21 Handshake Marketing Podcast

Content helps you attract, engage, and delight prospects and customers, bring new visitors to your site, and ultimately, generate revenue for your company. But what content should you create? We break it down into the top 10 FAQ's we get about content on the podcast today! 1) What are the different types of content? 2) What does it mean to be a content creator? 3) What is content creation on social media? 4) How do you create content? 5) What is content in writing? 6) Why is content optimization important? 7) How do you deliver content effectively? 8) What makes content interesting? 9) What does content curation mean? 10) Is content important for SEO? Content generation is very important in your digital marketing strategy - but it comes down to creating the right content for the right audience… who will encounter it at the right time! Show notes: https://mainsite.21handshake.com/podcasts/ep-87/ Watch: https://youtu.be/25SIhCODRUM

When we work with our clients and dive deep into their social accounts - the first thing I love to talk about first is social media goals. I think a lot of businesses jump onto social media - but then they have no clue why they are there except for the reason that someone told them they should be! So they post and don’t see any traction, get frustrated and then just stop. Social media can be very effective when you have the right goals in place! Listen to our episode to determine what your goals should be for: -Listening -Influencing -Selling Download a free PDF about social media goals in the show notes! Show notes: : https://mainsite.21handshake.com/podcasts/ep-86/ ‎ Watch video:  https://youtu.be/IakcA-k_XGs

In this episode we talk about why you should do a website audit then go over some specific steps on how to do that! We love to tell our clients, a website is not a one and done type of deal- you should always be working to improve it with fresh content, test your user experience and of course improve SEO. There are 3 main benefits of a website audit:  ✔️Website performance optimization  ✔️Search engine optimization  ✔️Conversion optimization Get your free website audit checklist in the show notes: https://mainsite.21handshake.com/podcasts/ep-85/ Watch the video: https://youtu.be/tuMHtqE40io

In the episode we go over top questions we receive about our digital marketing process! Those questions include: ✔️How Long Does it Take? ✔️What If My Budget is Small? ✔️I Don't Have a Marketing Team, Does this Still Work? And more! Listen as we dive into our process and answer your questions! Watch the Video: https://youtu.be/PBSjuXLS0_A   Read the Show Notes:  https://mainsite.21handshake.com/podcasts/ep-84/ ‎

Today we’re talking about brand assets – and how to align all the assets your business has! This is a particularly important step for growing businesses to take, and also one of the most satisfying. Far too many businesses think that their marketing is just hit or miss, or that that they need to keep coming up with new ideas. Auditing your brand assets is all about gathering all your content and seeing just what it can become! For companies that already have a marketing system in place, auditing plays another very important role: It helps businesses take a look at all their different content and make sure it’s all consistent – matching tone, product info, promises made, even colors and visuals. This keeps all marketing content on the same page, and shows exactly where the brand is at. It’s especially vital for companies that may have changed content strategies or logos a few times in the past but haven’t really thought about it. Find all show notes: https://mainsite.21handshake.com/podcasts/ep-83/ Watch: https://youtu.be/lCVCGfLFcX8

Your brand is more than your logo! It absolutely is your logo, the colors you use, and your tagline, but it’s also a lot more than that. Essentially, your brand is everything that people know about you when you open communication with them. In our podcast, we’re walking through a little brand workshop using 21 Handshake as an example, so you can really get an idea of what that means. We will go over these exercises: ✔️Describe your brand in one sentence! ✔️How do you think your brand makes people feel? ✔️What value does your brand promise people? ✔️What peers does your brand have? ✔️Ultimately, what are you proud of?  Watch the show! https://youtu.be/Wwx0K2fJn_g Show notes: https://mainsite.21handshake.com/podcasts/episode-82/

This week, we’re going to discuss an extremely important step in understand your audience and turning that into actionable information for your marketing planning – buyer personas! We’ve talked about buyer personas a couple times before, but we want to do a deeper dive in this episode and really discuss how they’re put together. Too many businesses skip creating buyer personas when they are a key part of putting together a strategy, so let’s look at what’s involved. This episode dives deep into ideal buyer vs. buyer persona and explains the difference between the two. We go over the specific questions you need to ask to discover your ideal buyer and then the specific questions to ask to discover your buyer persona (s)! Watch the episode: https://youtu.be/ZlMQkY-u4Jc Show Notes: https://21handshake.com/podcasts/ep-81/

This episode dives into step 1 of our digital marketing blueprint and talks about lean market research. Lean market research uses primary data to determine what problems your product/service could solve for people. During lean market research, you talk with customers directly to gain valuable feedback, a higher value is placed on quality conversations vs. cursory surveys, there is a continuously collecting of insights and intelligence, as opposed to conducting infrequent, “big bang” research studies and at its core the market research becomes the “voice of the customer” and uses insights to transform the business, as opposed to conducting research in a vacuum. Watch episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/hsMAkHaNMz8 Read: https://21handshake.com/podcasts/ep-80-lean-market-research-leads-you-to-discover-what-your-audience-wants/

Our team is talking about why we started an official 'coaching' part of 21 Handshake! In this episode you will discover what a marketing coach does and how a marketing coach can help you stay accountable and create a strategic laser focus for your business. A coach can help you focus on high impact strategies that maximize marketing dollars while at the same time driving clients to your door or website. We are offering marketing coach as a beta program currently, if your business would benefit from this unique to you strategy apply at the link below. https://21handshake.com/coaching/ Watch this episode!  https://youtu.be/2vpHO2oNuIg Read the Show Notes: https://21handshake.com/podcasts/ep-79-6-ways-marketing-coaching-leads-to-business-growth/

Welcome back to season 3 of the podcast! We are kicking off the season with a trends report. We are huge fans of trend reports and we think it is super important for you to know what trends the experts are predicting! On season 3, we are focused on coaching your business to have a successful year and we believe good coaches always take notice of what new tactics/trends are taking place in the marketplace so they can adjust their strategy accordingly. We break up our trends into 5 areas of focus including: content, social, seo, website and video...and we might have a surprise 6th trend - because any good coach knows the 6th man is key for boosting the spirit of the team. This is an episode you will want to listen to for success in 2020. Read the show notes: https://21handshake.com/podcasts/ep-78-5-marketing-trends-for-success-in-2020/

In this episode we drill down into SEO basics and tactics that you can apply to starting thinking about how your business can dominate search engine rankings. From building a SEO friendly site to link building, this episode covers a lot of great information for businesses wanting to gain search authority for their industry. 

In this episode we talk about step 8 of our digital marketing solution which is all about using data and analytics to clarify your messaging. Our team discusses Google Analytics, Google My Business, SpyFu reporting and social media metrics and goes over why and how we use these platforms to assess digital marketing campaign, retarget audiences and determine if the data is aligning with the goal of the marketing efforts. 

In this episode we talk about step 7 of our digital marketing 9 step solution! Step 7 is all about digital dialogue and you can take your business from absent to engaged online. We cover what platforms you should be social listening on, why active listening is important and some pointers on how to engage online. This is a great episode to help you plan your digital dialogue presence next year. 

Online ads, digital ads, PPC, Facebook ads - multiple names for taking your content from passive to proactive! Aleks, Ashley and Sarah talk about why your content needs to go on the offense and how digital ad spend in your marketing budget can help you reach your target market. 

Content is still the most effective way from taking your brand from voiceless to vocal. Sarah, Aleks and Ashley discuss the 14 top content marketing pieces and how useful each one will be for any business marketing strategy in 2020. If your business does content, or is increasing content in the next year, this is a must listen episode.