on the co you know, what kind of content are we talking about? What kind of CTA are we talking about? Walk us through that about why, why is it so important for B2B Marketers to understand that PPC is a component in this, this ecosystem? Andy Janaitis  09:50 That’s so, so important, and it’s, it’s important, especially as we talk about, you know, smaller brands, smaller budgets. You know, in that $10,000 to. $20,000 ad spend range. What we find is that, first of all, as you mentioned, it’s a holistic ecosystem. So, yeah, the ads are one part, and you got to make sure that you’ve got your ad copy, you’ve got your placements, you’ve got your you know, your strategy in the ad platforms down. But as you mentioned, if you’re sending people to a landing page that’s not built to convert, if it doesn’t have the social proof that gives somebody the trust in your product or your service. They’re not you may be able to get folks to your site, but they’re not ultimately going to purchase for you. And that’s just one other component. Something else we see all the time is email flows, so making sure that you have automated welcome flows, that if they don’t purchase the first time they’re on your site, they have a lower value touch point, whether it be downloading a free lead magnet or something like that, that brings them into your ecosystem and allows you to start nurturing the relationship over time. Those are two things that we see all the time, landing pages and email flows that are fundamentals that get overlooked. And people say, you know, hey, the ads aren’t working. You know, I gotta, you know, try more creative. I gotta, I gotta keep tweaking. I gotta change. You know, the the different structure that some YouTube Guru told me that I need to be running, when, in reality, it’s like, no, there’s some key fundamentals that you’ve got to get right about your business first. And getting those things right is going to have, you know, 100 times more impact than tweaking little bits of the creative here and there. Christian Klepp  11:26 You brought up one word that I think is worth repeating. It’s nurturing, right? Like, and I think that gets, um, that gets ignored or overlooked a lot in B2B, especially like, when, when the organization’s very sales driven. So it’s all about like, volume, volume, volume, right? Like we gotta, like, I mean, just to use the the old adage of like, you know, gonna hit that phone right, or pound the pavement and just get those numbers up right? But at the end of the day, especially if we’re talking about B2B, not everybody is ready to buy at the first contact. In fact, that would, I would almost go as far as to say, like, 97%, 98% of the time, they’re not, not, they’re not in buying mode, right? They’re probably still in an investigative mode. They’re still looking at what the options are out there. They’re probably doing their own research. That’s how they have landed on those ads. So it’s to your point. It’s so important to like, nurture that at that that lead rather in a non-pushy, non-intrusive way that helps to build that trust, to give them that confidence that this is, in fact, the right company that we should be perhaps having a conversation with, right? Andy Janaitis  12:33 Exactly, yeah, and I think sometimes people spend so much time on their messaging and their differentiators, and then they forget to tell their customers that, you know, they spent all this time working through what exactly it is that made their business better than the competitor. But if you don’t take the time to, you know, set up a welcome email flow it or, you know, build a presence on build an organic presence on Google, on Instagram or Facebook, you’re not necessarily getting that message out and giving people a chance to get to know you and fall in love with your brand. So I think that’s so, so important and often overlooked. Christian Klepp  13:12 Absolutely, absolutely. You brought up some of these already, but talk to us about some of these key pitfalls that Marketing Teams should be avoiding when it comes to PPC, and what should they be doing instead? Andy Janaitis  13:24 So we talked about a few of them. You know, some of the fundamentals that exist outside of the ad ecosystem. But one pitfall that I really want to focus on, that that is really closely tied to the ad ecosystem is measurement. So making sure that once somebody hit your site, you understand where they came from and ultimately what they did so that might be filling out a lead form. That might be purchasing a product, if you’re in kind of the E-commerce space, might be adding a product to their cart. You’ve got to make sure that you’re measuring all those independent events for two purposes, one, passing that data back to a Google or a Meta is the only way that those platforms can optimize and continue to get you better and better results. And two, you need to have that data to be able to report on and understand where your ad dollars are going and whether they’re working or not. That’s how you make the decision of, should I be putting more budget into Google or into Meta or hey, are neither of them working? And I got to try something totally different that’s often overlooked. We see clients coming to us that have spent untold amounts of money, and they’re not really even sure how it worked because they weren’t measuring it in the first place. So they’re just basing it on getting the cheapest clicks possible and not focusing on, you know, really optimizing for conversion? Christian Klepp  14:44 Yeah, no, absolutely. Those are, those are some very important points. In our last conversation, you talked about these five essentials that B2B brands need to have before they run their first ad campaign. Can you talk to us about that? Andy Janaitis  14:58 Yeah, definitely. I. So yeah, I’ll kind of walk through, and I don’t know if we’ll end up on four or six, but we’ll shoot for five here. The number one thing as you’re going through or selling online, obviously, you need to have an understanding of who your audience is and who you’re going to be targeting from that and what comes out of that is having an understanding of what are the main pain points that they have, and making sure that you’re speaking to those on a really well designed website that’s designed for, I say, designed for conversion, but what I mean by that is it helps guide somebody through that buyer’s journey, taking them from the point of just getting to know your brand to understanding what you do, to understanding how you solve their pain points, and then some social proof about why you’re better than others. So a you know, understanding your audience, having a well developed website that speaks to the audience, and importantly, speaks to the real symptoms and pain points that they’re dealing with, and how you can help solve them. Number three, I would say, is measurement. That’s, that’s a big piece that, you know, we just talked about in depth, but making sure you’re understanding once somebody hits the site, what are they, you know, what are they doing? Where are they going? What pages are they viewing? Do they ultimately fill out a lead form? Do they ultimately, you know, add the product to their cart and then leave? You’ve got to be able to measure what’s happening once they hit the site. Beyond that, I would say maybe, maybe item number four will group together a lot of those other fundamentals. So things that even outside of the website, things like a nurture flow and email, a presence on social, these are all so, so important, and even if you’re focused on paid ads running to a website to get a conversion, all of these other things are going to help that process. It’s a holistic marketing process, because we know today that people see you across a number of channels. It’s not that they’re only going to see your ad, come to your website, make a decision and buy. They’re going to, you know, hopefully see your ad later on, maybe see an organic post that you made on your socials. Maybe they bump into you at a trade show or a conference, and ultimately get to your website, make the decision there so making sure that those other fundamentals, like a an email nurture flow or a good organic social present are available, and then number five, and I think this is most important. And what I see people get wrong all the time is, understand your goals. So people will say, hey, I need to run ads. I want to run ads because I want more leads. Ultimately, you know, obviously we can, can run ads, and that could be an outcome. But if you’re not able to say, you know, what type of leads do you want, why are you not getting enough leads today? What’s your capacity? How many leads can you handle? You know, what type of behaviors are you trying to get more of, whether it be leads versus, you know, sales versus, you know, people buying a purchase or even downloading a lead magnet so that we can begin the nurture process. These are all viable, viable directions to go. And if you’re not thinking through specifically for your business, what’s the very specific goal that you that you have, and more importantly, what are the constraints you have? What’s your budget? What how much creative do you have available? Do you have a team on staff that can create more creative or work with your marketing strategy, understanding the goals and the constraints? A lot of people get caught up and just say, Hey, I got to run some ads and go for it. I want more revenue, when, in reality, there’s all these different nuances to it, and you really need to know what your specific goal is. Christian Klepp  18:39 Yeah, no, no, that’s great stuff. So let me just quickly recap for the benefit of the listeners, right? So you were talking about understand who the audience is, which is, which is imperative. I mean, you know, you almost shouldn’t start anything without knowing that, right? The second one was a well developed website, and I’ve got a follow up question for you on that one. Third one is measurement. So metrics like, know what to measure, and we will have a separate question about metrics later on in the conversation. Four is nurture, flow and email and organic and a presence on social. And the last one is understanding your goals, right? Like, what is it you want to achieve with this? Right? So on the topic of websites, when you say, well, developed website, I’m I have this feeling that you’re not referring to it’s got to be this incredibly expensive and complex website. That’s not what you’re talking about, right? Andy Janaitis  19:34 No and oftentimes, the simpler it is, the better it’s going to convert. So I think that’s really important what we think about. And I think the way I think of it is, in the old days, you might have a salesperson who’s going to get in front of a potential lead and then help kind of, you know, work through the objections they might have. So hey, you know, I’m not sure this might be a little too expensive for me. Or, Hey, I’m not sure if you know, you really serve people in my niche. Or if you know you you work with somebody, somebody different. I don’t know that this is a great fit for me. And the salesperson would have all the answers, right? They would say, hey, if this is their objection, this is how we answer that. If this is their objection, this is how we answer that. This is how we tell them about how we solve their problems. In today’s day and age, you may still have some sales people, but your website needs to do a lot of that work itself. So that’s what we need to think through is, what are all the things that a buyer needs to know before they’re ready to make that purchase and make sure that we’re putting that in front of them in a way that’s super easy to understand. A confused buyer is not a buyer. There’s a better way to use that statement. I’m sure you’ve probably heard that somebody, if they find confusion, they’re not going to be ultimately making a purchase with you. So make sure it’s really, really clear what is your product or service, how does it solve the customer’s problem? And hopefully some social proof too, and making sure that there’s some confidence that you’ve solved this problem for other people, like the potential buyer. Christian Klepp  20:57 And when you say social proof, you’re, of course, referring to things like in the form of case studies, testimonials, maybe even reviews on like platforms like Clutch and the like. Andy Janaitis  21:07 Exactly. All of those are great. You know, if you have a partner badge that, hey, you’ve done good work, or you’re certified to do particular work, that could be another one. If you’ve been featured in particular publications, that can be another one. But yeah, ultimately, all of these different ways that help give confidence that you can do the job. Christian Klepp  21:24 Fantastic, fantastic. You kind of scratch the surface a little bit in the beginning of the conversation, but PPC and AI, right? I mean, you kind of, you kind of cannot avoid this topic, right? Because it permeates across the entire marketing spectrum. But you know, from your perspective and in your experience, to what degree do you find AI harmful and helpful when it comes to PPC? Andy Janaitis  21:55 So I would say, on kind of the helpful side, and this is something that’s what’s interesting is we think of AI, you know, in the last, say, three years since chatGPT released, was it three? Five was the first, you know, kind of big milestone, breaking model where people said, Oh my gosh, this is, you know, this can really do a lot of, you know, can sound like a real human kind of thing. But long before that, AI has been implemented in these platforms, in Google and Meta, and for probably the last 10 years, we’ve been moving in the direction of more automation, more AI. So earlier, we talked about that ad auction, where every single time a keyword is searched or a placement pops up on Facebook or Instagram, you have to have a particular bid of how much you’re willing to spend to get your ad there. These days, you’re not putting any of those bids in manually. You’re just telling Meta or Google, hey, here’s the budget I want, and here’s the data coming from my website to let people know if they’re purchasing or filling out a lead form or not. And now Google or Meta, go out there and run with it. You know, go ahead and optimize with the ad assets that I’ve given you and the budget that I’ve given you. Go ahead and put me wherever you need to put me in order to get the most possible, you know, results, goals that that you can and that’s all AI driven. Then it’s been that way for a long time. We’ve been moving in that kind of direction. So that’s on the helpful side. That’s where, you know, AI is really driving, driving success for us. On the hurtful side. You know, you hear a lot of times people talking about, you know, now, especially in Google, when somebody makes a search, they’re getting the information. They’re getting an answer right up front. Or maybe they’re not even going to Google. Maybe they’re in ChatGPT or Perplexity, so, Christian Klepp  23:44 It’s a summary at the top right? Yeah. Andy Janaitis  23:47 Exactly, yeah. So they don’t even need to come to your website. From a PPC perspective, there’s not that click that you can go ahead and bid on and put your ad in front of, and that can be a concern, honestly, from a services and product perspective, I find that to be a little bit less of an issue. It’s definitely more of an issue for publishers. So if you have an information content kind of business that’s really harmful for you right now, because, you know, people are getting that information without ever having to make the click onto your website. But ultimately, if somebody is going to want to hire you for your services or buy one of your products, they still have to click through at some point. They’re not necessarily making that purchase, or they’re definitely not making that purchase out of the Google results summary. That being said, the other kind of big thing, and why I’m not super, super concerned about that development, is that whether it be on chatGPT or on Google, they really haven’t started monetizing yet, and that’s where I think you’re still going to see ads up in that area, we know that you’re going to be seeing ads up there. In fact, chatGPT is already hiring up and staffing up an ad organization, so it’s just going to be one more platform, one more area where you can run ads and get in. Front of your ideal customers. Because ultimately, you know, a subscription model can work to a degree, but you know, these companies, from an economic basis, need to have ads in order to kind of fund the type of growth that they that they need to see over the coming years. Christian Klepp  25:15 Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely, absolutely, all right, previously, like when we talked about this, you mentioned this one thing, right? Kind of sounds like a song, right? Like this one metric that every B2B brand must know before scaling. So what is it? And why do you think B2B brands should have it? Andy Janaitis  25:35 So I’ll maybe take a little bit of a cop out. And they’re a couple different metrics. You know, we, especially on the e-commerce side, we look at four key metrics. One of the people get caught up when they’re thinking about on in the PPC world, a lot of times, people talk about ROAs (Return On Ad Spend) or CPA (Cost Per Acquisition/Action). So ROAs would be the amount of revenue that you’re getting in for every ad dollar your spend return on ad spend and CPA would be cost per action, or essentially, you know, if somebody is looking to get lead forms filled out, how many dollars of ad spend are you putting in for every lead form that you’re getting filled out? And those can be important metrics, but they abstract away a lot of important nuance, and it’s very possible to look good in those metrics and still not make a ton of money. So we have these four key metrics, especially on the e-commerce side, that we focus in on, and it’s things like first order profitability. So yeah, your ROAs may be high, but if it’s a lot of people making repeat purchases, you may still be spending too much money to acquire that that first customer so first order profitability is going to be the first time somebody makes a purchase. Are you profitable? Or are you not? You know that that one individual purchase even before you start to look at customer lifetime growth. Is it profitable for you? Another key metric that we look at is that customer lifetime growth. So okay, perfect. You’ve profitably gotten that first purchase, but are you building enough customer lifetime value so that over time it’s going to pay off what you had to put in to acquire that customer in the first place. Another key one that really applies, whether it be e-commerce or elsewhere, is the percentage of your revenue, the percentage of your leads that are coming from organic channels versus paid channels. So we love to focus on the paid side. We help people find scalable, profitable results in the paid channels, but if you’re too over indexed in those, if you’re getting too much of your revenue or your leads from paid channels, that tells you that you’re probably paying a little bit too much for it. And you need to develop that organic you know, from your your social from people just finding you via regular old Google search, making sure that you’re not over indexed towards the paid channel, if you want to be able to scale that profitably. Christian Klepp  28:06 Okay, okay, well, there’s some really great points, and I’m glad that you pointed that out about like, you know how everybody is very obsessed with ROAs and CPA, but there are actually, in fact, other metrics that they really should be paying more attention to, or that need, that deserve some of that limelight as well. Right? Andy Janaitis  28:23 Exactly. Christian Klepp  28:24 Fantastic. So we get to the point in the conversation, my friend, where we’re talking about actionable tips, and you’ve given us a ton already within these past like, 30 minutes. But just imagine there’s a B2B Marketer out there that’s listening to this conversation between you and I, and there are three to five things that you can tell them. You know, you can take action on this right now, right after listening to this conversation, what would those things be? Andy Janaitis  28:48 Yeah. So first and foremost, we talked about your measurement. So the action there is use GA for Google Analytics. If you don’t have Google Analytics installed on your website already. Make sure you go ahead and get that installed. It’s a free tool. There’s some other paid tools that are better in certain ways. But you know, for my money, as you’re getting started out, Google Analytics is absolutely table stakes. You’ve got to have that installed on your site and set up properly to measure the behavior of what’s what’s happening on your site. If we’re talking PPC, similar to that, is making sure that everything is technically configured correctly, so that when somebody makes executes a behavior, makes a purchase, fills out a lead form, that data is getting back to, you know, either Google or Meta. So those are, you know, kind of the some of the key things that you got to do right out the gate and GA for Google Analytics. It’s a free tool, so there’s no, really no excuse not to have that set up. The other thing that I think is a first step that a lot of folks really got to got to figure out is getting crystal clear on who your customer is, what their main pain point that you can solve is. Is, and then ultimately, what’s your goal for for ads. So those kind of three, three components all tied together a lot of times. You know, we find people that are either, hey, we’re just looking for leads, but they can’t really give a good answer on, you know, who their customers or what type of leads would be a good lead for them. Or, you know, maybe they they’re really tight on who their customer is. And they say, Hey, we just, we just got to run some ads, but understanding kind of where ads fit into overall ecosystem. How are you doing organically? How do you close the leads once you get them you know? How often do people who make that first purchase end up coming back and making an additional purchase? Make sure you understand what you’re actually trying to get out of the ads. I think that’s probably the number one thing, and you can’t do that without the measurement piece that we that we discussed earlier. But I would really, you know, kind of start from a measurement component. Make sure you understand what’s happening when folks at your site, and then, before you spend $1 in paid ads, make sure you understand what you’re trying to get out of those paid ads and what gap in your marketing, you’re trying to solve. Christian Klepp  31:02 Absolutely, and it’s such a dangerous mindset to have that, you know, we just want to quickly do this right, and we just want to, like, generate some quick leads so we can show some numbers. But if you, you know, to your point, and you’ve raised it a couple of times in this conversation, if you don’t do this heavy lifting up front with understanding who your target audience is and understanding what the actual goals of this exercise are, then all of this is gonna go like, down the drain at some point, right? I mean, like, I’ll have to tell you, this is your this is your area of expertise. But if you don’t know what you’re doing with paid ads, that budgets gonna, like, evaporate fairly quickly. Andy Janaitis  31:40 Exactly, yeah. Christian Klepp  31:42 We’re gonna move on to the soapbox question. I’m gonna say I was, I was, I was trying to think about, well, how to describe this, but, yeah, that’s the best description. What is the status quo in your area of expertise that you passionately disagree with, and why? Andy Janaitis  32:02 That’s a great question. I think we talked about some of the individual components earlier. You know, folks kind of listening to Gurus, kind of coming we still to this day, you know, have clients, or prospective clients coming in and say, Hey, I saw this YouTube video that told me I’ve got to do this. And it’s, you know, just bad advice for them kind of thing, you know, where they didn’t really, you know, get that good advice and take it one step further to see how that fits for their specific business. I think that happens all too often. The other big thing that we, we see, especially in marketing in general, I think there’s a lot of suspicion of, you know, marketing, you know, we people are really, really looking for authenticity these days. And I think there’s a fear that, you know, marketing as an industry is all about telling lies or not giving, you know, an authentic answer, trying to trick somebody into buying a product or a service. And a lot of that, you know, it’s kind of our own fault, honestly. You know, there’s a lot of Gurus out there that give the industry a bad name, when in reality, you know, all of this is about you should have a valuable product or a valuable service, and what we’re doing, you know, whether it be via paid ads or organic or you know those email nurture flows is just educating The customer on how your product authentically solves their specific pain points. So I think that’s, you know, something I would really like to kind of dispel that myth that marketing agencies say, you know, are not able to, are all charlatans and not able to give you good, authentic support. You know, we like to kind of think of it almost like when you bring your car to a mechanic, that old trusted mechanic thing, right? You don’t know what’s going on under the hood. You don’t know what that clunking sound is. So you better find a mechanic that you can trust to shoot it to you straight, not sell you something you don’t need. We like to think of ourselves like that in the marketing world, you know, in a world where there’s a lot of suspicion of the practitioners, you know, making sure that you can find somebody who is transparent and that you can trust to tell you the truth, I think that’s, you know, there’s a lot of good people out there and a lot of a lot of good businesses, agencies out there, you know, I’d like to kind of, you know, dispel that myth that there isn’t, you know, a trustworthy marketing agency that can really help you, guide your business to success, and help you find, you know, find the right answers for you, not what’s just profitable for the agency. Christian Klepp  34:33 This is gonna sound so biased coming from me, but yes, I agree with you. There are some good Marketers out there, right? I mean, we have to believe that too, because, you know, not, not all of us are, are out there to, like, just, you know, make some quick profit. In fact, like the way that I work with my clients, I always say up front, honesty and transparency. Andy Janaitis  34:52 Exactly. Christian Klepp  34:53 You know. And every time they asked me for for advice and or what I would do in this situation, I always start. Answer by saying full transparency, right? This is how I would do it, or I wouldn’t recommend you do this right now, because it’s not a good user for your budget, for example, right? And we and we know that, and we know that there are agencies out there that wouldn’t do that, right? They won’t say that, right? They’ll just say, oh, yeah, absolutely, go do it. Okay? But those relationships don’t tend to last very long in my experience. Okay, so here comes the bonus question, and we talked a little bit about this before I hit record. But rumor has it that you started your agency three months before your first child was born. So the question is, what important lesson to that experience teach you, both personally and professionally, like, like, it was almost like there was, there were two things coming into this world at that point in time as a war, right? Andy Janaitis  35:51 Yeah, it’s a great question. And certainly there’s been, you know, a lot that I’ve learned from, you know, both the business and and the parenting journeys, you know, I think kind of the crossover there, you know, we think about, like, the time component, right? You know, there’s only so many hours in the day. One big thing is, it definitely gives you perspective. You know, we always think about, you know, the perspective, hey, family matters the most and kind of what it means to, you know, now I know what’s really important, as opposed to getting worried or bent out of shape about, you know, some of the little things. But I think that really applies to the whole, you know, the holistic person, and, you know, the whole lifestyle, whether it be, you know, how we spend time with family or how we spend time, you know, working on the business and growing the business, it really forces you, because you have a limited time horizon, you know, forces you to kind of really focus in on what’s most important and not waste your time on, you know, either spending time on the things that aren’t going to be impactful or don’t matter so much, and especially not wasting your worry and your anxiety on, you know, things that are going to solve themselves and you really don’t need to be worried about. Christian Klepp  37:04 And just my two cents worth, because we kind of both started our businesses around the same time, but it kind of teaches you to prioritize and manage your time a little bit better. Not that we didn’t know how to manage our time previously, but it’s a different type of time management, right? Like, time management to take care of the family and time management to, like, run the business. Right? Andy Janaitis  37:26 Exactly. Yep. Christian Klepp  37:28 Yeah. No. Fantastic, fantastic. Andy, this has been such a great conversation. I really enjoyed it. Thanks so much for coming on and for sharing your experience and expertise with the listeners. Please. Quick intro to yourself and how folks out there can get in touch with you. Andy Janaitis  37:43 Yeah, so we’re at ppcpitbulls.com at PPC Pitbulls. We’re really focused on helping e-commerce Directors, Marketing Directors, and just small businesses in general, figure out, you know, kind of demystify the world of digital marketing, and go from confused, not knowing where the next dollars are going to come in, to having a really good, stable strategy, and, you know, confidence in, you know, a strategy for profitable growth. So if you want to learn more, come check us out. We’ll actually have a special page, ppcpitbulls.com/mission, and that will be for listeners of this particular podcast. I talked about those four key metrics that we really care about. We’ve got that all put down in kind of a self guide that you can go through. We call it our paid ads reality checklist you can go through step by step. And I’ll show you exactly how to calculate each one of those metrics and how to analyze it on the back end. If that’s too much for you, can always just book a time with me too. I love sitting down with and meeting new small businesses, learning about your niche and you know, talking about where you can go next with your digital marketing. Christian Klepp  38:52 Fantastic, fantastic. So once again, Andy, thanks so much for coming on. Take care, stay safe and talk to you soon. Andy Janaitis  38:59 Talk to you soon. Thanks for having me.

Guy Bauer shares why he stepped away from client work to make his first feature film - and how breaking big projects into small tasks makes the impossible doable.

Are you ready to take your podcast from a passion project to a monetization-based international business advertising/marketing tool? In this comprehensive episode, host Favour Obasi-ike, MBA, MS delivers an in-depth masterclass on leveraging podcast SEO and monetization strategies for international business growth. This session is the final installment in a series focused on helping podcasters and business owners build sustainable, globally-reaching content strategies.Favour explores the critical intersection of podcasting, search engine optimization, and international business development. The episode covers essential topics including multilingual content localization, performance benchmarks, download metrics, and how to position podcasts for passive monetization through advertising networks.Key highlights include real-world success stories from clients who have transformed their podcasts into powerful SEO assets, including a case study of turning 50 podcast episodes into 50 optimized blog posts that now rank on Google's AI-powered search results. Favour also demonstrates how his own podcast appears in Google's featured snippets and AI mode results, providing concrete proof of the strategies discussed.The episode features interactive discussions with community members Juliana, Celeste, and others who share their own experiences with SEO implementation, AI optimization (AIO), and the tangible business results they've achieved. Juliana shares an exciting success story about landing a major client through Google Gemini recommendations, directly attributable to SEO work completed three years prior with FavourThis episode is essential listening for podcasters, content creators, coaches, consultants, and international business owners who want to understand how to build long-term digital assets, increase discoverability across global markets, and create multiple revenue streams through strategic content optimization.Need to Book An SEO Discovery Call for Advertising or Marketing Services?>> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Book a Complimentary SEO Discovery Call with Favour Obasi-Ike⁠>> Visit Work and PLAY Entertainment website to learn about our digital marketing services>> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Join our exclusive SEO Marketing community⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠>> Read SEO Articles>> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Subscribe to the We Don't PLAY Podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠>> Purchase Flaev Beatz Beats OnlineWhat You'll Learn:International SEO Fundamentals: How to optimize your podcast content for multiple languages, regions, and search engines (Google.com, Google.co.uk, and beyond).Monetization Metrics That Matter: Understanding downloads vs. unique listeners, 7-day and 30-day performance benchmarks, and what advertising networks look for.Multilingual Content Strategy: Leveraging localization and translation features to expand your audience across different cultures and languages.Podcast-to-Blog Conversion: The proven method of turning podcast episodes into SEO-optimized blog posts that rank on Google and drive traffic back to your audio content.AI Optimization (AIO): How to position your content to appear in Google's AI mode, featured snippets, and AI-powered recommendation engines like Google Gemini.Real Results: Case studies including a client whose emotional coaching podcast now ranks on Google, and a CPA who landed a major client through Gemini AI recommendations.Long-Term Asset Building: Why SEO is a marathon, not a sprint, and how work done today pays dividends for years to come.Detailed Episode TimestampsIntroduction & Overview (00:00 - 05:55) 00:00 - 00:13: Episode title: "Podcast SEO Monetization for International Businesses". 00:13 - 00:45: Welcome and call to subscribe to We Don't Play Podcast. 00:45 - 01:27: Overview: International business connections through podcasting. 01:27 - 02:31: Performance benchmarks: Downloads vs. unique listeners, measuring success. 02:31 - 03:33: Building sustainable growth and niche dominance. 03:33 - 04:48: Multilingual content and localization strategies. 04:48 - 05:55: International perspective: Moving beyond regional thinking.International SEO Strategy (05:55 - 10:03) 05:55 - 06:58: Analytics insights: Tracking international audience growth. 06:58 - 08:04: Case study introduction: Client success with emotional coaching podcast. 08:04 - 09:09: Turning 50 podcast episodes into 50 SEO-optimized blogs. 09:09 - 10:03: Podcast-to-blog strategy and long-term asset building.Content Conversion & Client Success Stories (10:03 - 15:00) 10:03 - 11:00: Amazon book-to-podcast conversion strategy. 11:00 - 12:00: Passive vs. active content consumption patterns. 12:00 - 13:00: Multi-platform distribution: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube. 13:00 - 14:00: Clubhouse as a content creation and community building platform. 14:00 - 15:00: Real-time engagement and relationship building.Technical SEO Implementation (15:00 - 20:00) 15:00 - 16:00: Search engine algorithms and content discoverability. 16:00 - 17:00: Metadata optimization for podcasts. 17:00 - 18:00: Location-specific SEO strategies. 18:00 - 19:00: Building booking systems and conversion pathways. 19:00 - 20:00: Creating "red carpet" experiences for potential clients.Monetization Strategies (20:00 - 25:00) 20:00 - 21:00: Advertising network requirements and download thresholds. 21:00 - 22:00: Passive income through podcast monetization. 22:00 - 23:00: Building credibility through consistent content. 23:00 - 24:00: Long-term revenue stream development. 24:00 - 25:00: International market opportunities.Community Engagement & Live Discussion (25:00 - 30:00) 25:00 - 26:22: Community building on Clubhouse since 2020. 26:22 - 27:40: Prayer and intentionality in content creation. 27:40 - 28:40: Daily room commitment and audience engagement. 28:40 - 29:19: Juliana's Success Story: Landing a major CPA client through Google Gemini. 29:19 - 30:00: AI Optimization (AIO) and its importance.AI-Powered Search Results (30:00 - 35:00) 30:00 - 31:11: SEO as a long-term investment: Results from work done 3 years ago. 31:11 - 32:30: Live Demonstration: Host's podcast appearing in Google AI mode with timestamp references. 32:30 - 33:50: Dual focus: Local search dominance + global revenue streams. 33:50 - 34:30: International markets and currency considerations (Shopify example). 34:30 - 35:00: Technical factors: IP address, API, LLM, search history.Actionable Strategies & Takeaways (35:00 - 39:07) 35:00 - 35:50: Being intentional about topics of interest. 35:50 - 36:20: Importance of independent research and validation. 36:20 - 37:18: Celeste's Reflection: Community value and 2026 goals. 37:18 - 38:00: Top 3 priorities: Booking system, financial management, business structure. 38:00 - 38:46: Encouragement and resources for implementation. 38:46 - 39:07: Closing remarks and invitation to daily rooms.This episode is perfect for:Podcasters looking to monetize their content.International business owners seeking global visibility.Coaches and consultants building authority online.Content creators wanting to maximize their reach.Marketers interested in AI optimization strategies.Episode Tags/KeywordsPodcast SEO, International Business, Podcast Monetization, Multilingual Content, Content Localization, AI Optimization, AIO, Google Gemini, Featured Snippets, Download Metrics, Passive Income, Content Repurposing, Blog Strategy, Digital Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Global Revenue Streams, Podcast Analytics, Advertising Networks, Authority Building, Long-term Strategy, Clubhouse Marketing, Community Building, Business Growth, Online Visibility, International Markets.Target AudiencePodcasters seeking monetization strategies.International business owners.Digital marketers and SEO professionals.Coaches and consultants.Content creators and influencers.Entrepreneurs building online presence.Small business owners expanding globally.Marketing professionals learning AI optimization.Anyone interested in passive income through content.This episode is part of the We Don't PLAY!™️ Podcast series, hosted by Favour Obasi-Ike, focusing on practical digital marketing strategies for business growth.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Combining a business with a podcast creates a powerful "win-win" scenario for national brands. This episode, Favour Obasi-ike, MBA, MS unpacks how to transform your podcast from a simple communication channel into a strategic, long-term business asset. The core mission is to educate and inform your audience with valuable content that builds authority and keeps them returning. By focusing on foundational SEO, strategic content creation, and data-driven analytics, businesses can create evergreen assets that drive monetization. This approach shifts the focus from fleeting social media metrics to lasting search intent, ensuring your content serves your audience precisely when they need it, paving the way for profitable growth through advertisements, sponsorships, and subscriptions.Host Information & ResourcesReady to apply these strategies to your business? Visit playinc.online or click the link in the show description to schedule a complimentary 30-minute website audit.Favour will personally send you a recording of the audit, showing you what's happening from the outside looking in, and provide actionable next steps.Need to Book An SEO Discovery Call for Advertising or Marketing Services?>> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Book a Complimentary SEO Discovery Call with Favour Obasi-Ike⁠>> Visit Work and PLAY Entertainment website to learn about our digital marketing services>> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Join our exclusive SEO Marketing community⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠>> Read SEO Articles>> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Subscribe to the We Don't PLAY Podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠>> Purchase Flaev Beatz Beats Online--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Key Topics & Timestamps1. [00:00] Introduction: The Power of Podcasting for BusinessesThis session is the third installment in a comprehensive series exploring podcasting strategies for local, regional, national, and international businesses. The central argument is that a podcast is more than just a marketing tool; when paired with a business, it becomes a win-win engine for growth. The fundamental mission of any business podcast is to educate and inform its audience, providing value that fosters loyalty and repeat engagement. However, before a business can effectively monetize its content, it must first establish a solid, discoverable presence within the vast podcasting ecosystem.2. [02:15] Foundational SEO: Is Your Podcast Discoverable?Monetization is impossible if your target audience cannot find your show. The first and most critical step for any business podcaster is to verify that their show is listed and discoverable across the podcast ecosystem. This foundational presence is the bedrock upon which all growth and revenue strategies are built. You can use the following free tools to check your podcast's visibility:• pod.link• ivy.fm• listennotes.comOnce you've confirmed your podcast is registered and accessible, you can begin to implement the core monetization strategies that this discoverability enables.3. [04:30] Three Pillars of Monetization: An OverviewThe world of podcast monetization can be complex and overwhelming. To simplify the process, this episode focuses on three primary methods that form the foundation of a sustainable revenue strategy. By understanding these core pillars, you can choose the path that best aligns with your business goals and audience. The three monetization models are:1. Advertisements2. Sponsorships3. SubscriptionsThe effectiveness of these strategies is often determined by a crucial technical decision made at the very beginning of the podcasting journey: the choice of a hosting platform.4. [06:00] Strategic Decision 1: Choosing Your Hosting PlatformSelecting a podcast host is not merely a technical detail; it is a strategic business decision that directly impacts your ability to generate revenue. It is crucial to choose a platform that is IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) certified, as this is often a prerequisite for receiving ads from major networks. Your hosting platform manages your RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed, which is the technology responsible for distributing your episodes to directories like Apple Podcasts and Spotify. This RSS feed is the gateway to monetization, and it contains a surprisingly powerful and often overlooked setting that directly impacts your national reach: the language selection.5. [08:45] The Underrated National SEO Tactic: Language SelectionSmall technical settings can have an outsized impact on audience reach, and the language selection within your RSS feed is a prime example for national businesses. Correctly setting your podcast's language codec is a powerful and underrated SEO tactic. For a national business operating in the United States, for instance, setting the language to English, United States signals to algorithms that your content is specifically relevant to that national audience. This simple choice places your show "within that bracket in the algorithm," because as the speaker emphasizes, "nation and language go together."6. [12:10] The 2026 Strategy: From Fleeting Reach to Lasting IntentIn a world of short-term social media metrics, the key to long-term success is building durable, evergreen assets. While a social media post can become "obsolete tomorrow," a podcast episode focused on search intent can serve an audience for years to come. The strategic goal for 2026 and beyond is to shift focus from impressions and reach to intent. As illustrated by the "how to tie a tie" analogy, intent-driven content provides a solution at the exact moment a person needs it, creating a powerful and valuable connection that builds trust and authority.7. [15:30] Data-Driven Monetization: Using Analytics to Find OpportunityMonetization should never be based on guesswork. Podcast analytics provide the data necessary to uncover specific, actionable opportunities within your listener base. By analyzing your listener data, a national business can move from broad assumptions to targeted strategies. Your analytics can answer critical questions like:• Which are the top 5 cities listening to your show?• Which states, zip codes, counties, or districts have the most listeners?• What day of the week and time of day generate the most engagement?This data is invaluable. It allows a business to strategically partner with influencers in high-engagement cities, target sponsorships to specific regions, or schedule episode releases for maximum impact, turning insights into income.8. [18:00] Monetization Models In-Depth: Profit vs. AccessibilityThe best monetization model depends on your business's goals, specifically the balance between maximizing audience access and maximizing profit margins. Each of the three primary models offers a different trade-off. While a business can choose any model, they can also be viewed as a strategic progression: using advertisements to build broad awareness, leveraging that audience for targeted sponsorships, and finally converting the most dedicated listeners into high-value subscribers.Advertisements• Accessibility: High• Profit: Low• CPM: ~$10 - $30• Analysis: This model is ideal for building broad brand awareness. While direct profit is lower, the high accessibility generates significant activity and gets your brand name in front of the largest possible audience.Sponsorships• Accessibility: Low• Profit: Moderate• CPM: ~$25 - $50 (with rates around 40−50 being for highly targeted, premium placements)• Analysis: Sponsorships are more targeted and context-driven, focusing on a specific audience or niche. Because the partnership is more direct and relevant to the listener, the profit potential is higher than with general advertisements.Subscriptions• Accessibility: Varies (requires a private offering)• Profit: High potential• Mechanism: This model is typically executed by offering exclusive bonus content through a private RSS feed, which is separate from the public feed that distributes to apps like Apple and Spotify. A subscription can unlock access to a private community, a members-only forum, a swag bag, or exclusive meetups, creating a high-value offering for your most dedicated listeners.9. [24:00] Content in Action: Podcast Formats & SEO ChecklistSuccessful podcasting requires a deliberate approach to both the creative format of your content and the technical SEO that ensures it gets discovered. Mastering these elements will position your podcast for maximum impact and growth.Podcast Formats to Consider: ◦ Solo (Monologue) ◦ Interview ◦ Co-host ◦ Roundtable (three or more people) ◦ Theme / FacelessEssential Podcast SEO Checklist: ◦ Podcast Title ◦ Author Name ◦ Podcast Description ◦ Episode Title ◦ Episode Description ◦ Podcast Art Cover ◦ Episode Art CoverBy optimizing these foundational elements, you ensure that every episode you produce has the best possible chance of reaching its intended audience and contributing to your business's bottom line.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Reality TV isn't just weekend entertainment. It's a blueprint for brand building.That's the lesson of Summer House, Bravo's long-running hit that turns everyday interactions into year-round engagement. In this episode, we break down its marketing lessons with the help of our special guest Kelly Cheng, Chief Marketing Officer at Goldcast.Together, we explore what B2B marketers can learn from playing the long game with their audience, making marketing more human by building in public, and creating a steady stream of content that keeps you top of mind long after the season ends.About our guest, Kelly ChengKelly Cheng is a seasoned marketing executive with over a decade of experience driving growth and leading successful marketing strategies for high-performing technology companies. As the Chief Marketing Officer at Goldcast, she is responsible for spearheading the company's global marketing initiatives, including brand development, demand generation, and digital marketing.Prior to her current role, Kelly served as the VP of Marketing at Goldcast, where she played a pivotal role in the company's successful rebrand and the implementation of a data-driven marketing approach. Before joining Goldcast, she held marketing leadership positions at Wistia and Dynatrace, where she demonstrated her expertise in growth marketing, media optimization, and digital acquisition strategies. Kelly's diverse background also includes experience in media planning and digital marketing at PagerDuty and Havas Media Group.Kelly holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communications from Boston University, where she graduated cum laude and was recognized for her academic excellence.What B2B Companies Can Learn From Summer House:Build long-term relationships with your audience. Reality TV wins through continuity. Keeping familiar faces and building trust season after season. Kelly explains, “The continuity piece is really important. Throughout the nine seasons, there's a lot of OGs that have been around since season one, and you really, really build that rapport with the audience, and people are super invested in what you do next.” In B2B, the same applies. Consistency and ongoing storytelling help audiences feel emotionally connected, not just informed. Your series or campaign shouldn't end when engagement dips. It should evolve, deepen, and reward loyalty.Build in public. Kelly draws a parallel between following a cast across nine seasons and showing your brand's journey transparently. “You're following on for nine years, learning about their development over time... It's kind of like building in public…I could just put up a show and say watch me learn about AI in marketing and watch me win and watch me fail.” B2B marketers can use this approach to humanize their brand: sharing learnings, experiments, and even missteps. The more your audience sees your process, the more invested they become in your success.Capture year-round mindshare through consistent content. Bravo doesn't just rely on one show. They have built an ecosystem that keeps fans engaged across formats and seasons. Kelly notes, “They're just really, really good at turning out content that people want to consume to keep them top of mind… There's an extra 10 months that you have to make sure that you have got air cover so people don't forget about you.” The lesson: don't go dark between campaigns. Extend your reach with follow-up content, micro-clips, events, and spin-offs. Sustained storytelling turns fleeting interest into durable brand awareness.Quote“I think there's a lot of learning in making B2B marketing a bit more human and drawing those learnings from reality TV about building in public. Because at the end of the day, you're selling software to help an individual that will ultimately help an organization.”Time Stamps[00:55] Meet Kelly Cheng, Chief Marketing Officer at Goldcast[01:08] Why Summer House?[07:13] What is Summer House?[17:37] B2B Marketing Takeaways from Summer House[36:43] Goldcast's Approach to Marketing[42:28] Goldcasts' Upcoming Agent Launches[43:29] Advice for CMOs[44:25] Final Thoughts and TakeawaysLinksConnect with Kelly on LinkedInLearn more about GoldcastAbout Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. In today's episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Head of Production). Remarkable was produced this week by Jess Avellino, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

How can industrial leaders use auctions strategically to support long sales cycles and build long-term trust?In this episode of the B2B Marketing Excellence & AI Podcast, host Donna Peterson sits down with Jason Levy, President of The Levy Group, to explore how industrial equipment auctions can become a strategic business tool rather than a last-minute decision.Jason shares real-world examples from the industrial auction and asset recovery space, where timing is unpredictable, sales cycles are long, and trust is everything. Together, Donna and Jason discuss why early planning, accurate valuation, and relationship building are essential for manufacturers, plant managers, and operations leaders looking to reallocate capital, upgrade technology, or reduce risk.This conversation reinforces a core theme of the podcast: companies that invest in relationships today are better prepared to make confident, informed decisions tomorrow.Key Takeaways:Planning early gives leaders more control over timing, price, and outcomesEquipment value is often misunderstood without expert insightAuctions provide fair market value when the process is done correctlyRelationships matter more when decisions involve multiple stakeholdersRegular plant walk-throughs spark better long-term decisionsAction Step for Listeners:Schedule a yearly equipment review with a trusted expert to understand what you use, what you don't, and where hidden value may exist.Episode Time Stamps:00:00 – Introduction: Why relationship building matters in long sales cycles01:20 – Meet Jason Levy: Industrial auctions, asset recovery, and preparation03:20 – Why companies delay decisions on surplus equipment05:10 – Planning reality: why auctions take 90–120 days07:30 – Specialized vs. common equipment and timing expectations09:30 – Setting realistic expectations around equipment value12:10 – Valuation mistakes that lead to bad business decisions14:30 – Trust as the foundation of valuation conversations16:40 – Why surplus equipment is often ignored internally18:40 – Using auctions to unlock capital and reduce risk20:50 – Selling equipment to fund upgrades and growth23:10 – New vs. used equipment misconceptions25:10 – Environmental and workforce impact of reselling equipment27:20 – Auctions as a strategic tool, not a last-minute move29:10 – Final thoughts on trust, timing, and long-term relationships30:29 – Episode close *** Reach out to dpeterson@worldinnovators.comif you'd like help building a marketing strategy that builds relationships and/or AI training for individuals or full teams. *** Visit www.worldinnovators.comfor more resources on building stronger marketing and leadership strategies. *** Subscribe to the B2B Marketing Excellence & AI Podcast for weekly insights into marketing, leadership, and the future of AI.

Favour Obasi-ike, MBA, MS introduces this episode reframes “monetization” as a value exchange, built on the core truth that “there's no conversion that started without a conversation.” It presents a strategic model where financial returns are the natural result of building trust through dialogue. Applying this specifically to regional businesses, the discussion outlines strategic podcasting techniques to improve search engine visibility and drive revenue.The key tactic is the deliberate use of geographic keywords within episode titles, scripts, and author fields to dominate local search results. By treating a podcast as permanent intellectual property rather than just a marketing tool, businesses create a lasting reference point that validates their brand through expert conversations, building consumer trust and market authority.This value-exchange model is powered by converting listener attention into growth through methods like pre-roll ads, affiliate partnerships, and private subscriptions. Furthermore, the speaker advises using analytics to identify high-performing locations, allowing businesses to refine their content and promotional strategies for specific audiences. Ultimately, consistent, helpful audio content serves as the foundational engine for long-term customer loyalty, where monetization is the direct outcome of the deep relationships built through strategic, SEO-focused conversations.Key Takeaways: Actionable Insights• Local First, Regional Second: Even international brands are local to someone. The foundational strategy is to dominate your immediate search radius (5-25 miles) by embedding location-specific keywords—such as city, state, province, or zip code—directly into your podcast titles, spoken content, and show notes. This ensures you are discoverable by the customers actively searching for services in your specific operational areas.• Conversation Before Conversion: The speaker's primary argument is that trust is the essential precursor to any transaction. A podcast's main function should be to initiate meaningful conversations and consistently answer customer questions. This process naturally builds the credibility and trust required to guide a listener toward becoming a loyal customer, making the "sale" a frictionless conclusion to a relationship, not a high-pressure pitch.• Podcast as an Intellectual Property Asset: Your podcast should be treated as a core business asset, on par with your domain name or email list. It functions as a permanent, searchable "place of reference" that validates your expertise and builds long-term equity. As the speaker notes, a successful podcast creates listenership, authorship, and readership—"it's a lot of ship sailing"—that expands into partnerships and affiliate relationships.• Give Them What They Want, Then What They Need: This two-step engagement strategy is crucial for audience growth and retention. The speaker reveals their strategic thinking: "Give them what they need first, right? Let me actually put it this way. Give them what they want and then give them what they need." First, attract new listeners with content that answers what they want (their direct search queries). Then, build loyalty and authority by providing the deeper, more valuable content they truly need.Concluding TransitionWith these foundational principles established, the episode transitions into the specific, tactical SEO strategies that bring this value-driven approach to life.Need to Book An SEO Discovery Call for Advertising or Marketing Services?>> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Book a Complimentary SEO Discovery Call with Favour Obasi-Ike⁠>> Visit Work and PLAY Entertainment website to learn about our digital marketing services>> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Join our exclusive SEO Marketing community⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠>> Read SEO Articles>> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Subscribe to the We Don't PLAY Podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠>> Purchase Flaev Beatz Beats OnlineTimestamped Segments• [00:00:00] Introduction: Why Regional Businesses Need Podcast SEO ◦ Favour outlines the opportunity for regional businesses to build trust, loyalty, and brand awareness through location-focused content.• [00:05:15] The Core Strategy: Hyper-Local Targeting ◦ Details on how to use specific city, state, and province names in episode titles and spoken scripts to attract local search traffic.• [00:09:30] Redefining Monetization: Trust and Conversation ◦ Favour argues that monetization is an outcome of trust, which is built through valuable conversations, not direct sales pitches.• [00:14:00] Tactical Content Planning ◦ Keyword Strategy: How to build content around core business keywords (e.g., "cooking") and then niche down into specifics ("vegan cooking," "pressure cooking"). ◦ FAQ Episodes: The strategy of creating dedicated FAQ episodes for each business location to address unique regional customer questions. ◦ The "Album Drop" Strategy: An explanation of releasing all location-specific FAQ episodes simultaneously to maximize reach and impact.• [00:21:45] Advanced SEO & Platform Tactics ◦ Author Name Optimization: How to structure the podcast's "author" field to include business locations (e.g., "My Restaurant | Seattle | Honolulu | Las Vegas"). ◦ The Power of Voice: Imagine listening to your brand's CEO sending a message directly to you, "documenting their journey with you on live mode" - this tactic creates a permanent "reference point" that builds unparalleled trust.• [00:28:10] The Podcast as a Business Asset ◦ Positioning the podcast as a core piece of intellectual property that builds listenership, authorship, partnerships, and affiliate relationships.• [00:32:00] Monetization Mechanics Explained ◦ A breakdown of ad formats like pre-rolls, mid-rolls, and post-rolls, comparing them to YouTube's ad model. ◦ Discussion on building private, subscription-based podcasts for premium content.• [00:41:00] Live Q&A: Getting Started with Podcasting (with Kelcey) ◦ A new podcaster asks for advice on where to start with her faith-based podcast and monetization.• [00:55:30] Core Digital Assets: Domain & Email List ◦ The speaker emphasizes that your domain and email list are critical assets, using the analogy: "Just like you have an address and a mail box is the same way you have a website and a mailbox."• [01:05:00] Closing Remarks and Call to Action ◦ Favour summarizes the key points and directs listeners to connect for a free audit.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

#322 | Louis Grenier joins Dave for a conversation about what it actually takes to stand out in B2B marketing when everything feels the same. Louis sent Dave 10 surprise gifts to open during the show, and each one sparks a conversation about marketing, career, and life. They talk about the reality of how people decide to buy and why Louis is so focused on timeless fundamentals.Timestamps(00:00) - — Timeless marketing vs the AI hype (05:24) - — The colonoscopy story. (12:44) - — Trojan Horse marketing. Get attention first. Sell later. Stop leading with your product. (17:44) - — Why you can't create demand, only redirect it. (23:24) - — Category creation vs sub-categories. Most startups get this wrong. (26:14) - — Meaning-free brand assets. Why weird mascots and visuals actually work. (33:18) - — How to sell bold ideas internally without asking for permission. (37:08) - — Ads that look like ads fail. Attention is the job. (45:48) - — Triggers vs pain points. How people actually decide to buy. (51:08) - — First principles, repetition, history, and why this stuff still works no matter the tech wave. Join 50,0000 people who get Dave's Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletterLearn more about Exit Five's private marketing community: https://www.exitfive.com/***Brought to you by:Optimizely - A no-code AI platform where autonomous agents execute marketing work across webpages, email, SEO, and campaigns. Get a free, personalized 45-minute AI workshop to help you identify the best AI use cases for your marketing team and map out where agents can save you time at optimizely.com/exitfive. AirOps - The content engineering platform that helps marketers create and maintain high-quality, on-brand content that wins AI search. Go to airops.com/exitfive to start creating content that reflects your expertise, stays true to your brand, and is engineered for performance across human and AI discovery.Visit exitfive.com/retreat to apply for Exit Five's first-ever, in-person Marketing Leadership Retreat, March 18–20, 2026 in Scottsdale, Arizona. Join 100 CMOs and VPs of Marketing from companies like like Zoom, Snowflake, Manychat, Bitly, G2, HP, and more for two days of thinking bigger around a trusted group of peers in marketing. ***Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.Visit hatch.fm to learn more