Performance Delivered

As senior VP of creative and operations at Eclipse, a full-service marketing agency, Michelle Azzopardi has worked with some of the biggest studios in Hollywood. She says just as filmmakers tell stories; she sees marketers as storytellers as well.

Influencers aren’t just celebrities anymore. They come in all shapes and sizes – and command different rates, says Jordan Dahlquist, director of social media with marketing agency Bastion Elevate. These days companies don’t necessarily need someone well-known or have millions of followers to effectively “influence” their audience. In fact, companies with a small budget can actually do quite well working with the right “microinfluencers.”

On this week’s episode, we chat with Jonathan Stark, author of Hourly Billing Is Nuts and host of Ditching Hourly. Jonathan is the former VP of a boutique software firm who became dissatisfied with the hourly billing method and decided to branch out on his own as an author, aiming to convince businesses that value-based pricing is the way forward.

On this week’s episode of Polishing Your Digital Marketing, we sit down with Shawn Walker, VP of Strategy and Product Development at Symphonic Digital. Shawn is a digital marketing expert who works to develop strategies for digital media investment to maximize ROI.

On this week’s episode of Performance Delivered, we speak with Jan Risher, principal at Shift Key Content Marketing and Public Relations Agency. Jan has been a newspaper columnist since 2002, has been awarded an International Fellowship for journalism, and has taught English in six countries.

Part 2 of our two-part series with the Queen of Cold Calling, Wendy Weiss, is here! If you tuned into Part 1, you know what Wendy is all about, but if you didn’t. Wendy is an author, speaker, sales trainer, and so much more! Wendy’s track record is impressive— she’s recognized as one of the leading authorities on lead generation, cold calling, and new business development.

It’s part 1 of our special 2 part series! In this episode, we sit down with Wendy Weiss— the Queen of Cold Calling, and an author, speaker, sales trainer, and so much more! Wendy’s track record is impressive— she’s recognized as one of the leading authorities on lead generation, cold calling, and new business development!

Digital marketing agency Flying V Group takes a multi-pronged approach to boosting traffic, leads, and sales for its clients, encompassing SEO, paid search, social media, content marketing, and more. Robb Fahrion, co-founder, partner, and SEO lead, says their main goal is to build a digital marketing strategy that drives growth. And if there is anything that remains constant in digital marketing, says Robb, it’s that what works is always changing, which forces you to closely watch trends and tweak campaigns as needed.

In this episode, we launch our new series: Polishing Your Digital Marketing! This series is aimed at helping business owners overcome digital marketing related challenges and identify opportunities. You’ll join Steffen and Shawn in a casual discussion about digital marketing topics you’re always wondering about— and leave feeling informed and empowered to make marketing decisions in your business.

In her work as VP of Client Strategy at digital marketing agency Transistor, Lindsie Nelson focuses mostly on SEO, using search trends and keywords to develop content that drives traffic. One thing she says digital marketers and their clients must never forget is that content can’t just speak to search engines – it needs to connect with people in a meaningful way as well so that they get the information they need about products and services.

Does your marketing actually engage your potential customers? Elevate My Brand CEO Laurel Mintz says that too many companies have embraced digital marketing but have forgotten the basics of how to connect with their target market. Laurel says it’s all about being “real”… sometimes even outrageous… and you have to combine online efforts with real world engagement to effectively build your brand.

Copywriter and comedian Lianna Patch is on a mission: to inject humor into your marketing to make it more engaging, actionable, and profitable. Humor shouldn’t be used in all industries, of course. But Lianna says you’d be surprised in which niches prospects are open to having their funny bones tickled a bit.

LinkedIn is the easiest social network to go viral on, says AJ Wilcox of B2Linked. And that means it has tremendous potential to expand your business’s organic reach. But to make this free marketing method work, you have to take a very specific approach, adds AJ.

Even though LinkedIn advertising can be incredibly effective for certain industries and businesses, not many agencies specialize in serving clients using this social network. There’s no better authority to speak with than AJ Wilcox, of B2Linked, who, at one point, managed five of LinkedIn’s top 10 ad customers.

Elisabeth Willits, a senior content marketing specialist with AWeber, is back again sharing her top tips for email marketing based on the data she’s gleaned about what works and what doesn’t based on sending out millions of emails. In the first part, we talked about why email marketing is the ideal way to grow an ecommerce business. We also cleared up some misconceptions about email that all too many marketers still believe.

For years, so-called experts have been touting the demise of email marketing. But, says Elisabeth Willits, this marketing channel is far from dead. In fact, in many ways it’s more relevant than ever. As a senior content marketing specialist at AWeber, over the last six years Elisabeth has seen the industry up close and personal every day. Along the way, she’s collected data from emails sent to millions of subscribers, allowing her to figure out what works and what doesn’t in email.

In my second chat with Daniel Englebretson, we’re taking a deeper dive into the world of account-based marketing—specifically how to get started with this channel, from identifying targets to what metrics to track to measure success. It’s pretty in-depth – if you want to do it right, at least. Daniel shares the step-by-step process he uses to figure out which accounts to go after and the key role the sales team plays in developing that list.

Joris Bryon, founder of the Dexter Agency, is passionate about helping eCommerce business owners grow methodically using almost “scientific” methods. In the first episode with Joris, we talked about a potential untapped goldmine for eCommerce businesses: converting more of your current traffic to boost profits instead of buying additional traffic, which gets very expensive – especially these days.

Joris Bryon, founder of Dexter Agency, sees a lot of ecommerce entrepreneurs taking the wrong approach to designing their online presence. They base the design on personal preference instead of data, so instead of being able to make changes that continually boost response – and profits – they spin their wheels.

Many eCommerce entrepreneurs forget that the fundamental accounting principles and financial metrics that gauge the health of your business and should guide your future plans always remain the same, no matter what industry or sector you’re in. That being said, book-keeping specialist Cyndi Thomason knows there are key ways online businesses differ, not to mention they face unique challenges