Podcasts about directive consulting

Sales and marketing teams? Sometimes, they clash like siblings, which tends to hold companies back from hitting their goals. Getting every single seller in the company to have that CEO-level drive? That's a whole other challenge.Is there a way to tackle both of these sales challenges with one simple move? My guest, Garrett Mehrguth, sales and marketing expert and founder of Directive, says yes. He's here to break down how getting sales and marketing on the same page can actually empower individual sellers to think and act like the CEO. Tune in to hear how this alignment can make some serious magic happen.Meet Garrett MehrguthGarrett Mehrguth founded Directive in 2013, which is the largest independent B2B performance marketing agency in the world. Today, Directive boasts a diverse team of more than 130 professionals, located around the world, including the USA, LATAM, Canada, and London, servicing brands like Dropbox, Wiz, AWS, and Gong.He believes true company growth only happens through sales and marketing team collaboration. When both teams ask questions and follow up, they can start thinking outside the box to find leads and close deals.Collaboration FoundationWhat's the first step to get sales and marketing teams working together? Garrett says sellers need to start attending the weekly marketing meetings.Don't just say you need to spend more time cold-calling to meet quota; the meeting may help you learn how to perform better with inbound sales and develop solution-selling skills.Not only do you have to understand your product, but you also have to understand your customer and articulate the product's value to them.Sellers who attend the marketing meeting will be able to bridge the gap between how both teams convey value to leads in their messages.Paid Social vs. Search in the AI WorldGarrett suggests considering paid search as someone in marketing and paid social as someone in sales to understand the difference.He also shares how sales reps tend to believe that paid search ads are better due to their win rates. However, you could probably become the seller of the year by learning how to do more value and solution selling from outbound and paid social methods.Sales & Marketing Account-Based SellingGarrett built his business based on sales and marketing teams using the same account list. Six years ago, with 10,000 accounts to reach, he directed his sales and marketing teams to use account-based selling.He shares why he is so passionate about this sales method and why sellers do themselves a disservice by not being obsessed with the product.“You should know the product better than anyone. The second you become the most obsessed person with the product is the second you get promoted, and the second you start hitting quota.” - Garrett Mehrguth.ResourcesConnect with Garrett on LinkedIn.Learn more about his company at Directive Consulting. Sponsorship OffersThis episode is brought to you in part by Hubspot.With HubSpot sales hubs, your data tools and teams join a single platform to close deals and turn prospects into pipelines. Try it for yourself at hubspot.com/sales.2. This episode is brought to you in part by LinkedIn.Are you tired of prospective clients not

Are you a "profit first" agency?Well, maybe you shouldn't be...What if there was a better way to maximize your profits while putting other metrics first?On this episode, we have Garrett Mehrguth, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Directive Consulting, a leading performance marketing agency. Garrett has a different take on structuring your P&L for every phase of your business.On this episode, you'll learn:The first step to maximizing your profitsHow to structure your P&L depending on your phase of businessThe top performance benchmarks to trackYou can find Garrett at Directive Consulting and on socials:LinkedInhttps://garrettmehrguth.com/If you liked this episode, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts!

Andrew Eagar, Directive Consulting's Director of SEO, talks about agency SEO. A lot of enterprise brands struggle with creating content that is both specific and relevant to their brand at scale. The challenge for brands that lean towards the technical side is finding capable writers who understand the brand enough to represent its ideas effectively in writing. Today, Andrew discusses how to hire a B2B content marketing agency. Show NotesConnect With: Andrew Eagar: Website // LinkedInThe Voices of Search Podcast: Email // LinkedIn // TwitterBenjamin Shapiro: Website // LinkedIn // TwitterSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Andrew Eagar, Directive Consulting's Director of SEO, talks about agency SEO. The level of execution and project management required for enterprise brands greatly differs from what's required for non-enterprise brands. So, if an SEO agency is unable to account for and explain what they're doing to drive SEO results, they're probably not the agency your enterprise brand should be working with. Today, Andrew discusses how to find the best enterprise SEO agency. Show NotesConnect With: Andrew Eagar: Website // LinkedInThe Voices of Search Podcast: Email // LinkedIn // TwitterBenjamin Shapiro: Website // LinkedIn // TwitterSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Andrew Eagar, Directive Consulting's Director of SEO, talks about agency SEO. In the B2B SaaS space, companies have high goals to achieve and the slow approach to SEO just won't cut it. Instead, they need SEO strategies that will ensure their brands show up as much as possible on the first page of Google. Today, Andrew discusses B2B SaaS SEO plans. Show NotesConnect With: Andrew Eagar: Website // LinkedInThe Voices of Search Podcast: Email // LinkedIn // TwitterBenjamin Shapiro: Website // LinkedIn // TwitterSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It's a hot take to say B2B is boring, but when compared to the glitzy nature of B2C, we can see the concern. Unlike the commercials intended for consumers (the ones with the A-List celebrities that are on 100 times a day), B2B marketing is not exactly glamorous by comparison.Fret not, for our latest guest can confirm that B2B does NOT have to be boring! In this episode, we sit down with Tim Davidson, Senior Manager of Digital Marketing at Directive Consulting, for an insightful discussion on content creation in B2B Marketing. A champion of the B2B market, Tim has repeatedly asserted that no matter what you think about B2B, it's the PEOPLE behind the marketing that makes it unique. How do you hire the right people in B2B, and what role does the influencer play in B2B marketing strategies? And more specifically, what role does personal branding play in your career as a whole?Let's get started!MINDSETS: Stick With It! - Authority building doesn't happen in a day. Tim tried and failed three times before gaining a large LinkedIn Following. By sticking with it, he was suddenly exposed to a series of communications that he may have never had if he quit posting on LinkedIn.  Just Post - Simple enough, right? Not really! If you get stuck on releasing content, keep in mind that every post you make is a test of effectiveness. It won't be perfect the first time, and it won't necessarily be original, but it WILL help you find your audience more than radio silence. The Community Aspect - Are you seeking influencers, or are you seeking community? There are plenty of people with influence who have interns making their content, but there are also plenty of businesses that are creating content, educating, and building community. It's the latter that will build the community you need to thrive.  Open Communication - If you're questioning if something is out of your realm, or if a piece of content may be perceived as inappropriate, ask! Open communication produces relevant feedback and offers a very important perspective for your work moving forward.  SKILLSETS: Building a Following - Companies are making the transition to authority building on social media. Even more so, workers seeking executive roles are also taking the “influencer play” into consideration as they build both their corporate and personal brands. Tim predicts that those who work on their brand will succeed in commerce. Post Twice a Day - Algorithms aside, your social media is a tool that needs to be nurtured, and those who stick with posting twice a day are likely to see their social nurturing rewarded. And NEVER discount the benefit of active engagement with comments on any content you post! Long-Term Consistency - Critical thinking, reaction to feedback, and intentionality all play into your success as a content creator. Are you open and willing to change? Are you able to find ideas and connect the dots? You might not know, but sticking to a consistent schedule and setting goals will get you there.  The Big Picture - As an executive, are you in tune with your goals? In the creator landscape, do you understand the importance of non-revenue generating content, and what it means to keep at the top-of-mind of all potential customers? Evaluating the big picture as a corporate leader, especially in the influencer era of marketing, is crucial to aiding the success of all marketing campaigns. TOOLSETS: LinkedIn TikTok Video Production Podcasts Cell Phones Capcut (Video Editing) Apple Notes App Gong RESULTS:Before taking action, Tim found himself watching LinkedIn and TikTok content that took a unique twist on user engagement, leading him to the unique production style that he implements today. From his perspective, being an influencer is not just about authority, it's about building community and keeping consistent. Since assuming his position at Directive, Tim has overseen over $500,000 in new business revenues and over $1 million in the pipeline. As we can all imagine, that doesn't come easy. By focusing on an influencer mindset, Tim has also actively been able to pull in potential customers because of his Tiktok, LinkedIn, and Podcast presence. The benefit? Being noticed by content from enthusiasts and customers alike produces a tremendously positive outcome that, despite being financially intangible, puts Tim lightyears ahead of similar companies who don't put in the effort. A bit more about Tim:Tim Davidson is the Senior Manager of Digital Marketing at Directive Consulting, a performance marketing company designed for the tech industry. In 10 years, Directive has generated over $1 Billion in revenue for its clients, largely due to leaders like Tim championing their teams and the influencers they partner with.Tim is an advocate of personal brand-building — his unique approach has amassed him over 11,000 LinkedIn Followers and 3,200 TikTok followers. Many may recognize Tim for his B2B-focused sketches and his incredibly popular Exotic Fruits video series, where he samples exotic fruits while offering vital information for B2B Marketers. Connect with Tim: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tadavidson41 https://www.tiktok.com/@the_tim_davidson https://www.youtube.com/@Timdavidson Connect with Mike & Gaby @ Proofpoint Marketing: Mike's LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikegrinberg/ Gaby's LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gabriellaisrael/ LinkedIn Company Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/company/proofpoint-marketing-llc Proofpoint YouTube Channel: http://bit.ly/ProofpointonYouTube Proofpoint Marketing Website: www.proofpoint.marketing

It's a hot take to say B2B is boring, but when compared to the glitzy nature of B2C, we can see the concern. Unlike the commercials intended for consumers (the ones with the A-List celebrities that are on 100 times a day), B2B marketing is not exactly glamorous by comparison.Fret not, for our latest guest can confirm that B2B does NOT have to be boring! In this episode, we sit down with Tim Davidson, Senior Manager of Digital Marketing at Directive Consulting, for an insightful discussion on content creation in B2B Marketing. A champion of the B2B market, Tim has repeatedly asserted that no matter what you think about B2B, it's the PEOPLE behind the marketing that makes it unique. How do you hire the right people in B2B, and what role does the influencer play in B2B marketing strategies? And more specifically, what role does personal branding play in your career as a whole?Let's get started!MINDSETS: Stick With It! - Authority building doesn't happen in a day. Tim tried and failed three times before gaining a large LinkedIn Following. By sticking with it, he was suddenly exposed to a series of communications that he may have never had if he quit posting on LinkedIn.  Just Post - Simple enough, right? Not really! If you get stuck on releasing content, keep in mind that every post you make is a test of effectiveness. It won't be perfect the first time, and it won't necessarily be original, but it WILL help you find your audience more than radio silence. The Community Aspect - Are you seeking influencers, or are you seeking community? There are plenty of people with influence who have interns making their content, but there are also plenty of businesses that are creating content, educating, and building community. It's the latter that will build the community you need to thrive.  Open Communication - If you're questioning if something is out of your realm, or if a piece of content may be perceived as inappropriate, ask! Open communication produces relevant feedback and offers a very important perspective for your work moving forward.  SKILLSETS: Building a Following - Companies are making the transition to authority building on social media. Even more so, workers seeking executive roles are also taking the “influencer play” into consideration as they build both their corporate and personal brands. Tim predicts that those who work on their brand will succeed in commerce. Post Twice a Day - Algorithms aside, your social media is a tool that needs to be nurtured, and those who stick with posting twice a day are likely to see their social nurturing rewarded. And NEVER discount the benefit of active engagement with comments on any content you post! Long-Term Consistency - Critical thinking, reaction to feedback, and intentionality all play into your success as a content creator. Are you open and willing to change? Are you able to find ideas and connect the dots? You might not know, but sticking to a consistent schedule and setting goals will get you there.  The Big Picture - As an executive, are you in tune with your goals? In the creator landscape, do you understand the importance of non-revenue generating content, and what it means to keep at the top-of-mind of all potential customers? Evaluating the big picture as a corporate leader, especially in the influencer era of marketing, is crucial to aiding the success of all marketing campaigns. TOOLSETS: LinkedIn TikTok Video Production Podcasts Cell Phones Capcut (Video Editing) Apple Notes App Gong RESULTS:Before taking action, Tim found himself watching LinkedIn and TikTok content that took a unique twist on user engagement, leading him to the unique production style that he implements today. From his perspective, being an influencer is not just about authority, it's about building community and keeping consistent. Since assuming his position at Directive, Tim has overseen over $500,000 in new business revenues and over $1 million in the pipeline. As we can all imagine, that doesn't come easy. By focusing on an influencer mindset, Tim has also actively been able to pull in potential customers because of his Tiktok, LinkedIn, and Podcast presence. The benefit? Being noticed by content from enthusiasts and customers alike produces a tremendously positive outcome that, despite being financially intangible, puts Tim lightyears ahead of similar companies who don't put in the effort. A bit more about Tim:Tim Davidson is the Senior Manager of Digital Marketing at Directive Consulting, a performance marketing company designed for the tech industry. In 10 years, Directive has generated over $1 Billion in revenue for its clients, largely due to leaders like Tim championing their teams and the influencers they partner with.Tim is an advocate of personal brand-building — his unique approach has amassed him over 11,000 LinkedIn Followers and 3,200 TikTok followers. Many may recognize Tim for his B2B-focused sketches and his incredibly popular Exotic Fruits video series, where he samples exotic fruits while offering vital information for B2B Marketers. Connect with Tim: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tadavidson41 https://www.tiktok.com/@the_tim_davidson https://www.youtube.com/@Timdavidson Connect with Mike & Gaby @ Proofpoint Marketing: Mike's LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikegrinberg/ Gaby's LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gabriellaisrael/ LinkedIn Company Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/company/proofpoint-marketing-llc Proofpoint YouTube Channel: http://bit.ly/ProofpointonYouTube Proofpoint Marketing Website: www.proofpoint.marketing

Looking to take your enterprise level software company to the next level? Or are you just starting out in business and seeking valuable insights to propel you forward? Tune in to this episode of Remote Start Podcast with Jim Doyon, as he chats with Garrett Mehrguth, the President and CEO of Directive. Founded in 2014, Directive Consulting has bootstrapped its way to becoming a leading customer generation agency for software companies. Garrett will share how Directive helps marketers exceed their lead opportunity deal and revenue goals through customer generation. Don't miss out on this informative episode packed with actionable strategies to help you achieve your business goals.Learn more about Garrett Mehrguth at:Website: https://directiveconsulting.com/Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/garrettmehrguth/Personal Website: https://garrettmehrguth.com/#/home/0/Twitter: https://twitter.com/gmehrguthLearn more about Remote Start Podcast at: https://www.remotestartpodcast.com/episodes/

Drew Smith, Director of Growth, Revenue Operations at Directive Consulting, shares three approaches for marketing leadership to understand revenue, become more data literate, and align with their operations teams.   For more great content like this visit https://www.calibermind.com/

Andrew Eagar, Directive Consulting's Director of SEO, talks about agency SEO. A lot of enterprise brands struggle with creating content that is both specific and relevant to their brand at scale. The challenge for brands that lean towards the technical side is finding capable writers who understand the brand enough to represent its ideas effectively in writing. Today, Andrew discusses how to hire a B2B content marketing agency. Show NotesConnect With: Andrew Eagar: Website // LinkedInThe Voices of Search Podcast: Email // LinkedIn // TwitterBenjamin Shapiro: Website // LinkedIn // TwitterSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Andrew Eager, Directive Consulting's Director of SEO, talks about agency SEO. The level of execution and project management required for enterprise brands greatly differs from what's required for non-enterprise brands. So, if an SEO agency is unable to account for and explain what they're doing to drive SEO results, they're probably not the agency your enterprise brand should be working with. Today, Andrew discusses how to find the best enterprise SEO agency. Show NotesConnect With: Andrew Eager: Website // LinkedInThe Voices of Search Podcast: Email // LinkedIn // TwitterBenjamin Shapiro: Website // LinkedIn // TwitterSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Andrew Eager, Directive Consulting's Director of SEO, talks about agency SEO. In the B2B SaaS space, companies have high goals to achieve and the slow approach to SEO just won't cut it. Instead, they need SEO strategies that will ensure their brands show up as much as possible on the first page of Google. Today, Andrew discusses B2B SaaS SEO plans. Show NotesConnect With: Andrew Eager: Website // LinkedInThe Voices of Search Podcast: Email // LinkedIn // TwitterBenjamin Shapiro: Website // LinkedIn // TwitterSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

“Methodical hustle”. Every so often you come across an origin story that just blows you away. Today's guests have that story. In just six short years, Garrett Mehrguth went from selling social media calendars on Fiverr to being the Co-founder and CEO of Directive Consulting, a top-rated and award-winning Customer Generation agency. Garrett joins us, along with Directive's Senior Director of Growth, Drew Choco to talk about their journey.(23:28) “So I'm not really hustling in the sense of like how most people hustle so much as I'm driving towards a vision and okay with being bad at stuff. So I'm constantly trying to take on new initiatives that if you were just to sit down, put it on paper and say, “Hey, what's your greatest opportunity for the business? And like, if you could do anything, what would you do?” And I kind of just live in that world.”Garrett and Drew discuss their journey over the past six years, share their experience with explosive growth, talk about the importance of intentional capital allocation, R&D and placing value on people and culture.Main Takeaways“Learn, engage, and create.” This is Garrett's mantra and quite possibly, his superpower. According to Garrett in action this means, learn something new every day, engage with it by practicing it, integrating it and executing it and with that, he creates more value for himself, his company and his customers.Intentional capital allocation “You show me where a company spends its money, and I will show you what it is good at.” Directive learned that a high-level awareness of where it allocates its capital was imperative to the longevity and success of the company. For them, this meant heavy investment in people and culture.Get better at business and marketing will take care of itself. “If you want to get better at marketing, get better at business.” To Garrett this is just common sense. If you get better at all the parts of your business (i.e., product, sales, finance), you can't help but get better at marketing.Key QuotesGarrett 08:11 “I always just asked myself, what do I enjoy? What am I good at? And then what'll someone pay me for, right? And so when you're 21 years old, I like solving problem. I'm good at solving problems. People think I know the internet because I'm younger than them and they'll pay me to help 'em with digital. I should go learn the internet. And so we, I kind of just like read as much as I could on digital marketing and I'm a pretty avid reader. I really enjoy learning. And so I kind of just came up with little mantra were called learn, engage, create. And the idea was if I could learn something new every day, engage with it, by practicing it, integrating it, executing it that I could create more value for myself, my company and my customers.”Garrett 17:55 (Intentional Capital Allocation) “You show me where a company spends its money and I'll show you what it's good at. And I think what Directive learn and does well now is it has a very high, high level awareness of where we allocate our capital, why we're doing so, and then what we want to accomplish and how that fits our vision.” Garrett 33:23  What if you're really honest with yourself, what you realize is the clients that are successful have very little to do with you. that like you get a great client with a great culture, a great product, a great marketplace. You really can't screw it up and you look, look really smart because you help 'em with this thing that you're good at. You help 'em with that thing. And so I think the key, if you want to get better at marketing is to get better at business, to get better at product, to get better at sales, to get better at finance marketing should just be the application of other spheres of influences information.Bio:Garrett Mehrguth is the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Directive, the award-winning Customer Generation agency for SaaS. Andrew Choco began his career at Directive as a paid social specialist running campaign promotions and advertising for multiple clients and now serves as Directive's Senior Director of Growth.---Marketing Trends podcast is brought to you by Salesforce. Discover marketing built on the world's number one CRM: Salesforce. Put your customer at the center of every interaction. Automate engagement with each customer. And build your marketing strategy around the entire customer journey. Salesforce. We bring marketing and engagement together. Learn more at salesforce.com/marketing. 

Garrett Mehrguth, CEO of Directive, joins Ledge to share his expertise in marketing and his insights as a successful business leader. Directive Consulting has been providing customer generation for software companies for the last eight years.Mehrguth shares that account-based marketing isn't the right way to go. Citing limited market potential and disjointed KPIs, the spend on impressions and MQL doesn't translate into deals. He thinks the focus should be geared more towards sales qualified leads. He also shares that targeting users is more effective than focusing on decision-makers. So many marketers have made the mistake of targeting the C-level, who don't necessarily understand the full value of your product. Mehrguth goes on to discuss his approach to personal development that's also applicable to organizations. Be humble enough to realize you aren't good at something, strive to learn it, then develop consistent actions to practice and improve. Mehrguth doesn't target perfection but expertise, which allows him to take on more skills to develop and learn. Mehrguth also shares that as a business leader, we should hire for talent over experience. Being able to communicate and share forward-looking ideas and a path to execution will attract great talent — people who want to execute and make a difference to your vision. Business leaders looking to up their game in developing themselves and their organizations will love this discussion. They'll find ways to generate more customer demand through Mehrguth's approach.Website - directiveconsulting.comCommunity - https://directiveconsulting.com/join-society/This episode is brought to you by Content Allies.Content Allies helps B2B tech companies launch revenue-generating podcasts. Build relationships that drive revenue through podcast networking. We schedule interviews with your ideal prospects and strategic partners so that you can build relationships & grow your business. You show up and have conversations, we handle everything else. Learn more at ContentAllies.com

Today we're going to discuss thinking about SEO strategy from a general marketing strategy perspective. Joining us is Garrett Mehrguth, the CEO of Directive Consulting, which is a B2B and enterprise search marketing agency that companies trust to scale their business. In part 3 of our conversation, we're going to talk about determining whether you have the right search marketing tech stack. Show NotesConnect With:Garrett Mehrguth: Website // LinkedInThe Voices of Search Podcast: Email // LinkedIn // TwitterBenjamin Shapiro: Website // LinkedIn // Twitter

Today we're going to discuss thinking about SEO strategy from a general marketing strategy perspective. Joining us is Garrett Mehrguth, the CEO of Directive Consulting, which is a B2B and enterprise search marketing agency that companies trust to scale their business. In part 2 of our conversation, we're going to talk about mastering the "WHO" with those SEO campaigns. Show NotesConnect With:Garrett Mehrguth: Website // LinkedInThe Voices of Search Podcast: Email // LinkedIn // TwitterBenjamin Shapiro: Website // LinkedIn // Twitter

Today we're going to discuss thinking about SEO strategy from a general marketing strategy perspective. Joining us is Garrett Mehrguth, the CEO of Directive Consulting, which is a B2B and enterprise search marketing agency that companies trust to scale their business. In part 1 of our conversation, we are going to talk about determining your total addressable market for SEO. Show NotesConnect With:Garrett Mehrguth: Website // LinkedInThe Voices of Search Podcast: Email // LinkedIn // TwitterBenjamin Shapiro: Website // LinkedIn // Twitter

With Jesse Seilhan the managing director of Directive Consulting. We talk about building your knowledge for PPC marketing, how to grow your team, how to niche down and what it takes to bring in some incredible clients and GROW. An amazing AgencyBud session. Enjoy and don’t forget to hit subscribe at http://blog.agencybud.com

We're told terrifying things: that people have the attention span of a goldfish, that Millennials don't read, that we only have 8 seconds to make our point. No wonder we're confused about how to communicate through copy. However, the words we use to establish our value and persuade visitors to take action can be tested. Data to the rescue! Olivia Ross (@ortdesign) is the Director of Conversion Rate Optimization at Directive Consulting. She is a designer turned conversion optimizer who believes that copy is at the core of any great customer journey. How does Olivia increase conversion rates and ensure landing pages are optimized to succeed? Listen in. Resources and links discussed: Follow Olivia on Twitter @ortdesign Learn more about Directive Consulting Follow Brian on Twitter @bmassey  Learn more about Conversion Sciences

Today we're going to discuss thinking about SEO strategy from a general marketing strategy perspective. Joining us is Garrett Mehrguth, the CEO of Directive Consulting, which is a B2B and enterprise search marketing agency that companies trust to scale their business. In part 3 of our conversation, we're going to talk about determining whether you have the right search marketing tech stack. Show NotesConnect With: Garrett Mehrguth: Website // LinkedInThe Voices of Search Podcast: Email // LinkedIn // TwitterBenjamin Shapiro: Website // LinkedIn // Twitter

Today we're going to discuss thinking about SEO strategy from a general marketing strategy perspective. Joining us is Garrett Mehrguth, the CEO of Directive Consulting, which is a B2B and enterprise search marketing agency that companies trust to scale their business. In part 2 of our conversation, we're going to talk about mastering the "WHO" with those SEO campaigns. Show NotesConnect With: Garrett Mehrguth: Website // LinkedInThe Voices of Search Podcast: Email // LinkedIn // TwitterBenjamin Shapiro: Website // LinkedIn // Twitter

Today we're going to discuss thinking about SEO strategy from a general marketing strategy perspective. Joining us is Garrett Mehrguth, the CEO of Directive Consulting, which is a B2B and enterprise search marketing agency that companies trust to scale their business. In part 1 of our conversation, we are going to talk about determining your total addressable market for SEO. Show NotesConnect With: Garrett Mehrguth: Website // LinkedInThe Voices of Search Podcast: Email // LinkedIn // TwitterBenjamin Shapiro: Website // LinkedIn // Twitter

What do high growth companies with savvy marketing teams do to drive traffic growth? This week on The Inbound Success Podcast, Directive Consulting founder Garrett Mehrguth shares what his team does to help companies like Allstate and Cisco boost traffic even after all of the low hanging marketing and SEO fruit has been picked. TL;DR, It all starts with product marketing, SEO and a focus on bottom of the funnel, high intent leads. Garrett shares the specific strategies his team at Directive uses to get results for their clients, as well as his advice for startups that want to do it right from the beginning. Highlights from my conversation with Garrett include: Garrett says that everything Directive does is based on the belief that your brand is more important than your website. What that means is that when someone with high purchase intent is searching online for a solution, you need to make sure you're discoverable. He says that sometimes your marketing metrics have an inverse correlation with your financial metrics, meaning that if you focus on the top of the funnel, you might generate a lot of traffic, but you won't get as many high intent leads as you would if you focus on the bottom of the funnel (which generally results in less traffic). Garrett's advice is to track CAC (cost to acquire a customer) and LTV (lifetime value) and use that to determine whether you are paying a reasonable cost per demo, opportunity or proposal -- NOT cost per lead. For many companies, the best place to focus their initial marketing efforts is on ranking on review sites. Done well, this can allow a lesser known, newer market entrant to unseat an incumbent player very quickly. You can pay review sites to conduct review generation campaigns on your behalf, and Garrett says it is absolutely worth it to spend that money. Another strategy that works well is to use LinkedIn ads for awareness raising. Garrett says that leads that come through LinkedIn are not high intent, so you shouldn't spend a lot on a cost per impression basis. Instead, he and his team "trick" LinkedIn by advertising on a cost per click basis. Not many people click the ads, so LinkedIn accelerates their placement in the feed and they get seen by a lot of people. In terms of content, Garrett believes the traditional approach to pillar content and topic clusters promoted by HubSpot is wrong. Instead, he uses that same content and creates product pages as pillars, which he then uses to link to from blogs that address bottom of the funnel topics. Garrett builds authority for product pages by guest blogging (where he can control anchor text and backlinks) and doing podcast guest interviews. He says that where its tough to get your subject matter experts to create written content, you should invest more heavily in podcast guest interviews. Garrett's advice for companies right now is to double down on online advertising. Because so many companies have shut down or pulled their online ads back, prices are down and it is easier to get found. Resources from this episode: Check out the Directive Consulting website Follow Garrett on Twitter at @gmehrguth Connect with Garrett on LinkedIn Email garrett at gmehrguth[at]directiveconsulting[dot]com Listen to the podcast to get specific strategies for combining product marketing and SEO to generate more qualified bottom of the funnel leads.   Transcript Kathleen Booth (Host): Welcome back to the Inbound Success Podcast. I'm your host Kathleen Booth. And this week my guest is Garrett Mehrguth from Directive. Welcome Garrett. Garrett Mehrguth (Guest): Thanks for having me. Glad to be here. And yeah, excited to chat about search. Garrett and Kathleen recording this episode. Kathleen: Yeah, I love, I love getting into nerdy marketing topics, so I'm really excited about this. Before we dive in though, can you please tell my audience a little bit about yourself and your story and also Directive? About Garrett and Directive Garrett: I'd love to. I did my degree in three years in economics and I wanted to do my masters in a year. I was playing soccer. I thought I was going to go pro, be like a pro soccer player. I hurt my knee, and that kind of reset a lot of that stuff. And so I said, "Hey, you know, maybe I could try this consulting thing." I applied to Boston, Bain and McKinsey. I'm not sure about Deloitte, but kind of the big ones and instantly got this auto-response. In the application process, I knew I was doomed because you go to their portal and the university I attended was not one of the options. I was like, "They do not tell you that before they take your money." So from there I was like, "You know what? I'll just build my own agency and they'll have to acquire me." I don't know why. That's how I thought, and was just like where I went. I had no tangible skills, so there was that problem. I have this belief system that perception is reality and I knew that people perceived I knew the internet and so I figured I should learn it. So I started to try to learn how to do WordPress sites. And then I got this little shwarma shop in East LA. I was on my little moped. I had a 78 Peugeot 103. I was going around town on that thing and I essentially got the client. It was really, really small. I don't even remember because I was so bad at this point that I didn't put the amount in the contract. I still have the contract, but I don't remember the amount. It's probably like 200 bucks. I did that for 30 days, came back on the 30th day to get the check. He said come back tomorrow. The whole place was boarded up. So that was our first client. I was selling $5 social media calendars on Fiverr and I was just hustling and doing all this stuff. And then I got a hookah shop and the hookah shop asked me to build them a website and then I did that. It was okay. Looking back at, it wasn't the best website. And then he wanted to rank number one for hookah shop and all that stuff. I said, "All right, I'll try." I've never done it before. So I went online, read everything on Search Engine Land, Moz, WordStream, Search Engine Journal, teaching myself kind of SEO and PPC. I ranked him number one and all of a sudden you got all these people in a shop and it was completely dead before. I was like, "This is kind of cool." So, one of my best friends who's my roommate said, "Hey, don't go to law school. You know, come join this company with me. We'll be millionaires" or whatever he said. I was paying him $3 an hour at this point. So we kind of just started from there and now we get to work with really large enterprise accounts and mid market companies, mostly SaaS, doing SEO and PPC still. So pretty fun. Kathleen: Great. Now one of the things that I think is interesting about the perspective that you bring -- and we've had lots of people on the podcast talk about SEO and PPC,  I was interested to chat with you because you do have these bigger clients and I think there are pros and cons to that, right? The pro -- having owned an agency myself -- the pro of having big clients is they've got big budgets. They've got teams to support getting work done. They are generally very savvy. One of the -- I don't know if I would call it a con -- but the tough thing about accounts like that is very often, they've already done all of the basic things that they should be doing. They're sharp, they know their stuff, they have their act together, so being able to really show results and traction requires taking things to a much more advanced level. As I think you were saying when we first started talking, you've already squeezed most of the juice out of that orange. So how are you finding those opportunities for the last few drops? You had some interesting thoughts on that and I'm really interested to hear what you have to say and to get into that technical level of detail with you. What do top SEOs do to prevent traffic from plateauing? Garrett: Let's do it Kathleen. So first and foremost, it's such a blessing because I got lucky. Everyone gets lucky, I think, in business to get somewhere. I had no capital. I started this thing with 20 bucks. We have no debt. We have no anything, right? I think we got Allstate when I was like 23 to 25 years old. And we've had them ever since. Right? So there's little moments like that. Or, we did the global SEO for Cisco when I was 26, I think. So like, you get these little moments and they really help you. And obviously you have to deliver, right? And then you can scale that. But one of the things that I think allowed us to be successful regardless of who we were working with, whether it was a Series A startup who was trying to go to the moon, or a mid-market SaaS firm that was trying to go after the market leader, or the market leader, right? You have these kind of three groups to work with and they all need to slow down and reframe how they approach the idea of search. And that's what I think Directive is really special at, is taking a moment to say, how does your customer discover the products or services you sell, and how can we rethink our approach? So here's what we do. We have two kinds of fundamental beliefs. First and foremost, if you can eat enough humility as an SEO and say that my brand is more important than my website, you become an incredibly powerful and creative marketer. So our first fundamental belief at Directive is your brand is more important than your website. What that means tactically is that when someone searches at the bottom of the funnel and has the strongest purchase intent, you need to make sure you're discoverable. Now, the old adage was, you need your website to rank, but see something has changed in consumer behavior. I call this the Yelp and the Amazon effect. See, consumers got trained at the transactional level that even before we spend $3 on a lollipop or on a breakfast burrito, we're going to look on Yelp to see the reviews. Well, guess what? Before we buy quarter million dollar software, we definitely look at reviews. See, Google caught onto this and they started to change the types of websites that they were showing when there was bottom of funnel purchase intent for SaaS. That's G2, Capterra, Software Advice, PC Mag. It goes down for days and hours, right? There's all these review sites. Well if you search your primary keyword, let's say "ERP software", and you layer it with "top", "best" or "reviews" or "comparisons", you have purchase intent. Also your most expensive cost per click and Google ads, all the sites are review sites. That's because Microsoft Dynamics has no SEO. That's not because Oracle has no authority or content. That's because Google is choosing to show these types of websites. So if we take that fundamental approach that our brand is more important than our website, we can be hyper successful. Kathleen: Yeah, that makes sense. And I've noticed that, too, with reviews. Over the years I've spoken with some other review sites that you mentioned. They've pitched me when I've been at different places and it's really fascinating to just do those searches. And you're right, if you do it -- if you search those terms -- those are the sites that will absolutely come up first. So when you consider that you need to appear on review sites, how do you go about tackling that? Because it's not as simple as just claiming your presence and setting up your profile. You can still get lost in the sea of companies that have done that. How to leverage review sites to drive traffic Garrett: The first step we want to do is we want to take another fundamental hypothesis and understand it, which is that sometimes your marketing metrics have an inverse correlation to your financial metrics. And it becomes very, very, very dangerous for SaaS firms. So here's what I mean. Most agencies have this belief that in order to generate more MQLs for the demand gen team at a SaaS organization, they need to essentially increase the amount of keywords they rank for. They need to start going to top of funnel and they need to generate more leads. So what happens when organizations pursue what I call a "breadth approach" is they start to experience what's called in economics diminishing marginal returns. In other words, their marketing KPIs improve. So let's say you're trying to go for "top ERP software", but you just have a Google ad running. Instead of saying, "How can I show up more often when there's purchase intent?" and going with depth -- and so essentially expanding search impression share in Google ads for your primary terms that have purchase intent and then ranking on individual review sites through their cost per click models, and then evaluating all of that at a cost per demo level, not cost per lead level, and then doing financial allocation, right? That's what we do here. We focus first on demand capturing before pivoting to demand generation. So we go to the bottom of the funnel and say, "Cool. When there's purchase intent, we're going to show up as often as possible and as many places as possible before we try to show up for more terms." So this allows us to experience increasing marginal returns for our clients in the first two quarters and get buy-in. See, what most people do, is they start to go with their Gartner report and they start to leverage that, which isn't an intrinsically a bad idea. But when they start to essentially go after informational intent and go to the top of funnel, they start to lower their cost per lead, they start to increase conversion rate and they think they're winning. But if you're a savvy growth operator in SaaS, you know, like for example, I convert at 60% on lead gen ads on LinkedIn. Okay, target market giving me their information -- 60%. I get that all the way down to $17 a week. Yet that is 17 X more expensive than buying that same lead from ZoomInfo, and I have no greater purchase intent than someone essentially downloading an asset or me buying them from ZoomInfo. So now I'm paying 17 X on a cost per lead. And so that's the diminishing part where your marketing numbers look better, but your revenue doesn't increase because you have horrible CAC-LTV on top of funnel versus bottom of funnel. And so that's kind of the other approach, is putting everything through an LTV-CAC model and then focusing on bottom of funnel first. Start at the bottom of the funnel and capture high intent leads Kathleen: So let's, let's dig into that a little bit. So you talked about starting at the bottom of the funnel and going really deep to capture high intent leads for very specific terms. If I came to you and I said, "All right, let's go. I want to do that," can you walk me through what that looks like? You mentioned showing up as often as possible for that one, high intent term. Garrett: Yeah. So first we're going to do what's called category defining. So we need to find your category. One of the most difficult problems in SaaS, as most people approach it, is they want to create their own category or they exist as a subset of an existing category. You have a lot of experience in cybersecurity, correct? Kathleen: Yep. Garrett: We do a lot there as well. So like we've been working with SentinelOne for a long time and other large players in that space. Now that's endpoint protection, right? People know they need a security solution, they don't always intrinsically know they need an endpoint solution. Right? So how do you generate demand and increase MQLs if you're in a new category? Okay, so first we do what's called category definement. And what we'd like to do is not only position you in endpoint, but position you in the security software category and then do hyper product differentiation through like product naming conventions and positioning, so that your CTO or whoever that person is who's your audience, they're searching and when they go to security software, we want them to show up above the fold with your brand as endpoint protection and then essentially drive awareness from the greater category to our subset or our pain solving product. So that's kind of first step is define that category. Then we ask ourselves, are we above the fold? So on Capterra, when you land on that, do you have to scroll for a couple hours to find you? How many reviews do the top five have versus you? That gives us a review target. Then we'll help you and say, "Here's how we've seen other clients go about getting reviews and here's the strategy you could pursue." Now we have a competitive amount of reviews on all of our categories. Kathleen: Let me ask you a question about that real quick. Most of those review sites have, uh, call them packages that you can purchase where they will, you know, you give them your list of clients, they'll email them, offer them an Amazon gift card or something along those lines to get reviews. And so essentially there's a cost per acquisition model that you can use. Do you find in most cases that that's worth doing, or do you work with your clients to develop their own outreach and review generation campaigns? Garrett: That's totally worth doing. I think there's nothing more important than other people advocating for your product, especially with how consumer behavior has changed at the B2B and B2C level. So no, that's critically important. Now, what we need to be able to do here though, is we need to be able to measure everything on a cost per opportunity, cost per demo, cost per proposal -- whatever you want to call it -- level, not a cost per lead. What we've found across over 350 SaaS companies that we've worked with over the last five years is that the cost per lead between Google Ads, Capterra, G2, Software Advice, et cetera, has a really, like it's not that different, maybe 15 to 30% range between each. But then I found that third party review sites have a 230% lower cost per opportunity. And so what we do, like, we got hired a couple of years ago by a publicly traded sales compensation software company and within one quarter we increased their demos by over 300% by only pivoting budget. That's the craziest part of all this, is most people are still evaluating their demand generation at an MQL level, not at an opportunity level. And so the biggest, easiest thing you can do is go one step further and look at opportunity. And then the furthest step that we've now actually evolved to as an agency is putting all our clients in LTV-CAC models, and then looking at activation rate. So not cost per trial but trial activations, right? So how well people are going from trial to demo, or demo to close rate, and then we're evaluating channels by close rate or by trial activation rate. And when we start to do that, that's hugely powerful for for financial allocation. How can you use intent data to drive traffic and revenue? Kathleen: Yeah, that makes sense. Now one of the other questions I had as I was listening to you talk about this, you talked about intent and bottom of the funnel and a lot of those platforms that you mentioned, in addition to being able to purchase a package and drive reviews, now they're selling their own intent data. Are you also working with intent data and taking it and creating ABM or audience match campaigns around that for your clients? Garrett: Yeah, so you can do a lot of that stuff. I think we, like most people, are using that engagement data or enriching stuff with Bombora for sales dev. Right now, if you do traditional ABM with account based advertising, so let's say Radius, Terminus, DemandBase, Madison Logic, Listen Loop, I mean we use Terminus personally internally. Now the reason is, is we need to be able to do cookie-based targeting, not IP-based targeting. Because, for example, right now, if you're trying to run IP-based targeting campaigns during COVID, you're not reaching any of your audience. Kathleen: Oh, you are preaching to the choir, because the product that we sell incorporates IP obfuscation. So anybody using our products, you couldn't target them by IP. I think it's going to happen more and more, and more people are going to use tools like that. Garrett: Yeah. I think to answer your question, yes, we are doing bi-directional syncs from HubSpot, Marketo, Pardot or Salesforce into our ad platforms. But you still have a really poor match rate because people are using personal emails on social because they don't want to get fired from their company and their LinkedIn goes down. So, essentially what happens is, your match rate is really poor on social because the only one who still has firmographics after the whole Cambridge analytical debacle, -- because you've got Axiom data in Facebook and you can be really powerful there. Twitter has always been crap, but essentially GDN is terrible right now unless you're doing managed placements, you're actually going in a search engine results page and then searching keywords and then finding every site that ranks in the top five for your keyword that uses GDN and then doing targeted URL placements That works because it comes off as a native ad. But then other than LinkedIn, it's not working. But then LinkedIn fails because there's no purchase intent and the CPA is too high. And so what we're finding is the way we're doing LinkedIn is awareness, with text ads and spotlight ads. And that's actually working. But there's a lot of nuance in all that for sure. How to use LinkedIn ads to raise brand awareness Kathleen: So then you're generating awareness on LinkedIn and are you hoping effectively that that'll get somebody to go to the client's website? Then, you can retarget them on other platforms? Garrett: We're actually being a little bit humbler than that because I don't think I can control my user. And what I mean by that is, the click through rate is crap on LinkedIn. In fact, it's so bad for spotlight and text ads and we've tricked it and we've figured out a game. So we run brand campaigns for our clients and for ourselves based on what I call "clarity." It's this concept of saying what you do and who you do it for, and being humble enough to know that you have to get your message across without the click. So what we do is we actually do it on a cost per click level on LinkedIn and we're able to deliver because nobody clicks. What happens is LinkedIn accelerates our impressions and gives us a much lower CPM when I do CPC, than when I do CPM on LinkedIn. And then we personify everything. This is the biggest trick to LinkedIn. So you take your primary asset, let's say "The Ultimate Guide to Demand Generation", and then you turn it into "The VP's Guide to Demand Generation", "The CMO's Guide to Demand Generation", and "The Marketing Manager's Guide to Demand Generation." All you have to do is change the cover page and then run lead gen ads and we're converting at over 50% across the board. So there's that route. And then the awareness campaigns and the text ads and spotlight ads, you're on a CPC level and then you focus on what you do and who you do it for, and then you personify that. You put that all together and you have really, really cool awareness campaigns. And then I say, spend as much money as you're willing to never stop losing. And if you take that approach and you say, "Look, are you willing to spend $5,000 a month until you die and not know what it does for you?" Because I'll tell you right now, I can target your exact audience to perfection and deliver your message to them till you've decided you're done with this organization. "Are you okay 'wasting' five grand a month so that every person in your audience on LinkedIn knows who you are?" Yeah. The trick is to not get results. Because what happens is, people go into it thinking they'll get results and they pause before they ever could have gotten results through a brand campaign. And so when you take the other approach, it works really well. Kathleen: Yeah. That's a really interesting way to think about it. I would love to be a fly on the wall as you have those conversations with clients to be like, you know, "You're going to spend all this money and I'm not going to show you any quantifiable results from it, but you're going to have to believe that the results are there." It's like playing the long game and having faith. Garrett: Yeah. Do you believe that this is your exact persona on LinkedIn? Here's your exact title, firmographic, industry, size of account, revenue...do you believe that? Yes. Do you believe that your message is valuable enough to communicate it to them on a consistent basis? Yes. Cool. How much does your company spend on snacks? Kathleen: Give up the jelly beans and advertise on LinkedIn! Garrett: Yeah. Honestly, it's the frappuccino a day is the kind of the joke I make. What's your coffee budget? Cool. Could you spend that on this and never stop it? And it usually gets some pretty good buy-in. How to optimize your website for traffic Kathleen: That's a really interesting way to think about it. Do you do anything with your clients in terms of what they should be doing on their own site to support all of this? You talked about how it's not necessarily about everybody getting to your website, and how the brand is more important, but I would think that there are still some things they need to be doing on the site to provide supportive content and other assets that you can then use to go out and have success on these other platforms. Garrett: Yeah, that's a relative statement to shock people to think differently. It's not that your website's not important. It's that your brand truly is more important than your website. You really have to understand your brand is more important than it was. Now your website is obviously critical, so what you need to be able to do is communicate who you are and who you're for and what you do for them. We do custom landing pages here. We have a really strong conversion rate optimization team. And so all that review site stuff I'm telling you about, we're split testing two custom landing pages with messaging, calls to action and what I like to call psychological friction tests. So the biggest issue right now in all of SaaS that they could change if they listened to this, is changing their call to action. Almost universally it's "request a demo." There is nothing more psychologically friction than "request a demo." Every time I speak to an audience, and I get to speak about 30 to 40 times a year at conferences, I love to ask, who here likes to do a demo? Who here likes to have a day of demos? Nobody raises their hand. Kathleen: That's like saying, "Who here likes to sit through an hour long webinar?" Garrett: Yeah, and so when I ask them, I said, what if you did something really simple? What if you change it from request a demo to watch demo video? You still gated it. You still sent that lead to sales development or your account executives, but you are asking yourself, can I give my visitor something of equal or greater value to what they're giving me? That's the number one question with calls to action and demand generation is, am I giving someone something of greater value than they're giving me? When someone requests a demo, they fill out a form and nothing happens and it says "Someone from our team will contact you in 24 hours." You're not doing it. So what we always do, and we can take clients universally from around 2 to 3%, to over 10% conversion rates by simply doing watch demo video. And then all we do is have a form that says "Fill this out and we're going to give you a five minute demo video so that you can have a better educated sales conversation when we follow up." Close rates go up, activation goes up, sales development teams are begging for these leads because they're having product conversations, not like "who we are and these lame 30 minute intro slides" to finally get to price. It works universally, exceptionally well. So that's what we do on the website level. But when it comes to content, and I think that's kind of where you're headed with this, is like what do you do with that content engine? Are you familiar with HubSpot's pillar content approach that everybody's following? I think it's a bad approach, financially. The reason I believe it's a bad approach financially, it's due to what I was communicating earlier. HubSpot's approach is you take a really, really beautiful strong asset, and then you lead to that asset with other types of content clusters that support that and you essentially do lead generation through that asset. I say, do that same thing but with features. Here's an example. We do our own SaaS products at Directive to make sure that we're not just full of crap. Not enough people do that. We rank in the top five for all our keywords. We actually spend a ton of money on PPC and we try to actually test everything and our hypotheses on ourselves. What we're doing right now is, we have an educational product called Institute. This teaches our clients and we give to our clients free of charge because we believe that education drives adoption. As consultants, you don't need to only make recommendations, you need clients to adopt them, right? And so we need to educate them as to why. So we educate them on SEO, PPC, et cetera. We sell it to the market for $39 a month. It teaches people how we do what we do, all our templates, our approach, et cetera. We have 40 lessons. So I'm asking myself, at a $39 a month product, my CPA, my cost per lead is too high to do a ton of paid acquisition. So how can I drive organic leads from my product? So here's my strategy and I'll share with your audience because hopefully it can help them. I'm taking the top five to 10 keywords for every one of my lesson pages. So, "how to do Google ads" or "how to do keyword research for PPC", okay? So then I put "keyword research for PPC" into a keyword research tool. Now I take the top five questions people ask around that. Now I'm going to use entity tools like Clearscope or Content Harmony or something like that to really understand what I need to write here to rank. So then I write five articles all around that one lesson. Then, above the fold on all five articles, I link to that lesson and say "Want to learn how to do it with video?" and come up with an offer that resonates with where they're at in intent. In other words, they intend to learn this. That's why they're searching it. I can satisfy that intent with my product feature, AKA my lesson. And now I also create a content cluster. So all of these content pieces around this topic are internally linking back to my lesson page, which I'm trying to rank at the bottom of the funnel. And so I'm using middle and top of funnel content with lead gen assets all internally linking and with magnets essentially generating leads for my product. So instead of trying to generate informational intent leads, I'm trying to generate purchase intent leads. So their hypothesis of what they want to do with content clusters works for HubSpot. The issue is that getting someone from informational intent to purchase intent is incredibly long and most marketing people won't survive their tenure if they're only focused on driving informational intent leads. So we try to pivot everything to purchase intent. Does that make sense? Kathleen: Yeah. So it sounds like what you're saying, if I understand correctly, is basically the product page on your site effectively as the pillar. Garrett: Yup. Turning product pages into content pillars Kathleen: The same exact approach applies only you're not writing a 4,000 word guide. You're creating the product page. Garrett: Yeah. You just audit all the competitors in the industry to say, "Okay, how many words do I need on my product page to rank? How many internal links do I need? How many referring domains do I need?" And then you say, "Cool, now I'm going to create the entity, the topical understanding to Google that we're the best answer to the questions people have related to the product we sell." And then when you do that whole approach, you're amazing at what you can do when driving MQLs and demos at the bottom of funnel. What should your SEO strategy look like if you're just getting started? Kathleen: So one of the things we talked about when when you and I first chatted about this was that, you work with a lot of big companies and they're coming to you and saying, "We're already doing a lot right. How can you take us to the next level?" But then there is this other school of thought that, if you have, let's say a startup or a new company or a company launching a new product, they have this opportunity to do it right from the beginning -- to greenfield it. Paint a picture for me of what that looks like. You're starting a new company and you want to really ace it out of the gates. Garrett: First and foremost, I'm going to look at all the review sites and ask myself how many reviews I need to be perceived as a market leader. It's the coolest thing in the world, right? Because someone searches now "top whatever software" you sell, and a review site shows up. You don't actually have to be the best! You might not be because you've only been in the game for a couple of months. But if you can get the reviews there, you look like you're the best and that's 99.9% of marketing. So first and foremost, we're going to position ourselves to be discoverable. When there's purchase intent, we're going to focus on demand capture, okay? Because to rank our website as a new organization, we don't have the authority, link profile or content, and investing in all those things takes a large financial upfront investment and has a long runway -- probably two years to build that organic engine. So if you have a 24 month runway to build your organic engine and you need MQLs now, the easiest thing to do is paid SEO. Now with that being said, we don't want to wait two years to try to rank because now we have another two years to get there, right? So we need to start from the beginning to try to position ourselves organically, to lower our cost per acquisition and have a better CAC-LTV ratio. So what do we do? We are going to say, when someone searches for your product or your features, we're going to try to create as much bottom of funnel content as possible. So not only a product page, but a feature page and solution pages. These are saying when someone has pain that your product solves and they go to discover that, can we show up? Perfect. Next what we're going to do is, we're going to start with our link building. So one of the things I had to do at Directive is, before we niched into SaaS, we were niched into just B2B. We had a lot of like manufacturers like Pelican Cases and stuff like that. So we had a lot of B2B players as well. So I couldn't rank for the keyword "B2B SEO", but I wanted to. I didn't have enough authority. My site wasn't large enough. It just wasn't going to happen. So what I did is I went on Search Engine Journal and I wrote, or Search Engine Land, I think it was, a fresh perspective on B2B SEO. In other words, I used someone else's site to rank for my keyword and they control the narrative. So with a startup, what you're gonna want to do is, you're going to go on CIO or Tech Crunch and instead of just bragging about how much money you raised, you're going to want to actually try to position yourself for what your buyer journey is like. We're going to leverage these other third party sites to do what's called guest posting to then rank exceptionally well for these top of funnel queries while internally linking from those guest posts back to our bottom of funnel pages we already built so that we can once again increase our rankings for purchase intent. So you can actually win at the bottom of funnel faster than people realize because nobody's product pages naturally build links. So if you do a really aggressive link building strategy early, using guest posting where you can control the anchor text and the destination URL to point to bottom of funnel pages, you can grow. And so then from that guest posting for bottom of funnel, now we'll focus on those products, kind of clusters we were talking about and our blog strategy, as well as Google ads review sites. And next thing you know, you're 24 months later, you might have one of the best imagine engines in the whole entire industry because you did it right. How to get executives and subject matter experts to create content Kathleen: Love it. One of the pieces of pushback I hear often, especially when you're a startup and you don't have a huge team where often your CEO or your CTO are the primary thought leaders and they're busy, I hear a lot of "Oh, we don't have the time to do all that writing." Any tips for how you can get the goods out of their heads and onto paper in a way that's efficient and scalable? Garrett: Yeah, the most scalable, best link building and PR you can possibly do is exactly what I'm doing right now. Podcasts. There's zero preparation for the thought leader. It takes exponentially less time and you have a much more engaged audience than an article. The best part is, when you guest post and you pitch a guest post, your success rate isn't always as high because not everybody accepts guest posts. Not everybody cares what you have to say. Sometimes editors are busy. On the flip side, the entire podcast content medium is guest dependent. So Kathleen's job is to secure interesting, engaging hosts for her audience. And so when you pitch Kathleen, you're going to have a much higher success rate than if you pitched Kathleen blog articles because now Kathleen has to edit your blog. She might not agree with your opinions because blogs aren't intrinsically the same format as podcasts. They're not op-ed like podcasts are. And so the best thing SaaS companies can do right now is link-building via podcast, hands down highest success rate, most scalable, easiest ended up. Kathleen: I totally agree, but I will say please, for the love of all that is Holy, take two minutes and learn something about the podcast and what it's about and tailor your pitch. I get pitched a lot, by a lot of podcast booking agents. Generally they're pretty good at doing their homework. But I can't tell you how often I get pitched from people who are like, "So-and-so built his real estate empire and can talk about earning money and like changing your life." And I write back and I'm like, "What does this have to do with inbound marketing? This person sounds like an amazing entrepreneur, but that's not what my podcast is about." Garrett: I'd say we have over a 75% success rate. So I'd give your audience some tips on how they can pitch. Get their name right. I know it sounds simple. Write a subject line that doesn't stink. Everything should be about how you make the podcast host's life easier and better for their audience. What I mean by that is there's a really important word when you do outbound or pitching. You say, "I am emailing you because", and that quickly allows someone to know why. And then you hit them with why the audience cares, not about yourself. So a lot of people like to say, "Hey, you know, my client, uh, built his agency from one to $10 million, you know, would love to be a guest on your show. He's been featured by Forbes, Tech Crunch, in the Inc 5,000." And then the podcast host goes, "Who cares?" Right? Compared to saying, "I'm emailing you because I'd love to talk with your audience about a topic that I know they care about, that I happen to be an expert in. Here's three different topics I think your audience might be interested in. Do any of these resonate with you?" Ideally, you want your podcast host to just say "Yes, this one". And then that's all the preparation required and you're good to go and it works. Kathleen: Yeah, I totally agree. At the last two companies I've been in, it's been a part of my strategy to get my CEO as a guest on podcasts. It's so much easier than trying to get them to write blogs. I think there's a human connection element of, you hear the person's voice, you get to know their personality, that that draws you in so much more than written content can do. So there's that aspect of it too. Garrett's advice Kathleen: Well, any other last words of advice that you think my listeners should know about related to this topic? Garrett: I guess one of the blessings we have with our portfolio is we have a lot of first party data. So I guess some encouragement. Since March 1st I wanted to look at what happened across our portfolio. Spend is down 24%, but conversions are down only 18% because click through rates are up, CPCs are down and conversion rates are up. So here's the really cool part about cost per click advertising is that it scales with demand and doesn't create waste. In fact, at a unit economic level, your advertising is actually more efficient now than it was before. Is volume down? Yes. But also auction competitiveness is down. See, all CPC advertising and all channels is based on an auction. It's based on inventory. It's like an economic model. Supply and demand. Well, because fewer advertisers are advertising right now, you're actually able to satisfy the existing demand that does still exist for whatever product or service you sell at a lower rate and you will have better efficiency and effectiveness in your advertising right now than you did before. That's just at the ad level. It's not necessarily the close rate level or at the volume level. But just at the actual cost per click and cost per acquisition level, it's actually much more efficient right now to advertise, which is kind of cool. That's across over $1 million in spend. Kathleen: That makes sense. So don't give up your ad budget altogether. Garrett: Just to meet demand. But remember your ad budget will do that intrinsically. So as long as you're not spending a ton on display and CPM type stuff, you're going to find a ton of efficiency on CPC because fewer people are advertising, thus lowering your cost per click, and there are some people out there buying and you want to make sure you're discoverable to those people. So it's a kind of a cool way to still win right now. Kathleen's two questions Kathleen: Absolutely. All right, well switching gears, I have two questions I always ask all of my guests and I'd love to hear what you have to say about these. The first is, this podcast is all about inbound marketing. Is there a particular company or individual that you think is really killing it right now with inbound who my listeners could go check out as an example? Garrett: I mean, HubSpot's a monster at this. They still are. I know. And everybody knows that. Kathleen: I'm going to make you tell me someone besides HubSpot though. Garrett: I know, I know, I know. The thing is, it's a lot harder now to move somebody out of a top 10 ranking. And so you see a lot of people pivoting away from that old school, gated content theory of inbound. And so that's why off the top of my head, I can't think of someone who's like doing that part of it exceptionally well because the game's kinda changed.  Kathleen: Who do you think is killing it with marketing right now in general? Garrett: I always like what is Zoom is doing? Because I liked what they did with like offline advertising and I think that's so cool. I think they're really creative in the sense of thinking about how to position themselves. I love the organizations that are investing heavily in podcast ads. For myself, that's one of my highest performing channels is niche-based podcast ads. I advertise on almost all the SEO or PPC podcasts that I can find because it works exceptionally well at a low CPM. I like the D2C stuff. I think the D2C people are kicking B2B butt. Like Baboon to the Moon. I love their branding. I think if B2B had a little bit more boldness like this... Kathleen: Yeah. What did they, I've never heard of them. I'll have to check them out. Garrett: So yeah, if you want to see somebody who I think is brilliant and actually has a brand opinion and stance and is hyper creative and out there -- Baboon to the Moon. Drift gets way too much credit for it because I don't actually think they're that good at it from a branding standpoint. They just have a free product so it's a lot easier to act like you're doing really good at it. They like try to take the human side of positioning. I think Baboon is doing something really cool because they're taking a hyper creative approach and it's like they're on acid. It's like a goldfish on a human's body using their product, but it's brilliant because they are so consistent with it in their messaging, copy, and creative that it actually creates a brand theme that I don't recognize in B2B. I think B2B organizations need to do a better job creating a brand theme. Like for us at Directive, we're trying to do a lot of people in our branding, but instead of just doing people in our branding, we're also like labeling them with their titles and their names so that it's so people know it's not a stock photo. So we're trying to bring it to life. We can obviously do it a lot better. We're not nearly as creative as that, but I think if B2B looks at the direct to consumer brands that are doing so well right now, at the end of the day it's very similar if you have a self onboarding SaaS company to a D2C product. It's very still transactional. And so if you can take your self onboarding, your trial-based SaaS company, and do that, and take that DDC stuff, and build that brand guide and just be really bold and crazy and ambitious with it, I think it'll pay off. Kathleen: Yeah, that's, and you need to have leaders within the company that are willing to take a risk and be different. There's a lot of sameness in general in marketing and I think when everybody else is going right and you go left, there's a lot of opportunity there. Garrett: Oh, a trillion percent. It's hard to get that buy in. I mean, I don't know anyone in my portfolio is actually doing it. That's why I'm in my head trying to think. It just starts at the top. You just need a CEO and a board that supports a bold new direction, not just verbally, but actually, and really actually sees it all the way through, especially when they get that first negative feedback or whatever from someone who doesn't like it. Kathleen: Yeah. There are going to be people who don't like it, that's for sure. Garrett: B2B is terrified of making anyone feel anything. That's truth, right? They're terrified of if someone doesn't like something. And the point is, the worst marketing is marketing for everybody. And so if you can be bold enough to have people hate you or like you, that's when you actually have marketing. Kathleen: I totally agree with you. All right. Second question. The biggest pain point I hear from marketers is that trying to stay on top of the changing landscape of digital marketing is like drinking from a fire hose. And so I'm curious how you personally stay up to date and educate yourself on all of that. Garrett: I think it's actually less important to stay up to date with things than people think, and here's why. Most marketers don't have a fundamental belief and a hypothesis of how they approach generating revenue for an organization. What's allowed myself and my organization to be successful is we have a fundamental belief that you need to make a brand discoverable at the bottom of the funnel regardless of channel. Now, the beauty of that is that it doesn't matter if digital marketing changes. See in 1997 when Google first came out, what was the whole point? People came to people and said, "Hey, I want to show up on this new search engine. How do I do it?" And the answer was, "Well, you need a website." See, the new answer is, "Well, you need reviews for your brand and you need to be positioned." As long as you don't get married to Capterra and G2, but get married to the idea of showing up when someone has purchase intent for what you sell, everything can change without changing anything because your fundamental belief is that you need to be discoverable when there's purchase intent. And so my encouragement to people is ground yourself in a fundamental belief of what you actually believe. It's such a critical part of marketing. If you want to make a ton of money in marketing, you need to actually have opinions. And you actually have to have beliefs and a hypothesis. You have to also be willing to adjust those, but you need to have them. And so I think if people have a real belief system and fundamental approach and then say we want to be essentially discoverable when there's purchase intent, that allows you to just naturally adjust whatever happens in the market because all you're doing is maintaining your belief. And that's, I think, what's so important for marketers, is to get away from this idea of, "Oh, what could I try? What new trick or hack can I try in a channel?" to say, "How can I essentially take my belief of discoverability and apply it to all my chanels?" When you do that, it allows you to stay really even keeled and focus on your customers. Kathleen: Yeah, and I would add to that, the best marketers I know in many cases are not actually marketers. You're a great example. You studied economics. The best marketers I know tend to be the most avid students of human behavior. People who understand people make great marketers because they're focused on the things that are timeless. It really doesn't matter what Google does with an algorithm because, honestly, Google is just trying to solve for people, right? So if you're focused on people and how they behave and how they buy, none of the bells and whistles matter. Garrett: Take that same person and then they learn financial modeling. Now you have the best CMOs in the world. People who have a really authentic, true belief of understanding of people and how they buy, and then they also understand financials? You put those two people together -- those are the CMOs of the Fortune 500. How to connect with Garrett Kathleen: Amen. I could go on and on about that. If somebody is listening and wants to learn more about some of this or has a question and wants to get in touch with y ou, what is the best way for them to connect with you online? Garrett: I'm active on Twitter. I'm @gmehrguth. So first initial, last name. I'm active on LinkedIn. Shoot me an email, it's just initial last name at Directive consulting. I'd love the chat and help anyone who has questions around demand gen. I'm pretty active on there trying to share all of our data and different tactics and things that we're doing. Almost daily I shared a new tactic or approach and a thread for essentially how SaaS markers can generate revenue. So if you're interested in that, feel free to follow and engage. Kathleen: Great. And I'll put all those links to Garett's social profiles and his email in the show notes. So head there to check that out if you want to connect with him. You know what to do next... Kathleen: If you're listening and you liked what you heard or you learn something new, I would greatly appreciate it if you would head to Apple podcasts or the platform of your choice and leave the podcast a five star review. We talked a lot about reviews in this interview and we know how important they are, and they are equally as important for podcasts as they are for products. So take a minute and do that. That would mean a lot. And if you know somebody who's doing kick ass inbound marketing work, tweet me @workmommywork because I would love to make them my next interview. That's it for this week. Thank you so much, Garrett. Garrett: Well, thank you Kathleen. Glad to be here.

Please support our sponsors because they make the show possible!Get Opteo for free for two months - https://opteo.com/psp2 Get a custom proposal from Directive Consulting - https://directiveconsulting.com/Show Notes:On today’s question and answers episode the guys answer questions about what hidden metrics they look at to improve performance, their experiences with target impression share bidding and if they use automated bids to get a feel for a campaign before switching to manual, and if they’ve ever experienced a broad keyword campaign working better than an optimized campaign with tighter keyword match types. Thanks for listening and sharing the show, and we hope you enjoy the episode!Weekly After Show:And we invite you join hundreds of other Paid Search Podcast fans for our weekly Patreon After Show. Sign up here - https://www.patreon.com/paidsearchpodcastWe need your help! Please help us grow the show:Please leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts and share the show with friends because it helps us grow the show and create more content.Send us your questions here - https://paidsearchpodcast.com/contact-us/First 100 Episodes - https://paidsearchpodcast.com/archive/Send us mail at:Paid Search Podcast5380 Old Bullard RoadSte 600-238Tyler, TX 75703Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/paidsearchpodcast)

Please support our sponsors because they make the show possible! Get Opteo for free for two months - https://opteo.com/psp2 Get a custom proposal from Directive Consulting - https://directiveconsulting.com/Show Notes:This week we talk the hidden metrics of Google Ads. These metrics give you amazing data insights, and we tell you how to access them and how they can help you make decisions. Thanks for listening and sharing the show, and we hope you enjoy the episode!Weekly After Show:And we invite you join hundreds of other Paid Search Podcast fans for our weekly Patreon After Show. Sign up here - https://www.patreon.com/paidsearchpodcastWe need your help! Please help us grow the show:Please leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts and share the show with friends because it helps us grow the show and create more content.Send us your questions here - https://paidsearchpodcast.com/contact-us/Check out PSP News - https://paidsearchpodcast.com/news/First 100 Episodes - https://paidsearchpodcast.com/archive/Send us mail at:Paid Search Podcast5380 Old Bullard RoadSte 600-238Tyler, TX 75703Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/paidsearchpodcast)

In this episode on the GrowthTLDR, we're welcoming Garrett Mehrguth back to the podcast. In the first episode, Garrett took us through the founding story of his agency, Directive Consulting. We're back to talk about all things sales outreach and brand advertising. Garrett goes through how to create the perfect sales outreach email and why they should read like a great movie. We also go into brand advertising. Garrett talks us through why you shouldn't focus your efforts on generating leads, and instead focus on being visible at the top and bottom of your funnel. Happy Growing

In this episode, we talk with Garrett Mehrgith of Directive Consulting about the rise of his company, how he bootstrapped the company right out of college and turned it into a 50+ employee agency, and also marketing best practices for BtoB SaaS companies.

Garrett Mehrguth, founder of Directive Consulting, explains why it's nearly impossible to rank for organic search terms, and shares tips on positioning your B2B brand for search.

Garrett Mehrguth, from Directive Consulting, is the guest on this episode.  They review the importance of aligning your business with your audience, not just focusing on SEO optimization. When you have focus on your brand (company review site, social media, simple marketing) your SEO ranking will inherently increase.

Please support our sponsors because they make the show possible! Free Opteo trial - https://opteo.com/psp Get a custom proposal from Directive Consulting - https://directiveconsulting.com/Show Notes:This week on the Paid Search Podcast, Chris and Jason discuss the issue of not being able to spend the full budget on a Google Ads campaign. The guys discuss how much of an issue this is, why it is frustrating, and then they go over reasons why this could be happening, including issues having to do with keywords, settings, and mistakes. Thanks for listening and sharing the show, and we hope you enjoy the episode!Help us grow the show:Please leave us a rating on Apple Podcasts and share the show with friends because it helps us grow the show and create more content.And we invite you join hundreds of other Paid Search Podcast fans for our weekly Patreon After Show. Sign up here - https://www.patreon.com/paidsearchpodcastShop our first 100 episodes - https://paidsearchpodcast.com/archive/Send the show mail at:Paid Search Podcast5380 Old Bullard RoadSte 600-238Tyler, TX 75703Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/paidsearchpodcast)

Please support our sponsors because they make the show possible! Free Opteo trial - https://opteo.com/psp Get a custom proposal from Directive Consulting - https://directiveconsulting.com/ Show Notes:This week on the Paid Search Podcast, Jason and Chris discuss three common mistakes they see when they do audits of Google Ads accounts. These mistakes include measuring non-converting actions as a conversions, letting a small number of bad-performing keywords dominate your results, and making too many bid adjustments. The guys also discuss how you can find out if you are making these mistakes and how to fix them. Thanks for listening and sharing the show, and we hope you enjoy the episode!Help us grow the show:Please leave us a rating on Apple Podcasts and share the show with friends because it helps us grow the show and create more content.And we invite you join hundreds of other Paid Search Podcast fans for our weekly Patreon After Show. Sign up here - https://www.patreon.com/paidsearchpodcastListen to our first 100 episodes - https://paidsearchpodcast.com/archive/Send the show mail at:Paid Search Podcast5380 Old Bullard RoadSte 600-238Tyler, TX 75703Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/paidsearchpodcast)

Please support our sponsors, they make the show possible! Free Opteo trial - https://opteo.com/psp Get a custom proposal from Directive Consulting - https://directiveconsulting.com/ Show Notes:Welcome back to the PSP! This week we're doing a questions and answers episode. We answer lots of great Google Ads questions and we thank you for sending them in. Enjoy the show!Please leave us a rating or review on Apple Podcasts, please share the show with your friends, and join us for the after show every week on Patreon! It's just $2 or $4 a month and we do an after show every week.Patreon after show - https://www.patreon.com/paidsearchpodcastFirst 100 episodes - https://paidsearchpodcast.com/archive/Mail the show at:Paid Search Podcast5380 Old Bullard RoadSte 600-238Tyler, TX 75703Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/paidsearchpodcast)

CEO of Directive Consulting, Garrett Mehrguth, joins the show to share his insights on making your brand more discoverable: · How to increase your visibility market share · Capitalizing on reviews site for top ranking opportunities · The role of search marketing in discoverability Plus, we look at the effect of the holiday season on PLAs!

The truth is - SEO is really just really good marketing and  understanding your audience. It's creating content that frankly resonates with your audience but also has demand, which is where keyword research comes in. The idea of manipulating Google and trying to do SEO to rank is where people kind of go astray.    But, if you look at SEO as just another kind of marketing practice that's based on understanding your audience and positioning, your website and your brand will be discovered. Your ideal customer will find you when they search for the parts or services you offer. If you can wrap your head around that basic understanding of SEO, then it becomes incredibly powerful. In this episode, Glenn Gaudet speaks to Garrett Mehrguth, CEO of Directive Consulting, about this premise of SEO and how it impacts your overall marketing strategy. By simply thinking about how your customers search for information about your business, you’ll make a world of difference in your SEO strategy long term.

Please support our sponsors, they make the show possible!Free Opteo trial - https://opteo.com/psp Get a custom proposal from Directive Consulting - https://directiveconsulting.com/Show Notes:Welcome back to the PSP! This week we're doing part 2 of a two week questions and answers episode. We answer lots of great Google Ads questions and we thank you for sending them in. Enjoy the show!Please leave us a rating or review on Apple Podcasts, please share the show with your friends, and join us for the after show every week on Patreon! It's just $2 or $4 a month and we do an after show every week.Patreon after show - https://www.patreon.com/paidsearchpodcastFirst 100 episodes - https://paidsearchpodcast.com/archive/Mail the show at:Paid Search Podcast5380 Old Bullard RoadSte 600-238Tyler, TX 75703Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/paidsearchpodcast)

On today's show we cover the business of marketing, ad agencies, public relations in the digital age, and much more. Jon is joined by special guest Garrett Mehrguth, CEO of Directive Consulting. Top of Mind is hosted by Jon Davids, Founder & CEO of Influicity. Jon is an entrepreneur and investor, active across media, tech, […] The post Ep 010: The Business of Marketing with the Founder of a Fast-Growing Agency appeared first on Influicity.

Please support our sponsors, they make the show possible!Free Opteo trial - https://opteo.com/psp Get a custom proposal from Directive Consulting - https://directiveconsulting.com/Show Notes:Welcome back to the PSP! This week we go over a strategy we use when we have trouble finding PPC keywords for our Google Ads search campaigns. This strategy combines broad match keywords with targeted audiences. It's a very interesting strategy. We hope you enjoy the episode!Please leave us a rating or review on Apple Podcasts, please share the show with your friends, and join us for the after show every week on Patreon! It's just $2 or $4 a month and we do an after show every week.Patreon after show - https://www.patreon.com/paidsearchpodcastFirst 100 episodes - https://paidsearchpodcast.com/archive/Mail the show at:Paid Search Podcast5380 Old Bullard RoadSte 600-238Tyler, TX 75703Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/paidsearchpodcast)

Please support our sponsors, they make the show possible!Free Opteo trial - https://opteo.com/psp Get a custom proposal from Directive Consulting - https://directiveconsulting.com/Show Notes:Hi everyone and welcome back to the PSP. This week the guys are talking about one of the most fundamental and important aspects of Google Ads, Ad Rank. Ad Rank is super important. It determines what position your ads shows in and whether or not it shows up at all. The guys breakdown how Ad Rank works and how it influences their campaign management. Thanks for listening and enjoy the show!Please leave us a rating or review on Apple Podcasts, please share the show with your friends, and join us for the after show every week on Patreon! It's just $2 or $4 a month and we do an after show every week.Ad Rank - https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/1752122Patreon after show - https://www.patreon.com/paidsearchpodcastFirst 100 episodes - https://paidsearchpodcast.com/archive/Mail the show at:Paid Search Podcast5380 Old Bullard RoadSte 600-238Tyler, TX 75703Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/paidsearchpodcast)

Today we're going to talk about the career path of a business professional to help you understand what direction you can head into your career. Joining us is Ashton Meisner, the Lead PR Strategist at Directive Consulting, which is a B2B enterprise search marketing agency that companies trust to scale their business. Today, Ashton is going to tell us about life and sports marketing, and digital technology. Show NotesConnect With: Ashton Meisner: Website // LinkedIn Finding a Job Podcast: Email // NewsletterBenjamin Shapiro: Website // LinkedIn // Twitter

Please support our sponsors, they make the show possible!Free Opteo trial - https://opteo.com/psp Get a custom proposal from Directive Consulting - https://directiveconsulting.com/Show Notes:Jason and Chris are back this week with a big questions and answers episode! Send in your Google Ads questions at https://paidsearchpodcast.com/contact-us/Please leave us a rating or review on Apple Podcasts, please share the show with your friends, and join us for the after show every week on Patreon! It's just $2 or $4 a month and we do an after show every week.Patreon after show - https://www.patreon.com/paidsearchpodcastArchive episodes - https://paidsearchpodcast.com/archive/Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/paidsearchpodcast)

We're told terrifying things: that people have the attention span of a goldfish, that Millennials don't read, that we only have 8 seconds to make our point. No wonder we're confused about how to communicate through copy.However, the words we use to establish our value and persuade visitors to take action can be tested. Data to the rescue!Olivia Ross (@ortdesign) is the Director of Conversion Rate Optimization at Directive Consulting. She is a designer turned conversion optimizer who believes that copy is at the core of any great customer journey.How does Olivia increase conversion rates and ensure landing pages are optimized to succeed? Listen in.

Please support our sponsors, they make the show possible!Try Opteo free for 6 weeks - https://opteo.com/psp Get a custom proposal from Directive Consulting - https://directiveconsulting.com/Show Notes:This week on the Paid Search Podcast we're talking about how to get good Google Ads results in the first month. Getting good results in the first month is very important. It's important for advertisers to see that Google Ads is working and on the agency side of things it's important to show your clients that things are going to work. So getting good results within the first month is important. In this episode we lay out a game plan for getting good results in the first month. We talk campaign structure, ad group structure, ads, and keywords. Enjoy!Please leave us a rating or review on Apple Podcasts, please share the show with your friends, and join us for the after show every week on Patreon! It's just $2 or $4 a month and we do an after show every week.Patreon after show - https://www.patreon.com/paidsearchpodcastArchive episodes - https://paidsearchpodcast.com/archive/Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/paidsearchpodcast)

The reality of an Amazon and Yelp world is that people are going to do informational searches before they visit your website. If you’re only measuring whether your brand shows up when people are searching for it, you’re completing ignoring whether it’s what your searcher wants in the first place. On this episode of B2B Revenue Acceleration, I interview Garrett Mehrguth, CEO at Directive Consulting, about why sales development is so undervalued in B2B marketing — and what we can do about it. What we talked about: Why it’s time to value sales development 3 best practices for developing good sales development timing The only 4 metrics you need to be tracking Focusing on your brand, not your search results To hear this episode, and many more like it, you can subscribe to The B2B Revenue Acceleration Podcast. If you don’t use Apple Podcasts, you can listen to every episode here.

Link building - the practice of securing backlinks to your website from other sites that have more authority - is a classic SEO practice. But it's typically a practice reserved for digital marketers or content managers. What do PR professionals need to know about it, and should they be more involved? After all, when done well, the practice of link building mirrors the day-to-day of many PR pros. It involves research, outreach, and relationship building. And, backlinks from news sites offer some of the best SEO value on the web.  In this episode, Ashton Meisner of Directive Consulting, a search engine marketing agency, explains why PR professionals are the right people for the job when it comes to securing quality backlinks from reputable websites, and offers gives tips on how to apply a little bit of SEO strategy to your media outreach. subscribe to hacks and flacks Apple Podcasts Stitcher Spotify Google Podcast Overcast

Please support our sponsors, they make the show possible!Try Opteo free for 6 weeks - https://opteo.com/psp Get a custom proposal from Directive Consulting - https://directiveconsulting.com/ Show notes:Hi yes welcome back to the Paid Search Podcast! This week we are talking about Google Ads for realtors and real estate agents. If you're a realtor who's looking for information on how to get more real estate leads from PPC marketing, this is the episode for you! We start off discussing the common problems real estate agents run into with AdWords. Then we cover some basic Google Ads tips for realtors, and we close the show with some advanced tips and ideas to help real estate agents get more leads from Google Ads. Thanks for listening and enjoy the episode!Please share the show with your friends and join us for the after show every week on Patreon! It's just $2 a month and we do an after show every week.More Paid Search Podcast content:Join us at Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/paidsearchpodcastSupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/paidsearchpodcast)

We're told terrifying things: that people have the attention span of a goldfish, that Millennials don't read, that we only have 8 seconds to make our point. No wonder we're confused about how to communicate through copy. However, the words we use to establish our value and persuade visitors to take action can be tested. Data to the rescue! Olivia Ross (@ortdesign) is the Director of Conversion Rate Optimization at Directive Consulting. She is a designer turned conversion optimizer who believes that copy is at the core of any great customer journey. How does Olivia increase conversion rates and ensure landing pages are optimized to succeed? Listen in. Resources and links discussed: Follow Olivia on Twitter @ortdesign Learn more about Directive Consulting Follow Brian on Twitter @bmassey  Learn more about Conversion Sciences

Please support our sponsors, they make the show possible!Try Opteo free for 6 weeks - https://opteo.com/psp Get a custom proposal from Directive Consulting - https://directiveconsulting.com/ Show notes:Welcome back to the Paid Search Podcast, the weekly podcast about Google Ads and search engine marketing! This week Chris and Jason answer a ton of Google Ads questions from AdWords beginners, AdWords regular users, and also other AdWords professionals and experts. There's a ton of great questions, including:When to use automated bidding?How to know when to run only on mobile or desktop?How do you manage the budget throughout the month?What should my ad copy be like when I bid on competitor keywords?How we organize ad groups and keywords depending on their place in the sales funnel?How we use estimated first page bid amount?Should I only run English as the language or should I include more languages?How do I target multiple locations in their own campaigns that are very close to each other?Is it okay to run some loose, generic kind of keywords if I'm having trouble finding keywords for my client?How do I prove that I'm getting good PPC results to my client?Ask us a Google Ads question here - https://paidsearchpodcast.com/contact-us/Please share the show with your friends and join us for the after show every week on Patreon! It's just $2 a month and we do an after show every week. Links:Supercharge Your Podcast Growth by Using Google AdWords - https://www.buzzsprout.com/blog/google-adwords-for-podcastMore Paid Search Podcast content:Join us at Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/paidsearchpodcastGet old episodes - https://paidsearchpodcast.com/archive/Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/paidsearchpodcast)

How to reach out to Garrett Mehrguth: Setting a Marketing Budget When setting a marketing budget for your business, it’s important to make sure you use every penny wisely. This means not stretching your company too thin and not assuming your level of income. This may seem like a simple rule, but for many businesses, it’s difficult to execute correctly. That’s why we sat down with Garret Mehrguth of Directive Consulting. In this episode, Garrett explains how to set a marketing budget that gives you the most bang for your buck, as well as the tips he wishes he knew when starting out in marketing. So if you’re looking to outline a marketing budget that can help you reach your business goals, don’t stop scrolling. The Importance of Setting a Marketing Budget Every business owner knows they should set a marketing budget, but do you truly know why it’s important for your future success? The data you use to determine your budget plays a HUGE role in your ability to scale effectively. In fact, if you choose to base your budget on assumptions of what you’ll be making, rather than on your historical revenue, you’ll be much more likely to eventually run out of cash. Think of it this way: your marketing efforts should be bringing in money, NOT sucking your business dry. When you bank on future sales that may or may not come to fruition, you decrease your chances of achieving the revenue and growth goals you’ve set. This is because future sales are unpredictable. The market is always changing, and it’s impossible to plan for every potentiality. However, when you base your projected earnings, and therefore, your marketing budget, on the revenue you KNOW your business can generate, you maximize your ability to scale your company effectively. If that still seems complicated, follow this simple rule. Your marketing budget should be equivalent to 10 percent of the revenue you expect to generate in that same period of time. So if you’re planning your budget for an entire year, it should be equal to 10% of what you can solidly project you’ll generate in revenue that year. Make sense? Here’s why. What Garrett Wishes He Knew BEFORE He Started Marketing When you’re a business owner, you can grow and want to grow, but if you do it too fast, you won’t be able to sustain it. If you can’t sustain the amount of velocity you’re striving toward, then it’s time to tone down your spending. It may sound counterintuitive to grow by spending less, but in truth, it’s all about strategy. People often have an idea that once something “works”, they’ll increase its volume and spend anything. This isn’t the best approach to growth. In fact, the best approach is to actually raise rates while keeping your volume the same. Doing this enables you to bring in revenue without growing too fast. Once you’ve grown your revenue intake to a level that allows you to invest more in your company infrastructure, you can begin to slowly increase the volume of your marketing efforts. Before you do, though ask yourself the following questions: What’s your average contract value? Do you have the ability to service new customers with the same level of care that you have been with current customers? Do you have the capital necessary to service your company's infrastructure? How does your desired marketing budget compare to your historical revenue? Have you evaluated your historical revenue to determine what your marketing budget should be? Once your answers to those questions are positive, you will be in a good place to begin increasing the velocity of your marketing efforts, rather than just your rates. Don’t Make This Mistake When deciding on your marketing budget, be sure to avoid making the mistake of blind ambition. This ties into the questions above, as no matter how good of a company you are, you simply cannot increase sales velocity without decreasing quality. This means you must grow in ways that are sustainable and not reckless. There are two ways you can do that.

Please support our sponsors, they make the show possible!Try Opteo free for 6 weeks - https://opteo.com/psp Get a custom proposal from Directive Consulting - https://directiveconsulting.com/ Show notes:This week Jason and Chris continue their discussion the Display Network and talk about how they use placement targeting. They talk about what placements are, how to find them, and how they set bids. Thanks for listening and enjoy the show! Please share the show with your friends and join us for the after show every week on Patreon! It's just $2 a month and we do an after show every week. Links:Average position going away September 30 - https://searchengineland.com/prepare-to-say-goodbye-to-average-position-in-google-ads-on-september-30-320521About managed placements - https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/2470108More Paid Search Podcast content:Join us at Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/paidsearchpodcastGet old episodes - https://paidsearchpodcast.com/archive/Insider professional episodes - https://paidsearchpodcast.com/insider/Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/paidsearchpodcast)

Hi everyone! Yes! This week Jason and Chris continue their discussion the Display Network and talk about how to target audiences with display ads, both in-market and affinity audiences. The guys talk about how they use audience targeting, when they think it's a good fit, and then they go over some examples. Enjoy! Please support our sponsors, they make the show possible!Try Opteo free for 6 weeks - https://opteo.com/psp Get a custom proposal from Directive Consulting - https://directiveconsulting.com/ More Paid Search Podcast content:Join us at Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/paidsearchpodcastGet old episodes - https://paidsearchpodcast.com/archive/Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/paidsearchpodcast)

Hi everyone, welcome back to the PSP! This week Jason and Chris share 7 ideas for freshening up a long-time Google Ads account. If you have campaigns that have been running great for years, but you want to test out some new strategies to see if results can get even better, this is the episode for you! The guys share ideas on how to improve long-running campaigns and they also share some advice on how to implement and test these ideas without messing up what's been working. Please support our sponsors, they make the show possible!Try Opteo free for 6 weeks - https://opteo.com/psp Get a custom proposal from Directive Consulting - https://directiveconsulting.com/ More Paid Search Podcast content:Join us at Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/paidsearchpodcastGet old episodes - https://paidsearchpodcast.com/archive/Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/paidsearchpodcast)

Today we're going to learn about the skills accumulated and the lessons learned from a great marketer throughout the various stops on his career. Joining us for Career Day is Garrett Mehrguth, who is the CEO of Directive Consulting, which is a B2B and enterprise search marketing agency. Show NotesConnect With: Garrett Mehrguth: Website // LinkedIn // TwitterThe MarTech Podcast: Email // Newsletter // TwitterBenjamin Shapiro: Website // LinkedIn // TwitterSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today we're going to learn about the skills accumulated and the lessons learned from a great marketer throughout the various stops on his career. Joining us for Career Day is Garrett Mehrguth, who is the CEO of Directive Consulting, which is a B2B and enterprise search marketing agency. Show NotesConnect With: Garrett Mehrguth: Website // LinkedIn // TwitterThe MarTech Podcast: Email // Newsletter // TwitterBenjamin Shapiro: Website // LinkedIn // Twitter

Ep #59 - Our guest this week is Garrett Mehrguth, the co-founder and CEO of Directive Consulting, a leading B2B and enterprise search marketing agency based in Irvine, CA. Garret established out of his fascination for the role that search engine marketing plays in empowering companies and people to connect.  In our interview, we discuss search engine marketing tactics, lead generation, and the importance of not doing the work yourself when running an agency. Other topics discussed include the customer’s buying journey, writing ad copy, and strategies for scaling an SEM agency. Garret unloads a wealth of knowledge in this episode and there is a ton of value bombs and nuggets to absorb. Since Directive Consulting’s establishment in 2014, Garret has led the business to expand to four new locations. As of now, the company has presences in Los Angeles, New York City, Austin, and London. The company’s year-over-year growth rate has increased by 300 percent and now boasts a team of more than 50 people over nine nationalities from its headquarters and home of operations in Orange County. Additionally, he is committed to bridging the gender gap that plagues the marketing technology; currently, 25% of Directive’s leadership team is comprised of women.  As a thought leader, Garrett has been published by Salesforce, Marketing Land, Moz, Marketo, Search Engine Land, Ahrefs, Convince & Convert, Search Engine Journal, and more. He also speaks at Digital Summit, State of Search, General Assembly, MozCon, etc.  Additionally, he has been a guest speaker on the following podcasts: The B2B Growth Show, Salesforce, The Actionable Marketing Podcast, The Growth TL;DR, The DigitalMarketer Podcast, Edge of the Web and most importantly, Marketing Geeks.  He earned a bachelor's degree, with honors, from Azusa Pacific University and an MBA. Outside of work, when he’s not writing or reading up on digital marketing and the latest trends, Garrett spends his time indulging in his passion for the ocean, sailing, and fishing with his wife Learn More About Gerret Mehrguth and Directive Consulting: Visit Garret Mehrguth’s Company Website for Directive Consulting at: https://directiveconsulting.com/ Email Garret at: gmehrguth@directiveconsulting.com Listen to Directive Consulting’s Podcast “Yours In Marketing” on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/yours-in-marketing-a-b2b-podcast/id1457081570 Follow Garret Mehrguth on Social Media: Twitter: https://twitter.com/gmehrguth LinkedIn:   https://www.linkedin.com/in/garrettmehrguth/ Connect with the Marketing Geeks on LinkedIn:  Justin Womack: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinwomack1/ Andros Sturgeon: https://www.linkedin.com/in/androssturgeon If you would like to support the show with a donation, please click below to submit a contribution: https://anchor.fm/marketing-geeks/support Want to be a guest or suggest one? Please email info@marketinggeekspodcast.com Visit our website: https://marketinggeekspodcast.com/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app · Trainual: Trainual is a software that helps you document what you do, so you can easily delegate and train others. https://trainual.com/freemonth/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/marketing-geeks/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/marketing-geeks/support

Hi everyone! Yes! Welcome back to the Paid Search Podcast. This week we finish up the "trap door" series, discussing the potential mindset mistakes advertisers can make with Google Ads. We discuss the big baller trap door where people want to overspend early on. We discuss the trap door of unrealistic CPA expectations. And we close the show and the trap door series with the controversial topic of whether or not a Google Ads campaign can continually be improved. We hope you enjoy the episode and thanks for listening!Enjoy the episode! Thanks for listening and sharing! Please leave us a rating and review on iTunes because it helps grow the show.Please support our sponsors, they make the show possible!Try Opteo free for 6 weeks - https://opteo.com/psp Get a custom proposal from Directive Consulting - https://directiveconsulting.com/More Paid Search Podcast content:Join us at Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/paidsearchpodcastGet old episodes - https://paidsearchpodcast.com/archive/Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/paidsearchpodcast)

Yes! Welcome back to the Paid Search Podcast. This week, we're continuing our trap door series and talking about potential bidding mistakes that can be made in Google Ads. These mistakes can include getting too granular with your bid adjustments, running automated bids without a cap in place, and focusing too much on the number one position without considering the costs.Enjoy the episode! Thanks for listening and sharing! Please leave us a rating and review on iTunes.Please support our sponsors, they make the show possible!Try Opteo free for 6 weeks - https://opteo.com/psp Get a custom proposal from Directive Consulting - https://directiveconsulting.com/ More Paid Search Podcast content:Join us at Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/paidsearchpodcastGet old episodes - https://paidsearchpodcast.com/archive/Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/paidsearchpodcast)

This episode we’re getting real about what it’s really like to start an agency and the intense emotional ride we are on as marketers (we’re not crying, you’re crying!!).   Jenna sits down with Garrett Mehrguth, CEO of Directive Consulting, and talks about how easy it is to lose our joy when we fail as marketers, why we need to have more patience, and what strategy to use to grow brand awareness for a small agency.   IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL LEARN: How Garrett started on Fiverr selling $5 deliverables, and how he progressed to owning an agency with 3 global locations Garrett’s hiring strategy and how he focuses on 2 things—being smart with his finances and strategic with his onboarding timeline The “compare and despair” mindset entrepreneurs and marketers are getting trapped in A realistic timeline and growth rate for real-time marketing scenarios What to ask yourself to become a “Discoverable Agency” and why you need to focus all of your attention on your brand NOT your search results The marketing strategies working right now—obvious, simple, unscalable, and things that create delight How to optimize content for SEO without having to rewrite it just by redoing the title tags to align with the keyword the content is actually ranking for Why every marketer should run CPM campaigns for their brand What marketers or agencies need to do if they want to scale their company   LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE: SEMRush Directive Consulting Garrett on Twitter Garrett on LinkedIn   Thanks so much for joining us this week. Want to subscribe to The DigitalMarketer Podcast? Have some feedback you’d like to share? Connect with us on iTunes and leave us a review! iTunes not your thing? Find us on Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn, or at DigitalMarketer.com.

Get a custom proposal from Directive Consulting - https://directiveconsulting.com/Join us at Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/paidsearchpodcastGet old episodes - https://paidsearchpodcast.com/archive/Expected clickthrough rate: Definition - https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/1659696Yes! Today we're kicking off a four part series, the possible "trap doors" in Google Ads. The trap doors are a series of mistakes you could possibly make in Google Ads. But the tricky thing about it is that sometimes these trap doors are actually the right thing to do and work great. But sometimes they can also lead to mistakes.This first episode in the trap door series is about mistakes you can make in Google Ads when it comes to keywords. We'll be discussing broad match modified keywords, competitor keywords, focusing on perfect search terms, and quality scores.Enjoy the episode! Thanks for listening and sharing! Please leave us a rating and review on iTunes.Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/paidsearchpodcast)

Try Opteo free for 6 weeks - https://opteo.com/psp Get a custom proposal from Directive Consulting - https://directiveconsulting.com/ Have you heard about our new Patreon show? We put out a new episode every week and membership is only $2 a month! - https://www.patreon.com/paidsearchpodcastYes! Hello everyone and welcome back to the Paid Search Podcast. This week we're focusing on ways you can save time in Google Ads. Whether you're a busy business owner who wants to save time on Google Ads, or if you're a freelancer or agency employee who wants to be more efficient and manage more accounts, this is the episode for you! Time saving tips we share include the following topics:Using filters and find and replace in Google Ads Editor.Editing ad copy in Google Ads Editor.Copying and pasting negative keywords and negative locations in Google Ads Editor.Using Excel or Google Sheets to upload builds into Google Ads Editor.The fastest way to manage keyword bids.Keyboard shortcuts.The Excel formula Jason uses to make phrase and exact match keywords.And we finish out the episode with a Paid Search Trivia question.On YouTube please like and subscribe, on iTunes please leave us a rating or review, and please share the show with your friends and colleagues on social media. Thank you!BMM keyword tool - https://adresults.com/tools/broad-match-modifier/Send us your PPC questions here - https://paidsearchpodcast.com/contact-us/Washington Post article on digital marketing - https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/02/20/digital-advertising-surpass-print-tv-first-time-report-says/Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/paidsearchpodcast)

In this episode of LPO, we’re digging into agency management - how to leverage the relationship and how to think about the relationship.You’ll hear from Garrett Mehrguth (@gmehrguth), CEO of Directive Consulting, on why regardless of the research done, the pitch meeting is a tough time for the agency.That initial agency pitch meeting brings out bias. It becomes about pleasing the client - not the client’s customers. This is how failed campaigns get launched. This is how agencies get canned.Garrett tells us how to solve these problems in this week’s episode.

Try Opteo free for 6 weeks - https://opteo.com/psp Get a custom proposal from Directive Consulting - https://directiveconsulting.com/Our New Patreon Show - https://www.patreon.com/paidsearchpodcastPSP Insider 1 – Mastering Your First Google Ads Sales Call - https://paidsearchpodcast.com/psp-insider-1-sales-call/Hi, yes, and welcome back to the Paid Search Podcast! This week Jason and Chris are talking about when they don't follow their own advice in Google Ads. One characteristic of a great Google Ads manager is the ability to be flexible and adopt to many different situations that come up when you're managing a Google Ads campaign. Sometimes our standard Google Ads advice shouldn't be followed, and sometimes it makes sense to do things differently than we normally do them. In this episode, you'll learn when we:Turn on automated biddingUse SKAGSUse pure broad keywordsUse the display network beyond remarketingTarget competitor names as keywordsUse one-word keywordsAnd we finish out the episode with a Paid Search Trivia question.On YouTube please like and subscribe, on iTunes please leave us a rating or review, and please share the show with your friends and colleagues on social media. Thank you!Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/paidsearchpodcast)

Try Opteo free for 6 weeks - https://opteo.com/psp Get a custom proposal from Directive Consulting - https://directiveconsulting.com/ Our New Patreon Show - https://www.patreon.com/paidsearchpodcastPSP Insider - https://paidsearchpodcast.com/insider/Yes! This week Jason and Chris are covering some of the most common mistakes they see Google Ads advertisers make and how you can avoid them. Mistakes covered on today's show include:Not focusing on your search terms.Focusing on your search terms too much.Getting incorrect conversion data.Over bidding, bidding more than you need to.Failing to optimize page titles,Sending traffic to the wrong page of the website, from a user experience perspective.Not growing your budget, or your business.Specific mistakes make in each advertising network in Google Ads.And we finish out the episode with a Paid Search Trivia question.On YouTube please like and subscribe, on iTunes please leave us a rating or review, and please share the show with your friends and colleagues on social media. Thank you!Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/paidsearchpodcast)

Try Opteo free for 6 weeks - https://opteo.com/psp Get a custom proposal from Directive Consulting - https://directiveconsulting.com/Our Patreon Show - https://www.patreon.com/paidsearchpodcastOh yes! Welcome back to the number 1 podcast about Google Ads! This week we kick off the show with a question about landing pages versus business websites and whether or not business websites get more quality score credit than new landing page domains. And then we get into how to do "spring cleaning" on your Google Ads account and the kinds of problems you can avoid with regular spring cleaning. Enjoy!Thanks for sharing and leaving us a review or rating on iTunes! We're rapidly climbing the charts!First 100 PSP Episodes available - https://paidsearchpodcast.com/archive/PSP Insider For PPC Professionals - https://paidsearchpodcast.com/insider/Ask us a question - https://paidsearchpodcast.com/contact-us/Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/paidsearchpodcast)

Try Opteo free for 6 weeks - https://opteo.com/psp Get a custom proposal from Directive Consulting - https://directiveconsulting.com/Our Patreon Show - https://www.patreon.com/paidsearchpodcastFirst 100 PSP Episodes available - https://paidsearchpodcast.com/archive/Nursing Home build resources - http://paidsearchpodcast.com/nursinghomeMeasuring reach and frequency - https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/2472714YES!!! This week we do a serious Google Ads questions and answers show. You've been sending us your Google Ads questions and today we answer a ton of them. Leave us a voicemail question at 214-810-1355 or write us a question on the contact page on our website. Today's questions we answer include:How to get brand awareness from a Google Grants campaign?How does Google Beacon work?What's the average day in the life of a PPC manager like?How can you track offline conversions?How to recover from poor account quality score?How are we adapting to Google's new local service ads?What do you do when a good campaign stops working?How do you know if your new agency is doing a good job for you?What's the best way to find new keywords? And we finish out the episode with a Paid Search Trivia question.On YouTube please like and subscribe, on iTunes please leave us a rating or review, and please share the show with your friends and colleagues on social media. Thank you!Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/paidsearchpodcast)

In this episode of Intended Consequences, we’re digging into agency management - how to leverage the relationship and how to think about the relationship. You’ll hear from Garrett Mehrguth (@gmehrguth), CEO of Directive Consulting, on why regardless of the research done, the pitch meeting is a tough time for the agency. That initial agency pitch meeting brings out bias. It becomes about pleasing the client - not the client’s customers. This is how failed campaigns get launched. This is how agencies get canned. Garrett tells us how to solve these problems on this week’s episode. Resources and links discussed: Follow Brian on Twitter @bmassey Follow Garrett on Twitter @gmehrguth Learn more about Directive Consulting Learn more about Conversion Sciences

Try Opteo free for 6 weeks - https://opteo.com/psp Get a custom proposal from Directive Consulting - https://directiveconsulting.com/ PSP Insider - https://paidsearchpodcast.com/insider/ Episode Archive - https://paidsearchpodcast.com/archive/ Yes! Welcome back to the Paid Search Podcast. This week we're continuing our nursing home build series and talking about remarketing campaigns. Specifically, we talk about:The reasons to run a remarketing campaign.What segmenting audiences is all about.How high your ad frequency should be.Whether or not to exclude mobile apps.New responsive display ads with videos.What to set your remarketing bids to.What success looks like for a remarketing campaign.On YouTube please like and subscribe, on iTunes please leave us a rating or review, and please share the show with your friends and colleagues on social media. Thank you!Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/paidsearchpodcast)

Try Opteo free for 6 weeks - https://opteo.com/psp Get a custom proposal from Directive Consulting - https://directiveconsulting.com/ PSP Insider - https://paidsearchpodcast.com/insider/ Episode Archive - https://paidsearchpodcast.com/archive/ Yes! Welcome back to the Paid Search Podcast! This week we kick off the show with some news about the average position column being removed, then we take a listener question about the bail bond industry, and then we get back to the Big Daddy Nursing Home build and we cover ad formats and how we create ads and ad copy. Thanks for listening and enjoy the episode!Average position being removed - https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/9263492Google bans ads for bail bonds services - https://www.blog.google/products/ads/google-bans-ads-for-bail-bonds-services/Bail-bond industry suffers another blow as Facebook and Google ban ads - https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/google-facebook-say-they-re-banning-profit-bail-bond-ads-n872386Google My Business - https://www.google.com/business/On YouTube please like and subscribe, on iTunes please leave us a rating or review, and please share the show with your friends and colleagues on social media. Thank you!Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/paidsearchpodcast)

Try Opteo free for 6 weeks - https://opteo.com/psp Get a custom proposal from Directive Consulting - https://directiveconsulting.com/PSP Insider 3: How To Get Local Clients - https://gum.co/insider003Hi everyone welcome back to the Paid Search Podcast! On this week's episode we're moving on to part two of the nursing home build series. We start off the show with some exciting news about display responsive ads. Then we answer a question about remarketing audiences on search campaigns. And then we get back into the nursing home build and we break down how to formulate a campaign plan based on the services, locations, goals and budget of the advertising business. And we also cover campaign settings. We hope you enjoy this episode and we'll see you on part three next week!About responsive display ads - https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/6363750how to add in-market audiences to Google Ads search campaigns - https://youtu.be/FcKyc3stzIMSupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/paidsearchpodcast)

Try Opteo free for 30 days - https://opteo.com/ Get a custom proposal from Directive Consulting - https://directiveconsulting.com/ Chris Schaeffer Training Videos - http://store.chrisschaeffer.com/ PSP Insider 3: How To Get Local Clients - https://gum.co/insider003 Hi everyone, today we do a live audit of the keywords and search terms on a junk removal Google Ads campaign. We breakdown what was wrong with the keywords and search terms in the first month, how the campaign was fixed in a very simple way, and the fantastic search terms that that simple method brought in in the following month.Check out some of the keywords and search terms here on the show notes page - https://paidsearchpodcast.com/junk/PSP Insider - https://paidsearchpodcast.com/insider/PSP Archive - https://paidsearchpodcast.com/archive/Ask us a question - https://paidsearchpodcast.com/contact-us/How you can help the show: on YouTube please like and subscribe, on iTunes please leave us a rating or review, and please share the show with your friends and colleagues on social media. Thank you! Work with Chris - http://www.chrisschaeffer.com/Work with Jason - https://rothmanppc.com/Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/paidsearchpodcast)

Try Opteo free for 30 days - https://opteo.com/ Get a custom proposal from Directive Consulting - https://directiveconsulting.com/ Hi everyone, today we're talking about setting up draft and experiment campaigns in the new Google Ads interface. The experiment campaign tool is very much improved in the new interface, and we cover how to set up experiments and the kinds of experiments you can run. Enjoy the show!PSP Insider 3: How To Get Local Clients - https://gum.co/insider003Ask us a question - https://paidsearchpodcast.com/contact-us/How you can help the show: on YouTube please like and subscribe, on iTunes please leave us a rating or review, and please share the show with your friends and colleagues on social media. Thank you! Work with Chris - http://www.chrisschaeffer.com/Work with Jason - https://rothmanppc.com/Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/paidsearchpodcast)

Garrett Mehrguth, CEO of Directive Consulting, joins me on this episode.

This week on The PPC Show we're joined by Garrett Mehrguth, CEO of Directive Consulting, to break down the B2B marketing funnel. My top three takeaways from this show: 1) Everyone says they value top of funnel, but lie in the way they allocate budget. 2) The importance of valuing and tracking your B2B funnel: Impressions > Contacts > Opps > Deals > Revenue 3) Share of SERP: how B2B marketers can start optimizing platforms that not only advertise in search but also rank organically like: Capterra, G2Crowd, Software Advice, and more. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/the-ppc-show-podcast/message

Garrett Mehrguth, CEO of Directive Consulting, joins Heike and Joel on the Marketing Cloudcast. According to Garrett, in 2017, “great SEO is just great audience research.” Gone are the days of keyword stuffing, oversimplified keyword lists, and discombobulated PPC campaigns. The new era of SEO is all about respecting your customers’ research wherever it takes them, because today’s customers are world-class researchers. Get practical, doable tips for SEO in the modern age in this episode of the Marketing Cloudcast. Resources for this episode: Garrett's website: http://directiveconsulting.com Subscribe to the Cloudcast: http://sforce.co/cloudcast Talk to Heike and Joel about upcoming topics, future guests, or whatever else is on your mind: http://twitter.com/youngheike http://twitter.com/joelbook

Garrett Mehrguth is the CEO of Directive Consulting, where he takes on the role of guide growth and team development. He brings his SEO, PPC, content and social expertise to Search Talk Live to discuss the latest in online marketing. Garrett has shared his knowledge by being featured on several major industry publications such as Moz, Inbound, CrazyEgg, Kissmetrics and several more. He also educated others through by leading The Directive Academy, a local digital marketing workshop with over 275 members. He has also spoken at Big Digital, MozCon Ignite, General Assembly, and other major industry conferences.

Garrett Mehrguth is the CEO of Directive Consulting, where he takes on the role of guide growth and team development. He brings his SEO, PPC, content and social expertise to Search Talk Live to discuss the latest in online marketing.Garrett has shared his knowledge by being featured on several major industry publications such as Moz, Inbound, CrazyEgg, Kissmetrics and several more. He also educated others through by leading The Directive Academy, a local digital marketing workshop with over 275 members. He has also spoken at Big Digital, MozCon Ignite, General Assembly, and other major industry conferences.