Ditch the Vanity Metrics!
This week, we wanted to talk about a marketing issue that has been the bane of our existence, since, well, pretty much forever! How to determine the ROI of your marketing efforts – especially as it relates to content!
There IS value in vanity metrics (beyond the good feelings they bring! LOL) – they illustrate your reach, indicate your audience in the social space, and elevate your thought leadership – and the amount of trust people have in what you share – in your particular niche.
But many clients don’t want to hear about “trust” and “thought leadership” – they want hard numbers. Real ROI.
Podcasting can give you real bang for your buck – making your initial production investment less of a burden. It provides real return and also provides content you can slice and dice in myriad ways to flood your funnels with solid content – all from one episode.
According to Hubspot, as of April 2020, there were over 30 million podcast episodes out there waiting to be found.
Think you can’t rise above all that noise? You’re wrong. We call it the Domino Method, and here’s how we break it down.
🌟 Engagement
🌟 Amplification
🌟 Consistency
🌟 The Humblebrag
🌟 And of course, the almighty dollar
Read on for more on all of the above, and how you can digitally blast your way to the top of the podcast charts!
Engagement
“Remember a little formula in your head, which is that your typical engagement number of likes or comments – let’s go with likes, because likes are probably the easiest to get. It’s low investment, someone’s just pressing a button as they go along. It’s usually 1%. Which means one if one person liked your post, or if one person commented on your blog post, then 100 other people have seen it, right? If you’ve got five likes, that’s 500 people who probably saw it. So, what you want to think about is what the remaining 99% are doing? And that’s what we like to call dark social.
So, how do you imprint the 99 other people who are seeing it, but not actually engaging? Having a kickass image and headline. Whether it’s an email headline, the title of your blog post, the title of your video – and small things matter here, like don’t get self-indulgent – it’s best to keep it in that seven’ish words sort of space to make sure it imprints. Then, when a blog is posted, it goes with an image, and that’s the image pulled into every place that blog is posted, the same goes for your podcast or your video. You know, take a minute to make sure that those two things are really solid, and your engagement will start to go up.”
“We learned the power of the artwork that went along with promoting it, the photos we took, we leaned into the personality of the idea of the 4 AM report, we had a lot of fun with it. And they really did stand out in the seriousness of a LinkedIn feed. These are funny photos of us with eye patches, drinking wine out of coffee mugs. That really taught me the power great photography or great design can have. Who knows if anyone clicked on anything, but they sure saw those photos. And when we meet people, we hear ‘Oh, we remember you from that photo that you took!’ So again, I know it’s judging a book by the cover, but it seems to be very important to have a great cover!”
Amplification
“Amplification is how you can expand your network of people that you can sell to now. For us, the guests on our podcast are a significant source of amplification for us. What does that mean? Basically, as soon as someone’s coming on as a guest, we’re having a conversation with them, we’re providing a certain level of, you know, they get to see our brain a little bit and they get to know that we’re smart, and we have good questions. Plus, we’ve given them a nice little experience through this whole thing, with little bits of surprise and delight and by making things easy for them. So, they’re going to be inclined to share, right? I mean, why wouldn’t you? So many of us go on other people’s podcasts and other people’s videos to get our network increased! The same goes for them.”
“Make sure that you’re making that easy for them. Send them a little note on the day of the podcast and then say something about where they can find it on social, so that they can just share it. That’s automatically going to get more people to see stuff who were not originally in our network. Now taking it beyond that. Remember you want to nurture that relationship, and don’t just drop it off after the podcast or after you’ve interviewed them for that e-book. I don’t mean blasting them with sales pitches, that’s a no-no.”
“If you spoke to someone on the subject of finance, the next time you find some financial marketing articles, send them their way. We call this the domino theory for measuring ROI: we meet someone new, and they have a good experience on our podcast. Then, how do we really measure the ROI with this person? Do they introduce us to someone else? Did this great experience have them introduce us to other people who might want to come on the podcast, then did those two people introduce us to two people? So that’s one way we are measuring the success of our podcast, it’s how many new connections, how big our network is getting because of these guests that we brought on.”
The Humblebrag
“The humblebrag is just the idea of using your wins to create content. Think of it like case studies. If you have done something especially cool don’t just move on to the next thing and not talk about it, you really do owe it to your content to fully be promoting it! Promote the heck out of those wins! Maybe an e-book that had 1000 downloads in the first day you put it out – tell people about it!! And toot your own horn about those 1000 downloads! I think many of us balk at the idea of that, because I think at our root, most of us feel immodest tooting our own horns. But you got to find a way. Create a graphic promoting your new e-book and list those numbers!”
“With one of the podcasts that we do, and this, this podcast itself came out of our podcasts that we do, and one of our existing clients who does other media with us wanting to create a podcast with us, which, you know, it’s in the space of the future of work, and a lot of large brands are interested in that. What happened from one of our client podcasts is a great example. Someone read one of the pieces that we created out of the podcast material, downloaded it, and then wanted to come on and be a guest. And this someone was, you know, the head of global something or other for Twitter – right on target for their space and a big-name score! As far as we’re concerned, that’s a win in our corner. And if you’ve managed to do something particularly special with your content, then you know, why wouldn’t you use it as a proof point to have more people be interested in it?”
Consistency
“We talk a lot about consistency, the importance of consistency. You’ve got to beat the dead horse. It might seem a little too much, it might seem overkill, but remember, people aren’t always seeing what you’re putting out there. We’ve talked at length about our podcasts, how we tie other pieces of content back to our podcast. I mean, we really chose to consolidate our investment in this one thing, the 4 AM Report, which is a lot more efficient than potentially doing a jumble of things and not doing any of them particularly well. By publishing our podcast for 50 weeks now, not missing a week, and always at 4 AM on Thursdays, we’ve got a singular, clever clear message and the image that goes with it has a lot of brand equity. It’s a piece of infrastructure that belongs to C+P Digital, and “podcast producing” is now something our company has become known for. That brand equity is something that can help you on a number of levels, and it’s going to go into the bottom line of your business. But beyond that, you’re going to have access to a lot of other things that come through it.”
The Almighty Dollar!
We’ve saved the best for last, naturally – but if you want access to our ROI measurement money secrets, you’ll have to click on over and listen to the podcast! Yes, we’re bratty that way. 😂 😂 😂
We’re of course on Apple Podcasts – subscribe to us – you won’t regret it!
Plus, if you’re losing sleep over a particular marketing/business related problem during this Covid-19 economic uncertainty, or if you have a guest idea on the topic, let us know. Drop us a line at c+p digital.
And as always, sweet dreams…well, hopefully!
