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Numbers have mattered to humans since the earliest civilizations…but some have mattered more than others. As humans, it’s harder to use just any number to make sense of things. We prefer to use round numbers.
That quote that kicked off our 350th episode comes “The Pulse” in a story called “10, 50, 100: Why do we find comfort in round numbers?” I’ve linked to it in the show notes if you want to learn more.
What is it about nice round numbers that make us take stock of our lives? Why is the 350th episode any more or less important than the 349th, or the 351st, and so on?
There are milestones, such as hitting your 30’s, 40’s, or 50’s. Or losing 10 pounds, not 8. Or the Dow hitting 18,000, not 17,231.
These arbitrary, but nice round numbers, influence our lives. According to that same article, MLB players are 4 times more likely to end the season batting .300 than .299. It gives people something to shoot for.
No doubt you’ve noticed that prices often end in a 9. While there is some conflicting research on this, the idea is that this can communicate the value of something. It’s 4.99? Well, at least it’s not 5 dollars. It’s perhaps because going up that extra penny breaks that psychological barrier.
So here we are, breaking another psychological barrier for the podcast. Episode 350. It’s got a nice ring to it.
Leading up to this episode, that magical number caused me to think about the podcast, what’s working, what’s not, what could be improved.
The purpose for this podcast—or at least one purpose—is to provide valuable, actionable ideas for you. I want to demystify digital marketing for what I call “real world businesses” so that you can attract more ideal customers and generate more leads online.
Like many of you, I’m a small business owner. And even though digital marketing is my world, it’s also something we do here at flyte for ourselves. We think about web design and how we can improve conversion rates. We think about SEO and how we can attract more businesses and entrepreneurs we can help. We think about social media and how we can engage and empower our audience.
The people I interview on this show, I choose, because I’m curious. As an owner, as someone with responsibility to my team to bring in business, I want to know what we should be doing with Local SEO, Facebook Ads, Pinterest, etc. And it’s not like I don’t have an amazing team here at flyte, I do. But it’s always good to get another opinion. Another view. I love to see people present on digital marketing, because even if I (think) I know the material, I love to discover how they organize it.
I mentioned the purpose of the podcast: to educate and inform with actionable tips. I also mentioned that I’m surrounded by some amazing people here at flyte. That’s one of the changes I’m implementing here on the podcast.
From time to time, or more often, I’m going to bring on a member of my team for a quick chat about something that’s going on in digital marketing, or something I feel is misunderstood or under appreciated. Working title: The flyte school sessions. But I’m open to suggestions, so hit me up via our contact page at AOC or reach out to me on LinkedIn or other social channels. As always, I’m therichbrooks.
For our first flyte school session, I’m talking to John Paglio, the Digital Marketing Specialist here at flyte. This kid loves SEO. In fact, I just interviewed him for my other podcast, Fast Forward Maine, and my co-host Yury asked him why he focuses on SEO. And he said it’s because he wasn’t attracted to social media because he’s not creative (he is, but maybe not in terms of designing a social post), but he is competitive. He loves figuring out how to get to the top of page one of Google and he’s relentless in getting our clients there.
Today, we’re talking about user intent and how that impacts your search visibility and ranking.
Normally, these sessions will be short and run before my regular interview, but today, it’s just me, so let’s hit it.
John recently did a webinar for flyte, and it’s up at flyte’s website. I’ll have links for it in the show notes.
Speaking of flyte’s website, we finally launched our new site! The old website had held up really well, but after 5+ years, I honestly couldn’t look at it any more. Plus, it really didn’t reflect all the new things we offer our clients. There was no content on Google Ads or Facebook Ads, two things that keep my marketing team busy these days. We didn’t really talk about our marketing and website audits, or consulting work, which now can be found on the site.
So far I’m still considering it a soft launch. John, along with Andy Woznica, our lead developer, are monitoring and fixing the site. When you do a major overhaul to a website with well over 2K pages (most of which are blog posts) you’re going to have a bit of clean up to do.
I’m thinking that in a month or two I might do an episode on how to overhaul a website. I might do mini-interviews with my team and combine them into an episode. I just came up with that idea now, so we’ll see.
There’s a lot to it. There’s organizing and re-organizing the navigation and site structure. Developing a design. For us, there was a lot of video, including some drone work! Then there’s the marketing and content audit. Copywriting (I actually brought in a copywriter for the first time ever! I’ve always written all of the copy. Some of it’s still mine, and all of it has been reviewed and edited by me, but still…)
There’s the upfront work, the day of work, and the post-launch work. As I’m talking through this, it feels like maybe it’s more than just one episode!
I’ve got other changes for the podcast I plan on rolling out, but they won’t all come in episode 350.
Speaking of 350, and podcasts, recently I’ve been getting a lot of inquiries from people looking to start their own podcasts. I’m not sure if this is a trend or just a coincidence.
One question I always ask is why people want to do a podcast. After all, there’s a decent amount of work that goes into setting one up and in each episode. Hardware and software are required. You need to plan, record, edit, publish, and promote.
Podcasts don’t do well in search. The audience is smaller. There’s no clickable link in a podcast, and low engagement. I can’t see you or hear you, unless you reach out to me on LinkedIn to tell me you’re enjoying the show. (Thanks, btw, for those of you who have.)
All that being said, I love doing a podcast. Obviously, because I do two. And I’ve done others in the past. There are so many benefits, including making connections, developing an audience, building a platform, and more.
But lead gen doesn’t come quickly. That wasn’t even the reason I first started this podcast, which was originally called The Marketing Agents up through episode 100. It wasn’t tied to flyte, so I wasn’t trying to generate business from it.
However, over time, it has become a lead gen tool. One episode, hell, even a dozen episodes, didn’t do anything. I’m not sure how many episodes we had done before I got an honest to goodness lead from the show.
It was from Mike Foti, (hi, Mike!), who’s been a client, and friend, of flyte new media, ever since. I even asked Mike to speak on a panel at an AOC conference a couple of years ago! In fact, if you go to the new flyte site, you’ll see Mike smiling at the bottom of the home page!
It’s interesting, because I read something about Moz’s Whiteboard Fridays. These are now must-watch TV for search engine marketers, but when Rand Fishkin first started them, apparently no one watched. And they didn’t watch, for a long time. Still, Moz kept cranking them out. And then one day, people started tuning in. And the more people watched, the more people found out about it, and it became the phenomenon it is today in the search marketing world.
My point is this: much of content marketing isn’t for the feint of heart. It’s not Google ads or FB ads; you don’t get a lead on day one. Like much of life, it takes time to build up the trust and credibility that ultimately pays off in ways you can’t imagine.
If you’re thinking about podcasting, make sure you’re passionate about it. Not necessarily about listening to podcasts…honestly, I listen to way more books on tape than podcasts, but about creating one.
And that goes for really any content marketing. You’ve got to put in your time. Pay your dues. And even then it may not work out. You need to make sure there’s an audience and a need.
But if you do it, and you connect with that audience and fill that need, it can be very effective for your business.
Anyway, I hope that helps you if you’ve been on the fence about starting your own podcast.
If you’d like some one-on-one consulting about starting your own podcast, I’d love to chat with you. Head on over to theagentsofchange.com/consult and fill out the form, and we’ll set up an hour to talk through your ideas, and I’ll provide my honest feedback on everything from what tools to use, to how to find guests, how to promote the show, and more.
That’s it for this week, but we’ve got tons of great content coming your way, and guests that will continue to provide actionable tips so that you grow your business online.
Oh, and a big shout out to my transcriptionist and girlfriend, Gigi, aka Jenn Scholz, who read the opening quote.