Podcasts about don't make me think

Air Date: 5-11-21 Today, I am joined by Amanda, Erin and Deon to discuss: #NotAllEngineers Hoping to remake the culture with the power of government is optimistic Corporate virtue signaling while upholding the status quo injustice Gender and fish are bullshit Who put the T into LGBTQ? Addendum: just don’t make me think. References: On Tyranny - Timothy Snyder Red Bull, Elon Musk, and Matt Gaetz - The Bulwark Brooke speaks with Lulu Miller about her new book, "Why Fish Don't Exist" Billy Bragg - Not Everything That Counts Can Be Counted Commentary: I love Disney World, but wokeness is ruining the experience Leave a message at 202-999-3991 Produced by: Jay! Tomlinson Thanks for listening! Visit us at BestOfTheLeft.com Check out the BotL iOS/Android App in the App Stores! Follow at Twitter.com/BestOfTheLeft Like at Facebook.com/BestOfTheLeft Contact me directly at Jay@BestOfTheLeft.com Review the show on iTunes!

Dr. Seuss helps us to simplify our commercial appraisals. "So the writer who breeds more words than he needs, it making a chore for the reader who reads." Write it like you want to read it.

Ev and Sophie discuss Naya Rivera (RIP), Mary Kay Letourneau (RIP...), and mandatory masks. 

STE - Tom Was In The Diner [Infiltrate] Alex Jann - Don't Come Around [Dance Trax] The Droid - Invasion [Digital Distortions] Pugilist - Maelstrom [Pugilist] Bodro - Classified Technology [Digital Distortions] Mutant Joe ft. Freddie Dredd + Julien Andreas - What U Thinkin [Natural Sciences] Controlled Weirdness - Hard Bass Attack [FDB] Luz1e - Da Grime Ting [International Chrome] Hooverian Blur - Eyes Closed [Sneaker Social Club] MASC - Eye Feel (Dance System Remix) [Super Rhythm Trax] Detroit's Filthiest - My Soul To Take [Bass Agenda] Ghetto Henry - 961 Trife Life [Doom Chakra Tapes] Drum Machine - Electro [Dusky Adriatic] Neil Landstrumm - Milano [Neil Landstrumm] Boggrow x винер - Hate [Get Busy] Dawl + Sween - Blast Our Way Out [Klasse Wrecks] OverworX - The Fuzz [OverworX] Second Storey - Scaldy Mott [Varvet] Lukes Anger - Gross Negligence [Bleeper] Stereotyp - Hydin Too [Seagrave] Nite Fleit - Little Monsters [Steel City Dance Discs] Volruptus - Butt Shakin' Freaks [bbbbbb] The Advent - Elektra [Kombination Research] Alex Jann - Cybernetik Memory [Dance Trax] Second Storey - Shouldna [Varvet] Mutant Joe - Drop a Bundle [International Chrome] Nite Fleit - All New Low [Steel City Dance Discs] Viers - VLVX Spiral Down [Turbo] Mall Grab - Alarmed [Looking For Trouble] Pilo - Ruhig [Boysnoize Records] NxF - Guberniya Trax 5 [Don't Make Me Think] Villager - Chimera [Boysnoize Records] Kowton - Loops 1 [Livity Sound] Arad - Flux States [Voitax] Posthuman - Three Body Problem [Balkan Vinyl] Borai - People Who Go To Raves [Club Glow] Deapmash - Warfare [Spinnup] Vex'd - Gunman [Planet Mu] Scanone - The Art of Fire Escape Artist - Digital Natives [Kalahari Oyster Cult]

Cosmin TRG - Having Said That [Cosmin TRG] Fadi Mohem - Horus [Seilscheibenpfeiler Schallplatten] Metrist - OB Lopes [Timedance] L/F/D/M - Synchro [Cititrax] Joy Overmono - Bromley [XL Recordings] Pugilist - Undulate [Whities] Eliphino - Lo Life [Lobster Theremin] Neil Landstrumm - Gameshope [Rawax] Locked Club - Sooooo Funky [Private Persons] Fear-E - Bang On It [Super Rhythm Trax] Dawl - Proton [Haŵs] Neil Landstrumm - STAND UP (for what you believe in) [Neil Landstrumm] BADBADLUV - Russian Nina [Raw Russian] Anfisa Letyago - Technology (James Welsh Remix) [Hotflush Recordings] NxF - Guberniya Trax 4 [Don't Make Me Think] Marshall Applewhite - Do Whatever [Solemne Records] New Order - Round&Round (Detroit mix) [Factory]

Website mistakes. I'm going to lay out the Top 17 website mistakes I've seen over the last twenty four years. I can pick almost any website apart that some web designer made because all they want is the money for making the Web site. They don't care if it makes money for you. So, make sure to read these show notes and let's fix it up for you. Screw The Commute Podcast Show Notes Episode 289 How To Automate Your Business - https://screwthecommute.com/automatefree/ Internet Marketing Training Center - https://imtcva.org/ Higher Education Webinar – https://screwthecommute.com/webinars 04:34 Tom's introduction to Website Mistakes 07:54 #17 No plan or purpose for the website 08:50 #16 Too many topics 09:47 #15 No instant recognition 11:07 #14 Site is not "responsive" 12:01 #13 Form over function 13:24 #12 No underlining and really, really avoid italics 17:05 #11 Too much navigation 19:10 #10 No obvious opt-in form 20:15 #9 Not including social media 21:54 #8 Broken links 22:24 #7 Disappointment 23:21 #6 Poor sales copy 26:37 #5 Slow loading 28:51 #4 Poor quality videos hosted on YouTube 31:17 #3 No call to action 33:17 #2 Overpaying for services 37:40 #1 Poor or nonexistent keyword usage 41:04 Sponsor message Entrepreneurial Resources Mentioned in This Podcast Higher Education Webinar - https://screwthecommute.com/webinars Screw The Commute - https://screwthecommute.com/ Screw The Commute Podcast App - https://screwthecommute.com/app/ College Ripoff Quiz - https://imtcva.org/quiz Know a young person for our Youth Episode Series? Send an email to Tom! - orders@antion.com Have a Roku box? Find Tom's Public Speaking Channel there! - https://channelstore.roku.com/details/267358/the-public-speaking-channel How To Automate Your Business - https://screwthecommute.com/automatefree/ Internet Marketing Retreat and Joint Venture Program - https://greatinternetmarketingtraining.com/ Copywriting 901 - https://copywriting901.com/ Broken Link Checker - https://www.brokenlinkcheck.com/ Google PageSpeed Insights - https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/ Fatso Tennis - https://fatsotennis.com/ Google Keyword Planner Tool - https://ads.google.com/home/tools/keyword-planner/ Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug - https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Make-Think-Revisited-Usability-dp-0321965515/dp/0321965515/ FlowPlayer - https://flowplayer.com/ Amazon S3 - https://aws.amazon.com/s3/ EVS - http://b153bjxsinxhrn6rhyc9vh4u0l.hop.clickbank.net/ Fiverr - https://www.fiverr.com/ Internet Marketing Training Center - https://imtcva.org/ Related Episodes Keyword Research - https://screwthecommute.com/1/ Voice Search - https://screwthecommute.com/130/ Alesia Abatie - https://screwthecommute.com/288/ More Entrepreneurial Resources for Home Based Business, Lifestyle Business, Passive Income, Professional Speaking and Online Business I discovered a great new headline / subject line / subheading generator that will actually analyze which headlines and subject lines are best for your market. I negotiated a deal with the developer of this revolutionary and inexpensive software. Oh, and it's good on Mac and PC. Go here: http://jvz1.com/c/41743/183906 The Wordpress Ecourse. Learn how to Make World Class Websites for $20 or less. https://www.GreatInternetMarketing.com/wordpressecourse Join our Private Facebook Group! One week trial for only a buck and then $37 a month, or save a ton with one payment of $297 for a year. Click the image to see all the details and sign up or go to https://www.greatinternetmarketing.com/screwthecommute/ After you sign up, check your email for instructions on getting in the group.

Tanner and Jasmine share their must-read books for designers. Spanning everything from how to conduct design critique or present your work, to what makes a good manager and how learning about org design can help your understanding of the work you do. The full list of books mentioned are: 1. The Design Method, by Eric Karjaluoto 2. The Shape of Design, by Frank Chimero 3. The Design of Everyday Things, by Don Norman 4. How Design Makes the World, by Scott Berkun 5. The Creativity Challenge, by Tanner Christensen 6. The Making of a Manager, by Julie Zhuo 7. Org Design for Design Orgs, by Kristen Skinner and Peter Merholz 8. Sprint, by Jake Knapp 9. Radical Candor, by Kim Scott 10. The Advantage, by Patrick Lencioni 11. The Messy Middle, by Scott Belsky 12. Redesigning Leadership, John Maeda 13. Discussing Design, by Aaron Irizarry and Adam Connor 14. Don't Make Me Think, by Steve Krug 15. About Face, by Alan Cooper 16. The User Experience Team of One, by Leah Buley 17. TED Talks, by Chris Anderson 18. Loonshots, by Safi Bahcall 19. Just Enough Research, by Erika Hall 20. Principles, by Ray Dalio 21. The Dance of the Possible, by Scott Berkun 22. The Elements of Typographic Style, by Robert Bringhurst 23. Thinking With Type, by Ellen Lupton 24. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, by Edward Tufte 25. Why are we Yelling, by Buster Benson 26. Resilient Management, by Lara Callender Hogan 27. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, by Patrick Lencioni 28. Articulating Design Decisions, by Tom Greever 29. Start With Why, by Simon Sinek 30. Mastering Collaboration, by Gretchen Anderson If you pick just four books to read from the list, Tanner and Jasmine recommend: The Design of Everyday Things, Org Design for Design Orgs, Discussing Design, and The Making of a Manager (even if you're not a manager!).

หนังสือ Usability ที่ใช้ Common sense ในการประเมินเว๊ปไซด์ ทำอย่างไรให้ออกแบบแล้วใช้งานง่าย ไม่ยุ่งยาก ซับซ้อน --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/sakol/message

How did financial industry startup Rocket Dollar achieve double-digit month-over-month growth in the highly competitive financial services industry? This week on The Inbound Success Podcast, Rocket Dollar co-founder Thomas Young shares details on the marketing strategy that helped this scrappy startup take on the 800-pound gorillas of the financial industry and quickly grow into a household name within two years of the company's launch. The great thing about Thomas's approach is that it doesn't require a huge budget and is something that any company - in any industry - can use to get results.  Highlights from my conversation with Thomas include: Rocket Dollar sells self-directed 401(k) and IRA accounts for anyone that wants to invest their retirement savings outside of stocks and bonds. The biggest use case is investing in multifamily real estate, venture funds or directly into startups in a way that is tax-protected. The company is a startup in the financial services industry, which is highly competitive and has very large, established players with enormous marketing budgets. Rocket Dollar had to overcome several challenges, one of which was people concerned that the company would not be around in a few years. In addition, they had to fight the perception amongst their target audience that people should be very conservative with their retirement savings and invest only in the traditional, established brokerage houses. Thomas has found that the best medium through which Rocket Dollar can address the challenges it is facing is email, so Thomas's goal in the beginning was always to get someone's email address. One way the company got traction in the beginning was by building upon the personal brands of its founders and focusing specifically on winning its local market in Austin, TX. The team that founded Rocket Dollar knew that differentiation would be key to the company's success, so everything from the company name, to the colors used in the branding and the design of the website is deliberately different than the rest of the financial services industry. Another way they differentiated was through messaging. While the rest of the self directed investing community was using anti-Wall Street messaging, Rocket Dollar channeled a more positive outlook that resonated well with its audience. The Rocket Dollar team knew that it would be essential to build trust with their audience, so they made a concerted effort to personalize the way they marketed, from sending emails directly from a founder rather than a corporate catch-all address, to including their faces on the website, etc. When they were ready to really turn on lead generation, the team used paid search to connect with prospects who were ready to buy. They did this by purchasing ads targeting long tail, high intent keywords that the bigger industry players were ignoring. This approach resulted in approximately half of the company's new contacts coming from its paid search efforts. When a new contact lands on the website, the primary CTA they are faced with is "get started," which is basically an immediate sign up for the product. Anyone who doesn't complete the sign up process is put into a lead nurturing workflow and subscribed to the company's newsletter. They have found that staying top of mind works very well for them, whereas anything that smacks of a hard sell really backfires because it jeopardizes the trust they've built with their audience. The team has invested heavily in creating educational content that it can share via email, and the result is that the company's unsubscribe rate is below a half a percent. Whereas 50% of the company's business comes from its pay-per-click marketing efforts, the other 50% is split evenly between leads from channel partners and customer referrals. Rocket Dollar has grown considerably in the last two years and now has customers in all 50 states, $75 million worth of IRA assets in its accounts, and grow in the double digits month over month. Thomas's advice for other startups that are competing in crowded markets is to win your backyard first, focus on getting email addresses (so you don't have to pay for access to your audience), and pay attention to the little things (make sure your marketing is very buttoned-up). Thomas also recommends leveraging the personal brands of your leadership team.  Resources from this episode: Visit the Rocket Dollar website Connect with Thomas on LinkedIn Follow Thomas on Twitter Contact Thomas by email at thomas@rocketdollar.com Get $100 off the setup fee on a new Rocket Dollar account using the code INBOUNDSUCCESS100 Listen to the podcast to get all the details on how Thomas and the Rocket Dollar team structured a marketing plan that enabled them to take on the giants of the financial industry and achieve double-digit month over month growth. Transcript Kathleen Booth (Host): Welcome back to the Inbound Success Podcast. I'm your host, Kathleen Booth, and today my guest is Thomas Young, who's the co-founder and VP of marketing at Rocket Dollar. Welcome, Thomas. Thomas Young (Guest): Thanks, Kathleen. Thanks for having me. Thomas and Kathleen recording this episode together . Kathleen: You have an interesting background because you formerly were an agency guy that used to work with financial services firms, but now you're actually the co-founder and VP of marketing in-house at a financial services firm. Can you talk a little bit more about your journey and your story, and also Rocket Dollar and what it is? About Thomas and Rocket Dollar Thomas: Sure. Yeah. So, my journey, it's been pretty fun and pretty fast-paced. Just right out of college, I kind of jumped into the startup ecosystem here in Austin, and my natural focus just sort of shifted to marketing, sort of accidentally. It was kind of the area that resonated the most with me. I graduated from UT Austin with an economics degree that helps in what I do today, but really, my focus and my sort of passion is marketing. I was working full-time at another company where one of the partners of that company also ran a financial advisory business sort of on the side and asked me if I could help her with some just very basic funnel stuff, everything from running Facebook ads to email marketing, just sort of seeing if we could learn together. It turns out I really enjoyed my time doing that, and so through her network I started getting more and more freelance clients, to the point where I basically quit my day job and focused full-time on this agency freelancing, and what I would do is just kind of run the project and then hire other contractors on Upwork or Fiverr or whatever to sort of help me with the heavy lifting. I really enjoyed doing that, and it was fun to market challenging products, which financial products are always challenging to market, and they're expensive to market, and so you have to get really crafty and creative, which I really enjoyed. In the sort of process of doing that, I came across this product that Rocket Dollar sells, which I'll get into in a sec, and I really didn't like the way it was being done by other companies, and I knew that just being in Austin and being in this space, that there was tech play here, and that this was a product that I really liked, that resonates with not only me, but with a lot of people, a lot of different investors. When I met my co-founders, we kind of decided that it was kind of a no-brainer to do this, because I knew the product, I knew the marketing, and my co-founders know the tech. So, it was just a very natural fit, and it came together really fast. So, what Rocket Dollar does is we sell self-directed 401(k) and IRA accounts for basically anyone with an IRA or a 401(k) that wants to invest their retirement savings outside of stocks and bonds. So, the biggest sort of use case that we have is you set up a Rocket Dollar IRA, and then you can go invest in multifamily real estate, or you can invest in a venture fund or directly into a startup, and it's all tax-advantaged, all tax-protected. So, any gains, for example, if you invest in the next Facebook as an angel with your IRA, you'll never pay taxes on it. We simply set up the structure of the account. We help you track your investments across whatever asset class, and then we service the account on the reporting side to the IRS. So, in a nutshell, that's what Rocket Dollar does, and I've been fortunate enough to not only be in on the ground floor, but also continue marketing this product that I really enjoy. David v. Goliath: How Rocket Dollar tool on the big players in the financial services industry Kathleen: Interesting. So, you alluded to this when you were talking about what led you to Rocket Dollar. It's obviously in the financial services industry. I too have had some experience with that at the agency level and know that it's incredibly competitive. There are a bunch of 800-pound gorillas in the industry, and that have really deep pockets, that can throw a ton of money behind the keywords they want to get found for. There are a lot of players, sheer numbers. So, coming in as a relatively new player in the industry that has a business model that is intended to be a high-growth model, yes, it's a tech play, but it's SaaS, essentially. It just happens to be in financial services. How do you wrap your brain around... You're going to have to grow this company a lot, and a lot of that growth is going to have to come through marketing, because this isn't an enterprise sales team pounding the pavement. I mean, I don't even know where to start. Talk me through how you begin taking on those Goliaths. Thomas: Sure. Well, it is challenging, and it's a lot of fun, but basically, what we started at the beginning is we knew that we were going to have to overcome several things. One is we're asking people to trust us with their retirement savings as a startup. So, the question, what happens if you're not here in two years, or in three years, or in five years, that question came up a lot in the first year of Rocket Dollar, and it scared a lot of people. So, that was one that we had to overcome. The second one was it's a completely new way of thinking about your retirement savings, something that you've been learning about since you were probably... Most people hear the word IRA from their parents when they're growing up, and the indoctrination of Fidelity and Schwab and Vanguard is strong, that this is money that is completely sacred, that you can't touch, that you can't do anything with, so just give it to us and let us fee you from now until you're 60, and that's strong for a lot of people. So, you have to overcome that. Then yeah, just getting any sort of bandwidth in that space, we have to be really creative with our lead gen, and then also with how we approach, for example, paid search on Google. I mean, it's so expensive when you knock up against certain keywords, and then it just drops off on other ones. So, we've been really creative there. The way that I think about it is if I can get to an email, then I can build that trust, because now I can communicate sort of one-on-one with that potential customer, with that consumer in a really cheap way, and then take my time building that trust. I'm not trying to sell you today. I'm not trying to sell you tomorrow. I just want to make sure that this is a good fit, and the best medium for us to be able to do that has been email. Then the other thing that we did just from the very beginning was try to win Austin. We're based in Austin. Our founders are known here. So, we each had a personal brand, if you will, and we really leveraged that in order to get Rocket Dollar sort of off the ground, and then just letting that sort of goodwill that we built up in Austin spread organically throughout the state, and then traveling to different conferences, making sure that we were there, that we were very present, very available, and that helped us a lot in the first year. It was not a lot of digital marketing, and a lot of face-to-face interactions, which I think really helped us out. Kathleen: I can appreciate that, though. I used to have an agency, and I live in Annapolis, Maryland, which is not a huge market. This is where my agency was, and I remember any time there came an opportunity that involved doing marketing for one of the small number of really large companies here in Annapolis, I was like, "We have to win this, because it's in our backyard." You have to win your backyard first, first and second and last. Right? You have to win at home if you're going to have any hope of winning everywhere else, because it's the friendliest market, and it's a great place to test out and kind of hone your messaging and your strategy. So, I can very much appreciate that approach. Now, did it really start with how you positioned the brand? I mean, is that kind of the first step, given that you're in this crowded marketplace? Why differentiation was key Thomas: Well, yeah, and one of the things that we knew that we needed to do was be a little bit different. The name Rocket Dollar is, in and of itself, different from some of these agencies, or some of these companies, I'm sorry, that are named after these titans, J.P. Morgan and Charles Schwab and these... We knew we needed a little bit of a different angle, and we needed to be just interesting enough to pique a little bit of curiosity. So, we did that. So, just beginning from the name, beginning from our approach to how we build our website, and just the tone that we took, it all sort of came together pretty organically, just because of the way we are as the founding team, but it was very conscious to not be, for example, another blue and white or green financial services company. We threw out the purple, and everybody thought we were crazy, and we got a lot of pushback, and now it's kind of just our thing. Kathleen: Yeah, can you actually... I want to dig into that a little bit, because this is something that I've run into myself. I used to, for example, do a lot of work with law firms, and there was one law firm I worked with, and I was like, "Everybody else is going forest green. You need to go left when they go right." You do get a lot of pushback because it's like, well, everybody else is doing it this way. So, I don't know if it's a fear-based reaction or what, but can you talk me through that decision-making process, and how did you get consensus around that? Thomas: Well, luckily for us, there was only two of us in the room at the time when we decided, so it wasn't this big... We were sitting in a conference room of another startup that Henry, my co-founder, was a board member of, and so they used to lend us this conference room with a whiteboard so we could sort of sketch out our ideas. We were on, I think it was Fiverr or Upwork or something, getting our sort of first logo made after we decided on the name, and we got this huge swath of different ones and different logo. One of them was purple, and Henry was like, "That sort of speaks to me," and I saw it, and I was... "Well, it's the one that stands out the most. These other ones look like regular financial services' boring logos, and I really like that purple." , we kind of just decided right there in about 15 seconds that we were going to have purple as our primary color. Then when we went out to investors, and when we built our first pitch decks, and when we hired our first employees, everybody just... They didn't really like it, and then now it's just a thing, and everybody knows us as the purple guys in Austin, and it just very naturally became our thing. Kathleen: But how did you make the decision to stick with it in the face of VCs and others who were saying, "We don't like this purple. It doesn't work"? Thomas: Probably mostly sheer stubbornness, to be completely honest with you. I think we just got attached to it, and the pushback wasn't all negative. There were some people that really liked that approach. So, we heard both sides of it, and we just decided that we were going to stick with our guns. I liked it as a marketer because it would just let me be a little bit different. On every conference that we went to, our logo is going to be a little bit different than everybody else. Everything we sponsor, it's just going to pop a little bit more. So, from a branding angle it was really easy... I really liked it just because it was easy to see, quite simply. There wasn't a whole lot of extra thought, whether purple means anything, or whether it stands for anything. I mean, I know that it does, but- Kathleen: Yeah. I think it stands for royalty, so maybe that means that you guys will be the kings of the industry someday. Thomas: Well, that's what we're going for. That's what we should've told the VCs instead of the fact that- Kathleen: There you go. Thomas: But no, it just happened very sort of naturally. Kathleen: In hindsight, do you think that taking that deliberately kind of different approach to visual branding helped set you apart? Thomas: I think so. I think it got us just that first little bit of mind share. The name as well, Rocket Dollar doesn't really convey that we're in the retirement industry, that we're selling IRA and 401(k) accounts, so I think that sort of piqued curiosity at the beginning, too, and Henry, our CEO and my co-founder, he had a company prior that was sold to Goldman Sachs called Honest Dollar, and they did very small business... It was a tech play on small business retirement accounts for businesses with less than 10 employees, that getting a 401(k) plan is very expensive. It was that, and so they exited, and it was a good win for them. So, Rocket Dollar was just kind of the natural progression. Now you can take a little more risk with your money, and so rocket it. I think we decided at 2:00 in the morning that we liked that named and... Kathleen: When all great names are developed. Right? Thomas: Yeah, yeah. Kathleen: I think in the case of my business, it was very late at night over a bottle of wine. Thomas: Yeah. There was a couple of cocktails involved, and we bought the domain on his phone at 2:00 in the morning for like $1,800, and that was just it from that day forward. Audience research and product development Kathleen: Awesome. So, you established the name. You got the visual branding. What came next? Thomas: So, at that point we started really just focusing on product, and so we weren't really thinking about the marketing in a traditional sense. Even though I'm a marketer, I was pretty heads-down with our product team, just building what the MVP was going to look like. So, during that time, we also had the ability to sit down with a lot of people around Austin and sort of generate that first sort of list before we launched. So, we really just focused on product, and then on just communicating with our stakeholders, and we did the classic "download your email list off of LinkedIn," and just start communicating what you're doing, seeing if there's interest, asking questions, sitting down with a lot of potential customers in Austin. The coffee shop across the street, by the end of those two or three months, they already knew to have our coffees ready. So, we just talked to a lot of people and asked them what part of our product resonated, what part scared them, what part they were excited about, and really focused on getting our messaging through that, listening to people that I'd sold these accounts to prior, that I knew were customers of the last company that I worked for, and also people that just were interested in sitting down with us. So, it was just really kind of a month-long listening campaign, if you will, to sort of determine what our voice was going to be. For example, a lot of people in this specific niche are very anti-Wall Street, and so they take a very negative tone, a very anti-government tone, very fear-based tone that resonates with a certain audience, and it works because I've sold these accounts that way before. I didn't want to be that company with that tone and that negativity, and so it was really more about building an empowerment sort of message and sort of a... This is going to sound really cheesy, but a "reach for the stars with your retirement dollars" message, and that resonated really well with everyone I talked to, not just people that would've liked the anti-Wall Street or people that really thought that this was too risky, but they liked that tone. So, once I heard that enough, I knew that that was sort of going to be our voice for when we started going outside of our little bubble in Austin, and it's worked. We get really good feedback on how we approach our messaging. Kathleen: It's really interesting that you bring up that choice of taking a fear-based or a positive approach to messaging. I've done some research into this, and I've been fascinated by it, and there's a lot of data from particularly the public health space, that while fear-based messaging can work, positive messaging that taps into positive emotions is so much more effective, especially over the longterm. It goes back to antismoking campaigns, and I think it's really interesting because right now we're kind of coming full circle where they're using these pictures of people with tracheotomies and disfigured faces to try to convince people not to smoke. The most effective antismoking campaign was the Truth campaign, and it's because they realized that if you want to keep kids from starting to smoke, the whole reason they start to smoke has nothing to do with them not understanding the health implications. It has everything to do with them wanting to rebel against their parents. So, if you make it, "Hey, rebel against Big Tobacco that's trying to control you," then they're like, "Yeah, I'm going to stick it to Big Tobacco and not smoke." That actually worked, as opposed to, "You're going to get black lung disease. You're going to need to have surgery, et cetera." So, then they did the same thing with heart bypass patients, what got them to make healthy changes over the longterm, and it was all more positive messaging. So, it's just interesting from a marketing standpoint that so many industries continue to use the fear-based messaging, I think because it is kind of easier, but I don't know, what my observation has been, that the ones that tap into the more positive stuff, those are the companies and the brands that actually build the most loyal following over the longterm, because that's what people really climb onto, and they want to be a part of a movement. Thomas: Yeah, absolutely. Even at its most basic level, it's just who we are as people, the people that work at Rocket Dollar. So, I'm kind of Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky. I come into the office with a big stupid smile on my face every day, and I'm not good at fear marketing because that's just not who I am. Building trust through personalization Thomas: So, it was also really easy for us to take this tone, just because it's our natural sort of way of existing, and I think that having that sort of authenticity early in our marketing, well, early and to this day, really helps us because it's very clear that there's people at the other end of our emails and of our messaging. I mean, I sign our emails. Our marketing emails, I sign them personally, or Henry does, or somebody does, because we want to make sure that there's people. We plaster our faces on our own website all over the place so that you can see who you're interacting with, who you're talking to on the phone, who is running the company that you're trusting with your retirement dollars. I mean, all of that is really important, especially in the retirement space when you're going up against these big brands like Fidelity or Charles Schwab or whatever. Kathleen: Yeah. I love that, that whole concept of personalizing it to transfer the trust. Getting into the audience's email inbox Kathleen: From what I understand, the company is under two years old, and it sounds like you spent the better part of the first year really developing the product, nailing down the messaging, et cetera, and then you talked about how then it became all about getting into somebody's email inbox. So, can you pick apart for me what approaches have you taken to that, what has worked really well? Because obviously, you're going after a big audience in the post-Austin kind of world. How do you go out to a cold audience and make it into their inbox? Thomas: Sure. Well, it's been fast. I mean, from when we sort of looked outside of Austin to having customers in all 50 states was a couple months. So, it went really fast. So, there is a natural sort of group of people looking for this product, and so at the beginning it was just capturing people that already knew that this was something they wanted to do, and it was going directly after our competitors on paid search, for example, and just capturing sort of the top of the funnel. Well, it would really be the middle of the funnel, because they already were aware. They were already educated. It was just a decision-making process. So, we were really good at capturing those people because the other people in this space, frankly, are just a little bit behind us on the tech and on the cost and all that, so it was pretty easy. Kathleen: Wait. Now, can you explain that a little bit? Because I think that's easy to say, but this is a challenge a lot of people have. This is an industry where your competitors are very well established. I'm sure the bid price for the keywords is really high. So, how exactly did you beat them at the paid search game? Thomas: Sure. Well, it was actually just going a little bit on longer-tail keywords, because the Charles Schwabs, the Fidelitys, they don't do exactly what we do, in that they don't sell you an account that allows you to invest in real estate or in stocks and bonds. So, whenever we go a little bit deeper into the keywords, the volume's actually much lower, and the keywords are much cheaper. So, if we were just bidding IRA, and then you're going to get all the big boys, and that's going to be a $15, $20 keyword. I mean, it's going to be ridiculous. Kathleen: Did you go after that at all, those short-tail keywords? Thomas: No, no. We couldn't afford it at all. The people that are searching for that are thinking about a Charles Schwab or a Fidelity account anyways. That's what they want. They want the stocks and bonds. But when you go a little bit further, then there's the people looking for, "Well, can I do real estate in an IRA? Can I do startups in an IRA, or investing in cryptocurrency through an IRA?" So, then you get to those, and yeah, the volume is lower, but the price is also lower, and frankly, it was more than we could handle. We weren't ready to scale and hit hundreds of accounts a month or thousands of accounts a month. So, it was good for us to be able to test that sort of slowly before really pouring gasoline on the fire. It was also a more educated audience because they knew that they wanted a self-directed account, and then we weren't going up against Charles Schwab. We were going up against Pensco Trust Company or Equity Trust, or some of these that as soon as you see their reviews online, it's pretty clear that we're going to just beat them on customer service, which is really where we do beat a lot of these people at, and our price point is significantly lower because, like you mentioned earlier, we're a SaaS play, not a service company. Kathleen: So, what percentage of your new contacts comes from paid search, roughly? Thomas: Probably about half. Kathleen: Okay. So, these people convert on an ad. They get into your database, and then you're putting them into email drip flows. Is that right? Thomas: Yeah. I mean, someone comes to our site, and we don't really have just plain lead captures. We really just have a signup button, and so that's our first lead gen, basically, tool. At that point, if they do not finish buying an account, then they come into sort of a short-term nurture that then turns into a long-term nurture after about a month, and then it goes into a newsletter list. So, we've found that if people... Because of the sort of mid-funnel group that we're really heavily going after in the paid search, they're already aware, they're already educated, if they don't convert within three days, it's going to be... They will convert. A percentage of them does convert, and it's a high percentage. It's going to be probably a month to three later, and that's simply because whenever you buy an account from us, you self-direct your money. So, if they don't have an investment in mind, they don't set up the account until they knew what they're going to do. So then really, it's just about staying top of mind in this space so that whenever something does come across that they want to do, it's just an automatic reaction that, "Hey, those Rocket Dollar guys, I'll just go set up my account there. It'll be easy, cheap, whatever, and then I'll make my investment." So, I'm really just more focused on staying sort of relevant, providing value, talking about the space, talking about different investment types, and then people convert naturally once they decide it's something to do. The thing that really does not work well for us is the hard sell, because people, the minute you start trying to do a hard sell on a retirement account, people lose trust, and then it's just very transactional, and it's not really... You lose, and we found that out pretty early. So, it's just providing content, being top of mind, staying in touch, and people convert naturally. Email lead nurturing Kathleen: Is there something you're doing in those email nurture sequences or in your newsletter to really keep people engaged? Because I do find for myself at least, if I show that initial interest, I convert on something, but if it is that two-to-three-month period, and I'm not ready to sign up, I get very highly likely to unsubscribe unless something is really, really delivering value, because I don't like my inbox being cluttered by things that are not really worth it. Thomas: Yeah, yeah. Absolutely, and I'm the same way. One of the big investments that we've made is on educational content. So, we share a lot of blogs, a lot of webinars that we're on sometimes. We've launched our own podcast that's growing pretty quickly. So, I think as long as we provide educational content and really go for those light bulb moments with people where, "Oh, I didn't know that. That's cool. Let's see what comes next week or next month or whatever," as long as we share something that resonates and a little bit of a longer form, not just get a hundred dollars off emails. Those are really annoying. But we spend a lot of time and energy creating content that we think will resonate. Our unsubscribe rate is below half a percent, so it's really working, and we write about what we're reading or learning in that moment. So, it really kind of happens organically, what we choose to share, especially in our newsletters. Our nurture emails are a little bit more permanent. We don't edit them that much. But our newsletter and our blog is really just sort of what the team is interested in that week. So, that's worked, and I think we'll continue to do that. Channel marketing and referrals Kathleen: Now, you mentioned about half of your new contacts come from pay-per-click. Where does the other half come from? Thomas: Yeah. So, the other half, we spend a lot of time with partners, so people that are raising money for their own projects. So, it could be anybody from a real estate investor raising a small syndicate fund to an entrepreneur that's raising a fund, or that's raising money for their own startup, or there are some bigger partners. So, for example, Gemini in the crypto world, Fundrise, sort of these investment platforms, we go to them and say, "Hey, to tap into another pool of funds, did you know that people can invest in you through an IRA? Send them to us. We'll set up the account for them, and then you get their money as an investor." So, that's worked really well for us, too, on the brand-building side because these trusted sources are referring us business because we're taking care of their investors. As long as we continue to take care of other people's investors, we really win there. That, I would say, is about 25% of our business. Then the other 25% of our business is customer referrals. So, our own customers are telling people about us, and that's working really well. We do have a referral campaign that kicks off about 60 days after someone purchases, make sure that their account's funded, that they've made an investment, at which point we do circle back and say, "Hey, if there's anybody in your audience that you think would be interested in this, here's some material that you can share. We'd really appreciate it." The cool thing about these accounts is that it's, I think, the only retirement account that people talk about with their friends over the dinner table because they feel really smart when they bought a rental property with their IRA. So, it's natural that our customers share it, and it's... Yeah. That accounts for about 25% of our business, is just our referral campaign. Kathleen: Yeah. It's a lot more interesting than saying, "Yes, I am 30% invested in a low-risk bond fund." No, no, no. I don't want to hear about that. Customer Facebook group Thomas: Yeah. No, it's definitely something that people like to talk about. We have a really great customer-only Facebook group where people talk about what they're doing, where people share ideas, where people ask us questions. So, our team is in there moderating it all the time, and it's kind of the, "Oh, you don't have anything to do for an hour? Let's go check what's happening in the Facebook group." People are sharing some really cool stories. So, we market that a little bit, where you get access to this investor group. So, people like that education, and that group sort of sparks creativity for a lot of our customers, and I think that that really has been a good thing for us to do. Kathleen: That's interesting, because I guess... Correct me if I'm wrong, but are there many other companies like yours or in the industry that are tapping into Facebook groups? I don't get the sense that there are. Thomas: In my experience, no, and I've bought accounts from most of our competitors, just testing out their processes, seeing what's going on and what's not, what they're doing well, what they're not doing well, and then comparing it to what we're doing well and not well, and no, I've never been invited to a Facebook group. Kathleen: Yeah. It's also interesting, too, because... This could be my lack of knowledge speaking, but from the limited knowledge I have of marketing in the financial industry, you have FINRA and SEC guidance on what you can and cannot say yourself, but I imagine in the Facebook group your customers can say anything, pretty much. Is that right? Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, they can anything they'd like, and they do. But one of the advantages that we have is as a... I mean, technically we are a third-party administrator, so we are really handling paperwork. We're not advising. We're not investing. We're not touching money. So, we have a little bit more leeway in what we can say than a traditional financial services company. I mean, we cannot advise, but we can... Most of our customers aren't looking for us to advise. What they're looking for is if we come across a deal that we think they'd be interested in, a lot of times we'll share just if we have a personal relationship with that customer, which a lot of times we develop that relationship, and we can speak to the legality of whether it's an allowed transaction with the IRA, because that's a pretty clear yes/no. That's sort of where we keep it, but we'll talk about... If I make an investment through mine, I'll post it in the Facebook group and say, "Hey, I thought this was cool. I did it. If anybody else wants to participate, there it is." So, it's pretty crazy how much money moves around just off of those little posts that we put on that group. Our partners, luckily for us, are realizing that we're tapping into almost 10 trillion dollars worth of IRA money, and that there's some significant funds there for their projects. What makes Rocket Dollar's channel marketing strategy successful Kathleen: That's interesting. So, the partners interest me because I've talked with a number of different people on this podcast about channel marketing strategies, and I think this sounds like a channel marketing strategy, but with a twist. Fair to say that that's really what it is? Thomas: Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, we market directly to partners to try to get them in our... I mean, we have a whole separate funnel for partners and a whole separate section of the website for our partners where they can learn about raising money through IRAs with the goal really being of them referring us customers. What we tell them is, "Hey, look. It's available. You don't have to know all that much about it. You have to know that you can do it. Send them to us. We'll educate them. We'll let them know what needs to happen. You don't need to work that hard. Let us work hard, and then the end result is that you get your deals funded faster, and your investors will be taken care of." Kathleen: It's funny that you put it that way because I've been actually a reseller, a value-added reseller in a number of channel programs, and when I talk with people about what I think, at least from that side of the equation, makes a great reseller program, it is the programs that make your life really easy as the reseller. So, I was a HubSpot partner for 11 years, and they have an amazing partner program, and it's because they make your life so easy. They spoonfeed you white-labeled content. Here's 10 emails you can use to nurture people. They put you through sales training. Literally, you can't almost fail, and that makes it such an appealing program to be a part of, and it sounds kind of like that's the same approach you've taken here. Any thoughts on what it is that has made your partner program so successful? Thomas: Well, I think at the end of the day it's that it gets... I mean, they're not even resellers. It just gets their deals funded faster. So, it's a true win-win. We get a customer, and they get money into their deals. So, it's not even that... It's just a tool for them to make their life easier, so it's like... The easiest way to put it is if they have to work less and I'm saving them time, and they're just getting their money faster. I mean, it's just really that simple for us, and we're not paying our partners. Maybe we'll give them a discount, but it's really just... We'll make your life easier if you refer us business. Kathleen: Yeah, that is huge. Thomas: Yeah, yeah. It's pretty simple, but it's powerful. Rocket Dollar's growth Kathleen: So, can you share anything about the company's growth in the last two years, and kind of where you are right now as opposed to when you started? Thomas: Yeah. So, like I mentioned earlier, we've really sort of grown in 2019, is really when poured a little bit of fuel on the fire. We have customers in all 50 states now. We've got somewhere around $75 million worth of IRA assets in Rocket Dollar accounts. Right now, we're really sort of continuing to grow in the double digits month over month, so it's going really well. Then we're really focusing again on our channel partners, but some of the bigger ones. So, we're going after the big players, the YieldStreets of the world, the Crunchbases of the... Or Crunchbase. I'm sorry, Coinbase, the Coinbases of the world, where it's really a mega strategy where it's not five or 10 accounts. It's a thousand to 5,000 accounts, and really hooking in to their APIs with our own so that it's just a seamless experience for them and for their customers to get into their deals with IRA dollars. So, that's really sort of what's on the roadmap, and then we are also launching, about halfway through next year, a robo advisor so that if you don't know the alternative deal that you want to participate in, you can have your traditional stocks, bonds, mutual funds, inside of a Rocket Dollar account, so when you are ready to make that investment, your money's all right there, and you don't have to set up the account, or when you exit an investment, you don't have to transfer again to Vanguard or to Schwab. You can just do it all inside Rocket Dollar. So, we're really sort of pursuing the whole account versus just the amount that you're going to use to buy that rental house instead of transferring... If it's a hundred-thousand-dollar house, people are transferring a hundred-thousand dollars over to us, we'd rather them just bring over the whole thing and have everything in one account. So, that's really our product roadmap for the next six months to a year. What does it take for a startup to succeed in a highly competitive market? Kathleen: That makes sense. Now, if somebody is listening and they have a startup, and they're in the same situation you were two years ago, where they're entering a market that's very crowded, that has some very well funded incumbents, can you sort of boil down to two or three things that you think, based on your experience, are essential to do to be successful in that situation? Thomas: Yeah. I think number one is win your building, win your block, win your zip code, win your city slowly, and it's a lot of manual or in-person interactions. It's really getting yourself out there, and then your company sort of follows. I think that's number one, because you're not going to win on Google. You're not going to win on Facebook. You're not going to win on Instagram, because these guys are spending a day what you might raise for your entire seed round. I talk to people, I met with a company the other day, and they said that they haven't turned on their full digital spend. They're only spending $350,000 a month. Kathleen: Oh, amateur hour. Come on. Thomas: Yeah, and that's what I spend in a year. Kathleen: Right. Thomas: Right? You're not going to compete on their turf, so you got to be creative and come up with your own turf. For us, it was winning Austin, and your goal being not selling an account, but getting an email address, and that way we could continue to communicate with you without having to pay for it, if you will, because I can write copy, and I can write emails, and so it was really just finding the cheapest way to talk to people, and for us it was email. The other thing is we really focused on the little things, on appearing very buttoned up, on punctuation, on editing, on grammar, on spelling, everything that you don't really think about, but the minute someone sees a typo on an email from a financial services brand, you've lost because you can't be making those mistakes if you want to talk about someone's retirement. Kathleen: Right. If we can't trust you with our commas, how are we going to trust you with our dollars? Thomas: Exactly. Exactly. So, those two things for us were very sort of fundamental, is winning Austin, and then just focusing on the little things, like spending the extra hour to edit a blog post, or spending the extra 30 minutes to lay out the email perfect, and those little things really added up for us. We're still doing them. I mean, it's still a huge focus for us. We're still trying to win trust. We're still trying to win mind share. So, everything that we did in year one we're still doing. Kathleen: Now, just to digress for a second, you mentioned something that we really didn't touch on, which is putting yourself out there. I think you briefly mentioned it earlier, personal brands. I think there are probably a lot of founders who are technically very savvy about the product they're building. They're very passionate about it. But I've met many who are very reluctant to put themselves out there. Any advice as far as how to do it, why to do it, and what impact it's had on the business? Thomas: Yeah, absolutely. We've been lucky that two of our three founders are very extroverted. Henry and I are comfortable in front of crowds, and Rick, who's our third co-founder and our CTO, is also very comfortable with people, and he's very technical. So, we got very lucky that we have three founders that are very willing to grab a microphone. It really doesn't faze us all that much. Henry already had a pretty strong personal brand in Austin because of his prior exits, because of his work in the 401(k) space for... He set up probably a couple hundred 401(k)s for different businesses around Austin, so he was very well known. To be completely honest with you, I struggle with the whole concept of personal brands because it's not really my forte to really promote me. I'd rather promote the brand. So, it was something that I had to learn, but I think it's just practice and getting out there, and taking every opportunity that you can to grab a microphone, to speak, to talk about your company, and you don't even have to talk about yourself. Just talk about your company, because that's what you're passionate about, and that's what you know, and that's what resonates with people. Start with your audience. Start with your people. Right? If you're very technical, go to technical meetups and practice there, and then just grow slowly, and you'll get more and more comfortable just by sheer process of repetition. Kathleen: I love it. That's great advice for, I think, really anybody who's trying to build a company, whether they're the founder, the head of marketing, the head of sales, et cetera. Thomas: Absolutely. Kathleen's two questions Kathleen: Well, I don't want to finish without asking you the two questions that I always ask all my guests. Thomas: Sure. Kathleen: We talk a lot about inbound marketing on The Inbound Success Podcast, so is there a particular company or individual that you think is really killing it right now with that? Thomas: You know, I hesitated to say this because we talk about them so much, but I was having a conversation with our account manager at HubSpot a couple months ago, and they really kill it. They've actually recently stopped having any sort of outbound sales at all. They are only inbound now, which I thought was risky and also amazing. I mean, they must be doing it so well to be able to take that big of a bet on- Kathleen: I'm convinced it's because their database has every single person on the planet earth in it. Thomas: Oh, yeah. No, they know... Kathleen: Yeah. Thomas: No, I think they're doing it really well, and it's obvious that they're still accelerating, and they're still growing. I mean, we're on HubSpot. I love HubSpot. I'm a huge fan. Their educational content, it's fantastic. I think that they really are doing a really good job. Kathleen: Okay, and then second question, one of the biggest things I hear from marketers that I speak to is that things are changing so quickly. Digital marketing is like drinking from a fire hose. How do you personally, as the head of marketing and a co-founder at Rocket Dollar, how do you stay up-to-date on everything? Thomas: Well, I'm sure like a lot of other guests, I read almost everything. I spend a lot of time... I love Medium.com. They have some really good publications. There's one called Better Marketing that is fantastic. It has really good content. So, I'm on Medium a lot. I read a lot of just news and a lot of sort of industry... The CMO section of The Wall Street Journal I think is fantastic, just because it's all relevant and timely. Then there's three books that have really spoken to me that have been fantastic, and one of them is called Don't Make Me Think, and it's all about user behavior online and why some things work and why some don't, and A/B testing and all that. It's pretty in the weeds, but it's fantastic. Another one is Lean Analytics. It's fantastic. It's very dense. It's like a textbook, but if you can get through that, you'll come out the other side just really able to sort of mix the creative and the analytical bit that's really important for marketers. I mean, the part that drew me to marketing was the numbers as much as the creativity, and I really like that balance. So, Lean Analytics is a great one if you're heavy creative and need some analytics help. Then there's a third that's really just a guide. It's called The Art of Digital Marketing. It's a big, thick book that's fantastic. So, those three, I think you could definitely get freelance clients just if you read those three. You could start working and marketing, and then just staying up-to-date with when Facebook changes their algorithms or when Google changes their bid process or whatever. That's just the sort of in the weeds stuff. But yeah, I would say Medium.com and those three books. Kathleen: I love those suggestions. Yeah. Those are three books that I have not heard people mention on here before, so I will definitely check those out. If you're listening and you want to find all those things, of course I'll put the links in the show notes, so head there to get ahold of those. How to connect with Thomas or learn more about Rocket Dollar Kathleen: If somebody wants to learn more about Rocket Dollar or wants to connect with you and ask a question, what's the best way for them to do that? Thomas: Yeah. So, I set this up for this podcast, but if you go to rocketdollar.com/inboundsuccess, we can talk there, and then also, I set it up, just if anybody is interested in one of these accounts, we'll knock a hundred bucks off the setup fee if you use INBOUNDSUCCESS100 at checkout. And then if you want to reach me personally, my email is thomas@rocketdollar.com. So, feel free to reach out. I mean, I stay on top of that, and I'm pretty open on it. So, that's really the easiest way to get to me. Kathleen: Great. Again, I'll put all those links in the show notes, so head there if you want to take advantage of any of those opportunities. You know what to do next... If you're listening and you liked what you heard or you learned something new, leave the podcast a five-star review on Apple Podcasts. That helps us a lot get in front of new listeners. And of course, if you know somebody else doing kick-ass inbound marketing work, tweet me @WorkMommyWork, because they could be my next interview. Thanks so much, Thomas. Thomas: Cool. Thank you, Kathleen. I really enjoyed it.

We are joined by User Experience Designer [Shannon McHarg](https://twitter.com/EfficientIxD) and Content Strategist [Ryan Johnson](https://twitter.com/forestglenroad), who both work at the [Office of Natural Resources Revenue](https://twitter.com/DOIONRR), an agency within the [United States Department of the Interior](https://twitter.com/Interior). We'll talk about an open source project they both contribute to called [Maine Ballot](https://maineballot.org/). ### Resources and Shoutouts: - [Maine Ballot](https://maineballot.org/) - [Don't Make Me Think](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18197267-don-t-make-me-think-revisited) - [UK Digital Service](https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/government-digital-service) - [Digital Transformation at Scale](https://www.andrewgreenway.com/book) - [How to Make Sense of Any Mess](http://www.howtomakesenseofanymess.com/) - [Natural Resources Revenue Data](https://revenuedata.doi.gov/) - [Heydon Pickering](http://www.heydonworks.com/) ##### Music Credit: [Tumbleweeds by Monkey Warhol](http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Monkey_Warhol/Lonely_Hearts_Challenge/Monkey_Warhol_-_Tumbleweeds)

Today I’m talking to Founder & President Jon MacDonald https://thegood.com TheGood.com convert more of your existing website visitors into buyers.  If you're frustrated with low online sales Suffering from low conversion rates Paying for traffic which doesn’t convert effectively Tired of shopping cart abandonment Unhappy with your site’s design Ready to unlock your site’s hidden potential Contact Jon MacDonald here: bizdev@thegood.com 503 488 5935 Resources mentioned in this episode: Don't Make Me Think, Revisited. By Steve Krug Since Don’t Make Me Think was first published in 2000, hundreds of thousands of Web designers and developers have relied on usability guru Steve Krug’s guide to help them understand the principles of intuitive navigation and information design. Witty, commonsensical, and eminently practical, it’s one of the best-loved and most recommended books on the subject. Now Steve returns with fresh perspective to reexamine the principles that made Don’t Make Me Think a classic–with updated examples and a new chapter on mobile usability. And it’s still short, profusely illustrated…and best of all–fun to read. If you’ve read it before, you’ll rediscover what made Don’t Make Me Think so essential to Web designers and developers around the world. If you’ve never read it, you’ll see why so many people have said it should be required reading for anyone working on Web sites. “After reading it over a couple of hours and putting its ideas to work for the past five years, I can say it has done more to improve my abilities as a Web designer than any other book.” –Jeffrey Zeldman, author of Designing with Web Standards   Is It Time To Get Better At Google Ads? The Ultimate Google Ads Catch-Up Plan I Want To Grow My Business.. I Want To Sell More Products... Sound Familiar? Get The Results You Want By Creating Profitable Campaigns. Join My Free Masterclass Now! Discover the 7 Absolutely Killer Tips For Google Ads So You Can Generate More Sales. [FREE] Google Ads Video Training Series. Get Instant Access Here >> p.s. Please subscribe over on iTunes. It really does help this podcast to grow! Drop me a note in the comments section over at  https://www.philadair.com and let me know your thoughts. Listen to the full episode now: Download here >> p.s. Please subscribe over on iTunes. It really does help this podcast to grow! Drop me a note in the comments section over at PhilAdair.com and let me know your thoughts.  Listen to the full episode now >> How To Create Irresistible Headlines (People Can't Help But Click) Get Instant Access Here >> Remember to subscribe to this podcast and check out my [FREE] Google Ads Video Training Series. Get Instant Access Here >> 7 Absolutely Killer Tips For Google Ads & Why They Crush The Competition.  Free Mini-Online Course. Start here >>  How to Build an Email List FAST - 27 "Super-Actionable" Strategies You Can Use for FREE Download The eBook Here >> Phil Adair Suite 12, 5th Floor, Dymocks Building 428 George Street, Sydney 2000, NSW, Australia   W: www.PhilAdair.com I’m a huge fan of connecting on social media. If you’re on these social networks, then let’s follow each other:  Twitter  Facebook YouTube Pinterest Instagram

Caleb is struck by the power of user-testing projects, Daniel talks about his new work in React Native, and both of us test our skills on a new game we just made up. "Don't Make Me Think" (book): https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Make-Think-Revisited-Usability/dp/0321965515/ref=sr_1_1?hvadid=241894971557&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9005489&hvnetw=g&hvpos=1t1&hvqmt=e&hvrand=12435570088820794014&hvtargid=kwd-308506890665&keywords=dont+make+me+think+book&qid=1553782872&s=gateway&sr=8-1 The AirBnB blog post: https://medium.com/airbnb-engineering/react-native-at-airbnb-f95aa460be1c

Kjeld Schigt made a plan to leave behind his corporate life to open a surf school halfway around the world. What he didn't plan on was falling in love and starting a family.  Most often we think that following the path of a quitter means sacrificing the sweeter points of life when in reality it can be so much more than we ever imagined.  Listen in as we talk best-laid plans, finding a balance, and adjusting for the delightfully unexpected.  And keep up with all things Kalon Surf @KalonSurf on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Mentioned in this episode: Kalon Surf - luxury surf coaching resort in Costa Rica Dominical, Costa Rica Kjeld's recommended quitspiration: Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug & Awaken the Giant Within by Tony Robbins Alyssa's recommended quitspiration: The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks Follow the podcast @QuittersPodcast on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter and tell us what you think isn't in the cards for you if you quit. Follow me @Lyssbjack on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter and tell me about your dream vacation.

Today's podcast picks up on the theme from this week's blog but places it into the context of creativity and productivity - how to get the most out of your innate creative potential.

Talking about concepts related to Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug.

Website-usability.info の運用をされているユーザビリティ調査の専門家・土屋一彦さん（@caztcha）と、「使いやすさ」をテーマに話をしました。使いやすさはどのように生まれるのか。スマホが登場して以降変わった調査とフィードバック。アクセシビリティとの関係について話しました。Always On の世界のアクセシビリティ見たことあるから使いやすい？ユーザーを引っ掛けようとする UIそもそもの問題解決と使いやすさ情報を連続的に並べるArticles by Jakob NielsenOut of sight, out of mind書籍「Don't Make Me Think, Revisited」デザインにおける倫理アクセシビリティの祭典アクセシビリティもシフトレフト！Building scalable systems to understand contentFacebook の画像認識技術Google LensAccSell ポッドキャスト第89回: 「消防団員、増やしたいですね」

A highly sought-after speaker, Steve Krug is a usability consultant who has more than 20 years of experience as a user advocate for companies like Apple, Netscape, AOL, Lexus, and others. He is best known for his book Don't Make Me Think about human-computer interaction and web usability. His second book, Rocket Surgery Made Easy, is a DIY guide for Finding and fixing usability problems.

There are plenty of riches in this month's mailbag, including your thoughts on David's biggest losers, how to score your "Golden Ticket" to FoolFest, and how David switches hats when choosing stocks for Rule Breakers or Stock Advisor. Plus, a lightning round of your picks for "Don't Make Me Think" stocks.

Download the mp3 file. or go to mfg.mmmatters.com/ebook MM 064 - Website Tips for Manufacturers Guest: Tim Doyle, VP Sales at TopSpot Highlights: A top performing website must be first, aligned with your business goals. For example, one goal for a website may be to act as a sales generation engine. Another often forgotten goal is to make the website useful for customers and employees. [5:25] Tim estimates that less than 10% of industrial websites are top performers. Therein lies the opportunity for competitive advantage.[7:50] Is your website designed as a 'don't make me think' design? Tim mentions this resource, 'Don't Make Me Think' by Steve Krug. [9:15] Well crafted content that is relevant is one important essential piece of an effective website. [11:05] A website is not a statue, it is a laboratory that requires consistent maintenance, updates and continuous improvement. [14:30] Top 5 things you should do right now to improve website performance [15:30] Set up tracking and monitor results. Have an original benchmark. Analyze your sitemap in the context of identifying who you are and your differentiators. Use a free tool called Screaming Frog. Evaluate your site architecture for intuitive use and logical progression. Make sure the call-to-action is obvious and is it working. Test it. Incorporate multivariate testing in support of continuous improvement. Good Content Management Systems include WordPress, Drupal, Joomla and, Tim's favorite, Modx. For ecommerce, Magento. [21:10] CAD drawings are fantastic for conversions on your website.  Check out Catalog Data Solutions. [23:20] If you hate your website, here are some website tips for manufacturers who want to build a new site. [25:00] An often overlooked value add for your site is to use professional photography highlighting your value to the target audience. [26:30] Send in your challenge question here. Interview Questions: Question 1 –  Let’s start off at 30,000 feet and then drill down. How would you characterize a top performing website? What percentage of websites that you see are top performers? Question 2 –  I think a lot of us and our audience judge a website intuitively. Could you propose a framework of sorts for evaluating a website?  (any references you could recommend?) A website must serve many masters; customers, prospective customers from the outside, then there’s HR, Finance, Executive leadership, PR on the inside.  Does a company have to choose one area to focus on or is it possible to serve all masters? Question 3 –  Let’s drill down into some details. What are the top 5 things (in order of importance) that we should focus on to build a new site or make an existing site into a top performer? What about the platform or content management system (CMS), what are the best ones for a B2B manufacturing website? Question 4 – Suppose I’m a VP Sales & Marketing for a B2B manufacturing company out there listening. I’m thinking to myself, my website sucks. In a quick list, what are my first 5 steps towards making it into a top performing, lead generating, sticky website machine? Challenge Question –  This week our challenge question comes in from the a VP Marketing at a San Diego area from a medical device company. Here it is “We make a medical device that measures blood coagulation. Our customers are hospitals and blood labs. One of our 2017 goals is to increase website traffic by 30% to ultimately increase the flow at the top of our sales funnel. Do you have any tips about how to increase website traffic for a medical device manufacturer?” First, define your goal. Be specific. Learn what your visitors are interested in achieving. Analyze the internal site search for insight into what your audience is looking for when they visit. It must be a holistic approach, not just one or two tactics. Use Google Custom Search, paid version, for internal search queries. Takeaways: Strive to build your website in a 'don't make me think' style. Use analytics tools and make sure you understand them or are able to use them for continuous improvement. TopSpot offer:  Contact Tim at tim@topspotims.com for a FREE website audit.  Put the words "Site Audit" in the email subject knowledge. Transcript: Bruce McDuffee : Welcome to Manufacturing Marketing Matters, a podcast produced by the Manufacturing Marketing Institute, the center of excellence for manufacturing marketers. I am Bruce McDuffee. Thank you for listening.     Hello manufacturing marketers. Thanks for tuning in to our show today. As a special offer to our loyal listeners, I'd like to offer a free PDF copy of a book that I authored specifically for manufacturing marketers. The mission of the book, just like this show, is to help you manufacturers or marketers, or business development pros working for a manufacturer, to advance your professional careers in marketing, and also advance the marketing function at your company.     The book is called, "The New Way to Market for Manufacturing". You can get your copy, again it's a PDF copy, at mfg.mmmatters.com/ebook. I'll put that in the show notes too, so you don't have to write that down. There's just a short registration form, no other requirements. Please check it out.     Onto the show. Our guest expert today is Tim Doyle. Tim is the Vice President of Sales at TopSpot. Welcome Tim.   Tim Doyle: Well thank you, Bruce. It's a pleasure to join you.   Bruce McDuffee : It's great to have you on the show. You're up in the Chicago area, is that right?   Tim Doyle: I am.   Bruce McDuffee : You guys get some snow up there today?   Tim Doyle: Icy rain. Icy rain, I'd rather have snow frankly.   Bruce McDuffee : We got about four or five inches here in Denver.     Folks, today our topic for discussion is the website, in the context of B-to-B manufacturing companies. We're going to discuss what makes a great website. Perhaps what makes a bad website. Why there are so many bad ones out there. How you can have one of the best websites in your space. If you want a website that works for you by creating demand and creating leads, then listen up. This show is perfect for you.     Before we get into the interview, Tim, would you please introduce yourself to the audience with a little bit about your expertise and experience around industrial websites.   Tim Doyle: Well, absolutely. Thank you so much. Bruce, as you mentioned, I'm Vice President of Sales at TopSpot. I actually have 30 years in industrial advertising. Like yourself, I'm one of the old dogs.   Bruce McDuffee : I'll say it. You started when you were 10 years old then.   Tim Doyle: Correct, absolutely, with crayons, crayola, drawing diagrams of actuators.   Bruce McDuffee : That's how I imagined it.   Tim Doyle: Yeah, I went to school for it at Western Michigan. I [inaudible 00:03:05] in advertising and immediately transitioned into industrial advertising. Growing up in the Detroit area, that was kind of a natural for me. Very quickly on, I actually was aligned with what many people would know if I mentioned the brand, but it was a very well-known industrial directory. My entire career has been content based and key word based. My transition to the web was quite seamless actually.   Bruce McDuffee : I know exactly who you mean. The old directory, yeah. We don't have to name them, but yeah. I can picture them. Good, that's great. That's a great background. So you were a pioneer in websites then it sounds like.   Tim Doyle: Yeah, back in the late '80s, we were actually developing searchable CD-ROM catalogs for bearing manufacturers, actuator manufacturers, all kinds of companies to help them target their demographic.   Bruce McDuffee : Great, thanks for sharing that background.   Tim Doyle: Sure.   Bruce McDuffee : I was thinking. We were chatting a little before the show here, Tim. I would wager that 95% of the manufacturing marketing audience out there have a business website, maybe even a little higher. I would also bet that probably only about a third are really happy with their website. This is just anecdotal. Are you seeing the same type of thing, or are you seeing something the opposite? What's your take on that?   Tim Doyle: No, I would agree with that. Frequently, people put up a website and they think it's just work. Then they're disappointed. Even the people who are happy sometimes, aren't doing the things that really give them an understanding of how to improve. I would say you're right about a third of people are happy, but that even then they're missing out on some opportunities.   Bruce McDuffee : Agreed. That's what we're going to talk about today folks. How can you get your website to work for you, and help grow and build your business? First question, Tim, let's start off at high level, 30,000 feet, and then we'll drill down. How would you characterize, or how would you define a top performing website?   Tim Doyle: I would suggest that a top performing website is in alignment with what your goals are as a business. If you have a set of goals, is the site clearly articulating what is in alignment with what those goals might be? If that makes sense. Do you have tracking in place to measure over time so that you can make adjustments, to put that data into play?   Bruce McDuffee : Goals should probably be more than just, "I want to put up a brochure website, lists all my products." Goals should go beyond that like- Can you talk a little more about that?   Tim Doyle: One of the goals of a website is to produce business. I call it making it into a sales engine, so to speak. Is it providing you with a continuous stream of high quality opportunities that are in the demographic you're going after? If it's not, then it's not in alignment with one of your most important stated goals. You have to analyze that.     Other goals of the site could be, "Is it assisting you with your current customer base?" That is often forgotten about. "Could the website assist you with your customers and make you more sticky, educate your customers, be a true resource for your customers"? In that vein, "Is it also assisting your employees, and potentially doing their job, or informing them?" That can often be an overlooked goal or maybe a agree-upon goal of the website. Many times it's not doing that.     Then you've got sales reps. "Is the website an asset to them? Is it helping them do their job?" That is also an overlooked opportunity. In many cases, the website is failing in that regard.   Bruce McDuffee : It's like really any business development or marketing endeavor first step, decide what your goals are. Build that foundation. Makes sense.   Tim Doyle: Correct.   Bruce McDuffee : Great, Tim. Have you seen a lot of websites? Let's talk industrial or manufacturing websites, Tim. I'm sure you've seen probably hundreds. I don't know, maybe thousands out there. What percent would you say, I know this is anecdotal, are great websites that are really killing it with the business goals, and doing everything they can do?   Tim Doyle: You know, it's pretty low. Believe it not, I'd say maybe 10%. Even within that 10%, if they don't have a process of continuous improvement, then they're missing out on opportunities going forward. I know that sounds low, but it's what I see.   Bruce McDuffee : No, it's what I see too. I would believe 10%. As you said, maybe even less. Folks listening out there, this is ringing opportunity for you. Right, Tim?   Tim Doyle: Oh absolutely.   Bruce McDuffee : If it's only 10% are good, and the website let's face it, that's your focal point. That's where people find you. That's where they form an impression of you. That's where they evaluate you, on your website, without talking to anybody. There's an opportunity, folks. If you can make yours 1 in 10 top performing, talk about a competitive advantage. Wow.     Tim, I think a lot of us in our audience out there, just humans, will judge a website intuitively. Do we like it? Does it seem easy? Is the colors pleasant? Whatever it is. Maybe as a professional website person, if I may, could you? Maybe there's a framework or some specifics you could share with us for evaluating a website, whether it's our own or whether it's someone else's.   Tim Doyle: Absolutely. Is it built in what I call a "don't make me think" style of architecture? There's actually a book on usability. It's an old book. There was a rewrite on it. It's by a gentleman by the name Steve Krug called "Don't Make Me Think". Particularly in the industrial space, let's just say you're targeting engineers or engineering titles. Engineers typically, and I apologize for any engineers in the crowd, they don't suffer fools well. When they land on a page on a website that doesn't meet their needs, they're out very quickly. It has to do with what they immediately evaluate on the page they're landing on. If you're doing your job right, they not necessarily landing on your home page. They're landing on an internal page.     The entire structure of the site needs to be crafted in that "don't make me think" style of architecture. Meaning it gives you good visual cues in the navigation at the top, the internal navigation on the internal pages, the calls to action, the request to quote buttons, things of that nature. Maybe the downloadables or the videos, are they easily retrieved and used? Is it easy to take action on any given page?     We all put sites through that benchmarking and auditing when we land on a page. When it doesn't meet that criteria, typically we're out. It's like a phone number or an address that might not be easily visible. It causes frustration. That's a problem.   Bruce McDuffee : Big problem.   Tim Doyle: That's a serious problem. The other thing, by the way, is content. When a website doesn't meet the needs of say, let's use that engineering persona again. It doesn't have educational, instructive content, then again, it's frustrating them. It's not meeting their needs. They might very likely just leave the page. You always have to think about well-crafted content that comes from your voice as a company.   Bruce McDuffee : Product information is not enough. Is that what you're saying?   Tim Doyle: Right. We actually have an acronym for it. We call it "b smart". Things like brand, size, material, application, requirements, type. Then you could add to that certifications or industry specifications of some type. It could be SKUs in some way. Most of our clients are contract or applicators, but we do have some distributors, so it could be model numbers and SKUs. You have to think about content and a content strategy from that point of view.   Bruce McDuffee : Sure, that makes of sense. To step back, the book was called, "Don't Make Me Think". It was by Steve Krug?   Tim Doyle: Krug. Yeah, it's an oldie but a goodie.   Bruce McDuffee : Sometimes the oldies are the best. Sometimes the oldies are even more relevant today than the newies. I can relate to that completely.     Tim, I had a client. I still work with him. One of the first things I did when I started a few years ago, was to evaluate their website. I went in to look at their website. They were selling electronic instruments. Evaluate the website, and the first thing I told them is, "You know, it's really hard for me to buy something from you. It's hard to get a quote. It's hard to see your prices. It's hard to see how I'm supposed to buy." Big problem. If it's hard for your clients to make a purchase or get the information they want, big problem. I agree with you, Tim.   Tim Doyle: Absolutely.   Bruce McDuffee : A website, and we alluded to this a little earlier, a website has to serve many masters. You've got existing customers. You've got prospective customers. Then you've got other things like human resources, finance, maybe investment, executive leadership, public relations. A website has to serve all of these and sometimes more. Tim, in your experience, does a company have to really pick one of those and focus on it at the expense of others? Or is it possible to serve all those masters well?   Tim Doyle: It is possible to serve them all. Again, it comes from a comprehensive content strategy really. If you did have to choose, you're typically going to choose in the area of new business development. But when you think about that, that is a huge content need, right?   Bruce McDuffee : Sure.   Tim Doyle: If by doing that, you're quite often meeting the needs of some of those other stakeholders. Then because some people don't have the resources to go live with the new website to meet the needs of all the stakeholders, you just have to make sure- We're going to talk about this is in a little bit. ... that your site is built in a CMS that allows for scalability so that you add over time. A lot of people think of a website, they think that they know that they're done. They think of it as a statue. You build a statue. You put it in the square, and what happens? Pigeons sit on it.   Bruce McDuffee : They do more than that on it.   Tim Doyle: [crosstalk 00:14:25]. Yeah, we think of it as a laboratory. Your website's a laboratory. Even if you go live with what you believe at the time to be terrific content to meet the needs of multiple stakeholders, no, no, no, you're not done. You have to have a system in place of evolving that content based on that data analysis over time. That's how you get the most out of your website.   Bruce McDuffee : Got it. So it's an ongoing, continuous improvement project really.   Tim Doyle: It has to be. That's what the top performers do. They have that in place.   Bruce McDuffee : They have a team or maybe they hire somebody to continuously keep that content fresh.   Tim Doyle: Sure. Absolutely.   Bruce McDuffee : Great, that's good to know. That's good advice. Let's drill down a little bit more into some details. I'm going to ask you for a list. What would say are the top five things? If you can prioritize, that are our listeners and that we should focus on if we're going to build a new site, or make an existing site into a top performer? What are those top five things you would suggest?   Tim Doyle: I think the first thing you need to do is set up tracking. Most people would say, "Yes, I've got Google Analytics on the site." But they never look at it. They've never checked to see if it's set up right. You have to an original benchmark. Google Analytics, when set up correctly, is an excellent tool to do just that. It will help you analyze the traffic to all the pages on your site, and any conversions that are occurring, and events that are occurring on the website. So that you have an original benchmark to look to. That can give you guidance in your content. Number one, Google Analytics and benchmarking the original data.     The second thing would be analyze the site map. Look at the site map. The site map is a list. It's the list of all the pages on your website. I call it "Your roadmap to success" because it shows you okay, this is the current content on my site. This is how it's labeled, the content theme of these pages. You have to look at that and say, "Okay, to clearly describe who I am and what are my unique differentiators as a supplier or a potential supplier." If the site map is done correctly initially, it will do that. You will clearly define who you are, knowing that that site maps going to grow over time. So you'll have top level pages and then sub pages that come off of that. If you've ever seen a site map, it's like a tree. It just comes down and then you've got branches coming off of it.     So number one, analytic benchmarking. Number two, analyze your content through your site map.   Bruce McDuffee : Quick question on that, Tim. What if someone's wondering how do I find my site map? Is there an easy way to do it?   Tim Doyle: Your web developer may have put a simple link down at the bottom. Sometimes you can after the .com, you could put /sitemap. There are other tools too though. You can use a tool called Screaming Frog.   Bruce McDuffee : Sure, I've heard of that.   Tim Doyle: Screaming Frog, it's a free tool, but you can get a paid version of it. It will allow you to crawl all the crawlable pages that it sees on your website. That can give you a sense of the content pages on your site. Screaming Frog. It's an easy download.   Bruce McDuffee : Great, thanks.   Tim Doyle: Sure. Then number three, you want to look at site architecture, your site architecture. Is it intuitive, as we were just talking about? Does it meet that "don't make me think" style of architecture?     Four and five, let's talk about four. You want to make sure that your calls to action are very obvious. A call to action is like a button that says, "request quote". That's a call to action. Is it very visible? The next thing would be are you doing testing with variables? If you've got calls to action on your website now, have you ever tested different versions of them to see which perform at a higher level? Again, benchmark the before and after picture. But you may have a request a quote link in the upper navigation. Then you test an obvious button on every page persists in the same location to see if you get a better engagement with the RFQ form.     I'm amazed at some of the performance improvements you get just by subtle tweaks to a button, or the language on a button, or even a form. You can test different versions of forms with different fields in them. You may have a more complex form. You may have a simpler form. In the industrial world, you should make sure that all of them allow for attaching a file because particularly with the contract fabricators, you want to get the drawing.   Bruce McDuffee : Right. Good. So number one, analytics, and benchmarking. Number two, make sure you have a site map that makes sense. Number three, make sure your site architecture is easy to follow and makes sense. Number four, make sure your call to action is obvious. Then number five was testing the variables. Is that right?   Tim Doyle: Yes. Multivariate testing, also known as conversion improvement.   Bruce McDuffee : Sure. Those are great five steps folks. If you want to make your website better, look at those five things first. Probably not the end of the list, right Tim? At least a good start.   Tim Doyle: Oh, I know. You could go on and on, absolutely. If you start with that, you're in a good place.   Bruce McDuffee : Great. Thanks. What about the platform or the content management system, the CMS? Do you find that some are better than others? I know Word Press is a widely used CMS. What are you seeing? What would you advise when someone's picking a CMS?   Tim Doyle: Yeah, Word Press is the most popular one. I would say about 60% of the websites on the web now are built in Word Press.   Bruce McDuffee : Is it that high?   Tim Doyle: Probably. The challenge with that is, is that it's a prime target for spammers that try to inject malware on your site. We do see hacked sites quite a bit. The main tip if you have a Word Press website, or any CMS for that matter, is make sure you are continually updating the version and the security updates on the CMS.     But also, particularly for Word Press, the security updates on the Word Press plugins, there's a lot of plugins that Word Press uses. Quite often we see this with manufacturers quite a bit. They don't even know all the plugins they have on their site. They don't update them, the security updates. They will get malware injected in the site. Be careful. It is a good CMS though. It's very intuitive. It allows for an easy crawl by the search engines. It's got a great editing tool.     Having said that, there's some other ones out there that are very good too. There's obviously one called Drupal. That's an open source CMS as well. There's one called Joomla. Both of which are very widely used.     The one that I prefer though, it's one that maybe not as well known. It's open source. It's extremely intuitive. It's called MODX. You can Google it, or go to YouTube and Google it. You'll see the backend editing tool and some interesting features and functionality of the CMS. The reason I love MODX is it's very secure. They keep control of their plugins and the contributors for the plugins. It also allows for a very easy crawl by the Google bots. So your content reveals itself very efficiently to Google. The editing tool is extremely intuitive. As a matter of fact, when you log into the editing tool in MODX, the file structure on the left looks very much like Microsoft Outlook. The icons on the editing tool look just like Microsoft Word. Even without any training, you can typically figure it out. Then with some training, you get some advanced knowledge on it. You can really take ownership of the content on your site, so CMSs.   Bruce McDuffee : Pretty easy to use?   Tim Doyle: Yeah, very easy to use. Those are the non-e-commerce platforms. If you are in e-commerce, say you're a distributor and you've got 20,000 SKUs, you might be looking for something like a Magento platform. Magento is a very well known e-commerce or quote cart platform.     Then if you are into components like bearings, or variable speed drives, or things like that, you might want to be providing CAD drawings. CAD drawings, are in my mind, at the top of the food chain as it relates to a goal conversion. Because when you specced in, you get purchased over 90% of the time because the purchasing agent typically doesn't swap out what the engineer has specced in. It has been our experience. If you are a distributor or a component manufacturer, in that way would want to provide CAD drawings, there's an excellent tool out there by a company out of San Jose called Catalog Data Solutions. You may have heard of them.   Bruce McDuffee : Sure.   Tim Doyle: It's an excellent CAD library that you can easily integrate. We've integrated dozens with MODX websites. It makes for a very robust content environment on the site.   Bruce McDuffee : I've heard that from other folks too. It seems like this might be one of those opportunities for some manufacturers is if somebody downloads your CAD file, it's a pretty strong buying indicator isn't it?   Tim Doyle: It's a rifle shot indicator. [crosstalk 00:24:10] It's one of the most accurate methods of getting specced in right there is if you're offering up CAD drawings. It's excellent.   Bruce McDuffee : I've heard that too. That's a bonus for the show folks. CAD drawings, use it to get more business.   Tim Doyle: Absolutely.   Bruce McDuffee : The last question before the challenge section, Tim. Suppose I am a VP Sales and Marketing for a B-to-B manufacturing company. I'm out there listening to the podcast. Maybe I'm thinking to myself, "Boy, my website sucks." In a quick list, what are my first five steps? Maybe this is the same as the previous question, but I hate my website. It's not working. Is there another list? Are there things I should start with, for example, to redo that website? I'm going to redo the whole thing.   Tim Doyle: Well, some websites can be worked with. Again, if it's built in a good CMS, if it's mobile responsive, and it's just a matter of adding content and images and things of that nature, that's fine. But if it's a static website, if it's in an old CMS and not an updated version, it's not mobile responsive, you don't want to put lipstick on a pig, to be crude.   Bruce McDuffee : That's okay.   Tim Doyle: You really got to analyze, "Where am I?" In most cases I see lately, it's rebuilding the website.   Bruce McDuffee : Start from scratch.   Tim Doyle: Because it's not worth putting money into the old site that may have served you well. But very often, design standards for websites now have changed so much because of it's a multi-screen world, you don't know what size screen someone's going to be looking at your site on. Particularly with millennials, when you look at millennials, they grew up looking at their smart phones for the most part. Acquiring information through tablets and smartphones. You have to have a website that really sizes properly to meet those needs.     Some of this would be yes, does the content on the site clearly articulate who you are, what you do, and the industries you work with. That could be an easy one to look at beyond the CMS, how old it is.     Do you have high quality images? One of the best investments you can make as a manufacturer is in professional photography. It is very much not thought of by many of the clients that we initially start talking to. It's the easiest thing to do is get great imagery of the components you're machining. What looks better than a well-machined piece of 316 stainless?   Bruce McDuffee : Absolutely.   Tim Doyle: It just glistens. Or a piece of titanium that's machined with lots of value added. Get good photography. It's an asset to your company that you should continue to add to that archive. Have a process of continually adding to your image library. Frankly, it's a transferrable asset of your company. You sell the company, and you've got a 10 year archive of imagery. It has value. The value that it adds to your website is immense because it can take a good design and make it great.   Bruce McDuffee : As opposed to stock images off of?   Tim Doyle: Exactly.   Bruce McDuffee : Got it.   Tim Doyle: That's a big mistake. Big mistake to use just simple stock images all the time.   Bruce McDuffee : That's interesting.   Tim Doyle: [crosstalk 00:27:28] you do.   Bruce McDuffee : I have never come across that with my clients. That's fantastic advice. That's great.   Tim Doyle: Then the quality content, quality images, obviously the navigation, you talked about that earlier, and the architecture, and then the tracking. Obviously, the tracking, people forget about it. They don't really know how to look at the data. That is an obvious one where you would engage an outside firm. Because even if you hire someone who's pretty good at content development, you can't think that they're going to be an analytics expert too. Then the obvious calls to action of course, and the multivariate testing, which we talked about earlier. Those are some of the things that you might want to think about if you're a VP of Sales and Marketing [inaudible 00:28:08] a manufacturing company.   Bruce McDuffee : Thank you. I suppose one of the, like you mentioned early on in the show today, one of the most important things is to sit down before you even begin and say, "What are our goals? Who are we serving? What do we want this site to accomplish? What will a successful site look like?" Things like that. Lay that foundation, like you said earlier.   Tim Doyle: Yeah, exactly.   Bruce McDuffee : Good. Well, that's great advice. Folks, I'll put all of the mentions and the links that Tim mentioned in the show notes so we can take advantage of all his great suggestions. Tim, that brings us to the second part of the show, the challenge question. Folks, send in your challenge questions. These are questions from you that you send into the show. Then I pose them to a relevant expert. Well, I try to match it up to the expertise of the guest. Just email it to me. Bruce@mmmaters.com. Or you can hashtag it on Twitter at mfgmarketing, and I'll pick it up and I'll pose it to our guest expert.     This week our challenge question comes in from a VP Marketing in San Diego. By the way folks, these are usually kind of white labeled. That's how most folks want them. VP Marketing from the San Diego area, from a medical device company. Here it is. "We make a medical device that measures blood coagulation. Our customers are hospitals and blood labs. One of our 2017 goals is to increase website traffic by 30% to ultimately increase the flow at the top of our sales funnel. Do you have any tips about how to increase website traffic for a medical device manufacturer?" Tim, what do you think?   Tim Doyle: Well, it's the same advice I would give anybody. But we have to look at the goal, and we have to define the goal. Is increasing the traffic by 30% a top of the food chain goal? I would say well, anybody can increase the traffic 30% utilizing certain tactics or strategies. Is it the right traffic? We have to go back and look at the persona we're going after and target content and strategies that we know is going to resonate with them. Because we want to position you in front of those specific types of specifiers in hospitals and blood labs at the precise moment they realize they need to look for someone like you.     Knowing that, we want to look at certain things like, "How do they, when they have a need, search for these types of machines or systems that analyze blood coagulation?" One of the ways to do that would be to analyze what people are typing into your internal site search. If you have internal site search on your website, look at a date range of say six months to a year, and see how are people querying the content on your site. You know the internal site search. Bruce?   Bruce McDuffee : Sure.   Tim Doyle: It is the most underused tool for content analysis, for learning the intent of when people come to your site. You can learn exactly how they're thinking about it. When you think about blood coagulation, I think some people call it an INR. It's just another way of saying machine that analyzing anti-coagulation or coagulation. You can go either way with that, I believe.     The goal is to, I assume, increase sales. That's the number one goal. They're thinking that just by increasing traffic, we're going to do that. That's not always accurate. We got to go back to the goal is to increase sales. We got to get the correct people to the site. That means we have to use data, and iteration over time, to achieve that goal. Iteration of content over time.     I know I'm getting kind of deep in the weeds here, but you have to make sure that you've got very accurate KPIs, Key Performance Indicators, as to what you're doing. Having an original benchmark, rolling benchmarks over time, start developing the content, this is on-page, in collaboration with potentially articles on a blog.     Now you got to understand what does an article on a blog do? It typically brings visitors they're trying to educate themselves. They don't convert to an action at a high rate. But it puts out signals of trust to Google, Bing and Yahoo, so it's helping you achieve your organic optimization goals in totality.     Then you've got the on-page content that resonates with these potential buyers when they land on that page. With the proper calls to action, and the proper content, you should compel them to an action.     There's no magic bullet. It comes with a content strategy, based on analysis of the personas you're going after, and then tracking and benchmarking over time.   Bruce McDuffee : So just starting a blog, and blogging three times a week, that's not enough? Or is it enough?   Tim Doyle: No.   Bruce McDuffee : That's not enough?   Tim Doyle: No, it's not enough. You have to have a whole system approach. Blogging's great if you've got great articles. Typically comparative in nature, this versus that, you know what I mean?   Bruce McDuffee : Sure.   Tim Doyle: It can be a good place to start. What are your unique differentiators? How can a machine like this add value, either in speed or efficiency, or accuracy? It could be how to calibrate one, or things to look out for. Five things to look out for with blood coagulation measurement system. But you have to have the on-page content. That's the content on your landing pages that clearly articulates information about your systems, information about the way you approach the industry, things like that, brand size, material application, environment, and type. Remember, "b smart".   Bruce McDuffee : So the two work together.   Tim Doyle: Exactly. They work very much together. Now beyond that, once you've got your page, your on-page content very solid, and you've got a blogging strategy, then you can think about things like email blasts, and acquiring and building over time very accurate lists of potential customers to put out a message that is clearly supported by the content on your website, and the content in your blogs. Maybe video content, things like that.     There's no short path to success. It has to be strategic. Then you've got to execute based on a plan. Then evolve it over time based on data analysis.   Bruce McDuffee : It's a holistic approach. There's not one single tactic. That's interesting.   Tim Doyle: It has to be. It has to be a whole system approach.   Bruce McDuffee : You really need a professional, someone who really knows this stuff. You can't just give it to the marketing coordinator, who sets up the trade shows it sounds like.   Tim Doyle: No, it's not that you can't have someone who's pretty good at something in house. You do need to pair them with experts to assist them. Because you can't expect one person to be an expert in data analysis, an expert in content development, an expert in conversion improvement. You can't hire those unicorns.   Bruce McDuffee : Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Well, that was a great answer to that question, Tim. One thing you mentioned that the internal site search. For our listeners out there, you're saying that you can go in probably Google Analytics, and see every term that someone typed into that internal site search.   Tim Doyle: Correct. Some of the most valuable data you will ever get to look at.   Bruce McDuffee : I bet it is.   Tim Doyle: It gives you insights not just into content development, but frankly, it can give you insights into maybe some new service offerings that can take your business in a new direction.   Bruce McDuffee : Wow, that's powerful. It's not that hard to put it on your website either.   Tim Doyle: No, Google Custom Search, it's $100 a year for the subscription. Do not use the free version.   Bruce McDuffee : Okay.   Tim Doyle: Do not use the free version. Use the paid version. It's about $100 a year, worth every penny. Typically, it should be placed in the upper right hand corner of the website in the header. That's where people expect to see it, persistent on every page. You want them to use it. Now people like it. They like to use it. You want them to use it because it helps you refine your website. It gives you the strategy.   Bruce McDuffee : It gives you intelligence. That's great. That's a great tip.   Tim Doyle: Yeah, it's awesome. It's fantastic. It's so simple. I love simple stuff.   Bruce McDuffee : Yeah, it sounds simple. I'm going to put that on my website. That's great. All kinds of great tips today. Well Tim, that takes us to the final section, the takeaways. I always ask our guest experts if they would share one or two takeaways, maybe reemphasizing something we talked about, or maybe a couple of actionable nuggets going forward. What do you have for us today, Tim?   Tim Doyle: I guess keep it simple, on that theme. Can you truly say that your website is built in a "don't make me think" style of architecture, with tremendous content? If not, reassess. Do you have great analytic tools in place with data that you understand, or have access to people who can help you understand it, for continuous improvement?   Bruce McDuffee : Great, thanks Tim. Great takeaways. I know everyone is paying attention to this episode. Finally, before we sign off, Tim. Would you like to share anything about yourself or your company, TopSpot, with our audience?   Tim Doyle: Sure. TopSpot is an industrially focused web development and search engine marketing and analytics firm, based in Houston, Texas. We work nationwide and internationally. We specialize in working with industrial companies, manufacturers, and distributors. Of our 750 plus clients, I would say 90% of them are manufacturers and distributors, many of them contract fabricators. It's a core competency. I would offer, if you would like to reach out, Tim@TopSpotIMS.com. I'd be happy to do a quick audit of your website for free, and give you some tips and some personal guidance. No obligation.   Bruce McDuffee : That's a great offer. Thanks, Tim. I'll put that in the show notes folks, with Tim's email. That's a great offer. Take advantage.   Tim Doyle: Sure, just in the subject line, just put "site audit".   Bruce McDuffee : Site audit. Will do. Well, Tim, thank you so much for being a guest today on Manufacturing Marketing Matters sharing the knowledge, and tips, and experience, and those great examples. I know I certainly learned a lot today.   Tim Doyle: Awesome. Thank you so much for asking me. It's been an absolute pleasure.   Bruce McDuffee : That was Tim Doyle, Vice President Sales at TopSpot. For more information about Tim and TopSpot, visit the guest bio page and check out the show notes at mmmatters.com/podcast.     Finally, don't forget about that copy of the book. This is a limited time offer. The book's called, "The New Way to Market for Manufacturing". Just go to mfg.mmmatters.com/ebook.     Thanks for listening to Manufacturing Marketing Matters. If you find this podcast helpful and useful, please subscribe at iTunes or stitcher.com. You can download this episode of mmmatters and get the show notes and learn more about the podcast at mmmatters.com. I'm Bruce McDuffee. Now let's go out and advance the practice of marketing in manufacturing today.    

In March of 2008, David had just read a wonderful book on information architecture and website design by Steve Krug, entitled. "Don't Make Me Think." Turning lessons learned about design towards his home turf of investing, this inspired David to publish an essay titled, "Great Stocks Don't Make You Think!" Today we revisit that essay, the lessons learned at the time, and reflect on what we've learned in the years that have passed since. 

Today on the podcast we have Ilya Pukhalski. We talk about chat bots, their use cases, variations and challenges people face developing them. Guest: Ilya Pukhalski https://twitter.com/pukhalski https://github.com/pukhalski Links: Meekan, a bot for scheduling meetings: https://meekan.com/slack/ Slack Bot API https://api.slack.com/bot-users Kik Bot Dashboard https://dev.kik.com/#/home Skype Bot API https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/skype/bots/docs/api/chat An article by Seth Rosenberg "How To Build Bots for Messenger" https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/2016/04/12/bots-for-messenger/ Books: Spencer Johnson, Kenneth H. Blanchard "Who Moved my Cheese" http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4894.Who_Moved_My_Cheese_ Steve Krug "Don't Make Me Think, Revisited: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability" http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18197267-don-t-make-me-think-revisited Books by Guy Kawasaki http://guykawasaki.com/books/ Host: Andrey Salomatin https://twitter.com/filipovskii

We're starting a series of interviews with speakers from #func2106. Our first guest is Martin Splitt. At the conference, he will talk about building interactive worlds in WebGL. We speak about applications of 3D graphics in the browser, Martin’s talk, must-read books and interesting presentations. If you answer the question from Martin at the end of the show, you'll have a chance to get a free ticket! Guest: Martin Splitt - https://twitter.com/g33konaut http://geekonaut.de/ Martin’s experiments - http://geekonaut.de/experiments.html Resources: WebGL https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/WebGL_API ThreeJS http://threejs.org/ A-Frame https://aframe.io/ Books: Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs https://www.amazon.com/Structure-Interpretation-Computer-Programs-Engineering/dp/0262510871 The Field Guide to Understanding Human Error https://www.amazon.com/Field-Guide-Understanding-Human-Error/dp/0754648265 Don't Make Me Think https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Make-Me-Think-Usability/dp/0321344758 Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship https://www.amazon.com/Clean-Code-Handbook-Software-Craftsmanship/dp/0132350882 Talks: Raquel Vélez: Evolution of a Developer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rP1q6oIVco4 JavaScript: The Good Parts - http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596517748.do Denis Radin: Rendering HTML via WebGL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oGQucDOaoY Steven Wittens: Making WebGL Dance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNO_CYUjMK8

In this episode, we talk with Rachel Garb from the Android User Experience team. Tune in to hear about interaction design and about how the Android system UI (including the new volume slider UI in Android M) is designed and user-tested.Subscribe to the podcast feed or download the audio file directly.Relevant LinksMaterial Design SpecAndroid Design for Success (Google I/O 2012)Don't Make Me Think (Steve Krug)The Inmates are Running the Asylum (Alan Cooper)Rachel: google.com/+RachelGarb, medium.com/@rachelgarb, @rachelgarbTor: google.com/+TorNorbye, @tornorbyeChet: google.com/+ChetHaase, @chethaase

In this episode we look at two books about usability in web design: Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug, and Designing the Obvious by Robert Hoakman.

Esta semana no podcast Marketing Digest falamos sobre um dos melhores livros escritos sobre usabilidade online Don't make Me Think de Steve Krug. Subscrever e não perder mais um episódio: Artigo: http://www.tv.appm.pt/video/8-aprendizagens-livro-dont-make-think-por-steve-krug-marketing-digest-ep-26/ RSS de Podcast: http://marketing-digest.podomatic.com/rss2.xml Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gOgi0z0mYg&index=1&list=PLJOJDLFFOD73Vclki_ZIqBp6TTQtaCCpx iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/pt/podcast/podcast-marketing-digest/id844099136?mt=2 Facebook: https://facebook.com/appmnews Twitter: https://twitter.com/mktdigest

It's Episode 3 and our book is Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability by Steve Krug. (http://www.pagebreakpodcast.com/podcast/episode-3-dont-make-me-think/)

This short YouTube video (5:36 minutes) has some tips for doing well on the Chapter 5 Assignment. The podcast includes a few more tips and some announcements, too. I'm also recommending a book on web design and usability called Don't Make Me Think! 2nd edition by Steve Krug. The NSCC Library has two copies of it if you want to borrow it instead of buy it.Listen to the Week 5 Podcast. (3:22 minutes)Or, if you prefer, read the written transcript. PDF.

This podcast has several announcements about the President's Day holiday weekend coming up, a book recommendation, and a quick overview of Chapter 6.The book pictured to the left, Don't Make Me Think!, is one of my favorite books on web design and usability. There are two copies in the NSCC library if you want to check it out before you buy it.Have a good weekend, everyone!Listen to the Week 6 Podcast (4 minutes)Or, if you prefer, read the written transcript. PDFFeel free to leave a comment!