Podcast appearances and mentions of oli gardner

How do you go from marketing to creating a better audience experience? Oli Gardner shares his journey from frustration with bad marketing and ugly landing pages to full-time event speaking and thought leadership.

How many times over the past 17 months have you turned up to yet another Zoom meeting, only to hear a cacophony of nonsense and a presenter struggling to share their slides? So you say to yourself... “If that were me, I'd be so much better.” The week after, it's your turn - so you start your presentation fully on-form - and completely muted. Virtual presentation skills are now more important than ever - and that's exactly what I'm going to be discussing with my guest on Digital Marketing Radio episode 260. He's the Co-Founder of https://unbounce.com/ (Unbounce) - the landing page platform utilised by over 15,000 brands. And nowadays you can find him at https://bethekeynote.com/ (Be the Keynote) - helping you to become a better and more confident presenter, whether it's on a big stage, a tiny stage or a virtual stage. Welcome to DMR - https://www.linkedin.com/in/oligardner/ (Oli Gardner).

Matt chats with MarTech expert, CXL instructor, award-winning entrepreneur, speaker, and United States Ambassador of Entrepreneurship, Dan McGaw. They also chat about Peep Laja, Oli Gardner, and an unconfirmed story about Rand Fishkin. Build Cool Stuff: https://mcgaw.io/build-cool-shit-book/#gs.17smm1 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielmcgaw/ McGaw: http://McGaw.io Digital Marketing Masters Podcast: https://hookseo.com/podcast

When it comes to multi-location or franchise marketing, the key is balancing centralized brand control with hyper-local marketing. This week on The Inbound Success Podcast, Wild Coffee Marketing co-founder Amy Anderson explains how her team approaches managing the marketing strategies for some of the countries biggest franchise brands. From working with Franchise Advisory Councils (FACs) to leveraging technology to deploy consistent marketing messages across geographically distant franchise locations, Amy shares insider tips and insights on how her team helps franchises achieve their growth goals. Check out the full episode to get the details. (Transcript has been edited for clarity.) Resources from this episode: Check out the Wild Coffee Marketing website Connect with Amy on LinkedIn Check out Propellant Media and Strategus to learn more about geofencing Transcript Kathleen (00:00): Welcome back to the Inbound Success Podcast. I am your host, Kathleen Booth. And this week, my guest is Amy Anderson, who is the co-founder of Wild Coffee Marketing. Welcome to the podcast, Amy. Amy (00:24): Thank you so much for having me, Kathleen. I'm super excited to be here. Kathleen (00:27): This is going to be a ton of fun because we're going to talk about something we have not talked about yet on this podcast, which now that we're almost 200 episodes in is, it's pretty rare. So I always get really excited about these episodes. But before we jump into our discussion topic, tell my audience a little bit about yourself, what Wild Coffee Marketing is and kind of how you ended up doing what you're doing. Amy (00:50): Well, I can't believe it's been almost 30 years of a marketing career that went by very, very quickly. And I actually started in the media business in New York right after college, I moved there and I worked at 17 Magazine and I loved the pace of it. You know what, 21 year old woman does not want to work at 17 for a bit, but I had a really hard struggle with the accountability and the performance of print bothered me back then. And so I ended up in broadcast actually at Calvin Klein cosmetics, where I was managing $70 million of co-op funds for radio and television. And I love that we at least had Nielsen data, right? So at least we understood audience and then pure play internet media came on. Right? So in the mid nineties and I worked at the New York times digital, I was part of the original group that had launched with my times.com and that was gated content, right? Amy (01:41): So you had to register, you still do, and now it's paid, right? So that was my first foray into sort of personalized content, registration, data, user data. And I've sort of been obsessed with it ever since. And running marketing departments then and B2B and tech and financial services. So I stayed home for a few years raising my young sons. And when I went back into the market, I would have had to have a really sort of senior job at that point. Cause it had been 20 plus years and I wanted the flexibility to be able to raise my young kids and started consulting. And I joined forces with my former boss who is now my business partner, Solomon Wancier. And we founded Wild Coffee Marketing, knowing that there is a place in this market for sort of this hybrid model, right part consulting firm and part agency. So we're very heavy on sort of strategy and advisory services, but we also implement what we recommend or we can. And it's been a really great three and a half years so far. Kathleen (02:41): I have a bunch of questions, the first one, and I'm sure you've gotten this many times in the past. How did you come up with the name Wild Coffee? Amy (02:50): Well, I was living in Miami for 17 years and an area called Coconut Grove where you'd have to like knock back all the weeds and foliage with. I mean, it is jungley and there's a native plant called Wild Coffee that grew all over my property and it was hardy and beautiful and sort of energetic plant that was hard to keep back and it attracts birds and butterflies and bees. And I was sitting in my office one day and I said, you know, if I ever form a company it's going to be called Wild Coffee. And it's been a lot of fun for us because it has a lot of fun brand extensions that we are able to work with. Kathleen (03:25): Yeah, that's neat. I had to sort of chuckle when you talked about Nielsen ratings being the thing that got you into being like a data-driven marketer, because wasn't it, I feel like in the last two months, Nielsen has come under fire for mismeasuring just recently. And it's just, it just points to like how far this stuff has come in that time period. Like in a short amount of time, the way we measure has gotten so much more sophisticated and we're able to have such a higher degree of accuracy. It's, it's pretty fascinating to me to, to track. Are you still doing a lot in broadcast now or no? Amy (04:03): They're doing some OTT actually the over the top for one of our actual multi location franchise clients and that, you know, I always preface it when I'm at a cocktail party or at a meeting or speaking to a group and you have to sort of say, I know the creepy factor is there that we're kind of continuing your journey from the internet into broadcast in your home, but there's also no sort of margin for error anymore with tracking right there last, you know, last attribution and things like that, that you can't be wrong. So when Nielsen comes on their fire for things like that, it's just, it's unacceptable at this point. Yeah. We're expected to be accurate all the time. Well, Kathleen (04:39): And I also feel like, yes, there are a lot of people out there who, who complained vocally about being tracked and all that. But I've had a lot of conversations recently, recently, especially since apple started doing a way with, you know, cookies and things like that, where people are saying, I kind of want to be tracked because I want the ads I see to be relevant. Like I was joking with somebody who said, you know, my advice to all the men out there was get your mother's day presents before apple, deprecates the cookie, because all you have to do is go look in their feed and see everything they like, and that's not going to be there anymore. And so it is interesting that I think there are people who, who it's, we're very divided as a society in terms of what we want. Amy (05:23): I agree. And you want things to be personalized and relevant, but there's a price that comes with that. You know, some of the geo-fencing that we're doing. I mean, I'll tell when we have multi location, highly localized marketing that I know if you've been in Orange Theory or Publix in a shopping center and it's highly effective for us in some ways, but I understand sort of the creepy factor of it, but at least I'm going to serve you something that makes sense to you. Kathleen (05:49): So let's actually get into that a little bit because the topic that we're talking about that we haven't talked about before is multi location or franchise marketing, you know, and we've talked about probably every aspect of marketing in some way or the other for single businesses or single locations. But it's very interesting to me when you start talking about franchises because not only are we talking about multi location, but with franchises specifically, we're really talking about multi owner as well. And like, how do you craft marketing programs that, that are manageable with such a broad constituency for them, but then also protect the integrity of the core brand. I'm fascinated by that, because this is the kind of thing that if it's not managed correctly could like really do a lot of damage. Amy (06:39): We talk about the rogue franchisee, right? So that's a thing. It's interesting for us. It's fascinating because it is a, it's like, it almost is a marketing program that has tension in it, right? So you have the corporate roles, which is, you know, brand, getting new franchisors franchisors on board, multi unit location investors. So you have this sort of corporate aspect and then you have this theory sort of hyper localized and they have different goals, right. So one is brand value, equity, consistency of message. Growth. And then at the local level, it's like, okay, that's all really nice and well in science, baby, give me the leads. Yeah, exactly. Amy (07:27): Meets the road for sure. Absolutely. And it's two totally different strategies. So how do you bridge that? And I think you have to have two disparate programs. I mean, there has to be a corporate marketing team of corporate marketing focus and plan that may be PR, right? So we have, one of our clients has a hundred plus locations. They recently hired a celebrity, sort of endorsed her, but he bought 20 locations. So what do you do with that and him and PR at a corporate level, but then how do you make that translate into local markets? And one is that we use pretty sophisticated technology and platforms to push whatever we want at a corporate level, to the local level. So we'll say, Hey, you can pick from all this social content in this platform that we use, but we're also going to push some things and you have to be okay with that because there are certain messages that have to trickle down, but otherwise we're going to give you evergreen and promotional content that you can pull. Kathleen (08:19): And I assume that that's all baked into the franchise agreements so that the framework is there from the start. Amy (08:27): Yes. And we actually have another client that has a hundred corporate owned locations, right? So that's a little easier because they're corporate owned, you have more flexibility. Franchises usually will even have a council, right. They call it the FAC and those people are representing interests of the individual franchises. So you've got this local strategy, delivering leads, putting together that sort of program. And then they come to you as a group with, okay, this is what we need to have you do to improve this. So it's just a lot of sort of moving parts, a lot of dynamics and you have to be super flexible and focused on performance and focus on overall growth at the same time of the actual brand. Kathleen (09:06): And it's interesting because prior to my life in marketing, I actually worked in what I would call stakeholder consensus building for, for large public sector reform projects. And it was about building up grassroots support at the ground level so that these projects could like could, could go through their life cycle without getting derailed essentially by opposition. And I feel like what you just described is exactly also that, because like, if you, from what I'm hearing, if you go into this and you haven't got the, not just the buy-in of corporate, who I'm assuming is your customer, but then you don't take the time to really socialize what you're, what you're going to do with the franchisees, or at least this CA this council of representatives, then that's going to cause a lot of problems down the road. Is that accurate? Amy (09:52): That's absolutely accurate. Yeah. And it's, it's, it's representing lots of different interests showing performance results, you know? Yes. The corporate, the corporate group and the C-suite is our client, but we also care very deeply about these people who in many cases have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars. They're small business owners, right? So maybe 41 of our clients, all the locations are owned by 48 people out of 110. So some have multiple, but we really care about what happens. And I think you've probably seen this over the years in B2B marketing and in marketing, if you don't love and care about your salespeople and their experience and their needs, you will never be successful. And that's sort of the case here that I see that they have they're with customers in store, they have their own set of challenges, especially in COVID. Right. So I just think that sort of empathetic approach to those people and delivering their needs is a foundation for a lot of our strategy. Kathleen (10:53): So now, in terms of how you work with these companies, you said often corporate is your client, is that right? Yes. And are you doing the corporate marketing and, and some of the PR as well as the actual local marketing, or are they bringing you in to take on the local piece? Amy (11:10): That is a really good question. It depends, in some cases we will actually manage the localized digital agency. That's doing lead generation for a fee per location. So they'll be doing sort of local paid digital. And then we handle it, the corporate level SEO overall all of the PR and then social media usually, although, you know, that's sort of the agreement that you have is okay, please, because really sort of genuine engagement at the local level is super important. So go ahead and create your own social, but we are going to provide you a library to supplement that. And then we're also going to push things to your page sometimes, cause that's really important too. So it's sort of creating this hybrid model of that and we love managing the localized agencies cause they're typically very good at what they do. Franchises usually get a choice of three to four to work with. Kathleen (12:06): Interesting. So when you come into a new client, walk me through how you break it down because this feels like, like eating an elephant. I hate that analogy, but I'm going to use it anyway. Like you've got to do it one bite at a time. And so there, cause there is a lot that could be done here. So, so how do you, do you have like a mental model for how you tackle this? Amy (12:28): Absolutely. I mean, any engagement that we start with always has a positioning, right? So we all use April Dunford and work with her. You know, we love all, I love her too. So we all sort of have that foundational work that we do with the brand, right? So you have to identify who all your personas are, what matters to them. And once you mobilize all of that in the positioning, we usually start with corporate, understand the growth targets, understand what's worked, what hasn't, where they're trying to go. We have a client now that's trying to go from one 20 to 240 locations. They are a stretching gym and they have had zero problems after COVID, which is incredible. I think people are ready to be out and wellness is very important to all of us. So really sort of working at the corporate level and then going in and looking at their funnel, right? So what's the awareness phase, what's consideration and conversion, and then starting to deploy local strategies on top of that, for example, we know 97% of consumers engage in local search when working, looking for a local business, right? So what do those Google My Business pages look like? What is happening with all their directories? And imagine all the directories times a hundred locations, the scalability is tremendous. So you have to have a centralized sort of command center to start doing that. Kathleen (13:49): And are there any particular tools that you find really helpful? I mean, I know I've used like some rushes, local SEO bolt-on there's Yext there's there used to be Moz local. I don't even know if it's still exists anymore. Like, are there certain platforms that you've found to be really scalable for that? Amy (14:06): Absolutely. We use Yext for some of our bigger sort of enterprise clients for that we're actually using a platform called Soci. So I don't know if you've heard of them. They're meant for multi location marketing, they offer the localized local pages, directory pages, social. So when I talk about creating those folders, pushing social app chat, we use them for, and really what's been super helpful recently is reviews. So right. So up to maybe 30 to 40 locations of a business, you can do a lot of things manually. You get to 50 plus, and that's where the scalability sort of shifts at a hundred. Plus you, you have to, so to look at reviews across a hundred locations has been super interesting. You get an sort of scale of sentiment, right? So you can see how's my, how, how am I? How's the health of all my locations? Amy (14:58): That visibility is really important. And then what we've seen, we actually have a formal ware client with a hundred locations rolling up in a single brand and that starting to happen. I'm in the middle quarter of the US. And you know, there's a lot with prom emerging. We're coming out of COVID massive mandates lifted. All of a sudden problems are happening. My son has a mock prom this weekend. It's sort of a fake one, but they're all going. And we're starting to see individual sort of tuxedo, formal wear specialists who are like rock stars in the market. So even helps you see visibility down to who likes whom and what stores and how can we surface that into social media content with like Tufts tips with Terry and things like that. That really give you three content ideas when you're actually looking at reviews and things on those pages. So tell Kathleen (15:48): Me, you said Soci. Tell me how that's spelled. Amy (15:51): S O C I. Kathleen (15:53): Okay. Interesting. Amy (15:54): Soci.com to look that up, but we work with them on, on several different deployments and it's just been really effective in helping us scale. Kathleen (16:03): It makes sense because it does sound like you would need a specialized program, rather platform for this. You talk about pushing updates out to different accounts and you know, I, I owned an agency for 11 years and, and boy, I remember the, when you first start working with brands, how, how terrified they are to give you you know, control over social, especially. And so what does that look like? Is it, is it complete control where you're able to come up with the creative and send it out? And as I imagine, then there's a process to get there with the trust or is it you're coming up with the creative, sending it to corporate, having it vetted and then pushing it into the system? Like what, how do you, how do you handle that? Amy (16:48): It's sort of a hybrid model. I think with that, you know, the local stores or local locations or studios, you know, whatever you're working with, really, they should be doing their own social media. We don't want know, say a restaurant chain came to us and wanted to do social. I mean, imagine us trying to take, you know, it just doesn't work as well. That'd be boring, it'd be stale. It feels corporate, right? So there's a lot of, a lot of, sort of in-store in boutique things that have to happen. We did launch associated with one of our clients and we did have an approval place process in place because there were some rogue Zs as we call them. And there were a lot of sort of off-brand graphics being used, maybe language and copy that wasn't quite on brand. And so we had it going through an approval process. Amy (17:37): We were, we were looking at posts, approving or giving feedback or suggestions. And then once that trust started to build, and once we started to push content out, then sort of that trust loop was closed. We stopped approving. That's great. Okay. You guys can fly on your own. And then we give them good content with good folders promotions, and it's all organized. And so she said they can pull down and then super important sort of corporate wide announcements, then they're like, okay. Yeah, that's interesting. You can go ahead and push it. So it's really trusting each other. And then everybody gets more comfortable. Kathleen (18:11): It's so important because I mean, having done this for several years and worked with different types of clients, like the, to me, the biggest problem with, with really succeeding on social very often is speed. Like you have to be able to capitalize on something's happening in the world and you, you comment on it or a trend pops up, you know, like I think back to the Bernie Sanders meme with him in the chair and the mittens and like the worst thing was when people were posting that a month later as though it was news and it's like, no, Amy (18:40): Three days, even three days later it was sort of done. Right? I feel like it peaked with the one of him on Melania's dress. There were so many good ones. Oh my gosh. But yeah. Kathleen (18:52): I mean, if you, because I worked with a lot of financial services firms and everything had to go through compliance and there came a point where it was like, why bother? You know, like if you can't move fast, it's not worth doing right. Amy (19:04): Well Matthew McConaughey was on Jimmy Kimmel talking about Al's former lawyer and we had a post in 45 minutes. So, I mean, that's how timely, I mean, even big days it makes you irrelevant sometimes. And you're absolutely right. That the speed is important. We are on it like that. And something came up recently about one of our clients was like, well, should I have one social media person in-house, you know, and named a very low salary level. And I said, that's so interesting that CEOs think that interns do social when it is your most visible right. Potentially vulnerable and most on-brand things you have to do. So, you know, we do have an in-house director of brand strategy who does social, she's a brilliant writer, PR crisis management background. You can't just throw that at, at a, you know, an entry-level person on your team and expect that it's going to really fly. Kathleen (20:03): Absolutely. And I think a lot of people confuse young with inexperienced. Cause there are, there are definitely a lot of young people who like, naturally get social really well. But there's a difference between young and understand social, but has no good judgment and young and understand social and how to use it for business, like, and the young and understand social and how to use it for business as the one who like gets paid the big bucks. Amy (20:29): And they're hard to find. They're a little Unicorny and this market we're always on the lookout for them. Because it's hard to scale that part of the business. Being in the agency world, you know this. Kathleen (20:41): And throw in sense of humor. And they're like the unicorn of unicorns. Amy (20:44): Well now we have short form video content, but if you get wrong, get really, really wrong, you know, and it's an area that we're ramping up more than more. I mean, I'm, I'm advanced in my career. You say Tik Tok to me and I start to sweat, you know, I look at my teenagers and I'm like, don't worry. Mom's not going back. Kathleen (21:01): I know I'm like, I've, I've, I've given it up on Tik TOK. And honestly I have to be on a Snapchat too. Like I just can't, I don't have the, I don't have the energy, but I also don't have to because I market B2B software. So luckily it doesn't hurt my career. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, so let's talk a little bit about the hyper-local marketing because this thing it gets really interesting. And what I find fascinating about this is I think that franchise companies do do this really well because they're like able to do it at a micro level, but at scale. And so they have that experience to bring to bear, but everything they do is so applicable to other hyperlocal businesses that maybe just don't have the same experience and resources. And so I, I love this topic because I feel like if you own a local business and you really want to kill it, you can, if you're willing to put some effort into this area. And so I'm hoping that like, we're going to cover this and yes, there might be some, some things that like are out of reach for somebody who's local, but I also think there's going to be a lot of really good takeaways. Amy (22:04): Let's absolutely, I mean, the areas that we look at right first Google My Business. What does your local listing look like? I mean, that is your, the cornerstone of your digital footprint in search. Kathleen (22:15): Are you keeping it updated because especially during COVID, this became really obvious to me that there were people who maybe had taken the time to set up really good listings, but then didn't update them with their new COVID hours or protocols or what have you. And that there's nothing more annoying than going someplace to patronize whether that's a restaurant or another type of a business and showing up and they're closed. Amy (22:39): Absolutely. And in images in your Google My Business listing people sort of overlook that it's good to change them. Right. And we recently did a big, a hundred locations push of directory listing content. And we did not override the photos on the local level because again, it needs to have, even if the storefront is not the most beautiful glossy sort of aligned with corporate brand that you would want, it's still the base of the store and that's what people are looking for and it's theirs. So that's that balance. We talk about Mary with that. What we also I think is really important is what is your review program of a local business? Are you asking for them, are you responding to them? And that's another aspect that Soci gives us. We can look across a hundred locations, how long it's taking someone to respond to a review. Kathleen (23:28): So I'd love for you to talk a little bit about what you've seen work well, as far as asking for them, because I think that that is where a lot of businesses stumble is they either they're not asking or the way they're asking is sort of doomed to failure. So, so what's successful in this area? Amy (23:45): I definitely think a follow up email if you have that customer data, right? Texts will work also if you have a platform installed. But I think asking in a subtle way that really leaves it up to them. You know, if you liked what you got from us in this location, we'd love for you to let us know. And then there are platforms grade us we've used grade.us where it enables you to ask for them, you have your own sort of landing page for them. But I, I think multiple asks is probably not the way you want to go. Right. Ask ones, leave it up to them. And then, and then go from there. Kathleen (24:22): Is there a point in time or place when it's most impactful? And what I would equate this to is, you know, like you're in the grocery store, you're going to check out and if they, whatever food they seem to put in the checkout aisle is what flies off the shelves because you're stuck standing there and it's like, you're about to hand over your cash. Right. It wouldn't hurt to just take that pack of gum. So is, are there points in time or place with local businesses, whether that is, I mean, you mentioned email and I'm assuming that's immediate post-purchase, but if it's more of a physical interaction, is it like slipping something in their bag if it's retail or, you know, putting it on the receipt? I know, I know lots of places do that. Like what, what works well now? Amy (25:03): I think in store, it's definitely having that conversation there. I think that's okay to say it was really nice to meet you. And I'm so glad you were here putting a personal note on a receipt. Absolutely. Sometimes. I was on an a flight recently and I flew to Seattle and actually the flight attendant gave me a card with his name on it and said, and you can review him too as well. And that's the first time I've had something like that where I've had a flight attendant. Yeah. Solicit that. So I think it's more immediate and it's conversational when, when they're in store for sure. Email wise. Yeah. I like the 24 hours sort of the same as the abandoned cart cadence that we love, which is 24, 48 72 that we put typically will email with an abandoned cart. Kathleen (25:48): So, and then you mentioned responding, which I hope everybody, I think everybody out there listening, because I do tend to have a fairly sophisticated audience, knows that like you gotta respond. You gotta are you Amy (26:00): Surprised? Well, cause they're also in store, right? In many cases right now there's a lot happening, right. We're transitioning out of this period in time of business and they're busy and they're making sales, but this is a really important part. So that's almost like a corporate process and culture and educating them on the importance of it. We're doing a lot of just sort of screen-sharing videos for them because they're using associates, well, training them, communicating the importance and the impact of their business, how it helps them in a positive way. And maybe there's a little bit of that. Oh wow. Now I hate to say corporate right. Or home office or, but the reality is, that's what it is. They can actually see what we're doing a little bit more easily. Right. So I wonder if that creates a little bit more of a sense of urgency and I don't think that's a bad thing. It's not an over monitoring. It's Hey, we're here to support you and help you create a better customer experience. Kathleen (26:54): Well, and it's all about also taking the high road when you respond. Because I mean, I've had restaurant clients in the past and I've seen firsthand just how heinous people can be in reviews. And sometimes it's because they had a bad experience and sometimes it's because like their friend used to wait tables there and didn't like getting fired for stealing something. You know, it can be anything, but I, you know, I think you have to, there's an art to responding to these things and not like going on the attack back at somebody. Amy (27:24): Absolutely. We actually can put responses like that in the platform for them so they can see like five issues. We can have canned responses and groups of five, right. So we give them so much content to sort of help them along the way there too, which has been really helpful to them. Kathleen (27:40): That's good. All right. So let's talk about geo-fencing because you mentioned that and I'm fascinated by it and that technology has changed so much. So how do you tell Amy (27:50): We actually we'll use a couple of third-party platforms, which I am not as familiar with them as my team is. But I know when we first started about two years ago, the response rates with click-through and leads were really low and I'm seeing a big change in that. So recently we launched a campaign that had a 2% conversion rate on geo-fencing and we're actually fencing the area around the stretch gym locations. And it's super fun. Cause you can offer them an offer. You can give an offer. We usually tie a sense of urgency to it. It's in app with things that they're using. And so I think it's sort of come a long way with that in that way. And we're having a lot of success with it at the super local level. We've also done some trade shows too in the B2B world. I don't know if you've done any geo-fencing that way where you'll fence the convention center. Kathleen (28:42): I have not. So talk to me more, what platforms are you using also? Cause this is super interesting. Amy (28:51): I do not know which one they're using right now. And they're, I know there are two, so it's, I I'd have to ask them. Kathleen (28:58): I'll tell you what, if you follow up with me afterwards, I will put it in the show notes. Amy (29:03): Thank you. And they'll probably, they're all, they'll probably be listening like oh great. But she doesn't remember and it's put through. Kathleen (29:09): Well, we can't be expected to know everything that the teams are doing. Amy (29:11): So did you know that I had a conversation recently about how wide we're expected to go and how deep now is, you know, just the number of platforms alone we use are probably over 15, but we, yeah, we had a medical device client at a dental show and we were sending people to the booth by fencing the convention center. And then we're also doing it sort of at a hyper-local with competitive fitness centers, trying to get people interested in wellness to do a free stretch. So that's where we've seen some really good lead forms. And it just really, as, as marketers and we just talked about how data has to be accurate performance is critical for us as outsource marketing teams. And so you have to be bold to try different things and be really sort of creative, courageous about it. And I think that the geo-fencing is one area that we're going to start going down a lot more. Kathleen (30:05): How does the cost per acquisition for geo-fencing compared to traditional pay-per-click? Is it more? Less? Amy (30:11): It's around the same. Kathleen (30:12): Okay. Oh, that's great. Because I do feel like traditional pay-per-click is getting harder, you know, with cookie deprecation. Amy (30:20): Well we just went through an election cycle. Right. So now we've gotten much more astute at really sort of looking at budgets around major life sort of events times of the year, managing expectations with that. And cost sometimes are going up five times at certain parts of the year. Kathleen (30:37): Yeah. During the election cycle, during the holiday season, when it gets more competitive. Absolutely. Everyone's like, well it's like half the year now, like Amazon prime day, I feel like it's like four months before Christmas. I don't know what happened, but it starts in August or even sometimes July. Amy (30:55): It's like 4th of July is going right into Halloween now. Kathleen (31:00): So depressing, like don't start releasing things that are flavored like pumpkin until after the summer is over. Amy (31:04): Although I do, I love my pumpkin spice memes that come around in the fall. Kathleen (31:08): Yes. so I there's so many different aspects to this. Maybe you could just share, and I don't know if you can talk about specific clients or not. It doesn't really matter if you name names, but can you just give us a sense of like what kinds of results you've you've seen and, and what, what has driven those? Amy (31:24): Sure, sure. What, what has been most remarkable is the increase in social traffic and that's something we didn't anticipate. Right. So before COVID to after COVID, so we have these two sort of worlds, we don't even look at things versus 19 versus 20 quarter over quarter with this client is sort of pre COVID post COVID, right. Kathleen (31:43): BC and AC, right? Amy (31:46): Right. We actually saw a 36% increase in social referral traffic. And what I think has happened is I know that these locations, as much as they want that autonomy of posting, they're also starving for content. So in many cases it was probably infrequent, not optimized. You can set when we're going to post right. And optimize in that way. But now we're just seeing engagement rates go up and actually referral traffic has really increased a lot, which has been great. And I mentioned before with our formal where client really surfacing content ideas and creating like mini rock stars of people out in the field has been super effective and just bringing to life the brand. Kathleen (32:32): Do you see a trend across the content that you push out where anything that's user-generated seems to perform better? Amy (32:40): Well, because we're in bridal. Kathleen (32:42): I'm sure it depends too though. Like there's that user-generated content. Amy (32:47): But do you know, just the time that it takes to review UGC is, is pretty significant, right? So our social team, I mean, I'm sure they time block UGC time. Right. And so it takes a lot of time, but it performs really well. It's authentic. Right. Which when we talk about sort of brand voice and trends in 2021 and what's happening, I think people, I don't, I don't want to say that they're cynical, but they're going to see through sort of glossy corporate materials. And I think to be genuine is really important and you could see sort of it connects with them better. They can identify with it a lot better. Kathleen (33:24): You can see yourself in the advertising much more than you can with stock photos or really slickly produced things. Amy (33:30): Yeah. Stock photos, right. The necessary evil that we all sort of try to run from and find different ways. And, and I was recently in a meeting with a commercial, actually they do residential, mostly mortgage lender. And I looked at the CEO, they just did a $10 million round and they're taking off and, and struggling with scalability because I said, you know, it was really, I empathized with them. It's really hard to be a financial services CEO and have to be a publisher. And just for them to be able to keep up with the volume and the engaging nature of it. So when you're in a market that has a lot of user generated content, you're really lucky. Bridal is fantastic. Kathleen (34:14): Oh, I was going to say, I mean, it's, like I said, I'm in B2B software and I used to be in cybersecurity, which is the worst industry for UGC because nobody wants to even say like what solution they're using. So you can't even get testimonials and case studies there. So I'm very jealous. Amy (34:33): Well, especially with brides, right. And all looking to be the most original, I mean, it's sort of the Instagram bride, right? It's not even in Pinterest anymore. These brides are all on Instagram and they're very generous in the industry with tagging each other. And they're so they're so much of it that it's as, as a formal wear supplier or a bridal designer, we have a bride designer client in New York. It's just, it's so helpful to us in social for sure. Kathleen (34:57): Oh, I love that. Well, I feel like I could talk to you for hours about this. But we're going to switch gears because I want to make sure I squeeze in the two questions that I always ask my guests. So the first one is, is that this podcast of course is about inbound marketing. And so like naturally attracting the right buyers to you. Is there a particular company or individual out there that you think is really setting the standard for what it means to do that well right now? Amy (35:19): Well one of our values is always learning and as marketers, we have to be all the time. So I really follow a lot of our software providers that we work with. Because even yesterday we were talking about AI and how we're deploying it, how we're using it to optimize of our digital campaigns. And I have to say, I love Unbounce. They have just a lot of sort of reminder content. I consider it that's a little bit more surface and then they get really in depth. And then if you're a landing page company, I want to see what your landing pages look like all the time. You know, they really do. And there are standard for us and I really love to see always what Uber and Lyft are doing. I think they have, hyper-personalized sort of content it's very specific to your location. How they've ate, been able to sort of do that at a hyper-local level. Has been really interesting example for me to follow and watch for sure. Kathleen (36:16): I love that. Well fun fact, Oli Gardner, who is the CEO of Unbounce or at least he was at the time I interviewed him was one of my first, probably 30 guests on the podcast. Great guy. Amy (36:29): He's great. They're so smart. Kathleen (36:32): Yeah. all right. Second question. And I really can't wait to hear this answer because you said you, one of your values is always learning. And the biggest pain point I hear from marketers is that it's so hard to keep up with the changing world of digital marketing. So what are your personal like go-to sources that you use to stay on top of what's happening? Amy (36:52): Absolutely. So I find that LinkedIn is, has become my New York Times. Right. I love the New York Times. I have subscribed since the mid nineties, when I worked there, I did get a free paper every day when we worked on New York Times digital. So LinkedIn is sort of my news source. So my new my, where I go for all of my news, I love Reforge, I've got a lot of great stuff there and we actually for business management, we use a system called EOS. I don't know if you know, entrepreneurial operating system. Kathleen (37:25): I ran my agency on EOS. Fun fact, hold on while we're sitting here. Yeah. I have a Gino Wickman book right behind me. Traction. Yeah, yeah, no, this was, this was my Bible. And in two years, it was towards the end of when I had my business. And then the two years I used it we, we only have joked that we got more done in two years than we did in the prior 10. And it's, it's really not, oh my God, amazingly, amazingly. And I still use a lot of aspects of it. Amy (37:54): What did you love most about it? Kathleen (37:55): I loved the IDS process. And when it's, which is identify, discuss, solve for those who are listening and when we would have our team, I also, I liked the, the very consistent meeting cadence. And when we would do our team meetings, we made everybody who worked for us, read the book and educate themselves on how it worked and what IDs was. And we would come up with these lists of challenges and just, we were able to so methodically work through it. And I remember the day when we had been doing it for like nine months and somebody on my team said, it kind of feels like the issues that we're working through now are really small. And I was like, isn't that awesome? Like, we've tackled all the big, awful, hairy ones that had been on our plate for years, like it's working, but it was just a funny, it was a funny inflection point. So how about you, what is your favorite part? Amy (38:42): Well have to say that we run a hyper accountability sort of culture, you know, and the fact that there's one task per person, right. One to do, and one accountability per person. So it's just very clear how we're hiring. Right. I already know the next four positions we're filling and it's not just scaling one role it's rains that are sort of outside the function of our company now. So we know what we want to add. And just always having that in mind is, is really incredible. And then I love the aspect of one person is doing one thing and it may sound really simple. But, but it really is sort of transformative. And then everything's, date-based, you know, and those issues that get you in a, in a small company like ours, we have 16 employees and, but we've always sort of run it like a big company because we're always anticipating growth and scalability and onboarding new clients and onboarding new employees, which you and I talked about how, you know, that is the sort of the, the challenge of our business to have a system that sort of helps you get through the things that are difficult to talk about that you wouldn't normally identify in a public setting. Amy (39:48): It has just been really, really helpful to us and help us grow. So I do look at a lot of EOS content and because I'm always looking for ways other companies are implementing it and other ideas that they have, and then I can't, I can't quit AdAge. I love it. Every morning I get the wake up call. I like to see what big brands I like to see agency movement. I like to see where people are going and why what campaigns are working. They tie in some timely political news, but that too, and sort of world news. And then I do use Twitter quite a bit. And that's more of my, sort of my news news. So we do take clarity breaks. So I don't know if you've ever scheduled time for learning. Kathleen (40:33): Not as much as I should. Amy (40:34): That's for sure. Yeah. So we, we reinforce that idea of clarity breaks and it could just be, go take a walk. It could be a power nap if you need that. Right. We're all working from home. So it's not as though we have people lying in pods or on the floor, but you know, we have people working at home. We do think that that sort of, that break of just clearing your mind. And then if you want to listen to a podcast, you know, go and do that on your walk, but it's really important to sort of clear your mind and then also be always learning and Superman. Kathleen (41:04): That's great. And it's funny enough, this is why you and I get along so well. So one of the five core values I had at my agency was also, we call it continuous learning, but same idea. And as learning and continuous teaching were like two that kind of went together. Amy (41:22): I liked that. We have energy is everything, which is sort of not a typical one, but I find that things are moving so fast and you need to be able to pivot. You need to able to sort of be ahead one step ahead of our clients. I mean, we're in the C suite, so we're going to weekly executive meetings with our clients. We are highly embedded with them. And as consultants, you always have to be proving your value, right? So, you know, that sort of energy is really important. We do have laid back people on our team, not everyone is, but they put the energy into their work. So it's not your disposition, but really kind of putting that. And, and it's, it's worked really well for us. Kathleen (42:01): That's great. And it sounds like you're getting some fantastic results. Well that brings us to the top of our hour. So before we go, if somebody is interested in connecting with you online or learning more about Wild Coffee Marketing, what is the best way for them to do that? Amy (42:16): Well, the best way is just to go to Wildcoffeemarketing.com. And there, you can see some examples of our work and sort of the areas and capabilities that we work in and see a little bit about the team. Kathleen (42:27): All right. I love it. So head there, if you want to learn more, I'll put that link in the show notes, and if you're listening and you enjoy this episode, or you learn something new, I would love it. If you would head to Apple Podcasts or the platform of your choice and leave the podcast a review. And if you know somebody else, who's doing amazing inbound marketing work, tweet me at @workmommywork. Yes, that is my Twitter handle. And leave me a review or leave, not leave me a review, send me a tweet and let me know who I should interview. This is what happens when you do interviews at four o'clock on a Friday, on a Friday. Well, thank you so much for joining me, Amy. This was a ton of fun. Amy (43:04): Thank you so much for having me, Kathleen.

For years, I’ve used the software that today’s guest created. A lot of companies claim that they are powered by AI. This company is actually using it. Oli Gardner is the founder of Unbounce, which allows you to create landing pages without coding. Oli Gardner is the founder of Unbounce, which allows you to create landing pages without coding. Sponsored byHostGator – Ready to take your website to the next level? Whether you're a first-time blogger or an experienced web pro, HostGator has all the tools you need to create a great-looking website or online store. A wide range of options includes cloud-based web hosting, reseller hosting, VPS hosting and dedicated servers. Founded in 2002, HostGator is the perfect web partner for business owners and individuals seeking hands-on support. Visit www.hostgator.com/mixergy to see what HostGator can do for your website. Sendinblue – Sendinblue is the smartest and most intuitive platform for growing businesses. They will guide your business with the right marketing & sales tools and help you reach the right people and produce the right content. Mixergy listeners who sign up will get one month free with 100,000 emails by entering the coupon code SIBMIX at checkout. More interviews -> https://mixergy.com/moreint Rate this interview -> https://mixergy.com/rateint

In this podcast episode Oli Gardner, co-founder Unbounce, shares his most valuable insights on how you can maximize your lead generation with the right landing page. Oli Gardner has probably seen more landing pages than anyone on the planet and he's obsessed with identifying and reversing bad marketing practices. If you want to know more or get in touch with Oil, you find more information in the links below: https://www.linkedin.com/in/oligardner/?originalSubdomain=ca https://oli.unbounce.com/

On this episode of Marketing Jam, Darian Kovacs interviews Oli Gardner, Co-Founder of Unbounce. Oli sits down with us for a third time to talk about how he started his career over 20 years ago, his role in starting Unbounce, the fears of working from home and the actual outcome for Unbounce. You can find and subscribe to Marketing Jam on iTunes, and Stitcher. Follow Jelly Marketing: Twitter - https://twitter.com/jellymarketing Facebook - https://facebook.com/jellymarketing LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/jelly-marketing/ Instagram - https://instagram.com/jellymarketing Website - https://jellymarketing.com Follow Darian Kovacs: Website - https://jellymarketing.com/darian/ LinkedIn - https://linkedin.com/in/dariankovacs Facebook - https://facebook.com/dariankovacspage/ Instagram - https://instagram.com/dariankovacs/ Twitter - https://twitter.com/dariankovacs Follow Oli Gardner: Website - http://oli.unbounce.com Twitter - http://twitter.com/oligardner LinkedIn - http://ca.linkedin.com/in/oligardner Instagram - http://instagram.com/theoligardner

The Inbound Success Podcast launched on August 28, 2017 and today marks the 100th episode, and 100 straight weeks of publishing interviews with high performing marketers. On this week's Inbound Success Podcast, I'm taking a break from interviewing guests to share with you 13 trends that I've observed from the 99 interviews I did throughout the last two years. Listen to the podcast to learn more about the 13 things that the world's top-performing inbound marketers are doing, and get links to the specific episodes where you can dive deeper into each topic. Transcript Welcome back to the Inbound Success podcast. My name's Kathleen Booth. I'm your host, and this is the 100th episode of the podcast. I thought this was a great opportunity for me to take a break from the usual routine of interviewing some of the incredible marketers that I get to speak to every week and look back on the last 99 episodes and try and digest some lessons learned. I've had the incredible good fortune of speaking to some really amazing marketers in the last two years as I've done this podcast. It's given me an opportunity to meet people I otherwise never would have met, to learn some things that have really kind of made a difference for me in the way I think about marketing, and have prompted me to take a second look and reevaluate the way I've been doing some things. So, thought it was a great opportunity to share some of those lessons learned with all of you. How The Inbound Success Podcast Got Started But first, I wanted to just take a moment and tell a story about why I started the podcast. It was about two and a half years ago that I had my own marketing agency, Quintain Marketing. I had had the agency for 11 years. I'd gone to a lot of marketing conferences and listened to tons of podcasts, and watched webinars, always looking to make myself a better marketer. I had a lot of clients that I wanted to help. I also wanted to market my own agency and do better every day. I always would listen to these folks talk about the marketing work they were doing and the incredible results they were getting, and so infrequently felt that there was anything really tangible that I could take away from it and immediately use to improve my own marketing. This podcast was really an attempt to solve for that. It was me trying to scratch my own itch, and in doing so hopefully helping some of you. The interesting thing about this has been that it has certainly done that for me, and it has also done so much more. I already mentioned that it's enabled me to meet so many people I otherwise would never have met. There are a lot of people in the marketing world that I really admire and respect. And having the excuse of saying, "Hey, would you like to come on a podcast?" is a great way to meet someone new and to meet and to form that relationship, so that's been great. I've also met some really incredible people that I didn't know about through my guests when I ask them who else is doing a really great job with inbound marketing. And those relationships have been amazing. One of the most amazing and incredible things about this is that it changed the entire course of my career. One of first people I interviewed when I started the podcast was Bob Ruffolo, who is the founder and CEO of IMPACT. Now, I work at IMPACT. The reason is that before we started to hit the record button for the podcast interview, we were just talking about how things were going. I was telling him that I thought I might be ready to make a change, and that led to me selling part of my company to IMPACT and joining the team. That's been a really major shift in my life and a great one. I've learned so much. I get to work with some really smart people every day and do very, very interesting work. All this has come out of this little podcast. And most importantly, I've learned a lot about marketing. As I said, that was my original goal. 13 Lessons From Interviewing 99 High Performing Marketers So without further ado, I looked back through the 99 episodes I've done before today and really saw 13 themes emerge. That's what I'm going to share with you today. 1. There Is No "Secret Sauce" The first one ... And some of these, by the way, are going to seem like no-brainers, but they're important because it's important to remind ourselves of the things that we kind of already know. First one is, in most cases there really is no secret sauce to being an amazing marketer. The folks that I interviewed who were the most successful have a few things in common. Number one, they are voracious learners. They're always trying to improve their knowledge. They're always hungry for more. And they're consistent. That's huge, the consistency. A great example of that is Goldie Chan. I interviewed her. She's often referred to as the green-haired Oprah of LinkedIn. She has the longest running daily channel on LinkedIn. She's posted a new LinkedIn video every day for I think it's about two years. It's incredible. It doesn't matter where she is, what's happening, whether she's feeling well, whether she's traveling, what her access to Wifi is, she finds a way to do it because consistency is so important for her. And it's really paid off. They also do a few things and do them really well. A great example of that is Rev Ciancio who I talked with about Instagram marketing. Rev has an incredible Instagram presence. Which by the way, do not look at it when you're hungry because his pictures are all of mouthwatering hamburgers, french fries, pizzas, chicken wings, nachos, essentially everything that's bad for you, but that tastes so good. But, Rev has a fascinating strategy for how he approaches Instagram and has built an entire business around it. He does one thing, and he does it really well. Alex Nerney talked about Pinterest similarly, just a platform a lot of inbound marketers overlook, but he's really figured out a way to make it sing for him. The hungry learners who are consistent and who pick a few things and do them really well, that's really the secret sauce, which essentially isn't so secret. That's number one. 2. Listen To Your Customers And Prospects And Use What You Learn in Your Marketing Number two is they really listen to customers and prospects and use that in their marketing. Again, sounds like a no-brainer. We always talk about the need to do persona research and to build buyer personas, but I think what happens is we get very often so caught up in building the actual persona that we forget the big picture, that it's not about having this fictional profile of a person. It's really about understanding the way our audience thinks, what their real pain points and needs are, and the language they use to talk about that. A couple of the interviews I did were great examples of this. Barron Caster at rev.com who uses their own transcription product to transcribe all of the conversations they have with customers and then pull actual words that customers have used out and feed that into the copy on their website and landing pages, and that's gotten them amazing results. Val Geisler and Joel Klettke, two of the most accomplished conversion copywriters out there, both also talked about this type of research and understanding deeply, deeply the needs of customers and prospects. Paul Blamire at Atomic Reach, who is head of customer success and makes it a point to speak to new customers shortly after they've onboarded and really understand what brought them to the company and how the product is solving their needs. And he feeds that back in not only to marketing but to product development, to every aspect of the business to deliver a better customer experience from first touch in the marketing process all the way through the experience of using the company's product. 3. You Don't Need Fancy Tools Or A Big Budget Number three, you don't necessarily need fancy tools or a big budget to get incredible results. There are some really great examples of this. Oli Billson who I recently interviewed about the small events he's doing that are delivering tremendous amounts of revenue to his business. Chris Handy who talked about marketing for a Pre-K school, really small campaigns, but they just really ... They understood their audience, and they used the available tools that they had and got terrific results for the school. Adam Sand, who's using direct mail in conjunction with inbound marketing, super old school, but very effective for him. And Harry Campbell, who's The Rideshare Guy, and he's probably the top content creator in the ridesharing space. So think Uber, Lyft, Lime, Bird. He just started blogging and has created some great content and a big following. You really don't need fancy tools or a big budget. You can do it on your own with what you've got, if I go back to the first thing, if you're consistent, if you pick a few things and do them really well, and if you're a hungry learner who is willing to roll your sleeves up and apply what you're learning. 4. Connect With Your Audience On An Emotional Level Number four, the best marketers connect with their audiences on an emotional level, another thing that might seem obvious but that I think a lot of marketers get wrong. We tend to put our marketing hats on and make our marketing all about ourselves or we fall back into that comfortable place of corporate jargon, and kind of robotic speech, and use words like leverage and synergy. Nobody talks like that in real life, or not at least the people that you want to hang out with. The people who talked about this were Kieran Flanigan of HubSpot who shared their hearts and minds strategy for creating content with two types of content, content that solves a person's problems and tells them how to do something, that's really that mind's content, and then the heart's content, which taps into a pain and emotional need that the audience has. Then, Katie Stavely from Mautic. This is ironic that these are the two examples I'm giving for this one because HubSpot and Mautic could be considered two different sides of the same coin, HubSpot being a paid marketing automation, CRM, customer service platform, and Mautic being a completely free open source alternative to it. Katie talked about how important it was to be authentic in your marketing, especially with their audience, which it's all about community. It's opensource software, so your community is helping you develop your product. But regardless, the idea is to really make that emotional connection. 5. Sometimes The Biggest Wins Come From Content That Is Not Related To Your Products Or Services Number five, with content marketing, sometimes the biggest wins happen when you don't create content about your products or services. We as marketers, as inbound marketers, think a lot about top-, middle-, and bottom-of-the funnel strategies. We're always brainstorming what are the questions that our audience is asking as relates to our product or service. That often leads us to create content that is very much about us and not so much about our audience. But, I had two interviews that I thought really highlighted how successful you can be if you flip that script and talk nothing about yourself. What I mean by that is ... I'll start with Stephanie Baiocchi, who was actually Stephanie Casstevens at the time I interviewed her. She hadn't been married yet. And funny enough, she was not working at IMPACT. That's another great outcome of the podcast. Now she is. But, she talked about a campaign that she was running for a client that sold solutions for medical waste from physicians' practices. Originally, they were creating a ton of content around medical waste, and it just wasn't working. The reason is that their audience, which is really the office managers for physicians' practices, already has a medical waste solution. You can't be in business if you don't, so they weren't out there searching for any information about medical waste. They didn't even realize they needed to switch providers or that they had a problem. It was when she kind of took a step back and thought, "What are the biggest problems that office managers have? It doesn't need to have anything to do with medical waste," and she realized it was patient no-shows. They created a patient no-show policy template that office managers could use. That was a total home run. What it did was it opened up the conversation with their audience so that eventually they could begin talking about medical waste. But at that top-of-the-funnel level, they needed first to really open that conversation, and product- and service-related content wasn't going to cut it. Another person who did that really well was Ryan Bonnici, who is now the CMO of G2 Crowd, but at the time was working at HubSpot. HubSpot's a company that has a huge audience. Of course, trying to broaden the top of the funnel at a company like HubSpot is challenging. All the low-hanging fruit is gone, and so you really have to get creative. He was trying to target a small business audience. He really asked himself, "What are the problems that small businesses have?" And, again, doesn't have to have anything to do with HubSpot. He realized when you're starting your business or when you come to work at a small business, one of the first things you have to do is come up with an email signature. You're usually either copying one that somebody else in the company has created or you have to create it from scratch, and it's kind of a pain. He built an email signature generator, an online tool where you could type in some information about yourself and it would spit out a really nice-looking email signature. That tool generated a ton of traffic, leads, and revenues for HubSpot, and it cost them only $6,000 to build it, but the impact was enormous. So, great lesson learned about getting out of the habit of creating only product- and service-related content and thinking bigger. 6. Paid Ads Are An Essential Part Of Any Inbound Marketing Strategy Number six, the old myth that paid ads are not inboundy is dead, or it should be dead. This one was woven throughout almost every interview I did. It's funny because when I first started working with inbound marketing, it was back with my old agency. I had discovered HubSpot. We were following their original methodology of attract, convert, close, delights, for those of you who've been in the HubSpot world for a long time and all. I remember many times going to INBOUND and seeing Brian Halligan stand on stage and talk about how the old way, the old interruptive way of marketing was paid ads, and people didn't like being interrupted. I think we all read that as, well, paid ads are not acceptable if you're an inbound marketer. That myth started dying, I think, several years ago, but it's worth repeating that paid ads are, I would say, not even just inboundy, they're essential to an inbound strategy in this day and age. I'll just list off a bunch of names of my guests who've talked about it. This isn't even a complete list, but Mark Rogers, who at the time was with Carney and grew The Daily Carnage newsletter using Facebook ads; Sterling Snow from Divvy who's used ads to drive leads for their platform; Moby Siddique who has his own inbound agency and does some incredible Facebook ads work with Messenger bots; AJ Wilcox, who is a LinkedIn ads expert; Ali Parmelee, who's one of my coworkers here at IMPACT who does incredible things with Facebook ads; Anthony Sarandrea; Rick Kranz. The list goes on and on. All of them attribute the success that they're getting and the incredible results to some form of paid ads. Let that be the final nail in the coffin of that old myth. Let's really embrace ads, and not just checking the box with ads and promoting our posts, but really taking a full funnel approach to advertising. Because that's the other thing that these folks talked about is it's not about boosting something on Facebook. This is about really digging in and getting good at ads and thinking how ads can be used at every stage of the funnel. 7. Content Distribution Is Critical Number seven, it's not enough to create and publish your content on your website. You've got to promote it and distribute it. This is one that I've heard time and time again. A lot of the best marketers I've spoken to say you should spend twice as much time promoting and distributing your content as you do creating it. I think for a lot of us that equation is backwards. One person who talked about that was Kipp Bodnar who is the CMO of HubSpot, probably one of the companies that is the best at inbound marketing. He talked about what a game changer it was in the last year when HubSpot really threw some muscle behind content distribution and how that impacted their traffic. This is a company that already had amazing traffic, by the way. Then, Phil Singleton. I loved my interview with Phil who is an SEO expert and an author. Phil talked about this great strategy he uses for clients where he's creating e-books, just like lots of inbound marketing agencies do. But then he takes the e-books that he makes for clients, or he takes a collection of blogs, for example, and compiles them into any book, and he publishes them as Kindle e-books on amazon.com, and also in some cases as hard copy books through Amazon direct publishing. It is so simple, and straightforward, and inexpensive. It blows my mind that more marketers are not doing this. It was a cool episode, so definitely check that out. But yeah, the lesson is don't just like write those blogs, create those e-books. Think about what are you going to do with them once they're published. How are you going to get them out in front of the world? 8. Original Research Can Drive Tremendous Results Number eight, original research can have amazing results. I had several interviews where people touched on what has come of original research. One of the people I think that that is most famous in the marketing world for doing this is Andy Crestodina. He has been doing a blogging survey for several years and really credits that with bringing a lot of attention to his agency, Orbit Media, out of Chicago, giving him a ton of backlinks and press. It's a pretty simple survey. He does put quite a bit of effort into promoting the survey itself so he can get a lot of responses, and then once he gets those responses into packaging that content so that he can turn it into things like infographics and articles, et cetera. But, it's not just Andy. Michele Aymold from Parker Dewey uses original research and data to boost her marketing results. Clare Carr from Parse.ly, they actually don't even have to do that much research because simply by the nature of the product that they sell they have access to a lot of proprietary data. She's really productized that and used it to get a tremendous amount of press. In fact, she was able to dramatically cut back the amount of content she was creating while getting better results because the data itself was so attractive to their audience, and it also helped her reduce their PR spend. Then, Rebecca Corliss at Owl Labs. They produced the state of remote work, and that's gotten them quite a bit of traction. 9. Community Is A Powerful Tool To Fuel Growth Number nine, community is such a powerful tool for marketing. This is an interesting one because here at IMPACT we've been working really hard over the course of the last two years to build our own community called IMPACT Elite, which is on Facebook. We've learned a lot about community in the course of doing that. I would say it has been a game changer for our business, certainly. We now have over 5,000 people in that community. It's a delicate balance how you run it. You can't make it all about yourself. It has to truly be about helping the members of the community and getting them to the point where they're almost running it, if you will. I spoke to several other people who have built communities and had similar experiences in terms of the community being a fundamental tool in the growth of their business. One was Bill Faeth who is a marketer who specializes in the limousine and transport business. He has Limo University, and he has a big community around that of limousine companies. Frank Gruber, who started Tech Cocktail in the beginning and turn it into Tech.co, which was then acquired, he now has a company called Established. But, he began this grassroots community all over the country of startups and people interested in the startup ecosystem and wound up building a tremendous media business from that. Nikki Nixon who at the time I interviewed her was running the FlipMyFunnel community for Terminus. Ameer Rosic who has a community focused on blockchain called Blockgeeks. And Mark Graham, who is an old friend of mine doing amazing things, he's up in Canada and has a software platform called Commonsku and has built a great community around that. All of these folks doing incredible things with communities in very different niches, I should say. For Bill, it was limo companies. For Frank, it was startups. For Nikki, it's people who are ABM practitioners. For Ameer, it's folks in the blockchain community. And for Mark Graham, it's people in the promotional products world. All of these different niches need communities and people are hungry to connect with others who have similar interests as they do. 10. The Quality Of Your Content REALLY Matters Content quality. I had a couple of great interviews on this. This is one that I'd love to talk with more people who are focused on this. In this day and age, you can't just be creating content and checking the box. You have to really create great content that is better than anything else out there if you really want to get amazing results. One person who talked a lot about this was Oli Gardner and how he is putting a lot of effort into really making the content that they create be the best that's available on the Internet. Emily Maxie from Very talked about this, too, really digging deep and creating unbelievable resources for your audience. Both of these folks are getting great results in terms of traffic, and that traffic ultimately turning into leads, because they took the time to create in-depth pieces that really added value for their audience. Seems like it should be obvious, it's another one of these, but it's really not too a lot of us. I mean, you might think your content's really good, but is it the best? When you Google that topic that you created content about, is your piece the best thing that you can find in the search results? If not, go back and spend the time and make it better. I think one of the lessons I've learned is it's better to make less content that's better content than it is to create a high volume. 11. Creating A Podcast - Or Being A Guest On One - Is A Good Way To Build Your Brand Another theme that came out was podcasting. It's sort of ironic because we're on a podcast talking about podcasting. But a lot of my interviews, as I went back and reviewed, had to do with podcasting, beginning with George B Thomas, who I've had the privilege to work with over the years here at IMPACT. He's now at Impulse Creative. George is a prolific podcaster, and he's ... It might seem easy when you listen to him. It just seems like, "Oh, there's a guy that just has a great rapport with his audience," but he puts a ton of thought into how he does these podcasts, how he structured them so that they not only deliver value for the audience, but that they have naturally built-in incentives for people to share them and to grow his audience. That's really worth listening to if you're somebody who wants to start a podcast. Andrew Dymski is another person who's been podcasting for a long time and who I've been a guest on his podcast. He's been a guest on mine. He's got some great insights. Ryan Hawke, who has The Learning Leader podcast, Ryan blew my mind just with how prepared he comes to everything. He talked about this, too, how before he does an interview the amount of preparation he does, the amount of preparation he does when he even just invites somebody to come on his podcast. This guy is serious business, and that's why he's so successful. He really has put the thought into it and turned his podcast into a business. Dan Moyle came on the show and talked about podcast guest interviews. So not necessarily starting a podcast, but if you want to get the word out, going on other podcasts as a guest. At the time, he was with a company called Interview Valet. What's been really cool for me is seeing the other side of that. I get pitched a lot by companies like Interview Valet, and there are certainly other ones as well. They'll send me an email and say, "Listened to your show. Thought it was great. Here's a guest that I think would be really good for you." That's how I've gotten a lot of my more interesting guests. There's something to that podcast guesting strategy that really I think can help you get traction and raise your profile if you're trying to build a personal brand or trying to get the word out about a product or a service. There are plenty of companies like Interview Valet that, for a fee, will take care of that for you. It's kind of like having a talent agent. I also talked to Jay Acunzo about podcasting. He is actually a consultant to other companies and helps them create, produce, and get the best results out of their podcasts. One of his clients is Drift, which comes up a lot on my show. People love Drift, always cited as one of the best examples of a company doing inbound marketing really well, and they have a couple of podcasts. Then, Jeff Large of Come Alive Creative. Lots of folks talking about podcasting. It really stuck out to me that it's not just about, hey, everybody should have a podcast, and I don't think everyone should. It's not right for everybody. But, podcasting can play a role in almost everybody's marketing strategy for sure. 12. Video, Video, Video Number 12, video. Can't have a list of trends and things that are important in marketing without talking about video these days. Some of the guests that I've had that have spoken about this are some of the more impressive people that have been on this podcast. In 2019, I opted to kick the year off with an interview with Marcus Sheridan, who is an amazing man that is a big role model for me. I currently get to work with him at IMPACT. But, he's somebody that I followed for years and I have so much respect for because he sees things about marketing and about customer behavior that a lot of other people don't, even though they're staring us in the face. One of the things that he has really seen and committed to is that when it comes to marketing and selling, we can't just tell people something. We have to show it to them, too, and we show it to them using video. He talked about how important video was going to be in 2019. I know that he's out speaking at conferences and talking about video all over the world. Also, Eric Siu. I kicked off 2018 with Eric Siu doing predictions for last year. He talked about video as well and was like, "Video's going to be huge in 2018." So in both of my kind of yearly prediction episodes, the guests that I've had have cited video as one of the biggest things we should be paying attention to. And then, of course, I already mentioned her, but Goldie Chan, who is a LinkedIn influencer and creates a new LinkedIn video every single day, has made a career around those videos. She's amazing. She travels all over the world and is sought after as a speaker because of the LinkedIn video she creates. And Dennis Yu who has turned video into a formula for building people's personal brands. It's really impressive what he does. They're these short little videos that he films. Using that medium has helped countless people create brands for themselves. 13. Lead With Brand Which brings me to my 13th and last lesson learned from 99 interviews with incredible marketers, and that is that all of these strategies, and tactics, and approaches are powerful. But at the end of the day, the most important thing in marketing is brand. Brand is paramount. Without it, you can have some quick wins but you'll never have a true success that will last over the long term. I'm only going to cite one example here because it's the one that comes up the most. And if you listen to this podcast with any degree of regularity, you know that at the end I always, always ask my guests, "Company or individual, who do you think is doing inbound marketing really well right now?" There is one company/individual, the company and the marketer who's spearheading it for them, that by far comes up more than anybody else, and that is Drift and Dave Gerhardt, who I was very fortunate to have as a guest early on. I can't tell you the number of times people have mentioned Drift, and it's not just people from the marketing world. It's folks that have come onto this podcast from all different industries, and they all cite Dave Gerhart and his work building a brand at Drift as the one succeeding the most with inbound marketing. It's not for me to say what that brand is or to really try to encapsulate what Dave has done, but I think it's fair to say that they've built a brand that's incredibly authentic. There's no artifice. There's no fancy tricks about it. They, of everybody, really reflect everything I've said about the past, you know, this list of 12 to 13 trends I just spoke about today. When I look back through this list, they are doing a few things and doing them really well. They really listen to their customers. It's not about fancy tools or a big budget. The things that make them successful don't have anything to do with that. It's about connecting on emotional level. It's about creating content that sometimes doesn't have anything to do with your products or services. They do paid ads. And it's not enough to create and publish your content, you've got to promote it. They are so good at that. They've got a tremendous community, really high-quality content, a bunch of podcasts. They use video better than almost anybody else, especially on LinkedIn. Checkout Dave Gerhart's LinkedIn presence. And they just have a really strong brand. So my hat is off to Dave Gerhart and the team at Drift for ... If I had to give out an award for top inbound marketers, I think it would go to them. Thank YOU For Listening But really, everybody that I've interviewed over the course of the last two years has been so impressive. It is just my absolute privilege to get to do this every single week. I also wanted to say thank you to you for listening. Podcasting is a funny exercise. As I record this, it's Sunday morning, and I'm sitting in my home office, which is a tiny little room that actually had to be permitted as a closet because it's so small. There's chaos happening around me in my house. I'm by myself talking into a microphone. I'll go away, and I'll turn this into an episode. It'll go live tomorrow. You'll be hearing this Monday, if you get the episode right when it comes out or sometime after, and you're out there listening. But when I create these things, it's just me in a room. To know that there are people who choose to listen to this every week is just an unbelievable honor and a privilege to me. So, thank you from the bottom of my heart for listening to this content. I hope so much that you've learned something from it and that, even if it's in a small way, it's helped you get better results from your marketing and feel like a smarter marketer. If that has happened, then I feel like I've succeeded. With that, I will say I would love to hear from you. It's been a hundred episodes. If you are a regular listener, please take a moment and contact me. I always say at the end you can tweet me @workmommywork, which is my Twitter handle, but you can also message me on LinkedIn. You can email me at kbooth@impactbnd.com. You can send a carrier pigeon. However you want to do it, I would love it if you would get in touch and let me know what you like about the podcast and what's something that I can improve because I'd love to make the next hundred episodes even better. With that, I won't belabor it. Thank you again for listening, and I'll see you next week. Or not see you, I'll be talking to you next week for episode 101.  

S01E09 - Everything about Landing Pages Guest: Oli Gardner, Co-founder of Unbounce #StartupBasics series in Insights Alley Podcast: Startup, Product, Growth, Sales & Strategy Insights for Entrepreneurs. Its a Blog/Podcast by Arun Verma. Get Notes of this conversation at https://insightsalley.com Please give feedback and suggest topics for next episodes on arun@insightsalley.com

Most of Foundr’s podcast episodes are one-on-one chats, usually focusing on a particular foundr or their business. This time around, we were fortunate enough to sit down, in person, with two startup icons, and explore some of the most important facets of running a business. Oli Gardner and Ryan Deiss are both digital marketing pioneers who have grown their online businesses to millions in revenue. Gardner, the instructor of our Landing Page Formula course, co-founded landing page builder Unbounce in 2009. Deiss, a serial entrepreneur, founded DigitalMarketer in 2011. Not surprisingly, this turned out to be a fascinating conversation, in which Gardner and Deiss share both similar and differing opinions on everything from branding to hiring. For example, both founders insist that creating core values is an important business practice that will inform your branding and your decisions. “I have had more businesses come close to failure because of too much opportunity,” says Deiss, who adds that having a mission makes it easier to know when to say no. In addition, as both Unbounce and DigitalMarketer grow, Gardner and Deiss have each honed their strategies for hiring top talent. The details might surprise you, as one of the two companies doesn’t even allow candidates to submit a resume (it’ll get thrown out). Listen in as Gardner and Deiss join Foundr for this lively chat in Barcelona, where they share their hard-learned lessons from growing online businesses and the sacrifices they’ve made along the way. Key Takeaways How to build a great brand The one thing that keeps your customers coming back again and again Why creating core values for your company isn’t just a nice thing to do, but a necessity The latest interaction and design trends—and which ones you should steer clear of Why community is the new brand and how to build a community that boosts your business The biggest opportunity in ecommerce right now How to stay relevant in a changing content marketing landscape Sure-fire tactics for hiring and vetting top talent The big sacrifices they’ve had to make as founders

Earlier this year, Ciaran got to talk with Oli Gardner from Unbounce, a Leading conversion rate optimisation tool. We explored a little of what Unbounce does but mainly focus on an exciting experiment that Oli ran earlier this year on blog content. The aim of Oli's experiment was to see what effect writing a storm of regular content to promote key features their platform offered would have on conversions and the bottom line. The challenge... create content that drives both product awareness and conversion rates through the roof. Being a conversion rate optimisation specialist, Oli was confident he could ace this mission and significantly 'move the needle' of success. However, as you will hear, nothing quite panned out as he expected it to but some fascinating lessons were learned along the way. Join us this week as we explore Oli's story and delve into the key learnings and insights from one man's mission to embark on a veritable marathon of content for conversion. Mr Men landing pages original article Mr Men Landing Pages Podcast Episode Unbounce Dynamic text replacement feature Unbounce Landing page Analyzer Is Content Marketing a Waste of Time and Money? Data and Lessons Learned from 20 posts in 30 days Find out all about Unbounce Follow Oli on Twitter https://twitter.com/oligardner 

Clarity is something I’m obsessive about. Not because it benefits me, but because it benefits everyone; Your customers, your team, and yourself. When any type of communication isn’t clear, things begin to go wrong. Assumptions and misinterpretations often take over and we end up with a mess. At best, we’ve wasted a lot of time.This week I had the opportunity to sit down with Oli Gardner, co-founder of Unbounce, a company whose vision is to empower businesses to create better marketing experiences. Frankly, Oli’s level of data-supported intuition was very impressive. His keynote at the Driving Sales Executive Summit had the 1000+ person audience leaning in, taking notes, and laughing…a lot.Here is my current itinerary:January 24-27: NADA Convention, San Francisco: (Speaking: Time and location TBD)This Week’s Homework:Follow Oli on TwitterOli’s #DSES PresentationUnbounceA/B Test CalculatorConversion Centered DesignViva Las Vegas covered by The Killers. Copyright Elvis Presley and RCA Records. . .DID YOU KNOW that the Dealers Compressed Podcast started as a creative visual production around the book “Like I See It”. We created it independently to give auto dealers an accessible way to engage the book and hopefully spread the timely message to their staff and others in the industry. We hope that YOU will use it in your dealership!It’s engaging.It’s FREE.Its right HERE!. . .pauljdaly.comConnect with Paul J Daly on LinkedInFollow along on InstagramFollow Paul J Daly on TwitterLike Paul J Daly on Facebook

For anyone even thinking about building and testing landing pages, Unbounce is an essential tool and the platform that almost single-handedly created the field. Oli Gardner, the company’s co-founder, travels the world speaking and evangelizing about the importance of the landing page experience in marketing. He’s taken a hard look at more landing pages than anyone on the planet, and he’s obsessed with identifying and reversing bad practices. His rants against marketers who send campaign-specific traffic to their general homepage can peel paint off an unpainted wall! Today’s episode explores how Oli got to where he is today, and how he turned a passion for crusading against marketing mediocrity into such a key online business platform. What are some of the important learnings he’s gleaned along the way? Guest - Oli Gardner, Business Coach Unbounce co-founder Oli Gardner is a prolific international speaker who’s on a mission to help businesses use data-informed copywriting, design, interaction, and psychology to create a more delightful experience for marketers and customers alike. He became a marketer the day Unbounce was founded. As an early pioneer in the realm of content marketing, his goal was to position Unbounce as the global leader in everything related to landing pages and ways to deliver high-converting and delightful marketing experiences. Host: Alex Langshur

“Ninety-eight percent of landing pages are just plain bad.” This is what Unbounce founder Oli Gardner declared when he began his public speaking circuit four years ago. A bold statement, but he would know. As co-founder of the landing page software builder, which pulls in $20 million in annual revenue, Gardner confidently claims he has seen more landing pages than anyone on the planet—nearly 100,000 to be exact. These days, he's leveraging his immense knowledge on the topic to help businesses drive more leads and revenue, through Unbounce and as a speaker. In this interview, learn about the history of Unbounce, Gardner’s top tips for becoming a better marketer, and his golden advice on how to create a landing page that gets his seal of approval. ATTENTION: We are excited to announce that Oli has partnered with the Foundr School of Entrepreneurship to teach a powerful course, Landing Page Formula. If you want to learn the principles of conversion-center design and get a step-by-step blueprint on how to construct a high-converting landing page (templates included), Oli reveals his proven framework in this in-depth course.  We only offer open enrollment a couple of times a year, for a limited time. Get on the FREE VIP waitlist here to be one of the first we notify when we open. Key Takeaways The history of Unbounce and how the company rose to prominence How to make a landing page that impresses Oli Gardner Gardner’s top three tips to becoming a better marketer

On this episode of Marketing Jam, Shaheed Devji talks to Oli Gardner, who is a Co-Founder of Unbounce, a renowned public speaker, and an avid wildlife photographer. This interview is part of a series of interviews recorded at the 2018 Canadian Internet Marketing Conference (CIMC) hosted in Squamish, British Columbia. Marketing Jam thanks CIMC for being a partner of the show. Unbounce is a software company that has been at the forefront of making good landing pages a central part of digital marketing campaigns. After co-founding Unbounce, Oli has not only been focused on making the product the best in class, but he has also been touring the world speaking about digital marketing. On the show, Shaheed and Oli discuss why content marketing is broken, and why the concept of Oli's "Marketing Optimization Map" could be a solution; why focusing on a customer's "a-ha" moment is key in marketing, what makes a good public speaker, and why having a creative outlet - like wildlife photography - is necessary outlet for marketers. --- Follow Jelly Marketing: Twitter - http://twitter.com/jellymarketing Facebook - http://facebook.com/jellymarketing Instagram - http://instagram.com/jellymarketing Website - http://jellymarketing.com Find Shaheed Devji: Website - http://shaheed.ca Facebook - http://facebook.com/shaheeddevjimedia Instagram - http://instagram.com/shaheeddevji Twitter - http://twitter.com/shaheeddevji Follow Oli: Website - http://oli.unbounce.com Twitter - http://twitter.com/oligardner LinkedIn - http://ca.linkedin.com/in/oligardner Instagram - http://instagram.com/theoligardner Follow Unbounce: Website - http://unbounce.com

In today's episode of the Internet Marketing Podcast, Andy is joined by Oli Gardner, keynote speaker and co-founder of Unbounce. In today's show, you'll learn:Why it's important to have dedicated landing pages for your unique products and servicesHow to deliver on the promise of your paid ads when it comes to landing pagesHow Chrome's automated ad-blocking is affecting pop-upsOli's recommended criteria for judging whether your pop-ups are good or badOli's biggest takeaways from his recent 20/30 blogging challengeYou can connect with Oli on Twitter here or if you're interested in having Oli speak at your event, visit his booking page on Unbounce....and seeing as you're here, you can give Unbounce's NEW Landing Page Analyzer tool a whirl here: https://unbounce.com/landing-page-analyzer/   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Oli Gardner shares how Unbounce used content marketing and partnerships to grow their website traffic to 800,000 monthly visitors and how focusing on the right customer helped them grow to 14k users and $17M in revenue. In this episode you will learn: What gave them the idea to come up with Unbounce [01:34] What they did to be able to start the company [03:20] How Oli handled the marketing side of things [04:09] How they started generating awareness of their content to build an email list [07:17] What was Oli’s content strategy [09:31] How they launched the company [12:14] How they got to their first 100 customers [14:44] Unbounce’s partnership with MailChimp and how they benefited from it [15:05] How to choose the companies to partner with [16:38] How long it took Unbounce to hit seven figures and the things they had to overcome to get there  [17:52] How they got people to join their webinars [20:09] What struggles they had to overcome before hitting seven figures in 2012 [23:25] How they built their product for their ideal client [25:28] How they figured out who their ideal client is [28:03] How they make sure they’re targeting the right people now [31:09] How Unbounce keeps taking things to the next level [33:36] The one thing that had the biggest impact on the growth of Unbounce [38:51] Key Takeaways: Integrations like the one Unbounce had with MailChimp are the kind of things that put you on the path to being a “super sticky useful tool”. When working with other companies, culture fit is important. It is important to find the right partnerships. Don’t fall prey to the big companies who pay big bucks asking you to design things for them. Rather, know who your ideal client is. It’s not the job of your content to convert customers. Its job is to build domain authority for your website. Relentless focus on growth can sometimes be a problem. When you start growing, be careful on the hiring side. Action Steps: Start blogging at the beginning stages of your company and build an audience for when you launch your product. Come up with a solid lead magnet. Find a company that you can partner with, that already has traffic or has similar customers to you, and figure out ways that you can collaborate. Keep evolving the type of content and the type of things you are doing. Consider doing webinars with partner companies and incorporate a relevant demo of your product. Find ways of getting your ideal customer but also design an experience that communicates who you’re not for. If you’re attracting the wrong people, all your metrics die. Get advisers for your company by establishing relationships with people you respect who are in a similar field. Don’t be afraid to ask. Partner with the right people so that you’re building in the right direction to help your customers scale. Mix your marketing, 50% lead generation, and 50% awareness. Oli says: “The small dollar changes at the beginning become big ones at the end.” “Do whatever you can to not doubt yourself.” More from Oli Gardner: Oli’s Twitter Oli’s Email Unbounce Sponsor link 14-day Free Trial to LeadQuizzes Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to this podcast! And don’t forget to leave me a rating and a review on iTunes!

What kind of madman would actually consider changing his name to Landing Page? Our own Woj Kwasi had an inkling Oli Gardner fit the bill. That's why he pinned down the globe-trotting orator for an insightful interview at MozCon for episode 16 of WojCast. Woj and Oli explore Oli's journey from Edinburgh to Canada, Unbounce's history and its future with artificial intelligence, the power of insights over data (and how to get them), how to improve the conversion rates of almost anything, and whether there's anything Oli can't optimise. MacGyvering your way through this episode and try to capture the sweet spots on camera — that's the Landing Page way.

Unbounce is betting big in 2018 by redefining its products, markets and technology all at the same time. Co-Founder Oli Gardner reveals the company's plans to bust out of the landing page niche and expand into new accounts while improving adoption and chasing higher lifetime value and lower churn. All aboard the Unbounce rollercoaster for the ride of your life!

This week we spoke with Co-founder of Unbounce, Oil Gardner. We covered a lot of topics - speaking, co-branding, pop-ups and, of course, landing pages.

Oli Gardner has dedicated this Janurary to writing 30 articles in 30 days, all about Product, Product Marketing and Unbounce. We caught with him to see how this all got started, what he was hoping to get out of it and what's next. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this interview, the angle is a bit different: How to optimize a B2B landing page. In this episode, the co-founder of Unbounce, Oli Gardner explains the 7 step framework that B2B companies can use to optimize their landing page and take it from nay to yay. He also goes over what elements to include and exclude - and you can get his verdict on the highly debated pop-ups, including his best practices. Learn more about the 7 principles of conversion centered design: https://unbounce.com/conversion-centered-design/

Fresh off the successful launch of Landing Page Analyzer, we talked with Unbounce cofounder Oli Gardner and employee #9, Stefanie Grieser, on the company’s growth and overall success. Landing Page Analyzer: https://unbounce.com/landing-page-analyzer/

This episode is a special Facebook Live interview with Oli Gardner, international marketing speaker and Co-Founder of Unbounce landing page software. Today we are talking about marketing bullshit and how to fight it together. Oli shares his experiences growing Unbounce, how he measures marketing success and his advice to become a better marketer and drive more sales without compromising your values. *** Tap on this link to access show notes+transcripts, join our private community of mavericks, or sign up to the newsletter: EveryoneHatesMarketers.com/links

This week on The PPC Show we're joined by Oil Gardner, Co-founder of Unbounce to discuss data-drive design. Follow him on Twitter. And don't forget to register for PPC WEEK sponsored by Unbounce! Fun fact: Oli has seen more landing pages than anyone on the planet, and part of that painstaking and often nosebleed-inducing exercise is that he gets to see some really cool and awful things. If you're running marketing campaigns – and who isn't amirite? – then landing pages matter to you. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/the-ppc-show-podcast/message

This week, Travis and Stewart discuss the implications of the largest A.I. funding round in history, let alone one of the biggest Canada has ever seen. They also dig into eBay's foray into computer vision, how image search will be bigger than conversational UI, and what is going on in the world of rewarded video ads. We then launch our CTAConf series of interviews with the amazing and outgoing Oli Gardner of Unbounce, in a session that was recorded live on stage in front of 1,000+ people in Vancouver. Get ready to have your mind blown.

In this episode, James shares a recap of what he learned from Oli Gardner's session at CTAConf 2017.

Oli Gardner of Unbounce shares the future of AI in marketing, the top mistakes he sees founders make, the early marketing decisions that led to their success today, and more. Read the episode highlights here: https://www.geckoboard.com/blog/secrets-for-scaling-unbounce-oli-gardner-podcast/

Our guest this week is Unbounce co-founder, Oli Gardner. He’s obsessed with identifying and reversing bad marketing practices, and his disdain for marketers who send campaign traffic to their homepage is legendary, resulting in landing page rants that can peel paint off an unpainted wall. A prolific international speaker, Oli is on a mission to rid the world of marketing mediocrity by using data-informed copywriting, design, interaction, and psychology to create a more delightful experience for marketers and customers alike. In our conversation, we talk with Oli about landing pages, and conversion rate optimization for pages. There's a lot of psychology behind what landing pages are, and why they are superior to inner pages for pushing a specific offer. We look at all the things you should know about landing pages, and what makes people click. Guaranteed, you'll learn something new from this interview. Unbounce https://unbounce.com/   The Unbounce Conversion Benchmark Report – Average Conversion Rates by Industry and Expert Recommendations https://unbounce.com/conversion-rate-optimization/unbounce-conversion-benchmark-report/   ==================   Table of Contents for Episode 193   0:00 Podcast intros. 1:13 How Oli got into digital marketing. 2:09 What is the difference between a landing page and an ordinary page on your site? What specific purpose does a landing page serve? 3:21 What is attention ratio? How does it relate to where people click and what action s they take? 4:59 What are some common mistakes that people make with clarity of message? 8:51 What role does design play in optimizing a page for conversion? 11:20 We need data for A/B testing. What is a good sample size for A/B data? How long should those tests run? Defining your ideal customer. 17:47 The power of social proof. Who should you be using in testimonials to influence your target customers? 22:01 How much automation should you use in marketing? How machine learning is going to change everything in the next few years. 25:56 How can designers, marketers, and copywriters work together? What is the ideal workflow for page design, and page optimization? 28:57 Advice for writing headlines. 30:47 Thoughts on videos. Don't do things just because other people are doing it. How to use video in a powerful way. 33:45 Have an open mind when optimizing pages. Trusting the data. Using what you have to improve. 35:20 Some other influencers to follow and watch presentations by. The upcoming Call to Action Conference. 42:30 What would Oli tell his younger self to make his journey easier? What does a modern marketer need to succeed? 44:10 The strengths and weaknesses that Oli sees in the WordPRess ecosystem. 46:00 What are some tips that Oli has for speakers and presenters looking to up their game? 47:47 Podcast outros.   ==================   Links mentioned during the show:   TinEye Sample Size Calculator Hotjar Readable.io Retirement of AlchemyAPI on BlueMix Watson Developer Cloud (BlueMix) Watsonfinds (WordPress plugin) Qualaroo Wistia

Oli Gardner is the founder of Unbounce and is the master of landing page conversions. He's seen more landing pages than anyone on the planet. In this episode, you're going to learn how to see an immediate boost in conversions with some simple website tweaks.  In episode 116, you're going to learn how to see an immediate 50% boost in conversions with some simple website tweaks.  Loving this episode? Thank you so much for joining me! I would be honoured if you'd write an honest review of the show here: http://www.thedealerplaybook.com/itunes Also, don't forget to connect with me on Facebook and drop me a line. I love hearing from you.  DOMINATE! MC

Oli Gardner is the founder of Unbounce and is the master of landing page conversions. He's seen more landing pages than anyone on the planet. In this episode, you're going to learn how to see an immediate boost in conversions with some simple website tweaks.  In episode 116, you're going to learn how to see an immediate 50% boost in conversions with some simple website tweaks.  Loving this episode? Thank you so much for joining me! I would be honoured if you'd write an honest review of the show here: http://www.thedealerplaybook.com/itunes Also, don't forget to connect with me on Facebook and drop me a line. I love hearing from you.  DOMINATE! MC

Oli Gardner, Co-Founder of Unbounce, joins the Content Pros Podcast to discuss how data, design, and content work together to convert leads and close deals. Special thanks to our sponsors: Oracle Marketing Cloud Uberflip Convince & Convert: The Business of Story   In This Episode How a lack of cohesion and data leads to tension on the marketing team Why a winning design means validating the data first How focusing on conversion rate optimization leads to irrelevant content and decreasing conversions Why motivating content means including your product, even if you don't want it to be too sales-y   Resources Oli Gardner on Twitter: @oligardner Unbounce Fuck Data The Landing Page Sessions with Oli Gardner   Visit ContentProsPodcast.com for more insights from your favorite content marketers.

Oli Gardner. He’s the co-founder of Unbounce. He’s seen more landing pages than anyone in the planet. He’s a prolific international speaker and he’s on the mission to rid the world of marketing mediocrity by using data-informed copywriting, design, interaction, and psychology to create a more delightful experience for marketers and customers alike. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – How to Deliver a TED Talk What CEO do you follow? – N/A Favorite online tool? — UsabilityHub How many hours of sleep do you get? — Maybe 3 hours If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Learn how to make decisions”   Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:10 – Nathan introduces Oli to the show 01:49 – Unbounce is a SaaS business and a conversion platform for marketers which started as a landing page platform 02:00 – They just expanded to convertibles that have overlays that captures more leads and signups on the website 02:17 – Unbounce was launched in August 2009 02:33 – Unbounce has 6 co-founders 03:11 – Oli was broke and filed for bankruptcy 03:26 – Unbounce was initially funded by friends and family with $15K CAD 03:38 – Unbounce had a seed round and Angel round and has raised a total of less than 1 million CAD 04:12 – The 6 co-founders are all equal 04:22 – All are working full-time 04:50 – They’ve figured out a rough valuation 05:25 – 5 of the 6 co-founders are still active 05:41 – Team size is 184 05:49 – Members are based all around Canada and some in South America 06:14 – RPU is $93 CAD a month 07:05 – Unbounce lets anyone in for at least 2 years 07:11 – Their plans have been restructured in a way that is most beneficial 07:38 – Their $10-plan has been removed 07:57 – Unbounce now has professional marketers 08:10 – As Unbounce continues to grow, they’re trying to scale with their customers 08:33 – Unbounce currently has 14K active users 08:42 – You can create a demo account but you can’t get your own domain with demo 09:13 – Average MRR is just under $1.4M 09:47 – Unbounce had a problem with churn, like what most SaaS businesses have encountered 10:03 – “We know that you need landing pages for everything you do” 10:55 – 5% is the problem churn with Unbounce 11:30 – If Salesforce or Marketo have been integrated, the company is a larger company 11:47 – Overlays have been successful and there’s so much traffic and data 12:09 – Overlays are called overlays because they are similar to popups 12:20 – “We’re trying to be responsible with the technology because technology is not the problem, we are” 12:52 – Oli respects Bounce Exchange when it comes to the overlays world and they’re doing a lot with machine learning 13:06 – The biggest difference in using Unbounce is you will feel that you’re not using templated overlays 13:40 – Unbounce’s value is different from SumoMe and their targeting is getting smarter 13:55 – Most services like Unbounce charge $250-5K a month and Unbounce starts at $99 14:06 – There are cheaper ones in WordPress, but they’re not really good 14:21 – Oli is primarily a public speaker now and spends most of his time on the road 14:25 – Oli was actually scared to start public speaking years ago 14:33 – Nathan recommends watching Oli speak in public 15:15 – The rest of Oli’s time is spent with Unbounce’s marketing team and data scientists’ team 15:48 – Unbounce just got engaged with a new marketing agency 16:03 – LTV 16:14 – Unbounce had one marketing guy and he left, so they switch to a 5 digital local agency 16:33 – CAC 16:43 – The Famous Five   3 Key Points: Being broke should NOT hinder you from starting a business. A great product with a reasonable price will always attract more customers. Learn how to make decisions and don’t hold back.   Resources Mentioned: The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Organifi – The juice was Nathan’s life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books Freshbooks – Nathan doesn’t waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

The importance of increasing the Video ROI of your investment in video cannot be understated. In the new paradigm of Video Marketing it's important to make sure your investment in video is converting leads and getting your message across in a smart manner. That's where conversion automation can be of significant help. On this podcast episode, hosts Joel Goobich and Brendan Carty talk with Oli Gardner, cofounder of Unbounce about all of the aspects of planning for and implementing the system for maximizing your marketing conversions using video marketing.

Transcription of this podcast with show notes can be found at: http://www.matchnode.com/blog/oli-gardner-matchcast-digital-marketing-podcast/

Oli Gardner from Unbounce: Unbounce's Co-Founder Oli Gardner has seen more landing pages than anyone on the planet. He speaks internationally on conversion-centered design, having authored the marketing theory behind its seven principles. At Unbounce, Oli lives in front of a 20-foot whiteboard, mashing up usability, interaction design, and landing page optimization to create better conversion experiences. His disdain for marketers that send marketing campaign traffic to a homepage is legendary, and he was recently named “The 2015 Marketer to Watch,” in the under 43 category, by his mother. In this episode we discuss: Where Oli’s interest in business and optimization came from Born in a bar - What were the early days of Unbounce like? What would Oli do differently if he started Unbounce again? What is Unbounce? The benefits of using Unbounce The different uses of a landing page For Unbounce, why a landing page is more powerful than a resume How to create a landing page that gets results Why you should ask for a business email address in your forms How to do A/B testing better. Hint: do it longer How do you optimize a low traffic site? How marketing agencies use Unbounce as the core of their business offering Oli's worst speaking experience: Teaching an eight hour workshop to a Polish speaking audience What can be above the fold and what can be below the fold on your landing page

The Industry’s Favorite SEO Podcast #EDGETALK : Register for the 2016 CTA Conference in Vancouver! This is the show that is consistently bringing you digital marketing thought leaders and cutting edge technology and strategy. So in that vein, it was bound to happen. We got a hold of the co-founder […] The post appeared first on .

This week on the Extra Paycheck Podcast I am joined by Oli Gardner. Oliver is an entrepreneur, a marketer and a co-founder of Unbounce. In this episode Oli shares his experiences of being an entrepreneur as well as lots of tips and advice on how you can improve your website for higher conversion rates.

Oli Gardner is the co-founder of Unbounce, a platform that helps you build, test, and optimize landing pages to convert customers. Today, he spends most of his time writing and speaking and is arguably the best source on the planet for learning about how startups can create landing pages that convert, whether you're drumming up pre-launch demand or trying to keep growing meaningful revenue.   Oli also shares FIVE specific elements that all well-optimized landing pages contain, and he shares some hilarious stories and examples from his life and career -- including why he almost legally changed his name to help build Unbounce.   Follow Oli at twitter.com/oligardner and visit unbounce.com to learn more.   Follow Jay at twitter.com/jayacunzo and check out his new weekly show for creatives and makers, Unthinkable, at Unthinkable.fm, soundcloud.com/unthinkablepod, or on iTunes at bit.ly/unthinkablefm   Lastly, you can subscribe to the NextView weekly newsletter about startup traction at bit.ly/nvsubscribe

What happens when you've seen more landing pages that anyone on the planet? Well, for one, you start noticing poor and positive marketing experiences all over the web. And then you start noticing optimization tactics at play in the real world, too, like when you're shopping for a blender or using a poorly-designed bathroom sink. But you also learn a heck of a lot about marketing. And if you're Oli Gardner of Unbounce, you try your best to share your learnings with other marketers. 

What happens when you've seen more landing pages that anyone on the planet? Well, for one, you start noticing poor and positive marketing experiences all over the web. And then you start noticing optimization tactics at play in the real world, too, like when you're shopping for a blender or using a poorly-designed bathroom sink. But you also learn a heck of a lot about marketing. And if you're Oli Gardner of Unbounce, you try your best to share your learnings with other marketers. 

Episode #10 of Leading Matters features the Co-Founder and frequent keynote speaker Oli Gardner.  Oil offers terrific insight into how to increase structure and discipline of a growing company without sacrificing the culture and personality, and how Unbounce focuses on doing and measuring the right things.

Oli Gardner was delivering pizzas and completely broke when he and a group of friends founded Unbounce. The company uses marketing tools to sell marketing tools to markers and Oli is at the center of that operation. Learn more about Oli’s personal path to success and how Unbounce can help you increase conversion rates.

Having awesome content isn't the be-all and end-all of a successful content marketing strategy. If you're not being deliberate about how you send your readers down your marketing funnel, you're not going to see results. In this episode of the Call to Action podcast, Oli Gardner, co-founder of Unbounce, recalls how the company used an ebook to pull in leads before the product was even ready. Then, Unbounce's Dan Levy and Michael Karp of Copytactics discuss tactical ways that you can put your content to work and gain qualified leads in the process.

Having awesome content isn't the be-all and end-all of a successful content marketing strategy. If you're not being deliberate about how you send your readers down your marketing funnel, you're not going to see results. In this episode of the Call to Action podcast, Oli Gardner, co-founder of Unbounce, recalls how the company used an ebook to pull in leads before the product was even ready. Then, Unbounce's Dan Levy and Michael Karp of Copytactics discuss tactical ways that you can put your content to work and gain qualified leads in the process.

Great conversation on The Art of Paid Traffic today all about landing pages with a really smart guy -- Oli Gardner. Oli is the co-founder of Unbounce which, if you’re not familiar, is a site for marketers where they offer helpful tools and resources to easily create high converting landing pages for your campaigns. Oli is an expert in landing pages, conversion & optimization, design, and also things like copywriting, UI and branding. In Today's Episode, You'll Learn: The elements every highly converting landing page should have. The heiarachy structure every marketer should go through when creating a landing page. Hint: this is a really important process most of us aren’t going through. Oli’s recommendation for how to properly optimize a landing page. He answers the question - if he could just give 3 copywriting tips for a great landing page, what would they be? Landing page designs that he’s liking (and not liking) these days. And a whole lot more...

Tim Ash talks to the co-founder of Unbounce about design principles for directing and channeling attention on a landing page, the dangerous and misspent youth in a Scottish beehive factory also comes up - dont miss it!

Unbounce cofounder Oli Gardner chats about the origins of his company, how to execute more effective split testing, and the hardest thing he's ever done.

Oli Gardner has seen more landing pages than anyone on the planet. As a result he has identified and mastered the 7 most important principles of conversion centered design to help you convert more visitors into paying customers. He is the co-founder of Unbounce, an industry-leading landing page platform that allows marketers to build, publish and a/b test landing pages without IT. With 17 years working in the field of interactive web design and development his career has taken him from small startup companies to the heights of Creative Director at the online entertainment powerhouse Bodog. His roles ranged from Interaction Designer, to establishing and leading Bodog’s first usability team, to inspiring a team of user centered practitioners as the creative lead responsible for re-defining the vision of a billion dollar organization. Oli is an opinionated writer and international speaker on Conversion Centered Design, and is widely respected, and feared, for gently telling it like it is when it comes to conversion optimization on landing pages. Key Takeaways from the Show 3 questions to help you identify usability problems on your pages 7 principles of conversion centered design The WWWH quick-start exercise to writing landing pages quickly How to maximize your confirmation pages for secondary conversions Links / Resources Oli Gardner on Twitter Page Fights Oli's Unbounce Landing Page Conversion Course Subscribe & Review To get more awesome Ecommerce Influence content sent directly to your device and into your ears as they become available, you can easily subscribe by clicking here: Also, ratings and reviews on iTunes (hopefully 5-stars!) help us tremendously a we’re very grateful for them. We do read all of the reviews and we’ll answer your questions or comments on future episodes. Cheers, Austin & Chad!   Follow on Twitter: Follow @chadvanags Follow @a_brawn

Oli Gardner, co-founder of Unbounce, talks about the marketing and integrations they did in the early stages to grow their product, and about the transition that he’s making from being Creative Director of the company to more of a public speaking role. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oli Gardner - founder of Unbounce.com talks about the limitations of traditional content management systems, and describes how a nimble, flexible landing page platform can facilitate rapid testing.

How To Increase Landing Page ConversionThis content from: Duct Tape Marketing How To Increase Landing Page ConversionThis content from: Duct Tape Marketing Marketing podcast with Rick Perreault and Oli Gardner of Unbounce (Click to play or right click and "Save As" to download - Subscribe now via iTunes Landing pages, those web pages you create and use to entice visitors to take a single action, have [...]