The Bright Ideas eCommerce Podcast | Proven Entrepreneur Success Stories

Bill Carmody, CEO of $5M agency Trepoint, has some really great insights for other agency owners, including what he sees as the largest opportunities that agencies can take advantage of right now. Bill also generously shares his innovative strategies for getting in the door with big name clients (teaser: it has something to do with volleyballs), and then how to do a great job with that first conversation. Actually, both Bill and I share our frameworks for an effective sales call, so if that's something you're interested in, be sure to check that out. You'll also want to listen to this episode  if you (or your clients) are in the retail space, since Bill shares how technology is truly leveling the playing field for that industry. Listen now and you'll hear Bill and I talk about:  (03:15) Introduction (05:15) Who does your company service? (06:45) Do you have retainer levels or project work? (08:15) How have you managed to land name-brand clients? (17:45) Please tell us about the framework that you  use for the very first conversation (22:15) What is content marketing for your firm? (25:15) How has the way people engaged with brands changed in the last 5 years? (26:40) Tell us about Facebook graph search (30:06) How is technology the great equalizer in business today? (30:45) What are Beacons? (39:15) What offerings do you feel holding the next opportunities for agencies in 2014? (42:15) Which mobile ad networks should I consider for media buys? Resources Mentioned  Beacons whitepaper (scroll down to the lower right hand corner of the homepage) More About This Episode The Bright Ideas podcast is the podcast for business owners and marketers who want to discover how to use online marketing and sales automation tactics to massively grow their business. It's designed to help marketing agencies and small business owners discover which online marketing strategies are working most effectively today - all from the mouths of expert entrepreneurs who are already making it big. Listen Now [Tweet "Bill Carmody on How His Firm Lands Brand Name Clients #thebrightideaspodcast"] About Bill Carmody An entrepreneur since the age of 12, Bill Carmody has been a visionary in operating at the nexus of technology and marketing, transforming great ideas into successful marketing programs. An expert in both the promotions and digital industry, he has been able to harness the power of both to deliver high impact customer engagement for his clients. He was a founding partner and CMO of Seismicom, a leading brand promotions agency. At groundbreaking digital ad agency Modem Media (now Publicis Modem), he was a pioneer in launching some of the first commercial websites including MasterCard.com and CBS.com as well as the first web-based contest for CBS’ March Madness tournament and negotiating MasterCard’s first banner ad on Yahoo.com. His book, Online Promotions, continues to inspire and drive digital promotional innovation. At Trepoint, where he has been CEO since 2008, he is creating competitive advantage for Challenger Brands like Patak’s, Jose Ole, Tai Pei and Ling Ling by combining the forces of technology and marketing. Passionate about integrating wireless, online, sponsorship, events, and traditional marketing disciplines, Bill has presented at dozens of industry conferences and tradeshows across the globe. Additional Resources How to Rapidly Grow a Media Buying Agency with Mike Corak My Two Year Plan to Build a $500,000 Marketing Agency How Peppershock Media is Using Video Marketing to Land Government Contracts and Oracle as a Client

As VP of Strategy for a super fast-growing digital agency, Mike Corak  knows something about creating a successful content marketing strategy, for both his own agency and his clients. He also knows how to help clients to see the value of content marketing. And Mike's client list is impressive, including big shots like Coca-Cola, ConAgra Foods, ConocoPhillips, FedEx, Fujitsu, Nike, Office Depot, and Walt Disney. Mike shares with us the tools that work for his agency, including lead generation, onboarding strategies, and how they're scaling to deal with their growth. A must-listen for all agency owners. Listen now and you'll hear Mike and I talk about: (02:55) Introductions (06:35) What type of customers do you work with? (10:36) How are you landing clients? Relationships or a sales engine? (11:25) What does your lead generation system look like? (14:45) Which verticals do you have traction in? (17:55) Please describe your client onboarding process (23:55) How does content marketing fit in with the strategy? (27:55) Please describe a content strategy for a client (31:25) What would you say to a client that is on the fence about investing in content marketing? (37:55) What makes content helpful and why is that important? (40:55) Why did you raise money to start? (43:27) When did you raise the money? (44:55) What is the mix of public and private companies you work with? (46:15) Which type of client is easier to land? Resources Mentioned Basecamp Attask @mikecorak Mike's Linkedin profile More About This Episode The Bright Ideas podcast is the podcast for business owners and marketers who want to discover how to use online marketing and sales automation tactics to massively grow their business. It's designed to help marketing agencies and small business owners discover which online marketing strategies are working most effectively today - all from the mouths of expert entrepreneurs who are already making it big. Listen Now [Tweet "How to Rapidly Grow a Media Buying Agency with Mike Corak #thebrightideaspodcast #contentmarketing"] Transcript Trent: Hey there, bright idea hunters, welcome back to episode number 125 of the Bright Ideas podcast. I am your host, Trent Dyrsmid, and this is the podcast where we help entrepreneurs to discover ways to use digital marketing and marketing automation to dramatically increase the growth of their business. So, if you are an entrepreneur looking for proven tactics and strategies that will help you to increase traffic, conversions, and profits, this is the podcast that you want to listen to. In this particular episode, I am joined by a fellow by the name of Mike Corak, who is the Executive Vice President of Strategy for a very rapidly-growing three-year agency by the name of ethology. I say "rapidly growing", because within three years, they are already at somewhere between 70 and 80 people. The client roster that they have is impressive, to say the least.In this episode, Mike and I are going to talk about four main topics. The first is how they are generating leads and creating a sales engine that is scalable. The second topic is the actual processes around scaling the business with respect to onboarding new clients: what that looks like, what processes they have, what tools they use. We then transition to talking about content marketing, how to develop a strategy, and the types of conversations they have with prospective clients that aren't fully convinced that there will be a sufficient ROI for content marketing, which is referred to as "earned" or "owned media" versus what they may be already accustomed to, which is "paid media".Finally, we are going to round up by talking about their funding that they received from an incubator called Tall Wave, why they did it, how they did it, when they did it, and so much more. We are going to get into that episode in one quick second.

With eCommerce success story Classy Llama, Kurt Theobald has hit one out of the park. However, it didn't happen overnight. Kurt had plenty of failures along the way, which of course means that he learned a ton of valuable lessons along the way (listen as he reveals his biggest mistake in our interview). One of the key ingredients in Classy Llama's success was that the company focused on one single niche. As I've shared recently, the power of focus cannot be underestimated. Listen now and you'll hear Kurt and I talk about: (02:50) Introductions (04:20) How did you come up with the name? (06:04) Why did you choose to focus on Magento's Ecommerce platform? (07:20) How did you validate the viability of the niche? (08:50) Please tell me about how partnerships helped launch the company (14:19) What are you doing now to attract new leads? (15:30) What does your revenue model look like? (17:40) Please tell us about your new content strategy (23:50) Which online properties are most valuable to you? (27:50) Please tell me about your biggest mistake in business Resources Mentioned Classyllama.com Agilemethodology.org More About This Episode The Bright Ideas podcast is the podcast for business owners and marketers who want to discover how to use online marketing and sales automation tactics to massively grow their business. It's designed to help marketing agencies and small business owners discover which online marketing strategies are working most effectively today - all from the mouths of expert entrepreneurs who are already making it big. Listen Now [Tweet "How Kurt Theobald Built a 30 Person Agency by Focusing on One Niche #thebrightideaspodcast"] About Kurt Theobald Kurt Theobald is the Co-Founder and CEO of Classy Llama.  A visionary to his core, Theobald has delivered eleven businesses failures and one success over the last ten years, and while his batting average has suffered and his wife has learned patience, the one hit has been a home run (think “Babe Ruth”). Classy Llama is an eCommerce agency consisting of salt-of-the-earth, efficiency-driven eCommerce veterans committed to delivering more by doing less.  As one of Magento's earliest partners, Classy Llama has helped over 80 companies achieve success on the Magento platform. You can learn more from Kurt and the Classy Llama team at their blog, live weekly Llama Commerce Show, and Twitter page. As a husband, father, and businessman, Theobald offers huge innovative energy, uncompromising integrity, and a commitment to unity in all aspects of his life.  Tempered by the guidance and counsel of his team and advisors, Theobald disrupts the status quo with visions of the “better”. Kurt lives near Springfield, MO with his co-adventurer and wife of ten years, Jessica, and his two children, Benjamin and Eliana. Additional Resources How to Pivot Your Agency From SEO to Content Marketing with Robb Bailey Digital Marketing Strategy: Q&A on How to Get Started in a Niche My 2 Year Plan to Build a 7 Figure Lifestyle Business

If you've been following my blog for any length of time, you'll know I'm a pretty big fan of Infusionsoft and love the marketing automation superpowers it provides. I also love that I can easily connect HubSpot to Infusionsoft so they work seamlessly t...

James Schramko typically charges a LOT for access to his advice. His mastermind group is in the tens of thousands per year, and I'm sure it's worth every penny. So when I had the opportunity to chat with him, I knew I wanted to share some of his best p...

Jamie Cooper's firm is the largest marketing agency in Idaho and has been ranked in Outside Magazine's "Top Places to Work" for the last two years. As you may know, I started my journey as an entrepreneur in the IT space and have since moved into marketing agency and consulting work. Jamie Cooper has taken quite a similar path, as the Vice President of Marketing at ProClarity (now owned by Microsoft) and now as the CEO of DrakeCooper. In this episode we discuss how Jamie got into the creative services business and how digital marketing has changed the marketing landscape. If you're in the agency space or you're an entrepreneur looking to get into a new industry, don't miss this episode. Listen now and you'll hear Jamie and I discuss: (03:00) Introductions (06:45) Why did you switch from software to the creative services business? (11:00) How has technology and digital marketing changed the marketing landscape? (23:00) How have you systematized the creative process? (29:00) How does your branding process work? (34:00) What advice would you give to agencies who want to attract larger clients? (40:00) Do you think smaller agencies should specialize and partner with larger firms? (43:00) Which tools are you using today which have proven effective? Resources Mentioned DrakeCooper More About This Episode The Bright Ideas podcast is the podcast for business owners and marketers who want to discover how to use online marketing and sales automation tactics to massively grow their business. It's designed to help marketing agencies and small business owners discover which online marketing strategies are working most effectively today - all from the mouths of expert entrepreneurs who are already making it big. Listen Now [Tweet "How to Attract World Class Clients to Your Agency with Jamie Cooper #digitalmarketing #thebrightideaspodcast"] About Jamie Cooper Jamie focuses on helping organizations grow their brand and can be seen working on creative strategy as well as walking the board through return on investment. He can also be seen away from the office on a bike or skis, depending on the season. He loves his daily bike commute and the Idaho outdoor lifestyle, allowing himself to whistle all the way to work. Throughout Jamie’s career, he has led global marketing campaigns, branding and messaging strategy, consumer and B2B marketing programs, database and direct marketing, and has over a decade of digital marketing experience. A graduate of Arkansas State University with a marketing major, Jamie’s career includes marketing leadership positions at several early-stage start-up companies. Most recently he was Vice President of Marketing at ProClarity (now part of Microsoft). Supporting the community is an essential part of Drake Cooper, and Jamie is an active member of the Boise business and creative community. He has served on the board of directors or in a marketing role with: Core Concepts (advisory board), Bogus Basin, Zoo Boise, Boise Rescue Mission, The Learning Lab, IBCEE (The Idaho Business Coalition for Education Excellence), The WaterCooler, BSU Center for Creativity, and Kickstand. Additional Resources Lee Frederiksen on Content Marketing For Professional Services and How it Attracts $100M Clients Joe Mechlinski on Building a Multi-Million Dollar Management Consulting Agency A Beginner's Guide to Creating a Content Marketing Strategy

Chris Handy is back on Bright Ideas to dive into why having a buyer persona is such an important tool in any inbound strategy. We rarely have repeat guests on Bright Ideas (in fact, this is only the second time; in the first interview, Chris shared how he built a $400k two-person agency in just 2 years). I didn't necessarily plan on bringing Chris back, but on a webinar I heard someone explain some really insightful points about a buyer persona -- turns out, Chris ended up being the mystery speaker and he has graciously accepted another invitation to offer some proven tactics on how creating buyer personas have helped grow his business. This topic relates to ALL business people, and I know you'll learn a great deal yet again from Chris. Listen now and you'll hear Chris and I talk about: (03:00)  Introductions (04:00)  What I've been doing with my Podcast and Groove (10:00)  What happened at your first live webinar? (14:30)  Why should I bother with creating a buyer persona? (19:00)  How many buyer personas should you have? (21:45)  How do you create a buyer persona? (27:00)  How do you use the persona in your content marketing? (29:00)  How do you use the persona in your lead nurturing strategy? Resources Mentioned ThinkHandy Buyer Persona Template Grab Trent's Bonus More About This Episode The Bright Ideas podcast is the podcast for business owners and marketers who want to discover how to use online marketing and sales automation tactics to massively grow their business. It's designed to help marketing agencies and small business owners discover which online marketing strategies are working most effectively today - all from the mouths of expert entrepreneurs who are already making it big. Listen Now [Tweet "The How and Why to Creating a Buyer Persona with Chris Handy #thebrightideaspodcast"] About Chris Handy Chris Handy is the Founder & CEO of ThinkHandy, a sales and marketing alignment consultancy in Fort Worth, TX. Apart from starting ThinkHandy, Chris has also done work for eRecyclingCorps, Easysale Inc, and EzBayer. Chris' company is Hubspot Certified and has an extensive inbound marketing background. Chris is a graduate of the Univeristy of Texas at Arlington in Management and Marketing and is a self-proclaimed Saved By The Bell "Trivia Master".   Additional Resources How to Pivot Your Agency From SEO to Content Marketing with Robb Bailey 3 Reasons Why You Must Create a Buyer Persona How Chris Heiler is Growing Landscape Leadership into a Successful Inbound Marketing Agency

What do ultra-successful entrepreneurs all have in common? Focus. When you nail that down, you get results... when you don't, you're just doing busy work. As I've thought more and more about my business, my products, and how I've been spending my time, I've come to the realization that how I've been allocating my time is not exactly (and the actions that I’m taking are not exactly) what I need to be doing to achieve the results that I’m after. This podcast discusses how I'm going to change my approach and get my business to exactly where it needs to be, with clear and precise steps. If you are a business owner or are looking to start a marketing agency, I really hope you take a listen and get some insights from how to do the same with your company.  For more episodes from myself and other successful business professionals, subscribe now and don't miss out on future shows. Resources Mentioned My 2 Year Plan to Build a 7 Figure Lifestyle Business Bright Ideas Elite Mastermind Group Groove Digital Marketing Content Marketer's Blueprint More About This Episode The Bright Ideas podcast is the podcast for business owners and marketers who want to discover how to use online marketing and sales automation tactics to massively grow their business. It's designed to help marketing agencies and small business owners discover which online marketing strategies are working most effectively today - all from the mouths of expert entrepreneurs who are already making it big. Listen Now [Tweet "My Two Year Plan to Build a $500,000 Marketing Agency @mygroovedigital #thebrightideaspodcast"]

Scott Harkey is a partner at Owens Harkey, a firm that made the 2013 Inc 5000 list. He and his partner Matthew Owens achieved substantial growth by specializing in media buys, an area where they have substantial expertise. Owens Harkey has not only had big growth in the past year, they're also planning on going from their current $6M in sales to $12M this year. This is a fast growing company using proven marketing strategies - so if you're at all interested in media or online buying, or in digital marketing for that matter, I guarantee you'll take away some great lessons. Listen now and you'll hear Scott and I talk about: (03:00)  Introductions (05:00)  What is media buying? (08:00)  What are the two biggest mistakes made by media buyers? (12:00)  Would you encourage other agency owners to get into media buying? (14:30)  What does digital marketing mean for your firm? (18:00)  How does YouTube Preroll buying work? (21:00)  How can you get started with retargeting? (23:00)  What is the hottest trend in digital media buying? (25:00)  What are some best practices for Facebook advertising? (29:30) What are some of the best practices for image selection? (34:00) Does buying media via content networks make sense? Resources Mentioned TV by the Numbers zap2it.com Sarah Goliger interview owensharkey.com More About This Episode The Bright Ideas podcast is the podcast for business owners and marketers who want to discover how to use online marketing and sales automation tactics to massively grow their business. It's designed to help marketing agencies and small business owners discover which online marketing strategies are working most effectively today - all from the mouths of expert entrepreneurs who are already making it big. Listen Now [Tweet "How Owens Harkey Made the Inc 5000 List with Scott Harkey #thebrightideaspodcast #digitalmarketing"] About Scott Harkey Scott Harkey always fostered a love of marketing. A native to Arizona, he proudly attended Arizona State University. Most of his time at ASU was spent studying marketing, and he also formed Mammoth Marketing, a marketing promotions company. He then began to work extensively in all aspects of the radio world, in radio formats extending from Hip Hop to Oldies. During his six years in Media he ended up in the senior rep position at CBS radio and generated over $3 million in annual revenue (Job share position). Now, Scott is partnering with a long-time friend and marketing expert, Matthew Owens, to build the kind of marketing services firm he has always envisioned. As partner, his core responsibilities lie in marketing strategy, business development, account services, media services, and broadcast production. His personal webpage: owensharkey.com Additional Resources How to Win With Content on the Web with Ahava Leibtag Lead Gen Secrets from an Agency That Generated 5,500 Leads in 12 Months How Graig Presti Grew His Local Marketing Agency to 7 Figures In His First Year

There are a great deal of companies that focus primarily on SEO, and that's a problem. The problem is, it's easy to think Traffic leads to Revenue... and that ignores a big missing piece. It's really Conversions lead to Revenue.  That's why Content Marketing is such an important piece of an overall marketing strategy. Robb Bailey of PageLadder understood this and shifted his company's emphasis on SEO to an Inbound approach and has seen massive success from it. As one of Hubspot's prime case studies for effective Inbound Strategies, Robb and PageLadder have a great deal of insight for you and I highly recommend you take the time and listen if you are using - or thinking of using - a Content Marketing Strategy (hint: you probably should be). Listen now and you'll hear Robb and I talk about: (03:35)  Introductions (06:00)  Why the transition from SEO to an Inbound Marketing Agency? (08:35)  What did the transition from SEO to Inbound look like? (10:00)  How did this change impact fees? (16:35)  How are you prospecting for new business? (23:35)  How are you using builtwith.com to find prospects? (34:35)  What is the Content Marketing Blueprint? (39:35)  How does the Content Marketing Blueprint help to identify the gaps? (42:35)  When do you ask clients to start to pay for your help? (49:35)  Do you require a client to move from Wordpress to Hubspot? (52:35)  Why do you prefer Hubspot reporting instead of Google Analytics? (57:05)  How do you drive traffic to new content in the first 90 days? Resources Mentioned Screencast of LinkedIn "Seek and Assist Strategy" From Robb outbrain.com Taboola.com contentmarketingblueprint.com pageladder.com/agencies More About This Episode The Bright Ideas podcast is the podcast for business owners and marketers who want to discover how to use online marketing and sales automation tactics to massively grow their business. It's designed to help marketing agencies and small business owners discover which online marketing strategies are working most effectively today - all from the mouths of expert entrepreneurs who are already making it big. Listen Now [Tweet "How to Pivot Your Agency From SEO to #ContentMarketing with Rob Bailey #thebrightideaspodcast"] About Robb Bailey Robb is the CEO & Co-Founder of PageLadder, an agency that helps emerging growth companies bridge the Inbound Marketing gap through Content Marketing Strategy. His work was featured in a case study at HubSpot's Inbound Conference 2013 by Innovative Marketing Resources. PageLadder has been recognized as a Certified Partner Agency by HubSpot. Learn more at RobbBailey and PageLadder. Additional Resources Chris Heiler on Making a Successful Inbound Agency For His Niche How to Make Your Firm 500% More Valuable With Mike Lieberman Ideas From an Agency That Generated 5,500 Leads in 12 Months

In this episode I interview Cathy Moran, a bankruptcy attorney. Cathy shares how Content Marketing has helped her attract clients and help them better understand the bankruptcy process before they even speak with her. Her strategy generates more leads who are ready to start working with her without first having to undergo a long consultation. This speaks to the core of my philosophy on content: make it relevant to your client and help nurture your leads throughout the sales process.This episode definitely helps to validate how and why content marketing is such a powerful tool for your business. Listen now and you'll hear Cathy and I talk about: (02:35) Introductions (04:25) Why is Content Marketing for lawyers in bankruptcy so important? (07:35) Why is giving information away for free so effective? (10:05) When did you get started with Content Marketing? (11:15) How did Content Marketing affect the types of clients you attracted? (12:35) How should an attorney decide what to write about? (16:35) How has content helped you to get more referrals? (20:35) How should an attorney get started with Content Marketing? (25:05) How can you make a blog post interesting? (30:35) How should you make an article interesting? (33:55) How do you promote your content? Resources Mentioned bankruptcyinbrief.com bankruptcysoapbox.com Email Cathy at cathy@moranlaw.net Grab Trent's Bonus More About This Episode The Bright Ideas podcast is the podcast for business owners and marketers who want to discover how to use online marketing and sales automation tactics to massively grow their business. It's designed to help marketing agencies and small business owners discover which online marketing strategies are working most effectively today - all from the mouths of expert entrepreneurs who are already making it big. Listen Now [Tweet "How to Leverage Content to Build a Successful Law Practice with Cathy Moran #contentmarketing #thebrightideaspodcast"] About Cathy Moran Cathy Moran opened her own law firm the day after she was admitted to the California bar. She’s practiced bankruptcy law in the Silicon Valley of California for 32 years, representing debtors, creditors, and trustees. She is certified as a specialist in Bankruptcy Law by the Board of Legal Specialization, State Bar of California and has particular interest in the intersection of bankruptcy law and the fields of family law and tax. Cathy launched Bankruptcy in Brief, found at bankruptcyinbrief.com in 1998, when the web was new. Currently she writes for consumers on bankruptcy issues at bankruptcysoapbox.com and on issues for lawyers new to consumer bankruptcy law at bankruptcymastery.com. Her latest web project is ConsumerLedger.com, a personal finance site where she shares what she’s learned about law, money, and business with the general public. Cathy serves as the Northern California chair of the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys. She is a frequent speaker at lawyer gatherings on bankruptcy, marketing and content creation. She makes her home on the San Francisco Peninsula, close by her alma mater Stanford University. Additional Resources Lee Frederiksen on Content Marketing For Professional Services and How it Attracts $100M Clients Joe Mechlinski on Building a Multi-Million Dollar Management Consulting Agency A Beginner's Guide to Creating a Content Marketing Strategy

Having trouble conveying your message to customers? Not closing sales as efficiently as you would like? You might have to adjust your buyer persona. If you haven't created a buyer persona, you are wasting your time and money. In this episode, I dive into some quick tips on how to create a relevant persona and how to use that to create relevant content - all of which leads to a successful content marketing strategy. Take a quick listen and you'll learn: Why Buyer Personas Are So Important The Consequences of Not Identifying Your Ideal Customer What the Right Customer Can Do For Your Business Audience Jacking and How to Find Your Ideal Customer Tools For Identifying Potential Leads  For more episodes from myself and other accomplished business professionals, Subscribe now and don't miss out on future shows. Resources Mentioned The Digital Marketing Handbook Creating a Buyer Persona Quantcast Tool QuickSprout Tool From Neil Patel More About This Episode The Bright Ideas podcast is the podcast for business owners and marketers who want to discover how to use online marketing and sales automation tactics to massively grow their business. It's designed to help marketing agencies and small business owners discover which online marketing strategies are working most effectively today - all from the mouths of expert entrepreneurs who are already making it big. Listen Now [Tweet "3 Reasons You Must Create a Buyer Persona #thebrightideaspodcast #digitalmarketing"] Transcript Hey there Bright Idea Hunters! Welcome back to episode number 115 of the BrightIdeas podcast. I'm your host Trent Dyrsmid and this is the podcast where we help entrepreneurs to discover ways to use digital marketing and marketing automation to dramatically increase the growth of their business. If you're an entrepreneur looking for proven tactics and strategies to help you increase traffic, increase conversions and ultimately increase your profits; well, my friends you are in the right place. In today's episode I'm going to talk about 3 reasons why you must create a buyer persona template. Why might you want to listen to this? If you are having some difficulty being interesting enough and getting enough traction with your marketing, maybe you've missed out on this. The other reason I think you should listen to this episode is you're going to discover the number one mistake that most new marketers make in this area and I'm going to teach you how to do it properly. So before we get in to that, I have two very quick announcements. If this is your very first time listening to the BrightIdeas podcast and your listening to a mobile device, please right now text the word podcast to the number 96000 and you'll see some of my cool marketing automation trickery - which is very easy to reproduce - plus you're get an opportunity to opt-in and make sure that you receive notifications of all future episodes that come out. Announcement number 2 is if you're looking for proven blueprint for using digital marketing, I wrote a book and it’s called the Digital Marketing Handbook and you can download a free chapter at brightideas.co/book. With that said lets transition over and go ahead and teach you about why you need to create a buyer persona. Welcome back to another video on my series on content marketing. In this video - as the headline might clue you in - we’re going to talk about buyer personas. So a buyer persona is something that you don't want to skip. This is really important because if you don't take the time to define exactly who you're writing for and who you want to attract to your blog - and ultimately they will become… the goal of course, to have them become customers of your company - you're going to fail in a couple of really important areas. Number 1 is relevancy. You're content obviously is not going to be as relevant as it is otherwise could,

This episode touches on some key elements of starting a content marketing strategy and why it's important to take the time to set up your strategy before starting your content marketing. I've built Bright Ideas on content marketing, and I believe you can have success with content marketing as well - assuming you have the right strategy. Take a quick listen to this episode where I discuss: Why Content Marketing is Becoming so Important Your Sales Funnel and How Content Helps Finding Influencers Defining Your Target Market Supporting a Niche or Specialized Service  For more episodes from myself and other accomplished business professionals, subscribe now and don't miss out on future shows. Resources Mentioned The Digital Marketing Handbook Creating a Buyer Persona More About This Episode The Bright Ideas podcast is the podcast for business owners and marketers who want to discover how to use online marketing and sales automation tactics to massively grow their business. It's designed to help marketing agencies and small business owners discover which online marketing strategies are working most effectively today - all from the mouths of expert entrepreneurs who are already making it big. Listen Now [Tweet "Beginner's Guide to Creating a #ContentMarketing Strategy #thebrightideaspodcast"] Transcript Hey there, Bright Idea hunters! Welcome back to episode number 114 of the BrightIdeas podcast. I'm your host Trent Dyrsmid and this the podcast where we feature interviews with the entrepreneurs behind some of today's fastest growing companies, if you're looking for proven tactics and strategies to help you start a new business or to grow an existing one, you are in the right place. Now, I just said that this is the podcast where we do interviews and guess what; I'm not going to do an interview in this particular episode. That's right! I’m branching out and I'm going to start doing some monologue podcasts. The reason for that is that I want to increase a frequency of the episodes that I do in the ITunes store and I want to be able to make myself available to help you guys in small bite size chunks so these episodes that I do as monologues are going to be lot shorter and they’re going to be direct and straight to the point, so with that said lets jump into what we are going to talk about in this one. On this episode we’re going to talk about beginner's guide to creating an effective content marketing strategy. Now I'm actually kind of cheating in this first episode in that, I already recorded the bulk of this episode as a video and I have decided to repurpose that particular video because there's nothing on the video that you actually need to see to get the point of what I am explaining. So why do you want to listen to this episode? If you don't have a content marketing strategy in place, I can promise -- boy oh boy I'm speaking from personal experience -- success will take forever if you get it at all! In this episode you were going to learn from some of the many, and I want to emphasize, many mistakes that I made very early in my content marketing career.  when I really didn't have a clue of what I was doing, and as a result of all those make mistakes, I've developed a proven plan that I use and that many of the people I've interviewed in the past have used -- that's what I learn it from, so really if content marketing is your thing, and boy oh boy it really should be cause it is the way to get business in this day and age, you really going to dig this episode. So that's it lets jump right into it. Everybody this is Trent here from BrightIdeas and in this video, I want to share with you something that I go through with client after client after client at the beginning of our engagements, and that is how to get started with a successful inbound marketing campaign. So before we dive into the tactics, I want to talk a little bit about the concept.

This is Part 5, the finale of my 5-Part Series on Increasing Your Twitter Promotion. Twitter is my website's number 1 source of social traffic and an integral part of my digital marketing strategy. It's well worth the time to watch this brief video series to make sure you're optimizing this powerful social platform. Take a quick listen to this episode where I discuss: How To Get Influencer to Promote Your Brand Tactics to Get Influencers Attention Importance of Using Influencers I hope this gives you more ideas on how to effectively use Twitter. This is the final post in this series that gives you easy to use tips to continue to grow your referrals from Twitter. You can check out the other episodes in the additional resources section. You can also Subscribe now so you won't miss out on my upcoming shows featuring more strategies and industry experts. Resources Mentioned Best Buyer Formula Ideas For Getting Started on Writing a Blog Post Pre-Populated Tweet More About This Episode The Bright Ideas podcast is the podcast for business owners and marketers who want to discover how to use online marketing and sales automation tactics to massively grow their business. It's designed to help marketing agencies and small business owners discover which online marketing strategies are working most effectively today - all from the mouths of expert entrepreneurs who are already making it big. Listen Now [Tweet "5 Ways to Increase Twitter Promotion Part 5 #thebrightideaspodcast #digitalmarketing"] Transcript Hey there Bright Idea hunters! Welcome back to episode number 113 of the BrightIdeas podcast. I'm your host Trent Dyrsmid and this is the podcast where we help entrepreneurs to discover ways to use digital marketing and marketing automation to dramatically increase the growth of their business, and I have yet to meet an entrepreneur that doesn’t want to do that. So if you're an entrepreneur looking for proven tactics and strategies to help you increase traffic, increase conversions and profits, well my friends, I'm happy to say that you are in the right place. In today's episode we are going to dive into part 5 of my 5-part series on 5 ways to increase twitter promotion. So, why is that such a big deal? Why is twitter promotion such a big deal? Well as I mentioned in previous episodes, the one thing that is so wonderful about twitter is that it is a very frictionless social media platform. It's dead easy to use. If you are following the strategies that I have been explaining in the prior episodes, you have learned how to create pre populated tweets and you've learned how to create widgets that show real time social proof. All of this stuff works because if you do this right people, we don't have to type anything, we don't have to think. All I have to do is click the mouse once or twice. So that's pretty frictionless. So, when there is a lot of people just taking an action that is almost effortless for them to take, get enough of them doing it and as you might imagine the aggregate value of that can be quite significant to increase the buzz for your product or your event or whatever it is that you are trying to draw attention to. If you're in business, which we all are more than likely, that is going to increase your profits. In this episode, we are going to talk about how to do a pre crafted tweet so that you can get influencers to help you to spread the word and there's a process that you need to follow. To do this right, you don't want to just call him up and ask him because that’s probably not going to work. Before we get into that I got 2 announcements. If this is your very first episode of the BrightIdeas podcast, welcome! If your listening to this on a mobile device right now, text the word podcast to the number 96000 and you're going to see some real  cool marketing automation trickery which I talk a lot about here on my blog,

This is Part 4 of my 5-Part Series on Increasing Your Twitter Promotion. Twitter is my website's number 1 source of social traffic and an integral part of my digital marketing strategy. It's well worth the time to watch this brief video series to ma...