Debbie Gillum Wakefield

I’m in Boston for Inbound19!

It’s exciting to travel to such a huge conference in the marketing industry. I’d wanted to go to Inbound someday and am thankful MedVet gave me this opportunity. I’m going to take so many notes to bring back to the team.

The kick-off welcome session tonight was by Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of that book and movie you’ve heard of: Eat, Pray, Love. I admit I haven’t read any of her books or seen the movie with Julia Roberts. I started both and couldn’t finish. So, I was hesitant that I would not enjoy nor get anything out of her session. I didn’t have much to base that assumption on, I just pessimistically had a negative assumption.

But, she really inspired me. She spoke from her heart about how writing has always been her passion. She moved to New York City to fulfill her dream of being a writer but was working so many odd jobs to pay rent that she didn’t have time to write. She told this to a mentor and the mentor looked at her and stated:

“What are you willing to give up to pursue the life you’re pretending you want?”

She then asked her more questions to prove her point: “What’s your favorite TV show? What are you reading? How was brunch with your friends this weekend? What’s your next vacation?” She was indicating that if Liz had time for those things, then she had free time to write. It was a matter of prioritizing. She needed to make her dream of being a writer her number one priority.

Then Elizabeth Gilbert talked about Relaxing. She said that this word is underused and undervalued. When you Google “relaxing” she noted that images of hot stone massages are mostly what appears. If you’re waiting to relax once you’re rich, sorry but rich people are stressed too.

She described a friend she met who whenever someone asked him how he was that day he would respond with “It’s gonna be alright.” He wasn’t answering their question (in fact, he was creating a new question) but there was something relaxing about his demeanor. He kept his shoulders lowered, didn’t get fired up easily, and took time to listen to others. I admired that guy and after her talk noticed myself trying to bring down my shoulders, take a deep breath and relax.

She said that in a herd of horses, the alpha is a strong mare who keeps the other horses calm. When she is calm, that behavior spreads. She remains calm because nobody messes with her. The other horses know they must ask permission from before approaching. her. She doesn’t need approval from any other horses nor does she let their fears or worries affect her. It was quite a relatable message from the animal kingdom.

13509028_1048293451919436_1679008451270604317_n — Photo from Elizabeth Gilbert’s Facebook page

Going off of that, I loved most what she talked about when she said you need to figure out your priorities. Draw a circle around you and protect that.

She described a moment in her life when she found out her partner was terminally ill. She canceled speaking engagements, canceled appointments and flew home immediately. She looked in her email inbox and deleted all the nonimportant emails, even if they were unopen. She prioritized her partner.

Now, I’m not going to go that extreme, but it got me thinking about what my priorities are. My first thought was Nate, Emily, and my parents. The people I care most about in the world and who know me better than I know myself. Then I wanted to add in some non-human priorities like: Honesty, Writing, Humor, and Creativity. I know I want to live a life where I can have Nate, Emily, and my parents with me. I want to live a life where I can be myself, tell the truth in my writing, be goofy sometimes and try new out of the box ideas.

So not only did Elizabeth Gilbert totally prove wrong the assumption I had, she helped me think more about my priorities and what’s important to me right now. Thanks!

2019, august, social media, Uncategorized, work, work sample

Sharing the news of MedVet Chicago’s brand-new hospital on Facebook and LinkedIn

August 31, 2019February 9, 2020 Debbie

Last week I traveled for work to Chicago to support the opening of a brand-new state-of-the-art veterinary emergency hospital.

Another Marketing team member and I drove to different referral partners (this is what we call veterinary practices that refer patients to MedVet’s emergency and specialty hospitals) around Chicago. We told the staff about our new hospital opening up, explained the phone number was staying the same and how we were expanding our services.
I admit it was outside of my comfort zone a bit because I don’t usually have a lot of face-to-face interactions with veterinarians, practice managers or our referral partners. I prefer to stay behind-the-scenes as support, but I can certainly muster up the courage and extroverted side of my personality and talk to new people. I learned a lot from the team members I was with about how we speak about MedVet to referral partners and how MedVet is perceived by others.

We were able to take a tour of the new hospital in Chicago before it opened to the public and I was blown away by how large it is. I believe it’s 6,000 square feet. The old hospital was comprised of two different buildings with multiple floors so doctors and clients had to do a lot of walking up and down flights of stairs. This new hospital is all one floor, which I’m sure the staff is very excited about.

The day the new hospital opened, I set into action my digital marketing plan that I’d made with the Chicago Regional Marketing Director to update the hospital address across our digital channels. I updated our address on our:

Facebook page
Yelp page
Google My Business listing
Apple Maps
Multiple spots on our website

Updating an address online is important but this felt more important than normal because the stakes were higher. We needed to ensure that no one accidentally drove to the old hospital, especially during an emergency with their pet.

As part of this plan to tell our audience about our Chicago hospital moving, I worked closely again with the Chicago Regional Marketing Director and the Marketing leadership to write a press release that was shared on our website and distributed through PR Newswire.

I posted on Facebook and LinkedIn. I wanted to take a moment to talk about how well those two posts did.

We posted on the Chicago hospital’s Facebook page about the move and boy, did that post explode. I mean, it was a positive explosion of engagement.

chicago medvet hospital facebook — This Facebook post had the most engagement in MedVet’s history. I admit I wasn’t expecting this strong of a reaction from our Facebook audience to this news. I should’ve expected it because at Volunteers of America, I’d actually experienced something similar where a post about the grand opening of our new Pickerington thrift store has uncharacteristically high engagement. I learned that social media posts about new locations tend to go viral.

page analytics facebook medvet chicago — You can see we gained 479-page likes in just one week; a huge increase from our normal growth. More importantly than the increase in page likes, we saw a 537% increase in Post Engagements.

facebook likes increase chicago medvet — Before this post, we had 4,624 likes. After the post, we has 5,099 page likes. That’s a 475 increase!

chicago medvet facebook likes — Showing the increase in Page Likes through a visual graph.

We also shared the news of the new hospital on LinkedIn and again, our audience was very excited, resulting in high levels of engagement.

You can see the copy of the LinkedIn post is very similar to the Facebook post copy but we chose to use two images rather than just one.

Screen Shot 2019-08-31 at 1.26.12 PM — In our LinkedIn strategy, one of our goals is to gain more engagement in the form of comments so we were pleased to see six comments on this post where we usually only see 1-2 comments on a post.

linkedin analytics medvet — You can see here how this post had significantly higher engagement and impressions that our previous posts.

2019, blog, blog post, Uncategorized, work sample

A blog post I wrote for MedVet

August 16, 2019February 9, 2020 Debbie

I wanted to add this blog post to my online portfolio, here. I worked with our MedVet marketing team to create this.

This piece of content started when I reached out to our resident content pro, marketing team member, Debra who is a veterinarian. She’s like our subject matter expert. I asked her if she could help me write a blog post about how ibuprofen can be toxic to dogs. I’d heard from friends and family that people were giving their dogs ibuprofen, intending for it to relieve their pain, but instead, realizing it can be harmful to dogs. Debra wrote up a draft, chock full of valuable information to pet owners. I made some edits to the post to try and make it more targeted to pet-owners, rephrasing some of the technical terms and using laymen’s terms. Then the post was also revised and edited by my boss and my boss’s boss.

I reached out to our marketing team to ask if anyone would be willing to photograph their dog next to a bottle of ibuprofen, for this blog post. Jenn sent me these awesome photos the very next day. She assured me the seal was still on the pill bottle, so no dogs were harmed in the making of these photos. I love using photos from our team rather than stock photography. It helps distinguishes our content and helps us be a thought leader.

Here’s the blog post:

Is Ibuprofen Toxic to Dogs?

The most common cause of ibuprofen toxicity is a well-meaning owner trying to alleviate pain in his dog.

Some commonly used medicines that are safe for humans are very toxic to pets. Ibuprofen is helpful to humans but harmful to dogs. Remember to always consult your family veterinarian before giving your pet any medicine, especially if it’s from your own medicine cabinet.

What is ibuprofen?

Ibuprofen is a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (commonly referred to as an NSAID- pronounced with the letter n-said). Ibuprofen is a popular and effective over-the-counter medication available to treat pain and inflammation in people.

What are other names of ibuprofen?

Human formulations of ibuprofen include: Motrin® (McNeil), Advil® (Whitehall-Robins), Haltran® (Lee Pharmaceutical), Midol® (Bayer), Menadol® (Rugby), PediaCare (Pharmacia & Upjohn), and various generic forms of ibuprofen.

What is ibuprofen toxicity?

For dogs, ibuprofen can easily exceed toxic levels. Ibuprofen has a narrow margin of safety in dogs. Signs of toxicosis can occur when as little as half a 200 mg pill is given to a 25 pound dog.The most common cause of ibuprofen toxicity is a well-meaning owner trying to alleviate pain in his dog. The owner administers a dose he thinks is adequate without knowing that it’s a toxic dose. The most common toxic effects are to the gastrointestinal (GI) tract, kidneys or liver.

Ibuprofen in dogs eventually lead to kidney failure and, if left untreated, can be fatal.

What are the signs of ibuprofen toxicity?

In as little as 12 hours, signs of toxicity can begin to appear. The initial toxic effect is bleeding stomach ulcers. In addition to ulcers, increasing doses of ibuprofen eventually lead to kidney failure and, if left untreated, can be fatal. Symptoms of ibuprofen toxicity in a dog may include not eating, vomiting, black tarry stools, abdominal pain, weakness, lethargy, increased thirst and increased urination. Signs can range from mild to severe.

How does a veterinarian diagnose ibuprofen toxicity?

Diagnosis of ibuprofen toxicity is generally based on a veterinarian performing a physical exam and obtaining a history of access or exposure to ibuprofen. Blood tests are done to determine the overall health of the dog. If ibuprofen was ingested, blood tests may reveal anemia from a bleeding ulcer or abnormalities secondary to kidney damage.

How is ibuprofen toxicity treated?

Treatment will depend on the dose ingested and clinical signs. Veterinary care can include hospitalization with continuous intravenous fluids for one to two days. All steroids and NSAIDs need to be discontinued immediately. Activated charcoal may be given if ingestion was recent (less than two hours). Blood transfusion can be recommended in dogs with severe anemia due to bleeding ulcers. Stomach protecting medications are commonly given.

How do you prevent ibuprofen toxicity?

The best preventive care is to give your dog medications only if directed by your veterinarian.

If your dog appears to be in pain, talk with your family veterinarian who may be able to prescribe you a dog-safe NSAID such as Dermaxx (also known as Deracoxib), Rimadyl (also known as Carprofen), or Previcox (also known as Firocoxib.)

Call the Pet Poison Hotline at 855-764-7661 and your family veterinarian immediately if you think your dog or cat has ingested any ibuprofen. They will be able to provide life-saving advice and treatment for your pet.

2019, columbus

My Recap of the Ohio Marketing Summit

August 13, 2019August 13, 2019 Debbie

I attend the Ohio Marketing Summit for the first time.

Panel on reputation management and nurturing loyalty

Today I went to the Ohio Marketing Summit hosted by IC SUMMITS. It was great to hear marketing case studies and insights from large and small Ohio brands. My biggest takeaway was the importance of communicating with your customer rather than talking at them. Speak their language. An awesome brand will encourage consumer conversations on social media. I appreciated how Bridget from Great Lakes Brewing Company spoke about how they embrace how passionate their customers are about craft beer. Whether that’s a positive or negative passion, they use their social playbook to engage with their audience online, always in their brand voice.

I always like to write down and share my key takeaways from conferences that I attend:

Word of mouth, contagious marketing, even in the digital world, remains strong.

Hold up a mirror when deciding on something. Does this fit with who your brand is?
Market research, surveying your customer, understanding what they respond to is so valuable.
Great brands come from great strategy.
Edit to amplify.
The peanut butter approach – Spreading everything equally everywhere isn’t always the best approach to marketing
You don’t need to chase a shiny new object or new shiny marketing trend.
Status quo is the enemy of innovation.
Instead of buying expensive commercial time during a TV show, target fans of that show on Facebook. It’s a better use of your budget and it’s more trackable

Tell a story to executives rather show them the raw data. Give them an overview of if things are good, bad, or okay.
Sometimes you need to switch your strategy and benchmarks from focusing on conversions to brand awareness. You might need to first educate your audience on who you are.

Adept Marketing presented case studies that showed how they looked at a client’s existing data, redesigned their landing pages based on that data and saw an increase in conversions.
Don’t make your customers ask. Answer their questions beforehand. Add FAQ answers to landing pages. They used data from the website’s Live Chat feature to learn that customers frequently asked about price and bulk discounts so they added that information to the landing page.
Heat maps can validate your hypothesis with data. For example, if you think most people don’t scroll down to see the bottom of your webpage, you can prove that with data by looking at a heat map from a service like CrazyEgg.
You already have data. Look at it. Make a hypothesis. Test it. Redesign the user experience based on what you learned.

Don’t talk at your customer. You should be communicating with your customer.
Over scripting creates a cold response and inauthenticity

Your app will never be perfect. Try to release an MVP (minimally viable product) asap to get user data and feedback to grow from.

Great Lakes Brewing encourages and responds to all online conversations. They embrace how passionate consumers are. They created a social playbook for engaging online in their brand voice.

The Women in Leadership in Marketing panel

2019, social media

What I learned from the presentation “Social Media Strategy For Small Businesses”

August 8, 2019 Debbie

Tonight I went to a presentation called Social Media Strategy For Small Businesses at Haven Collective. I heard about the event from the Robles Design email newsletter that highlights cool upcoming marketing-related events for entrepreneurs in Columbus. This event peaked my interest because I always like hearing from other social media pros and learning from their expertise. (If you’re not learning, what are you even doing, bro?) Carissa Richardson led the event. She owns her own company Kindred Strategy, after working at different agencies and brands for 13+ years.

She talked about the difference of organic and paid posts on social media. She made the excellent point that organic posts won’t grow your following. You need to put money behind your top performing organic posts and show those to a more narrow audience, such as a custom or lookalike audience (which is more targeted than using the Interests targeting.) I like to boost the previous week’s top performing post. This statement struck me because too often business owners think the goal of social media is to grow their following and that will happen if you post organically. False. You should strategically target your posts and invest in paid social media.

Carissa briefly talked about engaging with your audience and how important it is to respond. With that being said, she addressed the elephant in the room: what to do when, (not if) someone leaves a negative comment. She suggested to post a canned response that asks the person to take the conversation offline, like “We’re so sorry to hear you had a less than ideal experience with us. Please email debbie.gillum@brand.com so we can discuss this further.” She made the point that this sort of safety net policy in place can help leadership folks feel comfortable posting on social media. I would argue that posting a copy-and-paste response each time someone complains would fan the fire. It’s like if you called a company to complain about a service and instead of reaching a human you only got the automated voice. You’d get more mad. I think you should empower whoever is managing your social media to customize that response to address what they wrote. I’m still advocating that you take the conversation offline and follow that best practice, but I think canned responses make a brand feel robotic and can aggravate fans.

My favorite part of the presentation were Carissa’s steps to creating a social media strategy

Define your social media goals. If you’re looking to grow your business your social media goal might be to increase your website traffic or grow your brand awareness and increase your post’s impressions and reach.
Audit your current social media channels. Look out for duplicate pages, old accounts and take inventory of how many followers each account has.
Build audience personas. Use existing data to create a fictional character of your customer. What are their needs? Pain points? Values?
Choose your platforms. Check Google Analytics to see what social platforms are currently working to refer traffic to your website.
Competitor Inventory. What are they doing? What can you do better?
Establish your brand voice. This also involves creating your social media mission statement which is something like “BRAND creates social content to BENEFIT for AUDIENCE.” Example: “Volunteers of America creates social media content to help thrifty shoppers save money.”
Develop a content strategy. A good idea is to post 1/3 Engaging 1/3 Curated and 1/3 Promotional. For curated content, keep a list of websites, blogs, authors who fit with your brand and subscribe to their newsletter. I like to set up Google Alerts for keywords related to the brand.
Create a measurement plan. How will you track your success? I like to measure weekly analytics and one of my most important metric is looking at what post performed the best that week. That influences my future content.

Thank you to Yasmine of Robles Design, Carissa Richardson of Kindred Strategy and Haven Collective for working together to put on such an educational event.

2019, social media, Uncategorized, work, work sample

How a Facebook Post Can Evolve Through Teamwork

July 17, 2019February 9, 2020 Debbie

I wanted to highlight a recent example of how a Facebook post went from concept to publishing and the beauty of how that idea evolved and changed through collaboration.

Concept: Hurricane Barry was barreling right into the path of our New Orleans and Mandeville MedVet hospitals so we were concerned about pets being displaced.
The Regional Marketing Partner reached out suggesting we post on Facebook if lost pets are brought into the hospital. The hospital was set up to temporarily shelter any found pets during the storm. I agreed this was a great idea and set out to make a “found pet” template in Canva.

This was my first draft. I knew it needed to have the pet’s picture, pet’s information and be on brand. I wanted a simple and straightforward design.

This is the second draft, that the Regional Marketing Partner made. I was really impressed by the sense of urgency this post conveys and the icon in the top left corner which could add consistency if we used this template on multiple posts.

Based on feedback from my manager, and from consulting our graphic designer, the post was revised a third time. The background color became lighter, the top left icon changed and we used our brand’s emergency color which is red.

So, after a couple days of back and forth and making three drafts, we needed to use this post template.

This dog was displaced in Hurricane Barry and we used the social post template our team created to find her owners and get her back home safely.

Over the weekend, a female chocolate lab came into our Mandeville hospital. We posted on Facebook about her, using our new template, and it worked! She found her owners.

2019, social media, work sample

MedVet Facebook Posts I Created

July 11, 2019February 9, 2020 Debbie

I’m proud to share some of the Facebook posts that I created for all of the 24 MedVet Facebook pages recently. My goal with the content creation has been to engage our audience while still maintaining our commitment to leading specialty healthcare for pets. I’m learning that our audience loves to interact with us, whether it’s sharing pet photos or answering our questions. I made these graphics in Canva and wrote the copy.

This informative post was targeted to cat-owners looking to learn more about what symptoms of arthritis to look out for.

We’re fortunate to have a strong base of digital cheerleaders who leave MedVet glowing 5 star reviews on Facebook, Google, Yelp and other sites. I wanted this post to thank our supporters as well as subtly encourage others to leave us a review.

Here’s another informative post we did to help pet owners protect their pets from snakes. With the temperatures rising and more dogs outside this time of year, the hospital emergency rooms often see an increase of pets coming in suffering from snake bites. I wanted this post to give practical steps a pet owner could take to snake-proof their life.

I was proud of how clever this post was. I’d like to repurpose it again closer to Halloween and Valentine’s Day too.

To increase engagement, I created this post asking our audience to guess the name of this dog. I struggled to think of a hint that would be helpful but not too easy. My hint ended up being “4+2=” and most people correctly guessed his name was Six. Our audience loved this post, not only because they got to interact with us and each other but also because they got to learn more about a police dog.

This post was a two-for-one engagement driver. Not only did we ask people to comment True or False, we also asked our audience to visit the blog post on our website to learn more about skunks. (Oh and the answer is True.)

This post drove engagement and educated pet owners about micro chipping. Polls on Facebook Pages are a relatively new feature and I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to ask our audience a simple question and try out this type of content.

The postings on this site are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of MedVet.

Uncategorized

My next chapter

April 11, 2019 Debbie

I’m proud to announce that I’ve accepted a new position at MedVet as their Digital Marketing Specialist. I can’t wait to join their talented team and help lead the way in specialty healthcare for pets.

I don’t have a dog yet. But I’ve developed quite the dog shrine in my living room.

2019, columbus, marketing, Uncategorized

What I learned at interact19

April 11, 2019April 11, 2019 Debbie

Yesterday, I went to a digital marketing conference in Columbus called interact19. I’ve been to several conferences before and I can honestly say this was one of the best I’ve attended. Every presentation and speaker was filled with actionable knowledge that I could take back and apply to my workplace. So many of the tips were practical and cost-effective, requiring just time and skill.

I’m starting a new job later this month and in my interview, my future manager asked if I knew anything about Voice Search and I said I wasn’t that familiar with it and needed to do more research about it. Well at this conference, two of the speakers talked in-depth about the state of voice search, how to use it and where it’s going in the future. Now, I have practical information I can tell my new boss about how we should be using voice search. By attending, I learned something I can apply in my job and I can show that I’m staying up to date on marketing trends and best practices.

I definitely would recommend this conference and want to go back next year. I’m grateful to Volunteers of America for making it possible for me to attend.

I want to share what I took away from each session at yesterday’s conference:

Opening + Morning Keynote: Be Mighty by John Fimiani

Unify around the brand promise
Best Buy was able to turn around their business by focusing on human relationships and creating human experiences
It’s more important to be human than it is to sell.
The University of Oregon was able to redefine themselves by investing in simple branding and aligning around a purpose. Now everyone knows that Oregon Football = Faster.

The 1% Content Strategy: Combining the top SEO and lead gen tactics to statistically beat 99% of content programs by Andy Crestodina

People link to helpful blog posts
When people link to your blog, that causes page authority and is link building

Publish your mission
- Our content is where [audience] gets [information] that offers [benefits]
  - Content mission formula :Where __ find ___ for ____
  - Our content is where moms get tips on how to save money
  - Marketers are more successful when they have a content mission statement.
- Answer the webpage visitor’s question “Why am I here?” Why is your visitor on your page? Spell it out on your webpage.
- Your email sign up link should be
  - Prominent- big and on every page
  - Promising – what will they get when they sign up?
  - Proof- how many current subscribers are there?
  - CTA- Sign Me Up
- Your social bio is your promise to your followers
Find topics they’ll love
- What does my audience want?
  - Data-driven empathy
  - Use Google autocomplete
    - “Audience” ______
  - Use keyword tool: www.keywordtool.io to find relevant keywords and blog ideas
  - Use https://answerthepublic.com/ tool
  - Use https://www.quora.com/ tool
  - Make a list of topic ideas, sorted from least detailed to most detailed
    - High-level list posts
    - Overview of a specific topic
    - In-depth detailed posts
Create Original Research
- Well-researched and evidenced content
- Original research gets linked to the most
  - It’s like a citation used in a bibliography
- Observation: you’re contributing to the conversation
- Survey: gather new data
- What are the assumptions in your industry that are lacking data?
- 10x effort = 100x results
- Spend more time creating better quality blogs
- Don’t take shortcuts. They take too long.
- Most successful content creators:
  - Write 2,000+ word articles
  - Publish more than weekly
  - Spend 6+ hours per article
  - Write guest posts
  - Publish original research
  - Collaborate with influencers
  - Add videos to articles
Write for your prospects
- What questions is your audience asking?
- Create content that answers their questions.
- Talk to other people in your organization to find these FAQ
Upgrade the visuals
- Infographics, diagrams, graphs, memes
- Let’s turn our top _____ into ______
  - Let’s turn our top blog post into a video
- Testimonials using your keywords are gold
- Test email subject lines on social
- Update, repurpose high performing content
Collaborate with influencers
- Influencers who link to your website is gold
- To find influencers search “your topic” + “blogger” “writer” “author”
- Use https://followerwonk.com/ tool
- Use https://buzzsumo.com/ tool
- Work with influencers for
  - Deep dive interview
    - People love to be interviewed
    - They’ll be flattered
  - Use their quote in your blog
    - Include the influencer in your content
    - Single Point of View content is a thing of the past. Think of it, a news article would never use just one source. You should use multiple sources too.
    - Use a headshot with their quote
Write for other websites
- Guest blog, collaborate
- Write an article for them, send it to them.
  - “Here I wrote this for you. Here you go.”
- Pitch to podcast hosts
- Repurpose How-To articles into How-Not-To articles to be published on other websites

Research who is linking to your site.

Research how many links your competitors have.

If you make content that’s Mission Driven, Research Anchored, Influencer Powered, and PR Focused, you’ll be in the 1%

Search	Social
Long form text	Compelling visuals
Answers questions	Triggers emotion
Meets expectations	Unexpected
😬	😐
Looking, hunting	Unplanned, waiting
Expert quotes	influencers

Growth by Content: Driving Massive Traffic Without a Big Budget by Nadya Khoja

Content marketing is easier and cheaper than buying social ads

Goals
- Set multiple specific goals, like high domain authority, more traffic, higher conversions
- One piece of content will not meet all of these goals. You need to create content for each goal.
  - One content per goal, not one content all goals
  - You can’t just brainstorm fun ideas to write about.
- Goal: Domain authority (your site’s reputation and credibility)
  - Make viral, editorial content
- Goal: Conversions
  - Make how-to content
- Goal: Traffic
  - Make inspirational content that will rank for long tail keywords
  - One in-depth content piece for many keywords
  - Publish new information and data
Research
- You don’t have to write ALL the things
- Start with keyword research
- Make content that’s connected to your landing page (or pillar page) that meets your goals
- Make a spreadsheet with
  - Search term categories (Words) Your Pillar Term
  - Average monthly searches (#)
  - Difficulty (High, Medium, Low)
  - Keywords related to categories
  - Search terms
Authority
- Get high-quality backlinks, focus on link building
- Guest blogging can help you get backlinks and authority
- Use https://ahrefs.com/ SEO tool
- Use https://mailshake.com/ to send a pitch email to ask for links
  - “Hey, can I give you something if you link to us?”
  - Build relationships
  - Offer value in your outreach, give them something
  - Find content that already mentions the keyword you want to rank for. If they don’t have that keyword linked, email them and ask
  - Cold outreach has about a 3-5% success rate
  - Don’t sound like a robot in your cold emails, be yourself
  - Link building is a long term strategy
Promotion
- 80% time spent on promoting content and 20% of time spent creating

The Future of Voice and Its Impact on Content by Adam Deardurff

Alexa, Siri, Google Now, Cortana, Bixby
Most people use voice for Music, Weather, Fun Questions, Search, Alarms, News, Calls
Google serves up Position Zero aka Featured Snippet in voice searches
How to get a featured snippet
- Research FAQ and common searches
- Answer FAQs on your website
- Use schema.org markup
- Follow baseline SEO best practices
  - Have a Google My Business page
Podcasts are growing, especially among ages 12-24 years
Consider hosting an internal podcast for employees
How to leverage podcasts
- Understand your audience
- Explore podcast advertising networks
- Reach out directly to targeted podcasts
- Start creating your own
- Be a guest on a podcast
Start talking to your voice speaker. Learn about its capabilities
Get specific with your content. Be the Waldo.
Get your product audible
- Podcast ads
- Influencer marketing
Give your people a voice
- Highlight top employees and corporate culture
Accessibility and security

Five Hot Digital Marketing Trends and How They Impact You by Pam Didner

Voice search
- Optimize text and voice search for how you talk
- Longer inquiries, shorter answers
- Use local search like Google My Business
- Voice is another form of content
- Explore questions that are likely to be asked
- Put voice search and voice content in your annual marketing plan
- Look into Alexa for Business and Google Home for Business
Add intelligence to products
- Voice controlled microwave
- Smart plugs to make basic appliances smart
Product Personalization
AI
- Using AI for lead gens, follow-ups and chatbots
Marketing fundamentals haven’t changed

How to Be Remarkable: The Unusual Yet Proven Path to Marketing Success by
Andrew & Pete

90% of your effort should be on doing something remarkably well
10% should be spent experimenting
Posting something is not better than nothing
- A successful blogger, SEO pro only has 50 blog posts but generates 200,000 page views
- He writes long pieces
- He only makes a new blog when he’s happy with his current blog’s page rankings
People who spread themselves thin don’t win
- You don’t need to be on every platform
- You can’t do everything well
- Do one thing remarkably well
Make relatable content
- Lean into the reaction spikes you see.
- Do more of what’s working
- Listen to your audience and give them what they want.
Reallocate your efforts
- Readjust your strategy based on where your audience is moving
- A brand moved from Snapchat to Instagram Stories
- It’s scary to drop a channel or stop doing something but data will guide your decision
Consistency
- YouTubers promise new content weekly “new videos every Tuesday” giving their audience a reason to come back
Create fun content
- Do you enjoy marketing?
- Find the Fun