Here’s Why Experimentation is An Essential Attitude for Successful Digital Marketing

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Please FORGET the old “one-and-done” approach to marketing. 

Today’s digital marketing requires EXPERIMENTATION. 

In this short video, I explain why experimentation is absolutely essential for online success. 

While experimentation can be scary for some people, there’s no other way to learn, no other way to get the value of marketplace feedback, and most importantly, there is no other way to build meaningful relationships online.

This weeks Power Briefing, Here’s Why Experimentation is An Essential Attitude for Successful Digital Marketing

It’s true in life and it’s especially true in marketing: You have to be willing to experiment, to try new things, to take risks, and yes, to make mistakes and “fail.”

It’s what I love about the online world: I am always learning, and I have the opportunity to keep trying (and sometimes succeeding) at creating new relationships. That can actually be fun in this crazy online world.

The video below is my latest effort in that regard. At the end of the day, a life (and a marketing plan) without experimentation would be BORING! ☺️

In my considered opinion, if you’re not experimenting, your chances of long term success are basically nonexistent. What do you think?

EDITED VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:

Hi, my name is Jon Leland and I’m a digital marketing strategist and in this week’s digital marketing Power Briefing, I’m talking about why experimentation is absolutely essential for successful digital marketing. 

As I said before, digital marketing is not a get-rich-quick scheme. And in fact one of the really amazing things about being involved in online marketing and working a strategy when you do it, is that you get real-world feedback. And the only way that you get real-world feedback is to try things and to experiment. So, that’s why experimentation really is essential: it’s very, very powerful.

But the bad news is that it’s not a one-and-done environment just because you’ve got a website upgrade but that doesn’t mean that you have an online presence. 

It takes communications, consistently like this, that’s kind of why I’m doing weekly videos. I want to be here on a regular basis and I want to reach out and create a relationship. So digital marketing is not one and done. Your website doesn’t mean that you’re finished and even having done a Facebook live video doesn’t mean that you’ve done a video marketing campaign. 

The good news is that you get to explore and you get to experiment and you get to find out things. 

Now a lot of people find that kind of experimentation to be scary, there are all these payoffs like I’ve been talking about. What I find and one of the reasons that we’re now doing monthly retainers with clients is we want to get to know their message, we want to get to know their audience and getting to know, as it implies a relationship. It means that there’s a give-and-take, that you do things, you get feedback, you do things, you get feedback, you make mistakes, you correct them, you do things and learn. 

That’s why experimentation is crucial. It’s the only way you learn, it’s the only way that you can discover and have an adventure with it. And most importantly it’s really the only way that you can develop a relationship and see what works, see what connects and find out. 

So I’ll leave you with a quote, “success is not final, failure is not fatal it is the courage to continue that counts.” – Winston Churchill. 

So thank you so much for watching, I really appreciate your kind attention. I look forward to hearing from you and your feedback. I’ll see you again next week!

Why a Website Without ROI is like a Bank Account without Money

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As a digital marketing strategist, I HATE seeing businesses waste their money with ineffective websites and lame online marketing.

For this reason, I champion strategies that produce real tangible results. Why would you have it any other way?

In this week’s Digital Marketing Power Briefing video, I address both the challenges and the strategies that are part of a website that produces a measurable return on investment (ROI):

This weeks Power Briefing, Why a Website without ROI is like a Bank Account without Money

Don’t fall for the “get rich quick” BS or let yourself be overwhelmed by all the software options. Your web presence should impact your bottom line, and that’s the real bottom line! 🙂 

EDITED VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:

Hi, and welcome to this week’s digital marketing Power Briefing. My name is Jon Leland and I’m a digital marketing strategist and this week we’re talking about why a website without ROI is like a bank account without money. 

You know, we do online marketing for a lot of reasons, I’ll start with a quick caveat and say, you know if all your business needs is a brochure website: great, no problem, good for you. 

But if you’re looking for your website to be part of a marketing plan, if you’re looking for your website to be part of a business plan then it needs to have a return on investment. There needs to be a real ROI, it’s common sense of course; but so many businesses have websites and no real strategy to get a return on investment and it’s easy to understand. 

Digital marketing, online marketing can be frustrating. It can be overwhelming and worst of all, it can be infested with get-rich-quick schemers and unprofessional, you know, marketing people that just don’t get the job done and get a return. 

I’m here to tell you that online marketing could be fun, it can be about creating meaningful relationships. I hope that’s what we’re doing here, that I’m communicating some value and you appreciate what’s being offered. 

Regardless of whether we ever do business together, business is about relationships. Websites need to build relationships for the long-term and have a strategy with multiple touches then you can get a real return on investment, a real ROI. That makes digital marketing a whole different animal, a whole different ball game. 

So, don’t fall for all the BS, don’t waste your time on BS, get real marketing strategies that are designed for a real return, even if you have to experiment and take action. 

Have a plan, have a marketing plan, have a business plan, and work strategies that produce a real return on investment. 

I want to keep this video short but if you’re interested in more information about what I call Relationship Funnels, which is a strategy that returns on the investment then go to bit.ly/website-broken. And that’s this week’s digital marketing Power Briefing. 

I look forward to your feedback, let me know what else you want to hear about. Subscribe, follow, and all that good stuff. Thanks so much for your attention, bye for now!

Why “SEO” is So “Yesterday” For Small Business Online Marketing

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This week’s Digital Marketing Power Briefing video (below) is about an online marketing subject that is widely understood, and in my opinion, it has become quite passé for businesses looking for immediate results.

In fact, SEO is often the first kind of marketing support that people request after they’ve done a website redesign. The truth is that for lots of businesses, SEO is the only website marketing strategy that they have ever heard of! Sad but true. But SEO is not really a strategy, it’s only one tool among many; and in many ways, it’s out of date… or “so yesterday!” ????

I made this video to explain why:

This week’s Digital Marketing Power Briefing video. Your feedback please. Any questions? What would you like me to cover in future weeks?

I’m not saying that SEO is meaningless, but in terms of online marketing strategies that can produce REAL results, in a reasonably short period of time, it has become, well, passé.

I’m passionate about this subject because I’m committed to supporting progressive and forward-thinking organizations to make a difference, and that means implementing digital marketing strategies that produce tangible results (like list-building and opportunities for multiple “touches”). This is important because these “more modern” strategies help build meaningful relationships and offer a respectable ROI.

I don’t think that’s too much to ask from an investment in marketing. Do you?

I explain more about why SEO is so “yesterday” for small business online marketing in this video, OR if you want to hear about the very modern strategy that I call “Relationship Funnels,” please check out my “Your Website is Broken Power Briefing” videos here: http://bit.ly/website-broken 

Thanks for watching and I look forward to hearing from you.

Edited video transcript:

Hi, my name is Jon Leland and I’m a digital marketing strategist. This is another in my new weekly series of digital marketing Power Briefings. Today I’m talking about SEO and why SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is so yesterday in terms of small business online marketing. 

Businesses say they need help with “SEO” when they mean lead generation.

In fact, I get inquiries in my business from small businesses looking for SEO services. (They say:) “We need more SEO on our website.” Really they’re not talking about SEO, they’re talking about we need more traffic, which really means we need more business. And those are really different things! 

SEO is just one way to drive more traffic but just driving more traffic is not a digital marketing strategy. 

Have You Asked “What Happens Next?”

So let’s dig into it. I have four specific reasons to share with you. First of all, I really need to say that when you think about a digital marketing strategy, the question that I always want businesses to think about is “what happens next?” 

That’s a really important question because to me, marketing and business in general is really about relationships. I’m making this video as an invitation for us to have more of a relationship; and relationships happen through multiple touches, through interactions, through ongoing presence in the marketplace… having a real conversation. 

Just getting traffic to your website does not create a conversation. 

If you’re interested in more about how that kind of relationship develops, I want to invite you to the bigger Power Briefing (video) that’s at http://bit.ly/website-broken. That’s where I really delve into Relationship Funnels. 

So sorry for the unabashed little promo there, but that is where I talk about this with more depth.

TIME TO MARKET: What’s Your Time Window to Get Results? 

Let’s talk about the four reasons why SEO is so yesterday in terms of online marketing. 

The first reason that SEO is really kind of “yesterday” has to do with the time frame or the time to market, you know, how long are you willing to wait to get the traffic that you want in order to have the meaningful interactions that you need. 

SEO as a strategy takes at least six months, probably six months to a year, as opposed to Facebook Ads or Google Ads, or what have you. Those can get a more immediate result. 

So, that’s something that a lot of businesses don’t really understand, (and many) don’t really have the patience, or sometimes they need the cash flow quicker, so they need faster results. 

So, thinking about implementing a strategy that’s a long-term commitment like six months to a year to get SEO traffic is has obvious limitations. 

LIMITED TARGETING: What’s Your Targeting Strategy?

The second reason that SEO is pretty “yesterday” is the limited nature of the targeting. When you work an SEO strategy, on the organic side of Search Engine Optimization, you really are looking at building a web page-per-keyword phrase. And that’s really pretty clunky in terms of the ability to get your message out there. 

The targeting, for example, with Google Ads, you have no limit to the number of keyword phrases, as opposed to needing landing pages that are optimized for each keyword phrase that you want to target and bring traffic, attract traffic with. 

So, SEO is also pretty yesterday given the fact that the targeting is so limited. 

RELATIONSHIP BUILDING REQUIRES MULTIPLE TOUCHES

The third reason that I don’t think that SEO is a very viable approach right now is that it doesn’t reflect a marketing strategy. 

A real relationship building, marketing strategy requires multiple touches. When people say they need SEO on their website, they’re only thinking about the need for more traffic. They’re not thinking about a strategic process that involves multiple touches, real engagement, and real relationship building.

And the other reason that SEO is very limited from the point of view of relationship-building is it doesn’t involve any remarketing. When you install the Facebook Pixel on a website, you have the ability to remarket to those people. When you make your email list a custom audience for example, inside Facebook advertising, again you’re having multiple follow-ups and multiple touches.

SEO just doesn’t have that capability. 

FLEXIBILITY & CHOICE

The fourth and final reason is flexibility and choice. I look at digital marketing as a kind of experimentation and you really want to involve lots of different ways to bring traffic to your website and begin the process of engagement, relationship building and multiple touches.

SEO it’s not a strategy. It is a way to bring organic traffic; but it is a very limited one and something that I am saying is “yesterday.”

And again if you’re interested in an approach to real relationship building, I want to invite you to check out my Relationship Funnel Power Briefing at http://bit.ly/website-broken. Most websites are broken because they’re not doing the kind of engagement that I’m talking about. 

So, in summary, SEO is a limited strategy, I want you to get involved in more, real relationship building, with multiple touches, and an ongoing presence in the marketplace. 

I hope that this video was useful and valuable, as that’s what these Power Briefings are all about. 

Please let me know what you want me to cover in future weeks. I’m happy to do that. And thank you so much for your kind attention, I really appreciate it and I look forward to hearing from you!

Video Invitation to the “Your Website is Broken!” Power Briefing

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Your Invitation to a Free Video Power Briefing on Meaningful Digital Marketing

The video invitation below is kind of a big deal for me because I’m swinging out in a new way.

It’s not that I’ve produced another video in order to try to be helpful. Rather, it’s because my new “Power Briefing” videos are designed to create a different kind of engagement and that’s something I’m highly recommending and trying to model her for clients and prospects.

Metaphorically speaking, you could say that I am now “eating my own cooking.”  This is the first sales funnel—a sequence of the two videos with lead capture landing pages, & more—that I’ve ever created for my own company. Please click the image below to view my personal video invitation to check this out:

Your Website is Broken Video

As a digital marketing strategist, I have to ask: 
Does your website produce meaningful results?

Most websites are “broken” because they don’t authentically connect with prospects. That’s why this video invitation leads to a two-part “Power Briefing” about what I call “Relationship Funnels.” I’m honestly wondering if these are the most valuable pieces of free content that I’ve ever created?

I’d love to hear what you think!

If you want to skip straight to the Power Briefing, please check it out here: bit.ly/website-broken 

Video Post: How to Do Lead Generation that is Fun and Meaningful, Not Spammy or Sleazy

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Spammy, sleazy online marketers have given “lead generation” a bad name. But it doesn’t have to be that way!

So, I’ve created a new video blog post to explain how—when you put “leading with value” and being of service first—marketing online can become more fun and meaningful.

Click the video below to watch now.

Lead Generation that is Fun and Meaning, Not Spammy or Sleazy Video

Edited Video Transcript:

What Lead Generation is NOT

This video came about because of an online conversation where a woman was asking about how do I do lead gen. Just the idea of lead gen or lead generation kind of made her skin crawl because she associated it with the get-rich-quick schemers that are out there pitching digital marketing day and night on the web.

When I talk about lead generation, I’m not talking about that kind of get-rich-quick sales pitch, go get them, you know, hustle until you die type of attitude. That’s not who I am. That’s not how I approach it. 

How I DO approach it is from the point of view of relationship building. Relationship building is a whole different thing when you talk about lead generation and it involves authentic value. I use the term “leading with value.” 

Authentic Marketing Feels Good Because It Is About Relationship Building

First of all, in order to do lead generation that feels good—that is going to really actually work in the long run—you need to offer something of value. You need to give a gift or a service. (For example), I’m doing this video for you because I think this information is important, and because I intend it to be valuable and useful. You have to determine whether I succeed at that, but I’m here because I want to be of service. 

So, immediately for me lead generation is not spammy. It’s not sleazy. I’m authentically trying to be of service. So, any good relationship building-oriented lead generation starts with value and it immediately feels good because you’re being of service. 

Relationship Building Means Offering Real Gifts that Are Truly Valuable

It also begins a real conversation because authentically you’re contributing value. You’re building a relationship. You’re not saying take, take, take, give it to me, give it to me.

You’re saying here, I’m here and I want to be of service. I have something valuable to offer and the relationship building then becomes a kind of what I’ve heard called the “pink spoon,” like at the ice cream store where they give you a free taste. 

So, it becomes something, in a way, delicious, right? 

You’re offering a free taste, a sweet taste, of what you have to offer that’s authentically valuable. And when you offer something that’s of value, then your ideal prospects appreciate it. You’re not looking for just any leads. You’re looking for leads who are your ideal customers, your target audience. 

And when you offer something of value, when you lead with value with that opt-in, incentive, free ebook, webinar, or organic social video like this, then you’re going to attract the people who are a natural fit for your message.

You’re not looking for everybody. You’re looking for the people who are your tribe or your community, and you want to build a relationship with them. 

Being of Services Makes Lead Generation Fun Because It Feels Good

So, you start out by being of service and you feel good about that. 

Then, next, you’re connecting with the people who are the right people for your service or product by offering them a sweet taste. In this way, it becomes a kind of a fun exchange where you’re putting yourself out there. It doesn’t have to be a fearful thing because you’re going for the people who are the right fit for you. And then that synergy begins to happen. And so lead generation authentically does become relationship building and when you approach it that way then lead generation becomes even more than relationship building. It becomes about building a long-term conversation which can become a long-term relationship. 

And, to tell you the truth about myself, I’ve not been doing as much of this kind of being of service as I want to. 

So, my request for you today is to let me know, is this valuable? Do you want more kinds of videos like this? 

Because I’m intending to be here more regularly, more frequently, in order to engage with you in a conversation and hopefully attract the right organizations and the right people who can value the kind of services that I provide… and my company, ComBridges provides. 

I look forward to hearing from you. I hope this has been valuable and thank you so much for watching!