The Digital Marketing Podcast by Exposure Ninja

Go against the herd.  That's our key message for business owners who are feeling deflated by the current situation.  While most of your competitors will be following their basic instinct to retreat, this is your chance to get ahead before the eventual economic boom that's to follow. Remember, this is not the "new normal" it's just a temporary blip in the business world.  In this video, we share three ways to grow your business during lockdown that will help you to see this pocket of time as a blessing in disguise.  These are all practical applications of the sentiment "buy low, sell high" that show you how to make a smart investment. We're not talking about splashing all your hard-earned cash if this isn't the right move for you — but rather knowing that there will come a time where buying is high and selling is low again. So, consider it.  Firstly, think about what will make your customers backflip with happiness — then build it.  Secondly, use this period for time-intensive projects like improving your website. Trust us — this will become one of your best business assets.  Thirdly, invest in long-term marketing channels where the road to success is long and winding. You have the time and energy to pursue these now. Plus, the competition on social platforms and SEO terms is dwindling.   If you use this time wisely, your business is likely to make a quick recovery despite how dreary things may seem right now.  Remember: limit your news consumption, go against the herd and stay positive.    0:28 — What's a "temporary normal"?  1:43 — What to expect post-lockdown 2:38 — What does "buy low, sell high" mean in practice?  5:20 — Reengineer your product or service  7:13 — Make your website your best business asset  8:40 — Build long-term marketing channels  For show notes and to get a free review of your website and digital marketing, complete with a tailored plan to increase your leads and sales online, head to https://exposureninja.com/podcast/episode155/

As a notoriously intense, high-pressure environment, being in sales is a tricky position to be in right now. It's also likely to be the department that feels the most immediate impact of this crisis and any other crisis that may arise in the future.  As leads dry up and morale slumps, how can sales departments rise to the challenge?  This episode focuses on advising sales managers, marketing consultants and business owners on everything to do with sales. We chat about how to strike a balance between being target-focused and being human, as well as how to alter your sales dialogue and take a second to refocus your energy.  Our Head Ninja, Tim sits this one out as Digital Strategy Manager. Instead, Dale Davies takes the hot seat to discuss the topic with our in-house expert, Sales Manager, Ali Newton.  As our resident sales Ninja, Ali sheds some light on the processes she's leaning on during this time, as well as the results of her latest departmental brainstorm session.  We also talk about sales from the perspective of leads where we share some observations and trends we're seeing in sales conversations and which businesses are thriving as a result of their smart positioning.  Lastly, we talk about survival and the chance of a silver lining — development for your sales team and yourself. Ali and Dale both share ways they are coping in the current situation, as well as the tried and trusted methods they use to be the most productive when working remotely.    3:17 — What can a sales manager do to help reduce the strain on sales employees?  6:12 — How can a remote manager tell if a sales employee is impacted by the current situation?  9:20 — How has your sales team collectively worked together to change sales dialogue?  10:42 — What are some of the ideas that have materialised from brainstorming sessions about crisis communication in sales?  11:25 — Are you mentioning the elephant in the room in sales conversations?  13:22 — Do you have to talk about growth and forecasting differently? How are you altering your sales pitch as a result?   15:10 — Have you seen a change in the types of companies looking for marketing? Which industries are thriving?  20:11 — How can sales consultants help businesses that are feeling the strain?   23:40 — Are you suggesting that businesses change their tone of voice during the crisis?  24:44 — Are you recommending that businesses communicate on different platforms and shift their marketing spend?  28:24 — Can you tell us a bit about how we've responded to the crisis at Exposure Ninja?  32:03 — What's your advice for other sales managers? How can they support themselves during this time?  33:40 — Have you reduced your sales goals and the pressure put on sales team members? Would you recommend this?  36:07 — Is there anything a sales manager can do to help their team self-develop during this downtime?  37:28 — Do you think sales managers should be working on self-improvement and personal goals right now? For show notes and to get a free review of your website and digital marketing, complete with a tailored plan to increase your leads and sales online, head to https://exposureninja.com/podcast/episode154/ 

This week’s podcast is an ad-hoc episode in light of COVID-19.  We know that business owners need timely marketing advice.  That’s why we’re helping you to self-diagnose your business into one of the four following camps:  Camp 1 - Businesses that are close to breaking point and are losing custom fast Camp 2 - Businesses that are impacted but are still selling to some capacity  Camp 3 - Businesses that are positioned well but aren’t seeing results Camp 4 - Businesses that are unexpectedly making more sales than ever    Throughout the episode, Tim will address your business – whichever camp it’s in – to give his expert advice on what you should do to survive (or in some cases thrive) during the global pandemic.    As we’ve all turned into yogis during quarantine, much of this episode will be focused on energy.  We’re not talking about crystals and chakras, rather the energy of your customers which is on high-alert right now.  Whether your target audience is feeling on edge, overwhelmed, frustrated, concerned, panicked, bored, awakened or confused during this testing time, it’s your job as a business owner to align your marketing with this energy. Just like we’ve done at Exposure Ninja by creating resources for those who need to learn how to take their company remote at exposureninja.com/remote  Depending on your business type, Tim gets you prepared for making the most of your businesses hibernation, adjusting your business to keep sales flowing and maximising any opportunities you can identify.   Above all, our mantra for this period is the classic saying – this too shall pass.  This is a saying we’ve been reminding our clients, colleagues and community of whenever the entire thing seems all-consuming or too much to handle.  By knowing that there is an end to this state of uncertainty, it allows us to prepare for the future.  When it has passed, don’t let your business be behind the curve while your competitors have used this sudden space to polish their products and services. Instead, use this time wisely by making a long-term recovery or focusing on a more immediate comeback by altering what you offer. Finally, if you’re one of the “lucky” businesses with a product or service that’s still accessible, remember to play the fortunate card that you’ve been dealt by investing in your advertising when it will have the most impact.  Remember, while we all have to stay at home right now, we don’t have to stay stagnant.  0:56 -- Which of these four camps does your business fall into?   4:10 -- How to ensure your business survives during coronavirus 5:29 -- Why brave marketing moves can pay off during a crisis 7:46 -- How to align your marketing with your customer’s current ‘energy’  10:17 -- Here’s how we’ve done this at Exposure Ninja For show notes and to get a free review of your website and digital marketing, complete with a tailored plan to increase your leads and sales online, head to https://exposureninja.com/podcast/episode153/

In this episode of the Exposure Ninja Digital Marketing Podcast Tim chats with fellow Ninjas, Digital Strategy Manager, Dale Davies and Sales Manager, Ali Newton. Today's show is about the most common marketing traps businesses can fall into. Namely, the negative effect of spending too much time worrying about them.  We often see that a marketer's advice is either misunderstood or taken too seriously. Perhaps leaders take such advice out of context or invest too much time into what's designed to be a quick tip.  The result? Businesses often create content that's either irrelevant or disengaging.  A great example of this is when businesses become too obsessed with their competitors. Most of us have either read or been told to 'keep an eye' on our competitors at some point in our business journey. After all, keeping tabs on your rivals is marketing 101. Right?  Well, this handy tip ends up being detrimental to most businesses when we put too much weight on what could be a throwaway comment.  At worst, this could leave clients with an unhealthy interest in monitoring their client's campaigns. In turn, this could result in neglecting your business success.  Ultimately, this show is a brutal look at marketing techniques that may be wasting your valuable time.  Here Tim, Dale and Ali discuss how to identify if you are engaging in time-sucking activities and what you should be doing instead.  And if you're still on the fence as to whether you should listen to this episode, for fear that this might be a waste of time, here's how it made Tim feel:  "I actually think that this podcast has been one of the most useful experiences of my life personally – slightly uncomfortable in places but overall very good" Enjoy! 4:48 What is the first biggest marketing waste of time? (No Focus Content)  5:40 How do people know if they are falling victim to this? (No Focus Content)  14:50 Ignoring your competitors or obsessing about them and neglecting your own marketing strategy.  19:00 How frequently should people be checking out their competitors?  20:00 Should I quit everything and focus all of my energy on my new business without testing?  23:50 How can you improve your e-commerce website's user experience?  31:30 Is selling online easy?  39:50 Are metrics trustworthy?  43:17 How important is it to follow marketing agencies advice?   52:00 Am I changing my campaign tactics too often?   For show notes and to get a free review of your website and digital marketing, complete with a tailored plan to increase your leads and sales online, head to  https://exposureninja.com/podcast/episode152/

This week on the Exposure Ninja Digital Marketing Podcast, Tim is joined by his birthday twin, Azeem Ahmad from Staffordshire University. As a frequent speaker at events like BrightonSEO, and having worked with both client and agencies alike, it's safe to say that Azeem knows his stuff when it comes to digital marketing.  Just in case you don't get the pleasure of bumping into Azeem at an industry get-together, we've grabbed him for a chat. And if you're looking to reduce your CPA, you're in the right place. Using his university experience, Azeem talks us through how to manage Paid Ads on a low-scale budget (not to mention in a competitive and seasonal market).  In this episode, Azeem tells us how he analysed user journeys and behaviours to determine which months proved to be most profitable for Staffordshire University. This vital information helped Azeem get ahead of the competition, tailoring content to prospective leads at the right time of year.  So, take a listen today and discover how you could use similar techniques to find out which times of the year are most profitable for your business.  Got a specific question you want answered? The time codes below will help you find what you are looking for. 2:55 What is Staffordshire University?  4:40 How long have you been at Staffordshire University and what sort of changes have you seen about how they market and how they use the internet to get more attention?  8:10 How do you figure out the number of touches a lead touches before they decide to become a student? 11:25 What are you tracking? 14:21 What is your budget like?  16:30 Do you do retargeting?  20:00 You achieved a 76% decrease year on year, what were the key learnings for you?  23:10 It seems like your content calendar approach to the year, is there a model for when your budget will be best spent?  26:25 When you are testing different benefits, how many would you test against each other?  31:15 Successes and failures?  35:28 Has anything you've tested turned out to be amazing?  38:45 If you had an unlimited amount of budget what would you do?  40:00 If you could go back and give yourself some advice on day one of working at Staffordshire University, what would it be?  For show notes and to get a free review of your website and digital marketing, complete with a tailored plan to increase your leads and sales online, head to  https://exposureninja.com/podcast/episode151/

This week on the show, we have Holly Pither from Tribe PR, an independent communications agency specialising in earned media to help organisations of all sizes increase their brand advocacy. She is here to talk about how brands can become 'tribes' and what that can do to build advocacy for your company.    You probably know people who are part of a brand’s ‘tribe’, you may even be part of one. We're talking about someone who is more than just loyal to a brand, they strongly advocate it. A classic example of a brand with a strong tribe mentality is Harley Davidson motorcycles. They know exactly what they stand for, they know who is part of that tribe, and they don't open it up to everyone.    But is your company tribe worthy?    You would be surprised at the array of different companies that are incorporating this 'tribal' brand affinity into their marketing. It can work with B2C and B2B companies. Your brand might never be as 'cool' as Harley Davidson, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have a quality product or service that people won’t believe in.   Holly goes through and breaks down how to start to build this tribal brand mentality and helps us understand the most important element:    "People aren't just buying your brand, they are joining it."   2:44: What is Tribe PR 4:20: What is a tribe and are there any companies that already have tribes?  6:30: How would a business know if they have a tribe already?  7:48: "Is my brand cool enough?" Is this something every brand can do?  11:49: What's the first thing to do to start becoming a tribe worthy?  16:40: How do you ensure brand consistency? 22:55: How do you know your brand is going to resonate with customers?  26:39: How do you know if this stuff is working?  33:10 What are some of the successes and failures of the campaigns that you've run?  37:23 Is there anything that you've done where you've thought "they want to push this but I don't think it's going to work", then it's worked?  40:00 If you can pick only one marketing channel what would you pick?  40:50 If you had to annex Tribe PR in the next year, what would you do? 41:38 If you could go back and give yourself advice on day one of Tribe PR, what would it be?   For show notes and to get a free review of your website and digital marketing, complete with a tailored plan to increase your leads and sales online, head to  https://exposureninja.com/podcast/episode150/

In this episode of the Exposure Ninja Digital Marketing Podcast, we have David Deng who has built a massive Instagram following for his @entrepreneurshipfacts account. With an impressive 1.2milllion followers and 2,000-3,000 new followers each day.  David has a unique insight into how to build a successful Instagram page and this video will help answer questions such as, how many times a day should I post? What sort of content is best for my audience? And what hashtags should I use for my business?   We also get an insight into other aspects of building a large following on Instagram that may not seem too important at first glance, such as the username you choose for your account. This small but significant step is a great way to build followers and help your account become well known. So you need to get it right!  So sit back and enjoy as we get down to the nitty-gritty of how David has managed to build such an extraordinarily large Instagram following in 3 years.  2:30: When did you start the page and why?  5:30: Did you think it could get to a point where you could earn income from the page?  7:15: What does it look like on a daily basis managing a page with 1.2 million followers?   8:44: What have you learnt about posting frequency as you've built the page?  11:00: Instagram has seen a lot of content evolution recently, what sort of content best fits your audience?  12:35: What's more important, value or format?   14:00: As you were building the page did you start to feel pressure about creating new content? 16:40: What are the most effective growth strategies that you've come across in your journey so far? 19:41: How do you find the hashtags you use and do you have any tips?  22:30: What strategy do you use to promote other accounts?  25:14: How has your page been grown almost exclusively organically?   27:00: How did you align yourself so well with your target audience?  29:23: How will things change as Instagram starts to take away like?  30:20: Do you have an Instagram hacks?  34:38: What are some of the ways you can monetize your page?  36:06: How do you choose the relevant ads for your audience? 40:18: If three years ago David could see you today, what would he say?  For show notes and to get a free review of your website and digital marketing, complete with a tailored plan to increase your leads and sales online, head to https://exposureninja.com/podcast/episode149/

In this episode of the Exposure Ninja Digital Marketing Podcast, we are getting to grips with Google ads and showing you how to determine if they are worth investing in for your business. Google ads are expensive and can be complicated, it's safe to say that you need to know what you are doing when you advertise with Google ads. So It's not surprising that the majority of business that are using Google ads are not being effective with their budget. Before using Google ads it's important to know your Cost-Per-Click (CPC) and your website's Conversion Rate (CR). With these in hand, you can calculate if Google ads can be effective for your business. Here is Tim to give you some golden rules for when you should not waste your money on Google ads. Here’s when you should NOT run Google ads – 2:13: When the numbers don’t make sense. 6:33: When your website SUCKS compared to competitors. 7:33: When you don't have a clear conversion goal. 8:42: If people aren’t searching for what you do. 9:34: If you are not committed to optimising and tracking things over time.

On this episode of the Exposure Ninja Digital Marketing Podcast, Tim is joined by Araks Nalbandyan from 10Web. 10Web is an all-in-one website building platform which offers managed WordPress hosting on Google Cloud. From April to December this year 10Web has grown to now host over 10,000 websites. Araks Nalbandyan is on the show to talk about how they have achieved this using varied digital marketing techniques including Facebook groups, PPC and AppSumo. What struck us about this interview with Araks Nalbandyan was the energy of 10Web. They worked very hard this year testing lots of different approaches to their digital marketing. When they found a strategy that worked they adopted it into their campaign. 10Web gain new customers through various channels but their most successful channel is a WordPress enthusiast Facebook page which gained 2,000 followers in two months. Building a community such as 10Web's Facebook group can position your brand as an authority in your niche. 10Web is also trialling a YouTube channel. Tune in to find out why 10Web invested so much in testing out different digital marketing strategies and discover which worked and which didn't. 3:39: Introduction - What is 10Web 3:35: How long has 10Web been going and what scale are you at now? 5:55: What is your main way of getting new customers? 7:00: Do you have a customer acquisition cost? 8:35: Facebook group strategy. 10:22: Is the Facebook group as important as your Email list? 12:05: On the Facebook group, how do you balance selling your product vs giving free advice? 13:17: Was there much trepidation before deciding to use AppSumo? 15:32: How did AppSumo help? 17:50: Disaster strategies 19:54: Winning strategies 23:00: Benefits of Video and YouTube 24:20: Quickfire questions

In this episode of the Exposure Ninja Digital Marketing Podcast, we are trying out a new format. We're going to be bringing you a mixture of How To's, Deep Dives and Ninja Nuggets on top of our classic Interview episodes.  This week is our first 'How To', showing you how to improve your website's leads and sales in 10 days. Tim walks you through four simple ways you can improve leads and sales without having to run any ads or generate new traffic.  If 1 out of 100 visitors to your website turn into a lead or sale then it means your website has a 1% conversion rate. If you can adapt parts of your website to increase it to a 2% conversion rate, then you have doubled the volume of leads and sales your website generates.  At Exposure Ninja, we have boosted a client's conversion rate to 34%! But on average a good conversion rate for your website is about 3%-4%. Getting your website to this point is fantastic and it can be done without having to spend money.  This all sounds simple and it can be with some small but efficient changes to the layout and copy on your website. So listen to our resident guru and Head Ninja, Tim to find out 4 Ways To Increase Your Leads in ONLY 10 Days. 04:52 Tip 1 — Use credibility triggers  10:43 Tip 2 — Increase the appeal of your lure  15:59 Tip 3 — Answer your customer objections  17:41 Tip 4 — Make your call-to-action obvious You can also catch this episode on our YouTube channel where you can see examples of the four tips we discuss in this episode, just go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=660mr-0PvGQ For show notes and to get a free review of your website and digital marketing, complete with a tailored plan to increase your leads and sales online, head to https://exposureninja.com/podcast/146/