Marketing Guides for Small Businesses – Détails, épisodes et analyse

Episode 204 - Is your business a commodity Marketing Strategies to avoid being commoditized

In this episode of the Marketing Guides for Small Businesses Podcast, we tackle the pressing issue of commoditization that many service-based businesses face. Hosts Ian Cantle, Ken Tucker, and Paul Barthel delve into why businesses struggle with becoming commoditized and how they can stand out in a crowded, competitive market.

The episode offers actionable steps and strategies for differentiation, customer feedback, and leveraging technology to enhance your unique value proposition and secure lasting customer relationships.

Key Learnings:

• Identifying Commoditization: Learn the early warning signs of commoditization such as price wars, customer churn, and lack of differentiation, and how these signs can impact your business.
• Importance of Differentiation: Discover why setting your business apart from competitors is crucial and how it prevents the risks associated with being viewed as a commodity.
• Practical Strategies for Differentiation: Explore actionable strategies to differentiate your service-based business, including productization, systematization, and understanding your ideal customer.
• Leveraging Technology: Gain insights on the key technologies, like CRM systems and analytics tools, that can help your business streamline operations, respond faster, and deliver an enhanced customer experience.
• Customer Feedback: Understand the role of customer feedback in identifying areas of improvement and discovering what your business does well, helping you to refine your services and increase customer loyalty.

TAKE ACTION TODAY:

If you found value in this episode, we encourage you to subscribe to the Marketing Guides for Small Businesses Podcast. Rate and review us on your favorite podcast platform to help us reach more listeners like you. Also, visit our website at https://marketingguidesforsmallbusinesses.com/ for free resources, more episodes, and links to set up free consultation calls with any of the hosts. Share our podcast with your colleagues, friends, and family.

Keep calm and market on!

GET IN TOUCH WITH THE MARKETING GUIDES:

Ian Cantle of Dental Marketing Heroes and Outsourced Marketing

Jeff Stec of Tylerica Marketing Systems

Ken Tucker & Paul Barther of Changescape Web Solutions

What Gives Us Joy In Marketing 

Overview

In this insightful episode of the Marketing Guides for Small Businesses podcast, hosts Ken Tucker, Paul Barthel, Ian Cantle, and Jeff Stec take a deep dive into what brings them joy and satisfaction in their marketing careers. They discuss what fuels their passion for marketing, from the thrill of problem-solving to the satisfaction of seeing their clients succeed. The hosts also share their insights on the various tools and tactics they favor, as well as what challenges and frustrates them in the ever-evolving landscape of digital marketing.

Key Learnings

Ken Tucker's View:

• Passion for Constant Learning: Ken talks about his endless love for learning about new marketing tools and features. He admits to having "shiny object syndrome" but finds joy when discovering new features that can add value.
• Building Solutions: He expresses his love for building websites and creating pages, which serve as immediate, tangible outcomes of his efforts.

Ian Cantle’s Perspective:

• High ROI from SEO: Ian shares his excitement for SEO and how seeing the results positively affect a client's bottom line is the highest form of success for him.
• Orchestration and Holistic Marketing: He emphasizes the importance of a strategic, orchestrated approach to marketing that integrates various tactics seamlessly.

Jeff Stec's Joy in Automation and Problem-Solving:

• Love for Engineering and Building Things: Jeff compares his experience as an engineer to his current role, where he enjoys problem-solving and creating marketing systems.
• Education and Client Empowerment: Jeff likes educating clients and demystifying the marketing processes, making them more involved.

Paul Barthel’s Passion:

• Automation and AI Bots: Paul shares his enthusiasm for building marketing automation systems and AI bots. He finds immense satisfaction in learning how these technologies work and solving the problems they present.
• Deep Technical Knowledge: He enjoys diving into the nuances of SEO tools and getting hands-on to solve technical challenges.

Challenges in Marketing:

• Client Expectations: The hosts discuss the difficulties of managing client expectations, particularly when clients want quick results or shiny new tactics without understanding the strategic foundation required for long-term success.
• Outdated or Bad Information: Ian and Jeff talk about the frustrations of battling against outdated or incorrect information that clients bring from networking events or other sources.
• Multi-Vendor Approaches: Ian highlights the issues with having multiple vendors who don't coordinate well, making it hard for clients to achieve a cohesive strategy.
• Technical Challenges: Jeff and Paul touch on the time-consuming and often frustrating task of keeping up with ever-changing software platforms and the lack of proper documentation.

HOW TO GET STARTED TODAY!

Thank you for tuning into this episode of the Marketing Guides for Small Businesses podcast! If you found value in this discussion, please like, share, and subscribe to our podcast. Do you have marketing challenges that you'd like us to tackle? Or do you need tailored advice on how to elevate your business’s marketing strategy? Visit https://marketingguidesforsmallbusinesses.com/ to set up a free consultation call with any of our expert hosts, and let's take your business growth to the next level. Don't forget to rate and review us wherever you get your podcasts, so we can continue to bring you the content that helps you and your business thrive.

Keep calm and market on!

GET IN TOUCH WITH THE MARKETING GUIDES:

Ian Cantle of Dental Marketing Heroes and Outsourced Marketing

Jeff Stec of Tylerica Marketing Systems

Ken Tucker & Paul Barther of Changescape Web Solutions

In this episode of the Marketing Guides For Small Business Podcast, we delve into the ever-evolving landscape of online advertising.

We discuss the latest trends, best practices, and platforms to help small businesses effectively reach their target audience and drive results.

Tune in to learn how you can navigate the complexities of online advertising and maximize your marketing efforts.

Imagine if there was a way to get your brand in front of prospective customers who visited your website but haven’t filled in a form or called you.  And imagine if they viewed a particular product or service page, that you could influence them even after they’ve left your website using messaging related to the product or service they showed interest in.  It sounds impossible and a little too good to be true, but it’s very real and top brands use it all the time.  

It’s called retargeting or retargeted advertising (or sometimes remarketing). Whatever you call it, it is a hidden secret weapon in your marketing toolbox. In today’s episode we’ll take a look at what retargeting is, its benefits, and how you can start leveraging this low-cost secret weapon right away to help your business grow sales and conversions.

We’ll discuss:

What retargeting is and how it actually works. 

Why companies need retargeting.

How you can use other types of advertising like search campaigns or social campaigns to help make your retargeting most worthwhile.

How you can create retargeting campaigns that go beyond brand exposure.

Different types of retargeting and what platforms you can do retargeted advertising on.

How retargeting can be one of the most cost effective forms of advertising. 

As a small business owner, you’ve probably heard that one of the keys to growing your business is producing great content connect you with a larger audience. “Content is king,” we hear over and over again. We know we should be producing quality content regularly, but as a small business, how do we generate ideas for all of this content? How do we set aside time to create it all?

In today’s episode, we look at how you can create a small business content strategy that helps you grow your audience without needing a huge budget or large content team.

Join us as we discuss:

What kind of content works best at each different stage of the marketing funnel.

Content ideas for the awareness stage of the funnel.

What other types of content, beyond blogs, you can use for inbound marketing.

What content repurposing is and why its important.

How to decide what content to repurpose.

What evergreen content is and how to use it across channels.

How you can use infographics in your small business’s content across different platforms.

What user-generated content is and how your small business could use it.

What kind of video content is feasible for small businesses. 

Email newsletters are the daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly newsletter you receive from a company. Some of them are full of deals, others of announcements, others share tips or case studies, and others dive deep into one topic. 

There are many ways to set up your newsletter. The key is to determine the best style, content and cadence that works for you and your ideal customers. And, most importantly, to keep sending regularly. Today’s episode is all about email newsletters for small and medium businesses. 

Tune in to learn:

Why your business should consider starting a newsletter if you don’t already have one.

How to determine where to start when creating an email newsletter.

How frequently you should send your newsletter.

How to decide the best format and content types for your newsletter.

Why businesses tend to stall on sending out their newsletter regularly and how you can avoid this pitfall.

What easy and/or free email newsletter software systems exist and why you should use one.

How to use newsletter analytics to help determine if a newsletter is a useful tool for your business.

Having an email list you can use for marketing still remains one of the most important things a business can have in their marketing tool kit, but growing that email list seems daunting to most small businesses. In this episode, we’ll discuss clever ways to grow your list for both email and text message marketing.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

How to build an email list and why having one is so important. 

How you can use online tools to build your email list.

Different offline tactics for building your email list.

How to craft an irresistible offer to get people to opt-in and share their email address or cell phone number.

What types of lead magnets work well for most small businesses.

How a sales funnel can help you build your email list and how you can create a high converting sales funnel opt-in.

How to drive traffic to your lead magnet.

How to move people through the buyer’s journey after they opt-in.

The differences between text message marketing and email marketing for building and engaging your list(s).

Anyone who has worked in a large organization understands that there’s often tension between sales and marketing.  The sales people complain about the quality of leads they get, where their tradeshow booth is located, or the lack of sales support materials to help them land customers.  

At the same time, the marketing team sends what they believe are highly qualified vetted leads and think they have equipped the sales team with the materials they need to help move customers through their buying journey.  

Often there can be built up animosity between the two camps. But marketing and sales are each vital and are part of the same continuum, the customer’s buying journey. Join us for this episode to learn how you can ensure your sales and marketing teams are working together to maximize your efforts to move customers through the entire buyer’s journey.

We’ll discuss:

Whether sales and marketing generally have different goals and thus different priorities.

How a divide between your sales and marketing teams can impact your small or medium-sized business.

Signs that indicate a problem between your sales and marketing efforts.

The difference between the customer buying journey and the sales process most businesses are familiar with.

A framework for a buyer’s journey that is on a continuum from the buyer’s perspective and how it can help you combine your sales and marketing processes.

What sales support or sales enablement is and why it is important in the customer’s buying process. 

Common examples of sales support that a marketing team or agency could provide.

What you as a business owner can do to help align your sales and marketing teams. 

It’s estimated that more than 50% of today’s total web site visits are mobile. That number is typically even higher for websites in certain industry categories, like food and beverage. While your website can act as your 24/7 salesperson, if it doesn’t work well for more than half of your visitors, you’re definitely missing out on potential business. Mobile optimization makes sure your website and all digital content works optimally on mobile phones. 

In this episode, we’re diving deep into mobile optimization so you can make sure your website is working as hard as possible for you! Join us to learn:

What “responsive web design” is and why it is important.

Why your business needs mobile optimization.

What mobile first indexing is and how it affects your company’s search rankings.

What types of content help local SEO.

How optimizing for mobile is different from “traditional” website optimization.

How to get started in optimizing your website for mobile.

What key tools and resources are available to help you with mobile optimizations.

“Finding good employees doesn’t work. Instead, start attracting top talent.” Ryan Englin, CEO of Core Matters, joins us for this episode to share his knowledge on recruiting top talent to your business’ open roles. Core Matters focuses on the issues of high turnover or high growth and what businesses need to do to fill their open positions. Even as a small business, it’s possible to compete for the best people if you have the right system in place. 

In this episode, Ryan shares how to implement a process for attracting and retaining good people. Tune in to learn:

How small businesses can compete for the best people.

How you can improve your hiring process to be more efficient and effective.

How to avoid common mistakes many businesses make when hiring.

If it makes sense for your business to shift part of your marketing budget to recruiting and hiring.

Why hiring in the trades is so difficult and how you can make it easier.

Where companies can find good applicants