Navigate the Rapids
Online Marketing Podcast

Episode 36 – Hiring: Finding Personalities that Work Well Together with Glenda Woolley

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Welcome to another episode of Navigate the Rapids.

In this episode, find out things like:

• What is DISC
• How knowing your individual behavioral style can help your business grow
• How to use DISC to get the right candidate in the right seat on your bus
• How to improve the communication skills of your entire team

Guest Profile

As a Certified John Maxwell DISC Consultant through the utilization of online assessments, I help leaders as well as their team members learn their individual behavior styles, their preferred communication style and their strengths in leadership. I provide one on one and/or group coaching to ensure that you put your assessment results into action. Information is interesting but what is most important to me is helping you develop an action plan to further develop your communication skills and ultimately make a positive impact on your company’s bottom line.

WHO I WORK WITH: I partner with C-Level Executives, Directors, Middle Managers, Operational Managers, Supervisors and their teams.

Other Notes/Links

To learn more about Glenda Woolley visit www.5starleadership.com

pssst…. want to be a guest on the show?

Episode 35 – PPP Loan – Now What? with Andy Magnus

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Welcome to another episode of Navigate the Rapids.

In this episode, find out things like:

• Economy and the Impacts
• Major areas of change to the PPP
• PPP1 vs PPP2
• EIDL Loan update/changes
• Other tax changes that impact your business

Guest Profile

Andy Magnus, CPA of ProActive Tax Pros LLC is a nationally known tax advisor, speaker, writer and humorist.

He spent 5 years as an IRS Agent and Regional Trainer and decades helping Small Businesses with their business and tax strategies and return preparation.

His firm – ProActive Tax Pros LLC, helps successful entrepreneurs keep more of what they earn so they can explore opportunities, grow their business and do the things they love.

You will enjoy Andy’s unique perspective and ability to make taxes simple, interesting and enjoyable.

Other Notes/Links

In the podcast at 14:30-38,  Andy mentions that period of time for measuring forgiveness is 24 months.  In actuality, it is 24 weeks.  Although time is an illusion, the SBA does not understand the concept.    Thanks to Gail Moran for catching this.

To learn more about Andy visit http://proactivetaxpros.com/

pssst…. want to be a guest on the show?

Episode 34 – Cold Calling Tips During Quarantine with John Eyres

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Welcome to another episode of Navigate the Rapids.

In this episode, find out things like:

• What John has learned in the last 2 weeks of calling during the quarantine
• What NOW is a good time to call those C-Level people
• How you can be positive when doing your cold calling
• How to take advantage of John’s book and workbook

Guest Profile

John Eyres is the owner of Business Connections Consulting. They provide outbound telephone calls to potential clients, past clients, or any list you provide to them.

Other Notes/Links

To learn more about John Eyres visit https://busconcon.com

pssst…. want to be a guest on the show?

Episode 33 – Clearly Communicating Your Story

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Welcome to another episode of Navigate the Rapids.

In this episode, find out things like:

• How you can craft a message that generates more leads from highly interested prospects
• How applying the 80/20 rule can keep your message on track
• The best way to integrate your message into an email campaign

Guest Profile

Tom Ruwitch is a business growth specialist with more than 20 years’ experience helping businesses and individuals thrive using innovative, interactive marketing. He is the founder and president of StoryUp Marketing, an agency that helps businesses tune up their stories so prospects and customers tune in and act.

Prior to establishing StoryUp, Tom founded MarketVolt, a marketing firm that is best known for its powerful, easy-to-use email marketing software. MarketVolt helps businesses implement powerful technology and bright ideas to attract leads, engage prospects, close sales, and maximize retention and referrals. MarketVolt was recently acquired by Benchmark Email which continues to operate and support the software.

At MarketVolt and now StoryUp Marketing, Tom is the lead consultant for clients who seek branding, web site, email, social media, and other marketing guidance. Tom is an experienced web developer, copy-writer, and direct response marketer. He is especially adept at helping businesses coordinate their online and offline marketing efforts. He has experience designing and executing marketing campaigns for small business startups and publicly traded companies.

Tom is a speaker and consultant who appears regularly as a featured presenter at business expos and other events. He writes a monthly marketing column for a business journal in St. Louis, and he is a guest blogger on marketing topics for many online publications.

Other Notes/Links

To learn more about Tom Ruwitch visit https://storyupmarketing.com/

pssst…. want to be a guest on the show?

Episode 31 – Your COVID-19 Action Plan

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On March 24, 2020 we held a special training session to help businesses navigate through the uncertain times and provided tips to help them stay in business.

Here are a few things we cover:

• We are poised for an increase in demand for many products and services over the next 4-6 weeks. Companies that have their marketing in order are going to see those increases in the form of web form fillouts and phone calls.
• Virtual selling is here, and those businesses taking advantage of tools like Facetime and Zoom are going to have an advantage over slower-moving businesses that don’t want to do business in non-traditional ways.
• Your competitors might be taking their foot off the gas, and this is a grand opportunity to take more market share online.

NTR 30 – How We Solved the Audience Problem at E4E

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Welcome to another episode of Navigate the Rapids – the show where I explain digital marketing trends, strategies, and every day topics that every business owner needs for success – both online and off. This is episode number 30 – How We Solved the Audience Problem for E4E

In today’s show we’re going to talk about…

• The troubles our “business” was having around membership, video, and our website
• How we solved these challenges by taking advantage of websites and systems that already exist
• How we went from hiding our assets to giving the world access – and how that grew our brand exposure
• Lots more!

Ntr 29 – Leveraging Social Media for Better Brand Visibility

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Welcome to another episode of Navigate the Rapids – the show where I explain digital marketing trends, strategies, and every day topics that every business owner needs for success – both online and off. This is episode number 29 – Leveraging Social Media for Better Brand Visibility

In today’s show we’re going to talk about…

• Which social media platforms do you need to be on
• What are Stories? What are #hashtags?
• Does anyone care if you’re the owner?
• How to get more eyeballs on your posts (ie engagement)
• Lots more!

Join me and special guest Karen Fox as we talk about social media!

NtR 28 – Your Online Business Listings

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Welcome to another episode of Navigate the Rapids – the show where I explain digital marketing trends, strategies, and every day topics that every business owner needs for success – both online and off. This is episode number 28 – Your Online Business Listings

In today’s show we’re going to talk about…

• Googling your own business
• What is a NAP?
• How and why you should get more business citations
• Two tools to get consistent citations
• Why you need more reviews

Transcript

All right, my name is Will Hanke. My company is Red Canoe Media. Today we’re gonna talk about your business listings and some different apps and different things that you can do, different websites you can use, to assist you with getting your business listed online correctly.

What happens when you Google your own business? Has anybody gone out and typed in the name of their business and just see what comes up? Did what came up what you expected or what you wanted? Of course, you probably work on it daily. Good. Okay.

Typically when you look up your business now, of course you get, hopefully your website and then a couple of social properties, maybe your Facebook page or Linkedin profile, things like that. A lot of cases you might start to get something like this now, where people have filled out questions or it has your address or it has your time, things like that, that you’re open.

This is what you should get if you do the same thing and get a different list or especially if your website is not in one of the first results, then you need to do some work on it.

Another thing that might happen is, of course, the photos, your reviews, your address, all this information about you and then some other different things over here which is pretty new from Google, is your business on Google. So it recognized that I was the one looking this up, recognized that it was my business because I was logged in to Google, so it started to give me some different things. You haven’t posted recently. In the past 14 today’s, less people are looking for your business, things like that.

So if you Google your business and these things don’t happen, then you need to get into what’s called Google My Business and we’re gonna talk about that in a minute, but first let’s take a nap.

Dan’s all over this. Right? Let’s take a nap. Nap in my industry stands for three things. Name, Address and Phone Number. These three things are extremely critical to your business when you’re listing your business online. The difference between them will be obvious in a minute. So the name of my business, Red Canoe Media. The address 152 Hinrichs Lane, Arnold, MO 63010. Phone number, 314-496, okay.

However, sometimes, my business might be listed as 152 Hinrichs Ln, and maybe a different phone number because I’m using a Google voice number on my website, so I can track those calls, right?

To the search engines, they’re confused. They don’t know am I Lane or Ln and it sounds a little silly but it really should always be the same no matter where you’re listing your business. The Nap is extremely important when you’re listing your businesses on other places.

So just for the heck of it, I went out and I typed in my business name and figured I’ll look and see what other people are doing. So, MapQuest, I didn’t even know MapQuest was still a thing, but apparently it is, they’ve got me listed as 152 Hinrichs Ln, interesting. Yelp has be may down here, same thing, Ln. Then on my website, in the footer, it’s hard to see but it’s Lane.

So there are obviously things that need to be fixed. Either I need to go to MapQuest and Yelp and get these fixed or I just need to come up with a solution one way or another and stick with it and then start fixing some of these other places. The reason that this is important is because it shows up here when somebody is typing in your business name.

If Google can’t make that connection between the two, you’re missing opportunities to list your business online and to get it recognized.

All right. I know you came here for apps. Come on, Will. All right. Google My Business. This is one of your first apps that you need to download. You can also get to this online at Google.com/business. Google.com/business. You need to go to this website and claim your business. If your business is not claimed or it’s never been filled out, then you’re gonna get a couple of different options. You’re either going to get nice job you’re on the map. Your business info might be incorrect. Or your business isn’t on the map at all. So this all does tie back to Google Maps as well.

So either way, you need to click the button that says verify your business info. Once you get on this page, after you verified your business and say, yes I’m really here. This is really my business. There’s a tab on the left called info. This is where you’re gonna wanna fill out everything related to your business. So your business name, address, phone, of course those three things. Hours that you’re in business and let’s see what else. Hours, your address, hours that you’re open and labels. They give you a section for labels so you can put in things like I put in SEO digital marketing, web design. These are things that people might type into the search engines to find my business. So since they’re giving me the opportunity to do that, I really should be doing that.

Also, up in the top left under Red Canoe Media, up there it gives you an opportunity to put in some different categories for your business. So in my case, I put in marketing, business, digital marketing, things like that, advertising agency. Stuff like that.

So this all reflects back to your business when somebody types in the name of your business online. It could also tie into keywords that we talked about earlier. Once you’re done filling it out, they’re typically going to send you a postcard so it’s not just going to go live on the website immediately, on Google. They’re going to send a postcard to the address that you put in. It will come about 10 days later with a little pin number. Plug in the pin number and that verifies your business online.

Bing also has the same thing. It’s called Bing Places for business. A lot of people don’t know that. Bing is still a thing and Bing is actually what’s powering Yahoo search now, as well. Yahoo is no longer a search engine. They’re powered by Bing’s results. So by doing this on Bing, you’re actually going to help yourself on two of the other major search engines. That’s at Bingplaces.com. There is an app for that as well, so both of these you can use an app. Both of these will alert you if there are any changes to your hours or something like that.

So when somebody looks up your business online, they actually have an opportunity to edit, let’s say the hours. Maybe I’m eight to five. They could actually say, actually Red Canoe is only open eight to four. What’ll happen is you’ll get notified and you can either verify that, that is true or verify it is not true. But those kind of notifications would show up on your app so you would always have the best information out there.

Speaking about an app, there are some services that will help you get your business listed on other sites like MapQuest and Yelp and a lot of these. The first one is called Yext.com and I don’t, Kara, do you know the price of Yext? A couple of hundred bucks a year, probably. The great thing about Yext is you put in your address once and they will go put your business on a 100 or so different sites. The nice thing is it’s controlled because you put it in one place and it’s on all of those. If your phone number changes, you go to Yext, you fix your phone number and it will send that to all of those sites. So everything stays congruent.

The other one is Moz Local. Moz Local is about $89 bucks a year. Does something very similar and that’s moz.com/local. I think it’s $89 bucks a year, somewhere in the $100 range per year, but that’s the one we use.

And lastly I want to talk about reviews. Several people have commented about reviews today. Reviews are huge when it comes to your business online. If you don’t have a lot of positive reviews, it’s very possible that people will pass you over. It also shows up here, so we can see five stars, 39 reviews. Pretty good, right? And the other thing it does, it shows up in what’s called the three pack or the snack pack. So if somebody types in, my example is SEO expert. I type that in, these are the three results that come back. Red Canoe Media at the time had 25 positive reviews. Red Tail SEO, whoever those bums are. They got no reviews. And then the SEO Expert, two reviews. So just from this one example, it’s pretty obvious which one most people are going to click on or find out more information about.

So the driving those positive reviews moves you up in these map type listings as well, and there’s also some social proof there just of the fact that nobody has left a review for Red Tail. What does that say about them? Probably not anything positive. I don’t know who they are.

Reviews are huge and they don’t need to be overlooked. If you do want a free review score, let me know. I’ve got a free review tool that I can plug in your business name and it’ll give you a score and tell you where you are listed and where you’re not listed. What sort of Nap you have on the different systems and any incongruencies therein. Those are some big words. That was good. And that’s reviews.redcanoemedia.com or just see me and I’ll get yeah one.

All right. Questions and answers. Hopefully answers.

Richard Terry.

I notice a lot of times I’ll put my address in and it will correct it with, and I’m on Reflection Court, and they’ll correct it as Ct. So, how do we get that to where it’s the same?

If it’s on a website where they’re auto-correcting it, there’s probably nothing you can do other than maybe reach out to the webmaster and ask them to fix it but they’re probably not going to. So I would just move on to the next website. You’re not going to fix them all.

Dad.

You mentioned that Nap is name, address, phone number. What about home based businesses? Do I want my home address out there for the world to come visit me?

So that’s up to you. Mine’s out there. If you look up mine, I just work out of my home. Probably the only bad thing about it, if I can get back there, is it does show my home, but I’ve never had anybody show up.

So it does have a thing there. See the outside of that business. So you could creep around and see who my neighbors are and that kind of stuff. But there is a button in the back end of Google My Business that says people do not come to this location to do business with me and I think Google has some sort of an algorithm in there where they won’t show your home as much but I’ve never had any trouble with it. I do have clients that say I don’t want to list it. I have a client, right now, who refuses to put an address out there because they’re home-based, so they’re never going to show up in any of these type of rankings, especially in the map or the three pack because they don’t want to tie an address to a location.

I don’t think it’s that big of a deal.

Bill.

Something that I deal with all the time, I’ve never looked at it in this context and that is that the post office and the IRS have address databases and so when you deal with them and you have to fill in an address on an application or a form or something like that, it will return to you a screen that says, our database shows the following address. Either use yours or accept ours. And the address that they send to you has no periods in it, has no special characters or anything like that. It’s very structured and I don’t know if businesses tap into that or businesses use that or use that as part, but it doesn’t admit much variation in addresses at all.

If there’s an official address for your location, I’d probably use that and that would probably fix your problem, Richard, because that’s probably where they’re pulling that from is some sort of an address database in the sky, I guess.

Rick.

Will, so real quick when I talked about my experience with the Dolphin Tank, I mentioned the talent in the room and the intelligence in the room, but also I failed to mention the giving heart. So Will is a genius and he has taken his time to spend time with me.

What Will?

That Will, right there, in the Red Canoe shirt. So, this guy is amazing but I do have two questions for you and I thank you for that, Will.

I have two questions for you.

Thank you for the beer.

Well, you buy a beer, and you get anything you want. So I learned that.

So, on these labels, on these labels, do you put SEO or do you put search engine optimization or how do you do that and then on the address question, can you just like a city and a state instead of your home address because my business is out of my home also.

I’ll answer the second one first. No, you cannot just put a city and state. You have to have a real address, so it’s all or nothing and that’s the trouble I’m having with one of our clients right now. They don’t want to put a home address on there. But then Google doesn’t have anywhere to send the postcard.

What was the first question? I forgot now, answering the first one.

I would put both. So I would put SEO and I would type it out search engine optimization. So if there are acronyms, is that what they’re called? I’m former military so I’m very used to acronyms but you really need to type those out as well for people that are looking for you that way.

Karen.

On the Google, I have a phone number here and I wanted to change it and it will not let me change it. I use my cell phone, but I just went in 10 times and it won’t let me.

Okay. You might want to try and do it on a desktop instead of the app. It may just give you more options.

Mary. Kara then Mary.

Moz is 99 to 1,000 bucks and their standard is 99. Yext is 199 to 999 with their standard being 499. Also, I had an issue with showing the outside of my house and you’re able to go into there and change the outside pictures of your house. So if you add different images, then it will populate and kind of override what Google puts for the outside of your house.

There is an option here for photos. Typically that’s for photos of your store or the inside or your products like that. If you work out of your home, you’ll have to just get a little more creative. Thank you.

Last question.

I just wanted to say I had a P.O. Box for a long time and then I just started using my home address and I also have never, that’s been about 10 years. I’ve never had anybody show up. So, you know, I was kind of concerned but it doesn’t seem like it’s a big deal.

Okay. Thank you everyone. Have a great day.

NtR 27 – Web Hosting

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Welcome to another episode of Navigate the Rapids – the show where I explain digital marketing trends, strategies, and every day topics that every business owner needs for success – both online and off.

• This is episode number 27 – Web Hosting
• My name is Will Hanke, I own a digital marketing agency based in Saint Louis, Missouri, and this is my 21st year in the industry. Yes, I was building websites back in the days of web directories, before Google and search engines as we know them even existed.

In today’s show we’re going to talk about…

• A big Facebook change
• Ask Will – How to discover which content of yours worked well in 2017
• Main topic – Web hosting
• Featured resource
• Whoops I forgot to mention – new segment

• So let’s get started. Just over a month ago Mark Zuckerburg from FB announced some big changes to the FB feed. On podcast 67 of DigiKnow we talked about the announcement, how it affects businesses, and how it will change how advertisers will really need to step up their game with quality. It’s all about engagement now. If you’re not creating content that is worth sharing, you’re wasting your time. Not just FB, but in general its time to stop with the fluff and either create good, quality content, or stop wasting your time and budget on the efforts.
• By the way, you can subscribe to DigiKnow by visiting redcanoemedia.com/digiknow

Up next is my Ask Will segment. This week’s question is an email from Ray.

Will, we are in the middle of revamping our blog fand have hired a writer to do some posts on our products, processes, and members of our staff. We know we do have some good blogs out there, but aren’t sure which ones . Is there a way to identify those fairly easily?

• Since we just talked about how FB is pushing for better engagement, it only makes sense that you identify which pieces that you’ve created so you can improve on them and build more similar pieces.
• The easiest way to do this is to use Google Analytics, assuming you have it running on your site. If you do, you’d want to log in, and then select a date range that you think is fair for your assessment. I’d recommend at least a year’s range or more.
• Then click on Behavior, Site Content, All content. Now you’ll see all of the pieces that got traffic in your timeframe. Sort by clicking on the x button and voila! your most trafficked content.
• Now, I’d also recommend you look at other metrics, like comments and shares. If you share this content on social media, it’s worth seeing what people responded to as well.
• Use Pareto’s Principle – the 80/20 rule. Take your top 20% content and make it better.
• For more info on this, see the shownotes for this episode, number 27, and I’ll have a link to a video that shows you how to do this in more detail.

• Promo Are you struggling with a particular task, or do you have an SEO or other digital marketing question? Tape your question and I’ll feature it on an upcoming episode. To learn more about how to do that, visit redcanoemedia.com/askwill

Alright, so let’s get into the main topic for today. Today we’re talking about web hosting.

First, a definition

• Web hosting is like the piece of land that your website lives on. Your domain is an address that points to a location on a server where your website lives. All the files, databases, etc are found there

There are two main types of hosting nowadays – NIX and Windows

• Windows is not that popular and not used as much as in the past. In fact, many popular hosting companies are phasing out their Windows hosting
• It sometimes costs more and doesn’t always handle all the programs needed to run a website today
• The other is *NIX. Typically this is a LINUX system – or some flavor thereof. It could also be referred to as BSD.  This is the most common type of hosting and what most hosting companies default to
• For purposes of today’s talk, I”m going to refer to this type of hosting for that reason

Types of server configurations

There are a few main types of configurations, each getting a little more expensive as they go because of their capabilities

• Shared hosting – this is when hundreds of websites are packed into one server, using up most of the disk space. This is good for starting out, but understand that some servers can’t handle popular or well-trafficked sites under this system.
• VPS – this is usually a mix of only a handful of accounts per server. Instead of competing with hundreds of other sites for processing, you’re only dealing with a few
• Dedicated – This means just what it sounds like – your own server in a computer facility somewhere. No other website is on your server.
• Cloud – This newer addition to the mix is my new favorite – it simply means your website is still hosted on a server, but it could actually be replicated across multiple servers across the country. Redundant backups and copies are available, making delivery to your visitors quick.

Pricing

• Disk space is cheap nowadays. The expense related to most hosting accounts is in the management.  Sites like GoDaddy (probably the worst place to host your website) offer very cheap rates and cheap or limited support along with it.
• Typical business hosting can be between $7 or $8 a month and up to $30 or so.  It really depends on how much space you need, the amount of traffic you get, and how large your website is.
• If you have a popular website, you’re not going to want to be on a shared hosting package, of course. VPS and dedicated servers can be upwards of hundreds of dollars a month.
• Again, you’re not paying for the space necessarily, but the electricity, the software required, and the manpower to run it.
• Software is the big one here, along with manpower. Systems are always getting updates, and those have to be installed by someone that knows what they’re doing.

Bandwidth

This is the amount of data that flows in and out of your server.

• For example, if you have a homepage that is 10kb, and someone visits your home page, they’ll download your home page and you’ll use 10kb of bandwidth.
• If you’re hosting videos or other large files, this can cause your bandwidth to increase dramatically.  It’s better to host those on sites that specialize in that, like YouTube, Vimeo, and Amazon S3.
• The amount of bandwidth you get allotted can also affect your pricing.  In fact, if your site is small but popular, hosting companies may ask you to move to a better package simply because of the bandwidth.
• You could be slowing down other sites, which I guess is a good problem to have!

A few things to consider when buying hosting

• Backup frequency
• Price
• Support level (and cost, if not included in monthly)
• Ability to host more than one site on an account (addon domains)
• SSL – is it included or does it cost extra, and is there a cost for installation

Resource / Tool

Lastly I want to talk about a tool that I use and how you can use it to grow your business.

• The tool is a website called WHOIS
• I mentioned this in passing on episode 26 about domain names
• WHOIS lets you know some pretty cool information about a website, including (in some cases) who is the owner, when it was registered, when it expires, and where its hosted.
  • Some people register their sites as private. If that’s the case, you won’t be able to see their personal info
  • Registration length is an SEO factor, as I mentioned on episode 26 about domain names.
• You can visit the website WHOIS.SC
• Its free!

Whoops I forgot

On episode 26 about domain names, I failed to mention a really cool option that not a lot of people know about- backordering

• You can ‘sit’ on a domain name and if it fails to get renewed, the registrar that you’ve paid to backorder it will try to grab it for you
• In many cases these never expire, and are tranferrrable
• Typical costs are around $20 to $30 – one time

Thank You for Listening – What to Do Next

• Ok that’s it for today’s podcast! I encourage you to visit redcanoemedia.com/ntr to subscribe and get notified about future episodes.
• Of course, if the information you learn here helps your business, I’d very much appreciate a review as that is what helps me get the word out to more people.
• All the notes, links, videos, and anything else we talked about today are available on our site at redcanoemedia.com/ntr
• Thanks for listening – I’ll see you in the next podcast!

NtR 26: It’s Your Domain Name – Or Is It?

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• Intro
• This is the podcast where we explain digital marketing in a way that’s easy to understand, we talk about topics that will help your business grow and compete with the big dogs, and we get ideas and tools that will boost our online exposure to potential customers.
• In today’s show we’re going to talk about…
  • Something new in social media – Instagram hashtags
  • Will’s Pep talk – getting away
  • Main topic – old school Domain Names
  • How to learn more about your domain name
  • Featured tool
• So let’s get started. This past week on DigiKnow (my other podcast) we talked about how now you can follow hashtags on Instagram.
  • This is pretty cool because it fixes a problem that was inherent to Instagram – the fact that people used hashtags to sort and segment their posts. It’s also a great way to attract other people who like the same things.
  • Its important that you use the hashtags that are popular and avoid misspellings
  • So the update is important because now, much like following friends, you can now follow topics of interest to you and they’ll show up in your normal instagram feed.
  • For businesses, this is important for a few reasons – you can get in front of more people if you’re careful about the hashtags you use, and you can create your own new hashtag for people to follow
• By the way, you can subscribe to DigiKnow by visiting redcanoemedia.com/digiknow
• Up next is my pep talk segment. This week we’re going to talk about going to conferences
  • So last week I went to Austin to the Digital Agency Growth Summit. It was an invite-only event in which about 300 digital marketing agencies from around the country attended
  • While I think people would be surprised to know that I’m not very outgoing at these conferences, the amount of information you get at them is invaluable.
  • I think its really important to step away from the screen, the cash register, the machine, and learn from others that are doing better than you. In some of these conferences they really share a lot
  • Of course if you make friends and can pick their brain, even better.
  • So I want to encourage you to find a conference, whether local or across the country. Take time to immerse yourself in your industry, watch for new trends, listen to people, and maybe make a few new pals
• Promo – Are you struggling with a particular task, or do you have an SEO or other digital marketing question? Tape your question and I’ll feature it on an upcoming episode. To learn more about how to do that, visit redcanoemedia.com/askwill
• Alright, so let’s get into the main topic for today. Today we’re talking about domain names
• There are a few areas I want to cover
  • First, what is a domain and how do you get one. A domain name is like your address. It’s the only one in existence, and it’s where you live – or in this case where your website lives. It’s unique, and no one else can own it.
  • You get domain names from domain registrars, such as GoDaddy.
  • It does have an expiration date, and its important to make sure that date is at least 5 years from now.
  • Explain (google is a registrar, 5 years out, fly by night)
  • Many business owners dont know that they dont own their domain name. Hosting, web guy
  • WHOIS is a great place to find out more about your domain
  • Next, its important that if you change domains, that you create the right redirects to not lose all your authority
  • Next, buying up competitor domains
  • Next buying similar domains
  • Buying misspelled domains
  • Keyword rich domain with dashes (phone test)
  • Last, security – SSL its kind of hosting, but its now a ranking factor
• Lastly I want to talk about a tool that I use and how you can use it to grow your business.
  • The tool is whynopadlock
  • Here’s what it does
  • You can get it at whynopadlock.com
  • It costs $0
• Ok that’s it for today’s podcast.
• I encourage you to visit redcanoemedia.com/ntr to subscribe and get notified about future episodes.
• Of course, if the information you learn here helps your business, I’d very much appreciate a review as that is what helps me get the word out to more people.
• All the notes, links, videos, and anything else we talked about today are available on our site at redcanoemedia.com/ntr
• Thanks for listening – I’ll see you in the next podcast!

NTR24: Jay Grosman, CEO and Founder of iAuto Agent

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Navigate the Rapids is a weekly podcast of business profiles like this one. Click here to subscribe on iTunes.

Business Profile: iAutoAgent

If a person can be defined by those things he is passionate about, then Jay Grosman can be defined by his love of family, his concern for others, his integrity, his passion for vehicles and his commitment to his clients.

Jay began his career in automobile sales 19 years ago, working as an Automotive Professional at a leading car dealership in St. Louis MO.

After 19 years as a leading salesman in the St.Louis market, he was frustrated with the status quo. The lack of transparency, the low trade-in values, the long, uncomfortable-for-the-customer dealership experience, all of it! Every time he had to give customers the low trade-in value of their car, he was delivering bad news. He knew people’s cars were worth more, and he wanted to give that value back to them. He wanted to do something better, something new. So Jay decided to jump out of the car sales business and designed a totally new way for people to sell their pre-owned cars.

“I am proud to say I am the CEO of iAuto Agent –a totally new concept for the sale and purchase of pre-owned cars in the St.Louis area and beyond. We eliminate the frustrations and hassles of trading your car to a dealer and having to accept a price that’s always less than the actual value of your car. I’m confident my company will appeal to you and the thousands of clients I’m privileged to serve. Our company’s motto is “Don’t Trade. Get Paid.”

Jay feels that his career success can best be measured in his approach to customer service, his passion for building relationships, his knowledge of vehicles, his innovative marketing programs, and his unfailing desire to serve his customers.

In this business profile interview, find out things like:

• How this one-of-a-kind business model works
• What almost 20 years of sales taught Jay
• Jay’s biggest struggle with explaining how his business makes revenue
• What Jay would do if he had an unlimited marketing budget

Find out more about Jay’s business at www.iAutoAgent.com

Prefer to watch the original broadcast/video?

NTR23: Thad James, SAMMY J Balloon Creations

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:39 — 29.6MB)

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Navigate the Rapids is a weekly podcast of business profiles like this one. Click here to subscribe on iTunes.

Business Profile: SAMMY J Balloon Creations

Thad James started entertaining and amazing audiences for over fifteen years using balloons of all shapes and sizes. What started as a hobby grew to a passion and developed into a full-time business. SAMMY J Balloon Creations excels in offering unique sculptures and designs for a variety of events. While Thad spends a lot of time blowing and twisting, he’s very interested in expanding the tools to grow his company. Thad is constantly learning the latest techniques on marketing, social media and networking. Standing out from the crowd is a focus of SAMMY J Balloon Creations.

In this business profile interview, find out things like:

• How Thad’s business model is more than just birthday parties
• Thad’s biggest challenge with building his business
• How Sammy J Balloons became the first ever business to be invited back to a local home show
• Lots more!

Find out more about SAMMY J Balloon Creations at www.sammyjballoons.com

Prefer to watch the original broadcast/video?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QErWcni3K0

pssst…. want to be a guest on the show?

NTR22: Fashion Bag Designer Angela Propes

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:40 — 29.6MB)

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Navigate the Rapids is a weekly podcast of business profiles like this one. Click here to subscribe on iTunes.

Business Profile: Farragio

Born in England, raised in Missouri, lived in Alaska, back in Missouri; a husband, two kids, a rescue pug, a rescue cat . . . it’s been an adventuresome life and through it all I’ve had the dream of owning my own business.

In March of 2010 I finally decided to take the plunge and start my own business, but having many different interests I wasn’t sure which direction I wanted to go in. That’s how I came up with the name “farragio”. It’s my play on the word “farrago” which means a mix of things. (more…)

NTR21: Chief Rabbit Inspector Jeff Lefton

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Navigate the Rapids is a weekly podcast of business profiles like this one. Click here to subscribe on iTunes.

Business Profile: Abra-Kid-Abra

Jeff Lefton has been performing and teaching magic since 1969. He has performed in Hollywood at The Magic Castle, in Las Vegas, and on a 3-month national tour for General Motors. Jeff was shy as a child, and magic helped improve his confidence and bring him out of his shell. He founded Abra-Kid-Abra in 2005 to help children develop their presentation skills and confidence through magic and variety arts. Jeff has written 20 curriculums and shows in math magic, character, reading magic, and more.

In this business profile interview, find out things like:

• How Jeff found magic at an early age
• How Abra-Kid-Abra helps kids with their presentation skills
• How partnering with his competitors has turned into more business
• How Jeff cornered the market on after school programs and uses that to fuel his other service offerings

If you’re wanting to add a little magic to your day, this podcast is a great listen!

Find out more about Abra-Kid-Abra at the website: www.abrakid.com

Prefer to watch the original broadcast/video?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYohXRPOdkk

pssst…. want to be a guest on the show?

NtR20: Douglas (Coach) McFarlin: Bottled Water for Homeless Veterans

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:10 — 31.3MB)

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Navigate the Rapids is a weekly podcast of business profiles like this one. Click here to subscribe on iTunes.

Business Profile: H2O(H)

“The words homeless and veteran should not be in the same sentence.”

This is one of the first things Douglas ‘Coach’ McFarlin said to me when I first met him.

And this mantra continues in his business – H2O(H) – a business model where bottled water is sold to help furnish homes for veterans.  It’s one of the most unique (and inspiring!) business models I’ve ever seen.

In this business profile interview, find out things like:

• How a chance meeting with a homeless vet stirred Coach to start H2O(H)
• How some failures can lead to a more profitable business
• How singers like Lionel Ritchie and Carrie Underwood are involved with H2O(H)

If you want a dose of inspiration for your business, this is a great one to listen to!

Find out more about H20(H) at the website: https://h2oh.us

Prefer to watch the original broadcast/video?

pssst…. want to be a guest on the show?

NtR19: The Pivot

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:20 — 5.2MB)

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Seasons Change

In order for any business to really succeed, it needs to be nimble and adapt to changes.  The same is true of the Navigate the Rapids podcast.

Over the past year, I’ve been fortunate enough to interview some terrific experts, no doubt about it.  But now it’s time for Navigate the Rapids to adapt and change – so this short 5 minute episode is about that ‘pivot’ in the way our future episodes will be done.

Of course, I’d love your comments about the shift in my approach – positive or negative!

NTR16: Experienced Trademark & Copyright Attorney Morris Turek

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Part of running a successful business means having your legal ducks in a row – protecting yourself and your brand from thieves and competitors.  A big piece of your branding is your logo and tagline, so having those protected – and knowing why that’s needed – is what we’re talking about in this episode of Navigate the Rapids.  Attorney Morris Turek breaks it down for us in this very enlightening and educational session.

You’ll Learn:

• The difference between trademark and copyright law
• How to find out if someone is infringing on your protected assets
• What “fair use” means and how to determine if you can use someone else’s trademarked work
• What do to if you get a cease & desist in the mail (hint: it’s a serious matter)

BONUS Video Footage for Red Canoe Elite Members:

• Registering your competitor’s trademarks: What can you get away with?
• Buying competitor’s domain names: What can you get away with?
• Who owns photographs or articles when you hire someone to do them?
• What two line sentence you should add to every content-creation contract (including photographers)
• Find out about Red Canoe Elite

Links Mentioned in this Episode

• YourTrademarkAttorney.com
• Google Alerts
• The obvious trademark infringement from Coming to America (video)

About Morris Turek

Morris Turek is a trademark and copyright attorney located in St. Louis, Missouri. He helps entrepreneurs, businesses, organizations, and educational institutions avoid the high costs and devastating effects of being sued for intellectual property infringement. Morris focuses his practice of law almost exclusively on trademark and copyright clearance, federal trademark and copyright registration, intellectual property litigation, and intellectual property licensing. He is a 2005 graduate of St. Louis University School of Law and is the owner and founder of YourTrademarkAttorney.com.

Find Morris on Twitter: @TMAttorney

Watch This Episode

NTR 15: Communication Strategist Chris Reimer

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If you’ve ever wondered how an accountant could turn into a social media influencer and marketing strategist, you’ll find out on this episode with my guest Chris Reimer. His down to earth charm makes this an easy listen – plus Chris shares some great information about his new book, which if you haven’t picked up yet, you really should.

You’ll Learn

• How Chris went from accountant to tee shirt salesman to marketer
• The lessons learned by running a tee shirt business
• How social media has influenced the way people find employment
• How the movie Office Space affected the writing of the book Happywork
• How small, seemingly insignificant management decisions can sometimes leave a huge impact on your employees

(more…)

NTR 13: Email Marketing Expert Tom Ruwitch

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 36:55 — 42.5MB)

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Did you know that over 95% of people that access the internet have an email address (or five)?

Did you know that around 90% of those people compulsively check their email multiple times a day?

The truth is out – email marketing remains one of the best and most widely opened/accepted forms of marketing.

In this episode I talked with Tom Ruwitch from MarketVolt, a terrific email service provider located in Saint Louis, Missouri.  Tom shares some terrific tips and secrets about email marketing and segmenting your list for better overall results.

You’ll Learn

• If email is a dead & obsolete technology
• What is an ESP and why you should use one
• Some keys to a successful email marketing campaign
• Mistakes you should try to avoid when putting together an email campaign
• How B2C and B2B businesses use email marketing differently
• How to ‘Market to the Maybes’
• What Tom means by ‘Separating prospects from suspects’

BONUS Video Footage for Red Canoe Elite Members:

• The big question – when is the best time to send an email or newsletter for the best response & engagement?
• Which days work best for various industries
• Advanced strategies for planning an email campaign
• How to keep customers engaged, even if they only buy from you in very long cycles (years!)
• Find out about Red Canoe Elite

Links Mentioned in This Episode

• MarketVolt
• 5in25 Webinar series

About Tom Ruwitch

Tom Ruwitch  is a business growth specialist with nearly 20 years’ experience helping businesses and individuals thrive using innovative, interactive marketing. He is the founder and president of MarketVolt, a marketing firm that is best known for its powerful, easy-to-use email marketing software. MarketVolt helps businesses implement powerful technology and bright ideas to attract leads, engage prospects, close sales, and maximize retention and referrals.
Tom has helped to establish MarketVolt as one of the midwest’s leading interactive technology and marketing firms. He serves as the company’s lead consultant for clients who seek web site, email, social media, and other marketing guidance. Tom is an experienced web developer, copy-writer, and direct response marketer. He is especially adept at helping businesses coordinate their online and offline marketing efforts. He has experience designing and executing marketing campaigns for small business startups and publicly traded companies.

Tom is a speaker and consultant who appears regularly as a featured presenter at business expos and other events. He writes a monthly marketing column for a business journal in St. Louis, and he is a guest blogger on marketing topics for many online publications.

https://vimeo.com/118520309

Transcript:

Will:  Hello everyone welcome to the navigate the rapids podcast today is January 30 2015 name is Will Hanke today we’re going be talking about something I think a lot of people maybe over look and that’s email marketing my guess today is Tom Ruwitch, founder and president of marketvolt one of the mid-west leading interactive technology and marketing firms he sever as the company leads consultant for clients who seek websites, email, social media and other marketing guidance Tom is an experience web developer, copywriter and directs respond marketer. He has especially helped businesses coordinate their online and offline marketing effort, he has experience designing and executing marketing plans for a small business start-up and publicly traded companies. Tom thanks for bring on the show.

Tom:  Thank you Will it was a great pleasure.

Will:  Very excited to have you on today and like I mentioned earlier a lot of people still even today don’t realise the power behind simple email marketing.

Tom:  I agree we hear that old cliché that email marketing is dead and nothing could be further from the truth.

Will:  Yeah before we jump in and start asking a lot of questions why don’t you tell me a little bit about how did you get started at marketvolt.

Tom:   Sure, sure it was about 14 years ago it was way back in 2001 before a lot of people even heard about email marketing and I’ve come out of a media background, I’ve a newspaper reporter for a long time worked on the online side of the newspaper as well as the print side and it wasn’t as if I’ve done email marketing I’m not going to complain or claim to be better at the internet the some political did a few years ago. I got on to the idea of email and internet marketing because what I really recognised the best way to connect buyers and sellers was to do so through interactive technologies and email a certainly an established an emerging one at that point the old media advertising models were on advisement on some page of the newspaper or a billboard or some space in the television ad hope people see that and then hope people act and buy and so forth but the internet, email certainly back in that day was all about having a conversation and connecting buyers and sellers in much more interactive way and I saw that back in 2000 or so when I could and we built it and over time the power and the potential of email has emerged and has continued to really be an important force on how buyers and sellers connect .

Will:   So ah were you still working when you started the marketvolt thing, were you still working as a reporter.

Tom:  I had left the newspaper and was involved in an internet start-up called sports we had built software for the newspaper industry to collect and published  sports statistics we build that company up and raise money built it from me and my other co-founder to about  85 a people and sold it in 2000 and it was in that time from 2000 and 2001 that I was working on the next thing and develop the idea for marketvolts and built it.

Will:   Oh great that’s a very cool story.

Tom:   Yeah.

Will:   And I think I’ve heard of the sports thing it’s been quite a while very cool. So you’ve mentioned earlier about email being that’s not the case you say.

Tom:   Not the case at all, it’s been short of this myth or this slim that emerges over the years and when RSSV came out on websites that’s going to kill email and certainly when social media came alone that’s going to kill email and the reality is email is still enormously important part of all of our lives 95% of the people on the internet have email accounts and 90% of the people who have email accounts check their email compulsively, multiple times a day hourly sometimes and they are so stabbed that I saw in the study that—the same study that set 95% check impulsively 8% of people in that survey said they would check their email minutes or moments after they had sex it’s kind of a I hoped for your loved ones sake that you are not among that 8% I share not to gross people out or make this too R rated but I shared that so I could emphasize the idea that the people or checking their email and you have an opportunity to be in front of them and if you’re not emphasizing email is part of the marketing fix you’re missing the opportunity to have those conversations and be in front of audiences and then the numbers are not shrinking the return on investment, the number of people using email the amount of revenue generated by email that’s not going down if anything going up.

Will:   Yeah I would say the ways of communicating by far emails is the one that’s used the most and compulsively check the most often, I don’t log into twitter and see what somebody said in the last 10 minutes.

Tom:   Right.

Will:   I am running a business however most people– well ok all of the people that will communicate with me that’ll pick up the phone and call me or they send me an email, you’re not going to shoot me a message on twitter or Google plus or something.

Tom:   Right it’s true, it just remain in an essential  element of our daily lives both given our lives as consumers and our lives as business people so the tool works in different ways for different segments (07:00?) but it’s equally affective because we’re active in email as consumers we’re in email as business people and so the medium is important in both segment of business.

Will:   Yeah, yeah so you’re a and why should businesses use one for email marketing?

Tom:   Yeah so ESP is an acronym that stands for email service providers  and fundamentally there are many, many businesses market full my company is among them that are in that category and the service is software typically web posted software, you have an account you can log into the account you can use the account for the following things to store and segment your list, it has a built in database for you to manage your list and segment them into categories, creating content where you don’t have to be a HTML a web expert you can create content that is compelling and with basic word processing skills to do so, sending an email with confidence if you try to send bluck email to multiple people and do it from your own computer chances are you’re not going to get many of them true and chances are over time your internet service provider  will say “stop doing it or we’re going to cancel your account” and so sending with confidence that the emails will get through to the inboxes is very, very important and finally the ability to track and then automate. So emails service providers who open your emails who have click which links who forwarded them and then depending on the system there is automation that can follow automatically segmenting your list automatically sending follow ups and our system has a lot of those capabilities and so why is it so important to use an ESP? It just makes it easier to do all of those things and it removes the headache and hassle of processing and making sure your email is getting through, you’re paying a service to make sure it gets done.

Will:  Yeah and its definitely worth paying someone instead of trying to do that on your own because even if you’re smart enough to keep a database and all those kind of stuff you’re just not going to keep up with especially if you’re trying to grow your list it’s just going to become more and more of a problem.

Tom:  Yeah and I want to make that when people understand when you and I are using the term ‘pay someone’ you’re paying for the software that helps you do it yourself, the key thing is you’re still creating the email , you’re still pressing send it’s still you’re name on top of the email it’s you doing the work the software just makes the work so much easier and makes the results so much better you’re paying for that system that does the work for you now in some cases companies like ours provide the services too so if you don’t want to do the work yourself you can hire our consultants or our experts to help you some companies do that and some of the SP’s do it, some of the SP’s don’t so that’s a very different sub categories within the space in terms of service but ESP probably refers to the software.

Will:  Well thanks for clarifying that up I appreciate that, so let’s talk about someone who wants to create their own email campaign what are some of the successful keys that they need to put in place?

Tom:  Yeah the 1^st is planning if you don’t go into it with a plan you are bound to fail so many businesses will get into email marketing and this principle applies also to social media or any other marketing  we have to do this for whatever reason…..

Will:  When we get to the twitter we have to be there because we heard.

Tom:  Yeah why you’re doing it? Well my competitors do it my boss told me to do it that’s a good, understand why you’re doing it what are you try to achieve, what are the business goals, what are you going to say and why. We have a planning process that we can help our clients go through don’t have a whole lot of time to focus on that today  but the key thing it typical scenario of businesses all around the first of the month every month I’m going to send them an email and newsletter or month, weekly or every second Monday but just some periodic approach and then more of these businesses will get to about the 30^th or the 29^th of the month two are three days in advance of the deadline and their—the person responsible is thinking what heck have I ever this month and it’s a hassle it doesn’t work you’re blowing an investment so without planning you’re going to fail so that’s thing number 1. Thing number 2 is with email marketing you really want to focus on getting permission from the people you’re going to contact you don’t want to scrap together a list from a business directory or some chamber guide or visiting people’s website and just pulling emails off you don’t want to buy list and just being to pound people over and over again with spam. What you want to do is give people reasons to raise their hand and join your mailing list by providing valuable tips on your websites and drawing people to your website and giving people a reason to sign up by asking them when you meet them at networking events or if you speak there all sorts of list building tactics but the key thing is that you’re having a conversation with who said “hey Will I want to hear from you” or “hey Tom I want to hear from you” and that’s a good and to the 3^rd point is the reason they want to hear from you is you’re proving value if all you do is pitch, pitch, pitch they’ll tune out because people who are in an audience who you’re trying to connect with only the smallest percentage of those people are already buyers or really on the verge of a buying decision you’re talking to the 99% who are not on the verge of buying decision and all you’re saying is here is the latest deal buy now they’re tuned out but if you’re providing useful information tips, interesting information they’ll continue to read they’ll forward, they’ll share so far 3 points very quickly summarised. Plan, build a list with permission and provide value in your emails and you will be successful.

Will:  Yeah to the point of providing value I just helped one of my clients get set up to start sending out normal newsletters they were very  accidently sending them out every once in a while and usually when somebody meeting something along the line of newsletter “oh we got to get our newsletter” anyway we said “okay” I got it all ready for him the and of course in this business owner mind it’s let’s talk about the sale, here’s what our latest sale was this month ok we could probably do that I’m going to put a couple blogs in there and things like that to break it up a little bit so we send that one out two weeks later “hey we need to do another one because there is a new sale coming and we really need to push that” and I think a lot of business owner even when they get that part down they still think they just need to push out sales all the time.

Tom:   Yeah and it doesn’t work over time because if you are proving content that people see as irrelevant or too pitchy they will being to tune out so you’re open rates will decrease your rate people say “take me off your list” will increase and your spam complain rates will increase people will click that “hey this is a spam” button that they have in their email software even if they signed up and gave permission if your emails are annoying them they’ll click the spam button and as a result you’ll have even more trouble getting  the emails through because some of the filters may think you are a spammer because people are complaining about your emails so keep it relevant and provide value.

Will:  Yeah, that’s exactly what happened to we started getting all these unsubscribes ad of course and it was all on me this wasn’t happening before well you weren’t sending anything before so there is nothing to unsubscribe to.

Tom:  I have a blog Will blog.marketvault.com and I forget how recently it was it’s probably today the 3^rd or 4^th most recent blog post and I know this will be our so  might have to find it but it talks about the headline of the blog posted something like ‘is your email too pitchy’ or something like that and the point of the post is that in a survey of marketing people be people we’re not marketing people but in a survey of businesses  the respondents said that marketing fails to sway them because they feel it’s too pitchy so the communications they receive coming are too pitchy now that the key thing to remember is that is you still can pitch its ok to pitch you just have to be selective and discriminate about how you do it and when you.

Will:  Yeah I went back in and said “you know what we got to switch this up” we need to provide value as you said and then oh by the way we’re having a sale and I think that approaches working much better a lot less unsubscribe

Tom:  Yeah and one of the ways to think about it is the emails that you are sending are always opportunities for you too prospect and identify your best folks because you’re able to know who opens your emails and who clicks so a great example that we use is the example of a music store bricks and mortar music store and within that database let’s say a thousand people sign up for the email list you might only have 100 people who have any interest in classical music a lot of rock and roll fans a lot of blues fans whatever only but only 100 people are interested in classical music so if for whatever reason you have classical CD’s on sale and you begin to pitch that sale to 1000 people you’re getting 900 people don’t give a whoot about it and a lot of us 900 people are going to tune out and be annoyed. So what can you do in a newsletter you can have a little bit of everything for everybody that’s a core principle a newsletter if you’re sending it to the whole list hit everybody’s –get everybody’s interest a little bit of everything for everybody a little bit of roll and roll a little bit of jazz a little bit of classical and then the classical then could have a link read the interview with the new conductor at the orchestra and then pay attention who’s showing interest in your stuff about classical music, people who click are obviously interested in classical music and over time you can begin to build segments in your database and even immediately following that newsletter so if somebody clicks that link I’m going to send them a coupon for my classical music sale and you’re hitting maybe only 15, 20, 30 people but those 30 people are really going to be happy to get those coupon and they are going to come into the store and meanwhile you are not annoying 900 people, who clearly won’t have any interest in that.

Will:   Right yeah well that’s definitely interesting. So music stores are a great kind of b to c way of doing things. How about b to b and does it work the same?

Tom:   You know we were talking before we started and you were talking about in these meet ups you got to turn off all the noise in the background. I am a working person and the phone is ringing off the hook here at market vaults.

Will:   It’s good, it’s like the telethon with all the phones ringing in the background.

Tom:   Yeah it’s so darn busy here. So you were asking about b to b.  It works in similar ways and we were talking about the myth of email being dead. We hear all the time from b to b people, “Well I am not going to sell some $5,000 piece of equipment or some consulting engagement that’s worth thousands and thousands of dollars on an email and that’s probably true. In many b to b businesses, sales are going to be get done with face to face and direct consultation in the same way that sales were being made 10 or 20 years ago; but the path to the sale can be significantly different. Who do you call or how do you get to a meeting? You might have again a thousand people in your roller desk and the old style sales hustle would be knock on every door on every floor, call people over and over again, cold call until you break through and get yourself to ten meetings. Well with email marketing we talk about the concept of separating prospects from suspects. You can send an email that has something about a particular product. I will take an example from a printing company with which we work. They do standard printing stuff and the people in their database are all interested in the standard printing but they also have a very specialized product that’s expensive and very niche and that’s counterfeit proof printing; printing that has a seal in it, for things that you have to verify that this is in fact a thing. That company in its email newsletter, included last January in advance of the Superbowl, an article about how around the Superbowl, the idea of secure printing is really important because you have the mementos and the photos and the programs and for collectors you have to use secure printing technology to verify that this is the official program and not a counterfeit knockoff. So they shared that article or they linked to an article and what they recognized strategically, is the people that are clicking through on that article are interested in the concept of secure counterfeit proof printing and those are the people that our sales reps can calls or email directly. Say like, “Hey you know I was wondering whether you saw that article we had in our newsletter, we offer a service like that and I was wondering if you are interested?” Now they are going to get to a sales meeting or get through on the telephone much more quickly and much more effectively that way, they will get to their 10 meetings or their 20 meetings or their 30 meeting much more quickly by identify prospects based on who is clicking on an email than if they just called a thousand people in a course of a month or whatever it would take and knocking on doors randomly it’s a very efficient way to identify your prospect by sending valuable and interesting information and paying attention to whose showing interest than following up.

Will:  Yeah and we’re going to have John on here in a couple weeks about cold calling and the great thing about the email is its intrusive so it shows up when you’re ready to open it.

Tom:  That’s right, that’s right but even we have worked with John, John is a great tele prospector and what we’ve done with campaigns with John, yeah it’s a cold calling in many cases the primary call to action might be on calling on behalf of so and so and we’ve like to set up a meeting and people will say not interested but we’ll have a secondary call of action would you like some free report could we get your email to send you something that you would value and then they’ll say “yes” much higher rates of sure I’ll take a meeting so for every person who takes a meeting and you might have 30 people who give you their email address and then we track who clicks or who opens the email and we invested in other phone call to those people because they say no at first but they got my thing and they’ll pick up the phone and you get additional action on the back side or it might not even be John doing the follow up calling it might be the business person directly or the sales rep this idea of knowing who your prospects are because you can track who’s opening your email and they welcome the email , who opened the email who clicked on the link they are showing interest they are more likely to answer the phone because they know you and are paying attention to your  content and they are more likely to take that next step, sales meeting, whatever the case maybe.

Will:   Yeah it’s interesting how they say no but then you see them opening the emails and that’s actually something I heard you talk about before, it’s kind of marketing to the maybes. What do you mean by that?

Tom:  Well if you think about putting a marketing message in front of a thousand people, that small percentage of people who are ready buyers, you know in sales we talk about the person who has the need and the authority and the resources to make the purchase and all three of those things have to be  at the moment you are putting a marketing message in front of a person, in order for that person to say, “Okay I am buying it”. Then you may also have the opposite spectrum, those are the yes es; you have the opposite spectrum: I have no need , I have no interest, I have no desire, I am happy with whom I am with, or I know you and I don’t want your product, the flat out nos. You won’t move them, they are not coming around. But that whole spectrum in-between is the maybes and if in your marketing, whether it’s a print piece or a teleprospecting script or a billboard or a television ad, if you provide some way for the maybes to raise their hand; it’s not yes I will buy, it’s sure I will give you my email address for a free report or for something of value or I will text 12345 to enter a contest and then reply with my email address when the text ask me to get an additional something. The maybes, if you can get them to raise their hands so that they can give you their email address and you can then begin to engage them with ongoing valuable content, you will convert more sales over time, it’s as simple as that; the bigger your email list, the more sales you will convert over time. It may not be tomorrow but it will happen and so thinking of your marketing communications, your advertising and so forth as an opportunity not just to jump to please to meet you will you buy but please to meet you, will you buy and If you think of your marketing communications as not just please to meet you will you buy? But please to meet you, can we begin a conversation? Which is what you are really asking the maybes, you are going to have great success doing your marketing communications.

Will:  Yeah I have something huge that I started steering a lot of my clients towards, like hey let’s offer some sort of a free check list, let’s offer a top 7 tips or something like that that they can give an email address, they can pull it down and there is no sales pitched involved; it’s purely just giving them a piece of value and it’s something that they can consume very quickly, it’s not a 200 page eBook where they are just going to give up 3 pages in. But that has made the entire list building process a lot simpler.

Tom:   Yeah we have one on our blog, on the sidebar of our blog website. 10 secrets to write subject lines that sell and you enter your name, you enter your email address and you get a two pager with 10 quick tips and if you are doing email marketing, this is going to be valuable to you. And from our perspective, marketing our business, the person who is thinking about, “how can I make my emails more effective” is the person we want to be talking with and we want to provide value to. So what follows that opt-in is a follow-up email telling them a little bit more about our company, telling them a little bit more about the value we will provide if they stay on the mailing list, here are more tips, here is what you can expect and over time, many of those who sign up for that free report ask for demos, sign up for the software, become customers.

Will:  And this is automated right they click on the link on the side of your  blog fill out their email address and it automatically emails them, it does this automatically right?

Tom:  Yeah and in fact the way that we start to talk about the product, you know the balance between pitching and value, we say, “Hey by the way here is an email thanking you, thank you very much for downloading the thing, we hope you find it valuable, we will continue to send you some stuff, by the way this email was sent to you automatically, setting up automated marketing processes is a really important thing for you to do as a business” that’s a tip. Setting up automated marketing processes is a way to help grow your business and here is how I did it. And the here is how I did it is beginning to describe our system, our software. So we are establishing that relationship, we are providing value, you just got some tips, but we work our way into pitching. So it goes back to that point I made before; it’s not that you should never talk about your products and services and be afraid to pitch; you just have to do it in a context where it’s going to be welcomed and ere it makes sense and it is not over killing the irrelevant stuff.

Will:   Yeah so another thing I heard you talked about was separating the prospects from the suspects; can you explain that concept and how it applies to email marketing?

Tom:  Yeah we were talking about that a little bit before this idea, link tracking and in a b to b or b to c. The paying attention to the classical music fans who click the link, those are my prospects and the people who are never opening the email or never clicking, those are the suspects and part of the idea is that you want to call your list over time, you don’t want to keep pounding emails to people who are showing no interest and occasional people will just sign up and tune out over time. And so in marketing and sales in general your goal is to have as many conversations with the true prospects who welcome your communications and minimize the amount of time you are spinning your wheels with the suspects. Now you can send emails to anybody and there is not a whole lot of additional cost by sending or apparently any additional cost if you press send and send it to everybody; but if you send everything to everybody every time without paying attention to separating the prospects suspects, what we talked about before is your open rates will go down, your spam complaints will go up and you will have less returns.

Will:   Yeah well listen I appreciate you being on this show today, this has been terrific information.

Tom:  I am really, really happy to be here and to spend some time with you and it’s a great program you have going and I am going to continue to tune in. Next time I am on or going to hangout with you or anyone else, I am going to unplug the phone before I start.

Will: Yeah I think I told you that we did one before With Cathy and her cat jumped up on the table and ran across the screen; that was fun.

Tom:  Yeah well cats do that, you know you can’t keep the cats off the keyboard.

Will:   Right so tell me how people can find out more about marketvolt?

Tom:  So first of all I like communicating one to one with people. So if you have a direct question or want to reach out to me, you can reach me at [email protected] Our website that talks about our products and services and has resources on it is marketvolt.com. The blog that I mentioned that’s marketing tips of all sorts, not just email marketing but all things is blog.marketvolt.com. And we have a new thing that I wanted to encourage people to check out and that’s called 5in25.com, the idea there it’s a webinar series; 5 powerful marketing tips delivered in just 25 minutes. We typically do it in the middle of the day so you can grab a bite to eat, sit at your computer and in 25 minutes we cover all sorts of cool stuff, tips for b to b marketing, b to c marketing. So check out the site, we have a different slate of webinars at different times; if you click 5in25 you will see what we have, always free, always 25 minutes.

Will:   Can people go back and see the previous ones that you have done?

Tom:  We have things archive in different places and we are working on that but for now the best way is to sign up for one. If you can’t attend at the date that you see when you hit the link, sign up and you will get a link after the date that it runs, we have the video in our archives.

Will:  Which is what a lot of people do, they will sign up for the webinar and know that the recording will come later.

Tom:  Right

Will:   That’s okay. Well listen I really appreciate you being on this show today. Marketvolt is a wonderful system, I have got several clients who use it as well and I really appreciate the tips on the segmenting and the marketing to the maybes, those were terrific.

Tom:  Thanks Will, thanks very much.

Will: Thanks everyone for watching this show today, my name is Will Hanke hopefully we have helped you today to navigate the rapids of business a little better.

NTR1: Introduction

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In the premier episode of Navigate the Rapids (audio only), Red Canoe Media’s owner Will Hanke explains tells us a little about himself and the explains just what the Hangout and podcast series will be about – what’s the motivation behind it and what the plans are for the new show.

It’s short, sweet and to the point!