The Digital Marketing Podcast by Exposure Ninja

As an eCommerce owner, wouldn’t it be a dream if the retailers that stock your product paid to advertise your it, rather than you having to pay to advertise them? This week on the Exposure Ninja Digital Marketing Podcast, we’re talking with Solillas founder Jonnie Matthew. A former winner of the Best New Business award at the Drapers Footwear Awards, Solillas,  a Menorcan sandal company, has managed something that few original independent fashion brands ever do, but many want to: get stocked widely in high street retailers, from Urban Outfitters to Topshop, Office, Selfridges and House of Fraser and even in the US. Jonnie dropped by to discuss how he’s taken his company’s brand from selling a few pairs at markets to getting it to where it is now. If you are an eCommerce owner or about to launch a fashion brand and dream to see your product on the high street, then this podcast episode is for you! For show notes, head to https://exposureninja.com/episode88. While you’re there, don’t forget to get a free review of your website and digital marketing. Each review comes complete with a tailored plan to increase your leads and sales online.

On 25th May 2018, something called GDPR will take effect in the marketing world. This will affect us all. GDPR stands for General Data Protection Regulation and is a goal by the EU commission to stop all non-consensual tracking of consumers within the EU.   In this episode of the Exposure Ninja Digital Marketing Podcast, we meet Samuel Scott, a former journalist , newspaper editor, director of marketing and self-proclaimed marketing and technology contrarian who uses his experience to help the industries. Starting May 2018, consumers will have to give their opt-in consent and can request from companies that they erase all of their data at any given time. As per these new regulations, any company that is found to have had their consumers’ personal data breached is legally bound to publicly admit to it in a timely manner, rather than four or five years after the fact, such as it is often the case now. Any illegal harvesting of consumers’ data or company found to not be in compliance with the GDPR is subjected to fines of several million Euros per violation. As you can imagine, the GDPR is going to greatly disrupt Adtech and Martech, because every single company that touches any person’s data at any point during the marketing “food chain” will have to get that person’s consent via an opt-in form. Any data acquired before May 2018 will also be illegal and all companies will have to start fresh. So who exactly does the GDPR apply to? And what does Brexit mean for GDPR? Does it apply to companies outside of the EU? And what do you, as a business, need to do before GDPR takes effect? Listen to our podcast to find out!   For show notes, head to https://exposureninja.com/episode87. While you’re there, don’t forget to get a free review of your website and digital marketing. Each review comes complete with a tailored plan to increase your leads and sales online.

Ever thought of crowdfunding your business idea? You are not alone! Crowdfunding has skyrocketed and the competition has intensified. It’s increasingly difficult to exceed (or even meet) your crowdfunding goals. Setting up a crowdfunding campaign is easy, but do you know how to meet (or even double) your target? This week on the Exposure Ninja Digital Marketing Podcast, we discuss crowdfunding with the founder of Borrow a Boat, Matt Ovenden. Dubbed as the Airbnb of boats, the peer-to-peer site launched in November 2016 to help boat owners rent out their boat while they are not in use. Their phenomenal Crowdcube campaign reached 50% of its target within hours of launching and exceeded their target by over £200,000. They raised well over £450,000 by the end of the campaign. Did you know that successfully-funded campaigns all have a few things in common? For a start, successful campaigns start way before they launch… as you’ll find out if you listen in. Getting ready to crowdfund your big idea? Keep listening to find out how to maximize your chances of succeeding. For show notes, head to https://exposureninja.com/episode86. While you’re there, don’t forget to get a free review of your website and digital marketing. Each review comes complete with a tailored plan to increase your leads and sales online.

Information is king in the era we live in and customers are extremely aware of your business practices. As a result, cause marketing is becoming a trend. Now more than ever, customers do their research before buying, and their desire to make the world a better place may well be what makes them pick you over your competitor, if you so choose to address a societal issue as part of your business model. In this episode of the Exposure Ninja Digital Marketing Podcast, Head Ninja Tim chats with William Adoasi, Founder of Vitae London, a watch brand with a cause. Vitae’s simple goal is combining classic and beautiful design with social justice. For every watch purchased, Vitae London provides a child in South Africa — who has been orphaned or lives in poverty — with the resources they need to access education. William’s incredible journey has led him to be on Richard Branson and Emeli Sandé’s radar and have them endorse his watches, making this one of the most heart-warming and greatest influencer marketing campaigns we’ve heard of in a while. Ready to kick-start your own influencer marketing campaign whilst endorsing a cause that is dear to your heart? Keep listening for some key advice on identifying the right influencers and celebrities that will match your niche, knowing how and when to reach out to them, finding the right balance between products, cause and lifestyle, making the best out of your crowdfunding campaign, and utilising your cause as a unique selling point. 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/episode85

Online quizzes are just starting to catch on in the digital marketing world. A quiz is a very personal experience and, not so surprisingly, everyone loves taking them. But the key to making them work as a marketing tool is understanding who the quiz-taker actually is. Crafting the content to be relevant to the specific audience you are reaching out to is key and, more specifically, writing to a single individual — your very own avatar — rather than an audience as a group. In this episode of the Exposure Ninja Digital Marketing Podcast, we meet with Josh Haynam, Founder of Interact: a platform for creating quizzes. Want to gain more exposure for your brand as well as build up your mailing list? Quizzes work well for any type of business and they might be just what you’re looking for. There are certainly some best practices to follow when creating a quiz. The reasons why people like to take quizzes is because: 1) They love finding out about themselves2) They like talking about themselves If you are writing a quiz in order to get people into your marketing funnel, it’s not going to be fun for the audience and it’s going to fail. Start with letting the audience express themselves and then work that back into how this actually plays into your marketing funnel, rather than the other way around. Build something for your audience and assume that nobody cares about your company. But how you can you drive traffic to your quiz? And what can you do to increase the chances of people sharing their quiz results on social media? Also, what comes next after people have taken the quiz? Keep listening to find out! 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/episode84  

Many marketing companies will talk about the ‘brand awareness’ of a campaign. This is often a nebulous concept and one that is difficult to quantify. We here at Exposure Ninja are not huge advocates of brand awareness as a marketing goal, and we want to talk about this. Is brand awareness ever a useful goal? Why is it so often not? In this episode of the Exposure Ninja Digital Marketing Podcast, Tim and Lozz are nailing down how this kind of marketing works, what the common pitfalls are and what the benefits might be. Brand Awareness Vs Direct Response Advertising Campaigns Brand awareness is exactly what it says on the label: a campaign aimed at raising awareness about a product or company. Its goal is rather fuzzy; it often comes in the form of ads that don’t encourage the user to buy a product. It may not even have a call to action. A good example of this would be Coca Cola’s advertising campaigns. We think of brand awareness generally as a poor use of advertising budget. You can’t track effectiveness or ROI of the campaign at all. Direct response advertising campaigns, on the other hand, focuses on encouraging the audience who sees the ad to take some specific action — making a purchase being the obvious example. It will contain a call to action that is trackable and measurable, such as a form to fill. As you can already see, the benefits of direct response marketing are pretty obvious. But what is the core benefit of brand awareness? Would it be possible to tweak a brand awareness campaign ever so slightly that it becomes trackable? Keep listening to find out!   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/episode83

This week on the Exposure Ninja Digital Marketing Podcast, our very own Lozz Newton is back by popular demand to discuss the biggest updates to the Facebook ads platform that you need to be aware of as marketers. Beware that it’s not all sunshine and roses, but let’s start with the good news! Facebook Analytics If you’ve used Google Analytics, you’ll be familiar with the kind of information that you can get from it. Well, guess what? You can now access similar information on Facebook Analytics. Not only that, but there are few extra features that you will not find in Google Analytics. Notably, Facebook’s system will incorporate data from across your website if you have your Facebook Pixel installed. You’ll be able to follow the user’s journey from the Facebook page to your website, and how specifically they have interacted with your brand. This is huge if your primary focus is Facebook ads and not Google ads. It could mean less tracking codes to worry about, fewer programs and stats to have to check, and a more integrated overview of your pipeline for Facebook ads. Chatbots One thing we’ve been excited about and have been experimenting with are chatbots. Chatbots are a serious new way to guide the conversation and can be used to personalise the experience for each user. Some of the things you can do include asking customers questions in order to guide them to the right products or services, and setting up broadcast options if somebody is already engaged with you the same way as email marketing. Chatbots are also great news to save a lot of time answering the same questions over and over and, as a nice added bonus, you can now get a 100% response rate on your Facebook page! The Bad News Facebook has been trying out some tests to the news feeds in a few countries, in which any organic, non-promoted content would not show on the main news feed unless the business page pays for it. Currently, Facebook says they have no plans to roll out the test globally. However, this wouldn’t be the first time that they have introduced something like this. They have also reduced the visibility of business page content several times in the past. So, if this does get rolled out, then it could be very bad news for small businesses that rely on this kind of visibility for traffic.   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/episode82  

Becoming a published author on big sites such as Forbes, Inc and Business Insider is a sure way to create credibility for your personal brand and make yourself into a thought leader in your industry. As this week’s guest puts it, “the root of ‘authority’ is author and nothing will do more for your business”. If you wonder how one can go about making their way to these top publications, then this podcast is for you. In this episode of the Exposure Ninja Digital Marketing Podcast, Head Ninja Tim chats with Kevin Kruse, Founder and CEO of LeadX, an online learning platform that provides free leadership training. Kevin is a NY Times bestselling author and keynote speaker and has written hundreds of articles and nine books in the past 15 years. Today, he shares with us his magic formula to becoming an author and building brand authority. It’s important to understand that being published on Forbes or Inc is not for backlinks - in fact, it’s not possible to get links in some bigger publications. What it will give you, however, is incredible brand awareness and credibility, and ultimately generate leads such as speaking gigs. The formula is pretty simple: start small to earn your chops on your own website, then slowly make your way to publications such as Medium and Huffington Post. From there, move on to the bigger publications, paying close attention to what the most-read articles are on each site, and surfing on that same wave to optimise visibility. 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/episode81

Studies show that 79% of consumers trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation from a friend or family member. That’s almost 8 out of 10 people! Needless to say, online reviews are powerful persuaders working in your favour when you position yourself online. In this episode of the Exposure Ninja Digital Marketing Podcast, Head Ninja Tim meets Doren Aldana, founder of several highly acclaimed training programs, such as the Mortgage Superstar Coaching Program, Autopilot Referral Systems, Meetings with Mortgage Masters, and the FastTrak Coaching Program, so you too can learn how to build your business at the speed of trust. If you want to inject persuasive power into your marketing, you should reinforce everything you are doing with the power of reviews. But where do you drive people to leave reviews? How can you make sure you’re maximising positive reviews? And how do you use those reviews as marketing tools? Keep listening for Doren’s top tips and don’t forget to download his free guide to learn the insider secrets for turning clients into raving fans!   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/episode80

Email marketing is so much more than having a “sign up for the newsletter” opt-in at the bottom of your website. It is a powerful tool to optimise deliverability and subscriber engagement, as well as a serious revenue-driver. In this episode, Head Ninja Tim meets Email Marketing platform AWeber’s CMO Erik Harbison to discuss the most effective ways to use email marketing, whether it’s automation or segmentation of customers to guide them into your sales funnel effectively. One of Erik’s top tips is to use email to build a valuable relationship from day one with your non-customers. Successful businesses are embracing emails as the hub of their customer relationship strategy by constantly thinking of ways to provide value. This includes using the email database as a way to collect and drive prospects or customers and segmenting and leveraging their database, rather than broadly reaching out to the clients. Being relevant, consistent and making sure the customer has a meaningful experience is key to a successful email marketing strategy. Pick up some tips from Harbison on how his company has utilised this to great effect, and you’ll be much closer to turning your email marketing efforts into a well-oiled, profitable machine. Make sure to follow Erik on Twitter. Oh, and check out these handy offerings from AWeber: AWeber's Free 6-day email course & 45+ content templatesFor any marketer that is 'stuck' figuring out what to write in their emails AWeber's Email Deliverability ChecklistFor any marketer looking to understand how to get their emails into inboxes AWeber's List Growth Blueprint CourseAn accelerated video course that provides direction on how to launch a targeted lead magnet 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/episode79