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11 Jan 2023
001: Speaking, Sparking Connections, Star Wars, and (Google) Shopping - Kirk Williams Talks Mentorship and Marketing
Kirk Williams, Founder and CEO of ZATO Marketing, a PPC micro agency, discusses the benefits of dedicating yourself to learning, sharing your knowledge and wisdom, and more of his background. We talk about how seminary school helped him become the marketer he is today, along with his Father-In-Law, and how he defines a mentor. He mentions the processes he’s implementing to mentor his team today, and we discuss Performance Max and the future of Google Shopping.
Episode Highlights
[4:00] Kirk discusses his educational background in seminary school (Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) and learning to take in a multitude of different interpretations and backgrounds of ideas.
[10:19] When it came to finding and building his team at ZATO, Kirk highlighted the importance of finding people who have curiosity and passion, and doing a cost-benefit analysis of how they commit to projects and learning.
[14:25] What is a mentor? At a real, base level, Kirk defines a mentor as someone who has the willingness and knowledge to offer help to someone in an ongoing manner. He also stressed the importance of consent from your mentor, as well as respect for the knowledge and guidance shared.
[31:15] Kirk discussed how he is still trying to figure out the details of how he is mentoring and fostering an environment of mentorship within the ZATO world now.
[34:30] Performance Max is Google Ads' new goal-based campaign type that uses Google’s automation to target more converting customers and focuses on sales conversions. Kirk highlights how little is known across the digital marketing and PPC communities about how PMax truly works and the specifics of how it targets customers. He also dives into how PMax should be viewed and used within the marketing funnel.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
25 Jan 2023
002: Office Hours | Manually Automated - Optimizing Bidding in Paid Search Campaigns with Rachael Howle
Our Office Hours episodes are your go-to for details, how-to’s, and advice on specific marketing topics. Join our fellow Optidge team members, and sometimes even 1:1 teachings from Danny himself, in these shorter, marketing-focused episodes every few weeks. Get ready to get marketing!
Summary
Learn the differences between paid search campaigns with a manual bidding strategy vs an automated (or smart) bidding strategy as we discuss the best methods you can use to optimize your ad spend. Rachael Howle is the Head of Paid Search at Optidge and shares her knowledge and experience utilizing manual bidding strategies and how and when to switch campaigns to automated bidding in Google Ads.
Episode Highlights
[6:52] Rachael and Danny chat about the differences between manual and automated bidding, including how automated bidding utilizes Google's platform.
[8:55] Rachael discusses different automated bidding strategies and goals.
[9:52] The successes we've seen moving to Maximize Conversions campaigns, and steps to take to evaluate manual bidding campaigns.
[17:28] Why the big push from Google to shift to automated bid strategies?
[20:44] Rachael provides insight into the continued need for the human touch with campaigns. Automation is only part of it; it’s only a tool. You still need to have the master craftsman.
[22:55] Danny and Rachael dive into the significant benefits of utilizing an agency to manage your paid search campaigns
[24:24] Rachael shares her parting thoughts: manual bidding is certainly still worthwhile.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
01 Feb 2023
003: A Growth Mindset for Marketing, Mentorship, and Structured Data in SEO with Martha van Berkel
Martha Van Berkel has never backed down from a challenge and wouldn’t know how to hit the brakes on a hairpin turn on a go-kart track. She is always wanting to move faster, solve clients’ problems better, add more value, and think bigger. This is why she created Schema App. Learn more about structured data and how her mentors helped guide her onto the path of success as we dive deep into being open to feedback and opportunities with Martha.
Episode Highlights
[1:37] Martha discusses growing up in Canada and her educational background at Queen's University and MIT.
[12:20] After attending a “CEO Camp” weekend, Martha left wondering if she had a current mentor in her life and, if so, what did that look like?
[10:55] Mentoring - getting/giving feedback.
[17:05] Martha’s mentors at Cisco each played important roles at key decision points, and her time at Cisco lit the entrepreneurial spirit in her.
[28:52] Martha shares how she makes a very concerted effort to mentor her team at Schema App, and what that looks like.
[33:25] Martha shares that she is writing a chapter in the book: SEO in 2023, sponsored by Majestic.
[35:50] What is schema markup, and how does Schema App provide solutions to businesses?
[42:05] Does Google really need schema? Martha gets asked this a lot and shares her insight.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
08 Feb 2023
004: Testing New Strategies and Adjusting in Life and Paid Social with Akvile DeFazio
Having immigrated to Toronto from Lithuania as a young child and moved multiple times, Akvile is no stranger to adjusting to new situations. She’s taken those life experiences and the skills she learned from her many mentors over her career and turned them into numerous awards and a thriving social media advertising agency. Learn about the path that got her there and how she was gifted a client list to start her agency journey.
Episode Highlights
[1:45] Akvile shares how her upbringing and educational background taught her how to communicate, demonstrate empathy, and help others overcome challenges.
[8:23] What is a mentor to Akvile and where did she find her mentors?
[11:34] A key mentor in Akvile's career took her under her wing and gave her a head start in focusing on her marketing career which culminated in founding AKvertise.
[17:20] Akvile shares her insights on how she learned she was underpricing herself, and how a major mentor helped her restructure.
[21:35] Why does Akvile think it’s important and fulfilling to mentor college students? How is this key to the continued success of the digital marketing world?
[25:58] Akvile shares the beauty and challenges of social media advertising: Finding ways to reach an audience that will most likely be interested in the products and services you’re trying to sell and getting that audience into your funnel. She defines this as targeting people instead of keywords.
[29:54] Attribution and targeting options within the Meta advertising space have changed significantly over the years., and although the attribution in Meta is more model-based than true data, Akvile still confidently recommends it to her clients.
[33:30] If you’re a service provider and/or running your own agency, Akvile would recommend that you take part in both running and implementing campaigns as well as consulting.
[39:18] Akvile shares that overcoming stage fright with Toastmaster led to the award she's most proud of and keeps within reaching distance on her desk - Toastmaster of the Year in 2017.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
15 Feb 2023
005: Office Hours | Applying Linguistics to SEO Content Strategy with Mandy Politi
We discuss the purpose, benefits, and process of a solid SEO content writing strategy with Mandy Politi, a Senior SEO Strategist at Optidge. Her career journey began as a child in the Greek education system with a strong focus on written content, continued with a degree in linguistics, and has led to a passionate approach to creating ever-evolving content briefs for writers and valuable content for consumers. Get ready for SEO Content Writing 101 in this episode of the Digital Marketing Mentor.
An Optidge "Office Hours" Episode
Our Office Hours episodes are your go-to for details, how-to’s, and advice on specific marketing topics. Join our fellow Optidge team members, and sometimes even 1:1 teachings from Danny himself, in these shorter, marketing-focused episodes every few weeks. Get ready to get marketing!
Episode Highlights
[1:28] Mandy is Optidge’s Senior SEO Strategist. She grew up in Greece, moved to Scotland to get her Master's degree in Applied Linguistics, and now lives in Mexico City. Her primary education in Greece certainly influenced her decision to go into the field of Search Engine Optimization with a focus on written content.
[6:52] What does it mean to “write for SEO?”
[8:00] Why is SEO content important and what's the goal of optimizing content?
[11:50] Consider a hypothetical scenario. An orthodontist only supplies Invisalign and does not offer traditional braces. Is it okay for them to write content to try and rank for “braces?”
[14:40] Mandy shares her process for writing for SEO
[23:45] For true optimization, you must go back and review the content you’ve published after a month or two. Has the content been indexed? Does it rank for what was originally intended?
[26:18] Mandy isn’t always writing the content herself. She shares how she works with other writers by providing them with content briefs.
[34:36] The Greek education system was probably Mandy’s biggest mentor for SEO content. In Greece, every single year of formal education teaches you how to write, why you’ll write a certain way, different structures, what makes content good, and the skill of summarizing content and ideas.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
22 Feb 2023
006: Mentorship, Media Buying, and Motivation with Cory Henke
Cory Henke’s path to his current stop, leading his media buying and analytics agency, is anything but a straight line. From convincing his college basketball coach to let him walk on as a novice to being taken into investor meetings by his last boss and CEO, Cory’s learned a lot of things by being unafraid to ask questions, take risks, and be the best at whatever role is needed, especially if that role is ‘Dad.’
Episode Highlights
[1:27] Cory shares how being an unlikely member of the basketball team at California Lutheran University taught him how to mold yourself to the a role and the importance of experience.
[6:38] A mentor is someone willing to tell you the truth. They don't need anything from you, and are willing to spend the time to help mold you.
[7:28] Cory's first mentor and boss, Cat, was ruthless, but helped instill a sense of urgency and the importance of being a team member.
[13:19] Cory shares how he found himself loving the combination of disruption and innovation that digital marketing brings when working with a particular client - Mormon.org.
[18:05] A position at Molio brought Cory to Utah and spurred the launch of his own agency.
[23:55] Now, Cory is the mentor, and focuses on doing it all with transparency and love, allowing his employees the space and freedom to grow.
[29:00] Cory shares his keys to mentoring success
[30:00] Learn why Cory lists the role of 'Dad' first in his LinkedIn bio.
[32:29] Cory's favorite element of digital marketing is data - he believes it's the gold to success in this field, and wants to be the best at mining it.
[34:40] Why does YouTube hold such a place of focus for Cory?
[38:32] Beginning in 2020 and into 2021, scaling a business required a talented media buyer. In the last year, successful scaling has come from those focusing on product innovation.
[44:54] Cory shares is top 3 tips for getting into media buying
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
01 Mar 2023
007: Rebounds in Basketball and Business with Marketing Refresh's Terri Hoffman
Terri Hoffman is the CEO of Marketing Refresh, a digital agency that specializes in the construction and industrial industries. Follow along and learn about the many ways basketball, leadership, construction, and data audits have all come together to bring Terri through her career in digital marketing today!
Episode Highlights
[1:22] Being a member and captain of her college basketball team taught Terri about teamwork and accountability, skills she now uses daily when running her own agency.
[6:50] To Terri, mentorship is about someone with more knowledge and experience, which you can go to for advice and counseling. They need to be someone with whom you can feel vulnerable and can be transparent without the worry of feeling judged.
[8:27] Terri shares how her mentors helped her embody her leadership style, and how “rough and tough” doesn't really work in today’s business world.
[15:26] Terri shares about an early mistake in her career with her first clients and how she rebounded.
[20:47] Now, Terri mentors each of her employees. She has weekly one-on-one coaching calls where they discuss practical work matters and where they feel challenged and need extra support.
[25:23] Terri shares why she loves small business consulting.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
08 Mar 2023
008: Barbershop Quartets, Blinds.com, and Being True to Your Core Values with Jay Steinfeld
Jay Steinfeld launched Blinds.com, an e-commerce store, in 1996, eventually selling it to Home Depot in 2014. This bold but measured decision would characterize many of his subsequent career decisions. Listen in to hear Jay discuss how he is always learning, being mentored, and mentoring others, every day of his life - and how you should too!
Episode Highlights
[6:00] Jay shares how being a part of a barbershop quartet for 50 years has taught him many life and business skills, especially how to be on stage despite being an introvert.
[8:03] If your employees need more skill at something, you should let them learn about it. Allow them to sit in on meetings from other departments, even if it isn’t their job.
[9:37] If you want to move up in a company, do not view the path as a ladder. Instead, view yourself as a sponge.
[11:38] Jay shares his definition of a mentor: anyone who systematically helps someone figure out NOT what they should DO but how they should THINK. Everyone who has someone working for them is a mentor.
[17:54] Jay’s shares his keys to success in mentoring others.
[28:57] Learn the difference between mentoring students vs mentoring a direct report.
[33:35] Jay took the risk of breaking into the e-Commerce world in the very early days to sell blinds online.
[44:19] Jay shares the journey of discovering his personal core values.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
15 Mar 2023
009: Mandela's '94 Campaign, Smart TV's, and BMW - A Top Creative Director's Journey with Louis Gavin
Louis Gavin has cultivated a respect for creativity and unique approaches to advertising over his illustrious career. Hear how he was an essential element of Nelson Mandela’s presidential campaign in 1994, worked through the transition to digital advertising in the auto industry, and his thoughts on the best way to be a creative director, leader, and mentor on this episode of The Digital Marketing Mentor.
Episode Highlights
[13:27] Being a good creative director means being able to overcome your fear of your employees being better than you and being able to shape and influence their approaches, strategies, and styles rather than forcing your own. Creating a culture of learning and mentorship is the best, but it requires a strong, confident leader.
[20:05] Louis Gavin was a vital element of the advertising campaign for Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress to be elected to the South African presidency in 1994. Their campaign focused on educating many of the people of South Africa about the reality lived by many others and garnering sympathy while also building the image that Mandela was the voice of reason, democracy, and human rights.
[32:05] Through his work with Wurl, Louis has seen a new approach to advertising, even within the digital age. This new approach can near-immediately aggregate advertising to a given audience who it tracks is watching a streaming program at that moment. This could lead to the lessening importance of creativity, but Louis hopes not because creativity is still where you find the magic in advertising.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
22 Mar 2023
010: Music, Mentorship, and Making Content with Glenn Taylor of Skybound Coaching
Dive into the world of music and professional coaching with Glenn Taylor. Learn how he went from being CMO of the Houston Symphony to coaching individuals and teams on how to be great leaders and foster a culture of feedback. You’ll also hear how impactful and fun organic content creation has been for Glenn and Skybound Coaching, not to mention the many mentors that guided Glenn on his journey.
Episode Highlights
[1:32] Glenn came to the world of mentorship and marketing via music. He got his degree in music business and then, after some years of work there, became the CMO of the Houston Symphony. He then transitioned to his own coaching business, though the path was not straight and simple and required he take some risks.
[12:23] To Glenn, the definitions of coach and mentor are distinct, though the lines will be blurred at times as a mentor needs to don his coaching hat and vice versa. A coach is meant to guide you and, rather than giving you the answers, help draw them out of you. A mentor is more advice-based and shares their experiences and strategies that have worked for them over the years.
[15:00] Glenn’s mentors over the years have been many. First was Susan Lieberman, a professor of a leadership course. Then, Matthew VanBesien, the GM, and CEO of the Houston Symphony, taught him a lot about trust and risk. Pat Flynn, whom Glenn has never met, has inspired him as a master content creator. And finally, Chris Kenny, hired initially as a sales coach by Glenn became a mentor and friend.
[29:45] Constructive criticism can be difficult for many, and Glenn notes how important it is to develop a mindset of welcoming feedback. He helps to create cultures of feedback with his clients and highlights the terminology of “developmental” or “improvement-based feedback” might be easier to digest.
[35:55] Glenn has bought into the strategy of organic content creation since the inception of his business. He began writing and enjoying the creation of all forms of content when he first launched his website. It has resulted in an amazing website with a vast library of content showcasing his knowledge and expertise.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
29 Mar 2023
011: The Transition from Agency Owner to Next Generation Leader: A Journey of Mentorship with Allie Danziger
Allie Danziger joins Danny on the Digital Marketing Mentor to discuss her many mentors, such as her parents, her first boss, and some of her many employees. She also discusses how she transitioned from running one of Texas' most successful pr and social media agencies to training and teaching young professionals the tricks to being effective in the workplace. Be sure to listen in to hear her fantastic book recommendations as well!
Episode Highlights
[5:41] To Allie Danziger, a mentor can be anyone higher or lower than you in a company, regardless of experience or age. A mentor is someone who can and will spend time on the relationship and be transparent. They should also know something you don’t know that you would like to know, and they can’t be focused on their own ego.
[8:00] Over the years, Allie’s mentors have been her parents, a boss, friends, and employees. She’s learned many different life and career skills from all of them. It is essential to her that you have an open mind and growth mindset so you can take in and learn from those around you.
[27:50] After many years running Integrate, a digital marketing and PR agency, Allie now runs Ampersand. Ampersand trains young professionals and those new to the professional landscape with all of the “behind-the-scenes” knowledge about being effective in a workplace. They also help managers better retain their talent by sharing information and data on the interns they hire from her so they can better manage and encourage them.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
05 Apr 2023
012: Bringing Out the Sparkle and Shine in Others and Diamonds with Brian Gavin
Brian Gavin is a mentor, renowned jeweler, innovative businessman, and father to The Digital Marketing Mentor. In this episode, you’ll hear about how he grew up in South Africa, took the leap to America with his family and started selling diamonds online, in a time when that was practically unheard of. Be sure to listen in to learn his tips for mentorship and marketing for truly drawing out the sparkle within.
Episode Highlights
Brian grew up in Johannesburg, South Africa. His father and grandfather were both key mentors to him growing up. They instilled an unwavering dedication to perfection and presentation. They also taught him that if he had to the drive to do something, he could do it. This helped give him the courage to move from South Africa to the United States with a wife and young child, where he would launch his own diamond brand and be one of the first to sell diamonds online.
He’s long been a mentor figure to many in his orbit. He believes encouragement and the passing of knowledge are key in a mentoring relationship. Additionally, you need to find someone who is open, a good listener, and empathetic.
Brian has created numerous new diamond cuts and different brand lines under the Brian Gavin Diamonds umbrella. He was never one to turn away from something originally shunned by society, like blue fluorescence in diamonds. Instead, he found how to highlight the uniqueness and true sparkle of each individual piece.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
11 Apr 2023
013: Office Hours | Making Alphabet Soup for Lead Quality: PPC, UTM, CRM, and More with Brianna Deboever
Brianna Deboever discusses how marketing can be a great blending of worlds when it comes to being creatively and analytically minded. She and Danny chat about how important it is to track, understand, organize, and share lead quality rather than just quantity when optimizing paid campaigns. Finally, they review how CRMs and UTMs come in very handy to do just those things to bring about a successful, high-quality lead-generating campaign.
An Optidge "Office Hours" Episode
Our Office Hours episodes are your go-to for details, how-to’s, and advice on specific marketing topics. Join our fellow Optidge team members, and sometimes even 1:1 teachings from Danny himself, in these shorter, marketing-focused episodes every few weeks. Get ready to get marketing!
Episode Highlights
Lead quality is a key element often overlooked by agencies. Customer Relationship Management is a platform or program that stores and organizes data relating to leads to better inform the marketing team to optimize the campaigns and conversion process. UTMs are specific parameters appended to a URL when a user visits your website that denotes the source, medium, campaigns, and more that brought them to your website.
It’s essential to track the quality of a lead to ensure you’re not optimizing on flawed data. This means connecting UTMs to one’s CRM so you can track the sources and more, bringing in truly viable and high-quality leads. One must also ensure they track all types of conversions, including phone calls.
CRMs can be incredibly helpful for marketing a business, but utilizing them must be a priority. Optidge recommends assigning one or two team members the goal and focus of updating, grading, and disseminating the information in the CRM. This is imperative to ensure up-to-date, useful data is used to optimize PPC campaigns and marketing efforts.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
19 Apr 2023
014: Founding Startups, Fractional CMOs, and Facing ChatGPT with Mosheh Poltorak
Mosheh has done marketing for many startup businesses over the years and has learned a lot from those experiences. He now runs a fractional CMO firm (don’t worry, we define what that means) and is pushing the use of ChatGPT and AI as powerful tools in the marketing world. In this episode, he also tells us his key tactic for a successful mentor relationship.
Episode Highlights:
Mosheh has worked for many startup companies over the years, from a virtual currency startup to a software and medical device company. He always envisioned himself in that working environment, the entrepreneurial one. After passing on neuropsychology and legal as potential career paths, he landed on marketing. He appreciates how it blends together left and right-brained thought work.
For him, a mentor is someone who has experience in the career you are in and can help guide you in your path. Scheduling, planning, and adhering to a one-on-one meeting with your mentee is imperative to a successful relationship. A mentor should also diplomatically give honest feedback in a way that is direct and truly helpful. Finally, mentors should be open to feedback from their mentees and truly implement change based on that information.
Mosheh believes ChatGPT and AI are powerful tools at our disposal. They will be abused like all tools before them, but they can be used responsibly to improve efficiency and performance for almost every business. We need to focus on being human and learning to work with AI because we are humans, and it never will be.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
26 Apr 2023
015: Finding a Match in Technical SEO with Chris Long
Chris Long is the VP of Marketing at Go Fish Digital and has found himself there through a curvy road that began in finance in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. He’s learned a lot about key traits in a mentor, content strategy, and technical SEO along the way. Be sure to listen to this episode to hear how he customizes his strategy in all things mentorship, technical SEO, and more!
Episode Highlights:
Chris Long came from a background in finance and discovered the world of digital marketing. He’s learned it welcomes people from all backgrounds and experiences. At his first job, he worked closely with the small business owner and got an inside look at how a business operated and how marketing folded into the larger landscape.
A mentor should be different things for different people; there is no one-size-fits-all approach. A mentor should guide you and help you perform at peak capacity. Chris has drawn certain traits from past mentors and uses those in his life now and tries to pass them on to his mentees. An innate curiosity for problem-solving, self-sufficiency, and empathy are key to a good mentor relationship.
Chris is a frequent content creator, whether that is written content shared on various publications and LinkedIn, or through his talks at many conferences on digital marketing. He is influenced by those topics both from external inspiration, seeing someone else discussing a topic, and internal curiosity. The stories he is most drawn to tend to be experimental, where someone has a hypothesis and tries it to see how it would play out.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
03 May 2023
016: Investing in Startups and Mentoring with Daniel Cotlar
Daniel Cotlar learned early on that he enjoyed the creative, risky, high-energy startup world, and after learning much over his years working at them, now invests and mentors startups. He is passionate about helping others and learning from them. In this episode, he discusses his steps to a successful startup business and mentoring relationships, and some of the stumbling blocks he’s found along the way.
Episode Highlights:
Daniel Cotlar learned early in his life that he preferred working in smaller, more risk-taking, creative environments. This ultimately led him to work with Jay Steinfeld at Blinds.com. Jay has been a pivotal influence and mentor for Daniel and taught him about his core values, structure, and more. Daniel believes a mentor must want what’s best for their mentee. There should be some flexible structure, and they should focus more on asking questions than simply dumping solutions.
Through his work as an investor and board member, Daniel does a lot of mentoring these days. He believes it’s essential for new businesses to just go for it: get the product out of the idea stage and into the customer’s hands as quickly as possible, with as little cost as possible. Then you can observe, learn, and improve. It is also imperative for a new business to have product-market fit. If you can prove this, you will find investors.
The experience of attending a yeshiva, a traditional Jewish college, and learning to study the Talmud taught Daniel how to distill complicated logic, find patterns, debate, and reason. These elements have served him very well over his marketing career.
Daniel believes Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) is a valuable statistic, but it's true power lies not in itself as a solitary number. Instead, it lies in finding trends and differentiating between customer sets, campaigns, and time periods. For new businesses, you will have to start with a gap-filled estimate. But over time, you will fill those gaps and refine that number. Remember, though, that achieving and expanding CLV will get more difficult over the life of a company.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
10 May 2023
017: A Tale of Two Languages, Two Master’s Degrees, and Two Homes with Aurora Losada
Aurora Losada came to Houston, by way of Columbia University in New York, from Madrid, Spain. She worked many years in journalism and is now Microsoft’s Global Communications Manager for Latin America. With the guidance and support from some fantastic mentors along the way, Aurora has learned much about how to lead and utilize tools like generative AI and ChatGPT. In this episode, you’ll learn so much about how mentorship can drive a brilliant, hard worker like Aurora.
Episode Highlights:
Aurora Losada was born and raised in Spain. Her father was the CEO of one of the largest publishing companies in Europe and helped instill an amazing work ethic in her. He encouraged her to follow her vision of going into journalism. After attending college in the United States, she loved it so much that she made it permanent and became a US Citizen.
Aurora has had many amazing mentors over the years, including our very own Danny Gavin, The Digital Marketing Mentor. All of her mentors have guided, advised, and supported her with no expectation of personal gain. They were always there to answer questions and open doors for her, as a good mentor should.
When it comes to AI and content generation, Aurora has many thoughts. She believes generative AI specifically is being created to be an amazing tool that supports humans rather than the inverse. She’s used it herself with help on projects in the past, but it doesn’t do her job for her. It’s an administrative assistant that is useless without human prompts and input. As far as content generation and AI are concerned, Aurora believes it is a very useful tool for summaries, drafts, and brainstorming, but you must always double-check the output and review the sources and add the human mind back into the content.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
17 May 2023
018: The ABC’s of Mentoring and SEO Marketing: Always Be Creative with Batli Joselevitz
Creative Director, SEO lover, photography enthusiast, and creative wanderer, Batli, is here to discuss how her journey through a journalism degree in college and living on both coasts of the United States led her to the technical SEO realm. Through joining university organizations, mentoring younger students, and learning about internet marketing, Batli’s creativity has always been a driving force. Her focus on the leadership traits of her chosen mentors has helped her learn about how she thrives at being a student of life. We promise you’ll learn plenty from her story on The Digital Marketing Mentor.
Episode Highlights:
Batli’s path to the world of SEO wasn’t a straight and easy one. She got her education in photography and journalism from the University of Texas. She eventually found her way to Optidge where she learned, through trying, that SEO and SEO content were the niche in which she wanted to be.
The Google Helpful Content Update was being rolled out at the time of our chat with Batli. Google was trying to direct SEO-ers to focus on making content with a people-first mindset, as opposed to an algorithm-first approach. We don’t yet know what the impact will be, but it will likely be good for users and harder for good marketers to be seen as everyone starts making better content.
Mentorship and being mentored, for Batli, are really more about the personality of the mentor, rather than the technical skills within a given industry or platform. A mentor must lead with empathy and for the mentee to feel like they’re heard. Batli has taken these traits and now uses them as she mentors others.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
24 May 2023
019: Teaching Gen Z and Millennials How to Fly High as Young Professionals with Jamie Belinne
After more than 30 years in career services and recruiting, Jamie Belinne finds herself with a wealth of knowledge on how the different generations work, a book helping managers navigate those differences, and many awards and accolades acknowledging her expertise. We discuss how to mentor students and young professionals, why Gen Z is not a generation of narcissists, and why diversity isn’t the norm but will be someday, thanks to the younger generations.
Episode Highlights:
According to Jamie, a student's experiences outside of the classroom are hugely important. Her time spent as a student worker and intern and her first few jobs were incredible learning opportunities for her. She encourages the students she mentors to strive to leave university with more than just a piece of paper asserting they’ve met the academic requirements of their degree.
According to Jamie, a mentor is someone who has understanding and background knowledge beyond your own (in some area) to help provide insight and perspective on your goals and questions. She shares three keys to successful mentorship.
In 2017, Jamie published "The Care and Feeding of Your Younger Employee: A Manager's Guide to Millennials and Gen Z." Her research revealed that perceived generational differences often stem from youthful mentality. She also discovered that young professionals anticipate diversity and an ideal work environment, but are often let down. Despite being labeled as narcissistic, younger generations raised in an online world exhibit high awareness of others and their influence.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
31 May 2023
020: Follow Your Gut to Find Delight in Client Account Management with Taylor McMaster
If you’ve ever wanted to know what it takes to be a brilliant account manager, this is the episode for you. Taylor McMaster owns and runs DOT & Company, a digital marketing agency turned client account management agency. With her, we discuss the power of experiential learning, mentorship from many individuals, and how to truly delight your clients.
Episode Highlights:
Taylor McMaster owns and runs DOT & Company, a client account management agency. Originally, DOT & Company was a digital marketing agency themselves, but while on a Mastermind trip in Fiji, Taylor realized what she most enjoyed was client communication, management, and organization. So, she transitioned her business to one that managed other agencies’ clients.
For Taylor, being a mentor is more of a vibe than a title or rigid definition. However, in her experience with many mentors from different walks of life over the years, she found they share one thing in common. A mentor is someone you can confidently ask for help, and they can provide a new perspective for you. She’s also learned that it is key for her to find mentors who share common values with her. She doesn’t want to be someone working 80-hour work weeks and living in a hustle culture.
Obviously, Taylor is very passionate about what makes a good account manager. She knows that proactive communication is paramount to a long-lasting client relationship. Also, having good processes, documentation, and systems are key to efficiency and help soften the edges of the “human element” of agency work. Finally, continuous optimization is imperative to long and profitable client relationships. DOT & Company’s account managers are constantly working with the agency strategists and experts to provide a better service to their clients, whether that’s upselling them on a new service or shutting down one that doesn’t seem to be bringing in the return they need. If you do all these things, you’re sure to delight your clients.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
07 Jun 2023
021: Hitting a Home Run in Niche Digital Advertising with Yehuda Cagen
From playing games and performing commercials about items in the pantry, to his family, to being Senior Marketing Director at Ostendio, Yehuda has always loved advertising and marketing. Learn how he’s learned to always look for the light, find the lighthouse brand offering, and listen to customers' genuine concerns in this episode of The Digital Marketing Mentor.
Episode Highlights:
Yehuda Cagen has always had an interest in advertising. Even as a kid, his family would play a game that entailed picking a random item out of the pantry and doing a commercial on the chosen thing. He began his career at an advertising agency after getting his Master’s in Communication. He knows his degree helped open doors for him, but he knows he had to prove himself once he got to work.
A mentor is anyone you can learn from, according to Yehuda. He says that our entire journey on this earth is to keep learning. There are formal and informal mentors and intentional and passive mentors. Brian Grodner, Larry Sachnowitz, Peter Edlund, and Grant Elliot have taught him much over the years, much of it focused on being open and inviting to others and having a positive focus in life.
When it comes to advertising complex and niche products, like many of the businesses Yehuda has worked for in his career, he says you must find your beacon. This is the one thing that truly differentiates you from your competitors. You discover this by talking with the customer service and sales teams and listening to honest conversations with current and prospective customers.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
14 Jun 2023
022: Hard Work in SEO Opened Doors to Open Houses with Fay Friedman
Starting her career as an SEO copywriter in the wild west days of internet marketing, Fay Friedman has worked diligently and now finds herself as the CMO at a commercial real estate firm bringing the rental world into the modern marketing era. In this episode, you’ll learn how a university degree isn’t the only path into marketing, how self-motivation, learning, and teamwork are keys to success, and how SEO in e-commerce influences the world of apartment rentals.
Episode Highlights:
Fay Friedman began her career as an SEO copywriter. Through this work, she learned much about the good, the bad, and the ugly of digital marketing and what does and doesn’t help a client’s website. After many years in traditional SEO, she made the transition to commercial real estate, where she is now the CMO of AJH Co. While she may have been thrown into the deep end of real estate marketing, she’s mastered the art of it now, slowly but surely bringing real estate in the modern marketing era (with modern tracking and reporting).
Fay believes a mentor is someone you can look up to and that will provide you with clear-headed guidance. They don’t need to be someone you’re close to that you see daily. She references Barry Schwartz of SEO Round Table as one of her early SEO mentors, as she learned so much from reading his blog. Her current COO has also mentored her, teaching her the different ways to be an effective leader.
When it comes to real estate marketing, it’s all regional. Fay knows the key to standing out and bringing in high-quality leads is in-depth property and target market research. She then uses that research to craft a unique message highlighting how a given property will help overcome any pain points of that customer group. She’s working to shift the marketing focus from being simply ILS management with basic reporting to a wide breadth of marketing platforms and advertising styles, all with the most reporting and targeting available.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
21 Jun 2023
023: Office Hours | Marveling at Client Account Management from Mexico City with Nayeli Cano
Ever wondered what it takes to excel as a client account manager in the fast-paced world of digital marketing? Join me for an engaging conversation with Nayeli Cano, a seasoned marketing expert and client account manager at Optidge. In this podcast, Nayeli shares her inspiring journey from starting as a content manager, to volunteering with a non-profit, and eventually diving headfirst into the digital marketing industry.
An Optidge "Office Hours" Episode
Our Office Hours episodes are your go-to for details, how-to’s, and advice on specific marketing topics. Join our fellow Optidge team members, and sometimes even 1:1 teachings from Danny himself, in these shorter, marketing-focused episodes every few weeks. Get ready to get marketing!
Episode Highlights:
Nayeli Cano is a client account manager at Optidge. Her foray into the digital marketing industry began thru a volunteer position at a nonprofit organization. She then went on to work in sales at a marketing agency. This is where she discovered account management - in her effort to truly understand the offerings and services she was selling. She was hooked and eventually moved from sales at that agency to account management at a different company.
Organization, time management, and communication are all key skills for account managers. Nayeli is a natural “control freak,” so she takes to organization like a duck to water. Time management for her all comes down to the good ol’ To Do List and setting priorities. Finally, communication and being able to read people, both your client and your team members, is key for setting expectations and protecting your team. Managing expectations can be very challenging, and sometimes last-minute, urgent requests are unavailable. But Nayeli’s team knows she’s there to negotiate for them and protect their time and effort.
It can be very easy to keep your account management “hat” on 24/7. She avoids this by having a specific “closing” routine to wrap up her work day, where she notes all remaining priorities and plans her tasks for the next day. Then, she turns off all notifications and takes her dog on a walk outside. Sometimes, when walking, she’ll get inspired and find insight or a solution to a work problem. When this happens, she writes it down on her phone and then gets back to being in the moment with her dog.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
28 Jun 2023
024: Talking Touchdowns, Two-Pointers, and Triple Plays with Adam Clanton
It all started with a box for a Houston Rockets sweepstakes for kids at an Olive Garden. Be sure to listen to this episode to hear about Adam Clanton’s love for all things Houston Sports and how he got into sports talk radio. You’ll also learn plenty about how the internet and social media have changed sports media in big ways over the years.
Episode Highlights:
After first getting his start in the world of sports at a young age, winning the chance to be a ball boy for the Houston Rockets, Adam Clanton persevered through his challenging college education at Sam Houston State University and has been working in sports talk radio since 2004. His father is a very influential mentor to him and also works in (not-sports) talk radio. He’s encouraged him many times over the years and has encouraged some encounters that became long-lasting business relationships and friendships.
To Adam, a mentor is not someone necessarily working the job you want in the industry in which you’re working. A mentor is someone who makes sure you’re going down the right path based on your skills and strengths. They help minimize or overcome your weaknesses in the most selfless way imaginable. Mark Vandemeer is one of those mentors for Adam. He met Mark after Mark had met his father and worked at the same radio station. Mark eventually developed a friendship with Adam and helped coach him on many things in business and life. Early in his career, Mark offered Adam a co-host spot on his radio show. And the rest, as they say, is history.
The internet has been increasingly present in sports media the whole time Adam has worked in the industry. His favorite platform of choice is Twitter, though he notes it can be a perilous place. His love for the “Mute” button cannot be overstated, and it has helped him focus on listening to the people whose opinions truly matter, his family and friends. Social media has also given him a platform to partake in one of his favorite parts of his job - giving away free tickets. He loves giving away free Rockets tickets to people on social media who otherwise wouldn’t have the opportunity to see and enjoy a game.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
05 Jul 2023
025: How Do You Give Good AF Marketing, Mentoring, and Music Advice? It Depends. With Amalia Fowler
Amalia learned through her education that there is no one path to success. For her, it started with a degree in psychology. It went on to include managing Google Ads, being a marketing director, and now, being a professor at her alma mater and running her own consulting agency. In this episode, we talk about public speaking, management strategies, professorship, AI, and Taylor Swift.
Episode Highlights:
Amalia learned through her education that there is no one path to success. For her, it started with a degree in psychology and went on to include managing Google Ads, being a director of marketing, and now, being a professor at her alma mater and running her own consulting agency. She knows age doesn’t always mean more life experience and formal education isn’t the absolute best or worst route for people interested in digital marketing. It depends.
Defining a mentor is a challenge, but to Amalia, the definition should be broad and open to different paths. A mentor is someone who has had a positive impact on your life that you’ll recall for many years. Her three keys to mentoring success are:
Self Awareness. It’s incredibly important in general, but especially in mentoring. If you don’t know what you don’t know, you’re incapable of providing advice.
Approach with curiosity. She’s learned always to ask questions. She never approaches with anger and tries not to be upset. Everyone has backgrounds and core beliefs we were taught as we grew up. Now we must ask ourselves if we still believe or want to subscribe to those life rules.
Follow your sparkle. If you don’t like the word ‘sparkle,’ you can use ‘joy,’ but why would you when ‘sparkle’ is right there? At the end of each semester, Amalia always tells her students, “If you HAVE to disappoint someone, don’t let it be you.”
When it comes to updating her course curriculum to keep up with the ever-evolving world of digital marketing, Amalia has a fairly straightforward approach. If her students can Google a tool or program once they’re out of her classroom and in the workforce, then she has a responsibility to teach them how to smartly and safely use that tool. Regarding ChatGPT and AI, she makes sure they understand the inherent biases, challenges, and flaws in the foundation of those tools. An essential question you must always ask when using AI is, “What’s WRONG with it?”
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
12 Jul 2023
026: Office Hours | Sitemaps, Search Console, and SEO Content Quality - A Case Study on What Makes Successful SEO
Get ready to dive deep into a case study with a real Optidge client. Their website had more than 12,000 pages, but they were getting little organic traffic. That, coupled with a “Couldn’t Fetch” error for the sitemaps in Google Search Console, is what led Optidge down the rabbit hole that is “low-quality content” in SEO.
An Optidge "Office Hours" Episode
Our Office Hours episodes are your go-to for details, how-to’s, and advice on specific marketing topics. Join our fellow Optidge team members, and sometimes even 1:1 teachings from Danny himself, in these shorter, marketing-focused episodes every few weeks. Get ready to get marketing!
Episode Highlights:
This case study concerns a client that came to Optidge with a 12,000 page website that was underperforming in organic search. They also received a “couldn’t fetch” error when submitting their sitemap via Google Search Console. The website's purpose was to serve as a search engine for social media influencers. Our analysis uncovered a low-quality content issue.
Because so much of the website is content copied from various social media sites and profiles, it’s fairly low on content, AND Google will view it as low quality because it’s not unique.
There are two ways to rectify a low content quality issue. You can remove or block the pages from being indexed by Google. Alternatively, you can increase the value and improve the quality of the content on those pages. The latter should be driven by keyword research. We recommended the client create static pages targeting specific, high-traffic keywords and then link those pages via a categorical structure in the navigation.
Finally, if the content quality were not an issue and the likely cause of low organic performance, the search console error would still be annoying. Our research uncovered that a sitemap submission in Google Search Console is mostly a suggestion rather than a command to Google when crawling and indexing your site. If it doesn’t accept the sitemap, your main remedy is waiting. There are certain rules of thumb and alternative file types and submission methods you can try to help increase the likelihood of Google accepting your sitemap.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
19 Jul 2023
027: Putting the People and Personality in Professoring and Publishing Marketing Content with Bill Zahn
William (Bill) Zahn is a clinical professor at the University of Houston’s Bauer College of Business. He started teaching there five years after finishing his Ph.D. at the same institute. His former professors and department heads have mentored him, and he now mentors his students in the ways of storytelling in marketing and how writing will always need the human element.
Episode Highlights:
Background
William (Bill) Zahn started his marketing career with a bachelor’s degree in marketing from the University of Texas at Austin. After a stint in the workforce, he got his Ph.D. in marketing from the University of Houston. Five years after completing the graduate program, he returned as a professor, where he remains today.
Mentoring
When defining a mentor, Bill knows one thing for certain - he doesn’t like to leave it open-ended. If someone requests Bill to mentor them, he wants expectations set up front. How often will we meet? What do you hope to get out of this? He believes a mentor is someone who has been where you want to go and can offer you advice to help you overcome challenges on your path to success.
Professorship
A social media marketing class project had a bit of a plot twist when one of Bill’s students managed to convince Gary Vee to call and be a guest speaker for their class. Bill knows that storytelling is a critical element of good teaching and good marketing. He always tries to find ways to relate a topic to his students' lives so they’ll better remember it. He also knows that AI is here to stay, especially in the world of marketing content creation, but it will always need the human touch because it doesn’t have life experiences to draw upon.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
09 Aug 2023
030: Office Hours | Breaking Down Biases, Boundaries, and Being Self-Confident with Maddie Deane
Today’s Office Hours episode focuses on the many ways stereotypes and unconscious biases can make their way into the workplace. Maddie Deane, the SEO Team Lead at Optidge, is a young woman in the digital marketing space, and she discusses her experiences with certain behaviors that seem to question her expertise based on her gender or perceived age.
An Optidge "Office Hours" Episode
Our Office Hours episodes are your go-to for details, how-to’s, and advice on specific marketing topics. Join our fellow Optidge team members, and sometimes even 1:1 teachings from Danny himself, in these shorter, marketing-focused episodes every few weeks. Get ready to get marketing!
Episode Highlights:
Maddie, being mostly Gen-Z with some Millennial still there, knows all too well the stereotypes associated with those generations. She has had to fight for respect in the workforce because many have the preconceived notion these generations don’t care about careers or putting in hard work. She views many of the “negatives'' as “positives.”
When it comes to countering stereotypes and biases, Maddie’s number one tip - Self Confidence. Avoid using softer language like “I think…” or “it might be…” and use strong, assertive language and posture. She tries to teach this to her mentees and trainees by leading by example. Managers, bosses, and owners can help by setting expectations with new clients of who they will be working with and passing their credibility onto the day-to-day workers by communicating their expertise and confidence in their team to the client.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
26 Jul 2023
028: Ready, Set, Storytelling with The Marketing Quarterback - Henry Adaso
Henry Adaso is The Marketing Quarterback. In this episode, we discuss what a mentor is and why Henry didn’t have the broadest access to mentors when he was younger. We also discuss how storytelling and teamwork are the key pillars of marketing success in the digital marketing world.
Episode Highlights:
Henry Adaso was born and raised in Nigeria, where he founded and led his high school’s press club. This was when he first fell in love with words. He uses those powerful storytelling skills today in his marketing career.
A mentor is a guide. They are someone who can help guide you along your career path because they’ve walked a similar path. A successful mentor must listen. They must understand their mentee's goal and not default to their own understanding or personal goals to advise them.
Adaso is the epitome of The Marketing Quarterback because he wants to be in the trenches, doing the work with his team. His team he crafted carefully, ensuring he had a collection of unique individuals with skills and superpowers that complemented each other, all working toward a shared vision.
Storytelling is a key element of Henry’s life and marketing strategy. This is obvious in the three bestselling books he’s written and published. They all discuss different elements of marketing strategy, including overall content strategy, internal motivation, and audience definition and focus. Each book begins with a story and goes on to motivate and teach the reader the marketing quarterback’s playbook.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
02 Aug 2023
029: Communications, Communes, Colorado, and Coaches with John Doherty
John Doherty is the founder of Credo, an agency broker, and EditorNinja, a subscription-based professional editing services firm. He has traveled extensively and has currently found home in Colorado with his wife and daughter. In today’s episode, he discusses tiered business relationships, mentorship, entrepreneurship, editing, and sales tactics.
Episode Highlights:
John Doherty got a degree in technical and scientific communications from James Madison University. He originally believed he wanted to diverge from his father’s 30-year employer and older brother’s alma mater and go to university out of state, but James Madison provided a great degree program. After graduating, he traveled, lived in Europe for a bit, and then returned to work his way up the East Coast.
Forty-seven states, 20+ countries, three continents. John travels. He knows travel can open one’s worldview and perspective. He and his wife and family now live in Denver, where they seem to have put down fairly deep roots. This doesn’t stop them from going on trips and vacations often.
To John, business relationships settle into tiers. Tier 1 is peers, many of whom follow different paths as we move through our careers; some grow with us. Tier 2 is for coaches. A coach is someone you pay for their business advice and guidance. They’re often a couple of steps beyond you in business. Finally, Tier 3 is reserved for mentors. A mentor is someone many steps ahead of you in their career who advises on a more macro, meta-level. This is the type of person who, in a 10-minute conversation, can completely shift your paradigm around a question, challenge, or opportunity.
EditorNinja is John’s current business venture focus. They offer professional editing services on a subscription-based model, a strategy inspired by John’s friend, the founder of Design Pickle. Many freelance editors they work with are in their first job out of an editing or master's program. John mentors them on professional career skills. He is not an editor. He’s a writer, marketer, and salesperson who will not try to convince someone they need his services but will instead ask the right questions until the person convinces themselves if they’re the right match for EditorNinja.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
16 Aug 2023
031: The Curtain Rises on Powerful Email Marketing with Emily Ryan
Broadway? More like broadband! Emily Ryan is THE Mailchimp influencer. After moving past the dream of being big on Broadway, she became an executive assistant. When having a baby led to a dread of returning to office work, she struck out on her own and made herself the champion of Mailchimp Email Marketing. Learn more about her journey and how she mentors new mothers wanting to work from home in today’s episode!
Episode Highlights:
Emily Ryan got her start in theater. She attended a prestigious musical theater school, got her degree, and then moved to New York City to pursue a Broadway career. It was incredibly challenging and turned what was previously a passion into a business. So Emily transitioned to executive assistant work.
After doing that work for many years, she had a baby, moved to Utah with her husband, and shuddered at the idea of returning to office work and leaving her new baby (with whom she was obsessed). A friend recommended she look into becoming a virtual assistant (VA), and she did. That VA work very quickly became Mailchimp email marketing work. And it’s just snowballed from there.
To Emily, a mentor is someone who you can rely on to be there for you when you need advice and is there to provide guidance and support. She has been mentored by many other agency owners from around the globe through the Mailchimp partners program. She is extremely passionate about helping other mothers learn how to start their own businesses to work from home. She mentors those women and is there for them in so many ways. She shares her contract templates and will sit in on kick-off calls for newcomers to the business. Seeing a new mother crushing it and making a significant income while working from home is the best!
Email marketing is not old news, and Emily knows it. Have you been in your inbox today? The likely answer is ‘yes.’ She knows this means email is incredibly powerful. SMS is the next budding tool, and while she’s unsure of its conversion power, she knows it will certainly be powerful for many businesses' marketing strategies. She does love social media, especially Instagram. She knows both email and social media are necessary, and each has its own pros and cons.
Go export a copy of your mailing lists right now. Always have a backup copy. Do it!
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
23 Aug 2023
032: ChatGPT Did NOT Write This Title - The Best of AI and ChatGPT with The Digital Marketing Mentor
In this special episode of The Digital Marketing Mentor, we look back at the many conversations we’ve had with our guests around the topic of ChatGPT and AI. We discuss the teaching of it to students (and our own kids). We talk about the ethical and moral uses and limitations of such a tool. We also talk about why many of us believe this will not be taking any of our jobs any time soon.
Episode Highlights:
The many experts we’ve interviewed about ChatGPT and AI seem to share a few understandings.
If you don’t use these tools, everyone else in your industry will, and you will be left behind.
ChatGPT and AI are intended to be tools to assist humans, not the other way around.
These new tools can help us write content that better (and in fewer words) gets to the crux of a point of communication.
Educators believe they are responsible for teaching their students how to use this tool as well as the limitations and implications of its use.
There is one major thing ChatGPT and AI are NOT - human. They lack our humanity, creativity, and perspectives, and therefore, humans will always be needed to polish, expand, and supervise their content.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
30 Aug 2023
033: College, Challenges, Careers, and Coaching with Shaina Keren
Shaina Keren discovered her path in life, and it has led her to become a career coach. She’s a master at drawing out the best in people and discovering how to shape those skills into their career of choice. Her first decade of working life was spent in education, so she’s experienced changing directions at unexpected times. Listen in to learn more about her tips for personal discovery and resume fixes.
Episode Highlights:
Shaina Keren is a career coach, but her path to this point was not a straight one. She spent the first decade and then some as a teacher in the education field. After some intense self-reflection and research, she found herself connected with Nicholas Lore, the author of The Pathfinder, and on her way to becoming the brilliant career coach she is today.
When it comes to mentors, Shaina has grouped them into three categories. There is the kind you’ll never meet, the kind you pay to meet, and the kind that are “right at the top” of the hills you find yourself wanting to climb. Her two most notable mentors have been Nicholas Lore and Jacob Engle. Each has guided her along her journey as a career coach.
Shaina offers many pieces of advice for those looking for the right career for themselves. First, imagine your ideal self outside of the constraints of your current reality, then figure out what you take from that image and make it work in the real world. Next, just take a personality test. There are plenty of free quizzes available, and they can work well as a tool to self-discovery. Finally, your resume should not be your whole life history. Tailor your resume to the positions to which you’re applying.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
06 Sep 2023
034: Authenticity, Autonomy, and AI in Social Media and Marketing with Adele Beiny
Adele Beiny is the founder and CEO of Life’s Looking Good, a lifestyle blog and social media presence, as well as a marketing consultancy. She wants to help people design and curate a life they love and brands they love to be. She’s traveled across the country through many tough industries and different occupations to find herself here today. We talk about being your authentic self on social media and how mentorship can look different to different people.
Episode Highlights:
Adele Beiny grew up in an Orthodox Jewish family and community on the East Coast. At her mother’s advice, she did not attend college and instead played to her strengths of networking and real-life work. She’s worked in sales in luxury real estate and the beauty industry, and even a bit as a floral designer, but eventually found her way to lifestyle design and branding consultation at Life’s Looking Good.
Maybe they’re born with it. Maybe it’s Mentoring! Adele believes most mentors come by it naturally. A mentor is someone with a natural or self-developed passion for guiding and teaching others. She’s found many mentors in the social media space and is definitely drawn to those who share organically, fully, and authentically. She cautions, despite the experts and algorithms pushing for it, don’t niche yourself down out of your humanity. We’re malleable beings and don’t exist just within one hyper-niche space.
Adele hasn’t been heavily impacted by AI in the marketing world yet. She’s played around with it some but knows, right now, it’s all based on the unique inputs we give it. AI can’t be imaginative and creative yet. But she knows we’re just scratching the surface of this tool and is curious to see what becomes of it.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
13 Sep 2023
035: Pirouetting Her Way to Tech Founder with Mentorly’s Ashley Werhun
Ashley Werhun is the co-founder of Mentorly. Her first career was as a professional dancer. Today, we discuss how she learned how important mentorship was through her performing career and how she used those lessons to build Mentorly. We also discuss some of the most important traits a mentor should have and more!
Episode Highlights:
Ashley Werhun is the co-founder of Mentorly, an enterprise software solution to help promote, manage, and optimize inter-company mentorship systems. She felt drawn to create mentorly after a long, successful career as a professional dancer. Through touring the world with performance companies, she met many people from many backgrounds and cultures and learned life lessons from all of them. She’s now turned those lessons into Mentorly in the hopes that everyone can have the same support she had.
Startup companies are hard, and they seem impossible. They take nothing and turn it into something they use to help their customers. Mentorly had its struggles but found its way with the help of angel investors who have helped not only with business funding but also by mentoring, guiding, and helping Ashley and the Mentorly team along the way.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
27 Sep 2023
037: Seminary to Selling Ad Space to Solving Problems and Sharing Her Creativity with Chayale
Chayale Kaufman started her career in sales, as many entrepreneurs do. Her intuition, hard work, and dedication led her to found two businesses and integrate the world of print and digital advertising amidst the Jewish business community. In this episode, we hear all about the devotion and challenges that brought her to her current position as founder of The Jewish Content Network.
Episode Highlights:
After attending seminary for a degree, Chayale went into sales for a major publication. She began selling ad space, and that was when she became hooked on the advertising industry and grew to love it so much more than she anticipated. Living through the shift to digital at a nationwide publisher, Chayale saw the ever-present nature of print for the Jewish community in particular. She also saw the power instant advertising and the world of digital held. So, she created The Jewish Content Network.
For Chayale, she tries to find a mentor in every person she meets. She is very adept at reading people and uses that skill to draw upon the traits she admires in others. She believes a mentor should have a certain level of calmness about them. They should also feel somewhat “aspirational” to the mentee. She recalls one of her past bosses who was very good at keeping the worries of the higher offices away from those whom he managed.
Chayale has built a phenomenal team for herself, full of go-getters and hard workers. She has a skill of seeing that drive and energy in a person. It takes a particular personality to work in the advertising industry, and she is very good at identifying those people. She lost herself in her work for a while, but with the help of her husband and plenty of internal work, she now does her work for the joy of it, not because it defines her.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
20 Sep 2023
036: Office Hours | Chaos to Coordination to COO – Building Digital Dream Teams in Remote Marketing Agencies with Leah Leaves
In this Office Hours episode, Optidge’s COO and resident expert in operations shares three secrets to building high-performing remote teams in digital marketing agencies. From removing the stigma that surrounds independent contractors and the fear of process standardization, Leah shares how to create a cohesive culture of drive, efficiency, and top-notch client service. This episode is packed with practical strategies & guidance to help your teams feel supported and successful.
An Optidge "Office Hours" Episode
Office Hours episodes are your go-to for details, how-to’s, and specific marketing advice. Join Optidge team members, or experience 1:1 teachings from Danny, in these shorter, focused episodes. Get ready to get marketing!
Episode Highlights:
Leah Leaves, Optidge’s COO shares her career journey, from journalism to SEO for agencies, and ultimately to operational organization for remote teams in digital marketing agencies.
Leah’s 3 secrets to high-performing teams in remote digital marketing agencies:
1 - Streamlined Onboarding - a comprehensive & detailed onboarding process is paramount in setting new team members up for success.
2 - Transparent Communication - whether through documentation, collaboration tools, or project management platforms, communication is key to fostering a collaborative environment, especially in remote work.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
04 Oct 2023
038: Self-Taught, SEO Speaker, and Strategist Extraordinaire, Shelly Fagin
Shelly Fagin has been in the digital world since she was a young girl playing on her green screen Apple IIGS. After figuring out how to connect to the internet, it was all gas, no breaks to agency work, over 12 years of consulting, SEMRush speaking, managing a team at CreditKarma, to now being the Director of SEO at DigitalOcean. Listen to this episode to learn how her mentors helped teach her confidence, and her curiosity helped her teach herself the skills.
Episode Highlights
Like many of our guests on The Digital Marketing Mentor, Shelly Fagin’s path to digital marketing was not a straightforward one. She’s a lifelong computer geek who taught herself how to code from books when she began working online while pregnant with her first child. This thirst for knowledge of all things digital led her to an agency job that led her to open her own consulting business, Highly Searched, where she helped her clients for over twelve years. She then found herself at SEMRush as a brand ambassador, and most recently made her mark in the world of leadership with her former role as Director of SEO at Credit Karma and current role as Director of SEO at DigitalOcean.
Shelly’s mentors, Rae and Melissa, helped instill a sense of confidence in her that inspired her to start speaking at professional events, a piece of her career that has blossomed ever since. As she recently started managing a team, she’s fallen in love with mentoring others. She tends to take a hands-off approach and encourages learning by doing.
WordPress Evangelist - That’s Shelly Fagin in a nutshell. She will long tout the strength and flexibility of the platform, especially as it pertains to enterprise-level websites. She has a tendency to go light with plugins and strongly encourages those looking to select a dependable hosting provider, like Kinsta or WPHosting.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
11 Oct 2023
039: Masters Degrees in Media Management, Mentoring, and Masterful Social Media Marketing with Mike Metzler
Mike Metzler has long had a home on social media: beginning on Facebook in 2005 as a college student to interviewing celebrities octagon-side for UFC Instagram to becoming a social media consultant and strategist. In this episode, you’ll learn the many steps it took to get to this point and how his first boss/mentor and doodling his corgi as an astronaut helped him along his path. Get ready for a great cliff’s notes version of Social Media Marketing 101 with Mike Metzler.
Episode Highlights
Mike Metzler got his undergraduate and graduate degrees back-to-back from St. Edwards University. He then went on to have a great mentor in his first boss, who taught him many career skills. These days, Mike believes those he mentors would simply call him ‘friend.’ As he works in the social media industry, he tries to help guide the younger generation, who often find themselves thrust into the limelight as influencers. They often know how to perform on social media, but they don’t necessarily know “business,” so he helps them avoid being taken advantage of in their career.
When it comes to the keys to great mentorship, Mike has fairly solid pillars:
First, and most importantly, be available, more available than just what’s convenient for you. It is a big commitment that you can’t make for everyone.
Next, a mentor should encourage responsible risk-taking. It’s your job to push your mentee to help them grow but know the risk so they don’t gamble with their career.
Finally, a mentor must hold their mentee accountable. If they say they’re going to tackle a particular challenge, you should follow up with them and make sure they actually took action.
Mike has done plenty of work in the social media space over nearly two decades (hey, Facebook circa 2007, we’re talking about you). Throughout his time in the digital world, he’s seen many social platforms come and go and grow. He’s a big proponent of being on every social platform as early as you can. He’s found that the early adopters and those who take “responsible risks” are those who often find success on social media.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
18 Oct 2023
040: Office Hours | All Aboard! Amazing Client Onboarding with Jenna Meldrum
Two of the key responsibilities of account management are expectation management and client onboarding. In this episode, we learn from Jenna Meldrum, account manager extraordinaire at Optidge, how a successful onboarding process sets the tone for the rest of your client relationship. We also learn how to manage delicate conversations about scope and upsells and how to manage the people on both sides of the table: your team and the client.
An Optidge "Office Hours" Episode Our Office Hours episodes are your go-to for details, how-to’s, and advice on specific marketing topics. Join our fellow Optidge team members, and sometimes even 1:1 teachings from Danny himself, in these shorter, marketing-focused episodes every few weeks. Get ready to get marketing!
Episode Highlights
Client onboarding is your first impression of a client and their first impression of the agency. It will set the tone for the rest of the relationship. It should be done for clients of any size or duration. We always need to ensure everyone has what they need for success and that expectations are appropriately set.
Upselling can be a delicate balance to manage in client conversation, especially as it relates to setting (and resetting) expectations and defining scope. Oftentimes, when a client asks if something is in scope, it’s innocent. If they want something out of scope, this is a great time to discuss an upsell. When bringing an upsell idea to a client, they can get upset because they might not want to spend more money. It’s important to steer the conversation back to the notion that we simply want to support the client and saw this opportunity for growth and shared it. There’s no pressure.
Quick tips on client communication for Account Managers
Read the room. If you have a client you can’t joke around with, then don’t. If they’re a more serious person and don’t turn on the cameras in meetings, mirror that. Whatever they do, you do. That said, don’t dull your sparkle. There will be clients you can be bubbly and bright with.
When it comes to communication - there’s no such thing as too much. Stay on top of it. Get ahead of it. If you know something is going to or even MIGHT happen, go ahead and communicate. Overcommunication is never discouraged or unappreciated.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
01 Nov 2023
042: Missionaries, Mentors, Masterminds, Mediums, and Marketing w/ Alison Reeves
Today’s episode brings us the story of Alison Reeves, a business and mindset coach. We learn how she grew through mentors and mastermind courses to offer her coaching services today. She also gives plenty of tips and marketing tools you can use today to help improve your reach and marketing strategy!
Episode Highlights
Alison Reeves is a business and mindset coach. She came to this niche via a bachelor’s degree in leadership from a small Bible College in Houston. Through her time as a mentee and a mentor, Alison has come to define a mentor as someone who can both show you the way and help you find your own way. She’s also learned that some mentorships can become toxic if they focus on high-pressure sales tactics instead of aligning with the mentee's true goals and personality.
After fighting her way out of mastermind course addiction, Alison has learned so much about mindset and nervous system work and how it plays into one’s own business. She’s become a certified Somatic Coach, and even the clients who come to her for business coaching often find themselves drifting into mindset work over their time with Alison.
Audience Borrowing is the most missed/under-utilized marketing tactic, according to Alison. It’s a great marketing tool and can manifest in a few different forms:
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
25 Oct 2023
041: English, Ethics, Education, and Encouragement in Paid Search with Navah Hopkins
From an early dream of becoming an English teacher to her pivotal shift into the marketing world, Navah's story is a testament to following one's true calling. Discover how her mentors shaped her into a professional and compassionate leader, and explore mentorship strategies that have left a lasting impact. Navah shares invaluable insights on digital marketing trends, data privacy, and the surprising findings from Optmyzer's recent study. Whether you're an experienced marketer or a newcomer, Navah's wisdom will leave you inspired and better equipped for success in the dynamic realm of digital marketing.
Episode Highlights:
Navah Hopkins originally wanted to be an English teacher, so determined her 3rd-grade self. Through education and honest family guidance, that became marketing. After starting in SEO and there being an ethical mismatch with the strategy she was working within, she found herself in the world of non-profits and eventually Paid Search.
She’s had mentors who helped grow her into an empowerer of colleagues, a better public speaker and marketer, and more confident in growing herself. One of her mentees (with whom she connected playing video games) went from a $500/month stipend to her paying them $10k/mo in billable hours within a year. She finds incredible joy in helping others learn how to help themselves.
Optmyzer released a study reviewing the efficacy of broad match v. exact match keyword strategies. Navah discusses how she had to adopt a new approach to paid search strategy upon reviewing the results as they contradicted her previous position. She loves getting to learn new and challenging evidence.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
08 Nov 2023
043: All Maple, Amazing Mentors, Arcane Marketing, and More with Eric Vardon
Today, we delve into Eric Vardon's journey from pioneering the digital marketing landscape in the 90s to co-founding and gracefully selling his first agency, Arcane. We discuss the valuable lessons in mentorship, business growth, and smooth acquisitions he’s learned along the way.
Episode Highlights
Eric Vardon started his career by finding one of the only colleges near him offering a website coding and development course. He then went on to co-found All Maple Apparel. While that may sound like a clothing store, which it did evolve into, it originated as more of an e-zine (like an internet magazine, a format popular before blogs took over). It started out discussing all things happening locally to them in Canada, and eventually, merchandising became a piece of their offerings, and that blossomed into a couple of brick-and-mortar All Maple Apparel stores. Eventually, they couldn’t keep up with the need for capital investment and had to close down.
A mentor is someone who sees something in you that you can’t see in yourself. It’s usually a reflection of something they see in themselves. For Eric, there’s also a sort of connection or spark that happens right away when a mentorship begins. Eric has had a few impactful mentors, including his business partner, other co-founders, and an investor. They’ve all taught him many business and life skills and have done a brilliant job of keeping ego out of the way to maximize personal and business growth.
Eric has gone through the mergers & acquisitions (M&A) process with his first agency, Arcane Agency. He and his co-founder came to that business with the knowledge and internal resolution to replace themselves and get out of the way of the business as soon as possible. They’ve always known what they were good at and what they weren’t. They utilized an M&A firm to manage their transition, and while expensive, it was worth it as they managed to help a process often fraught with issues go incredibly smoothly.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
15 Nov 2023
044: Office Hours | From Award-Winning Dalmatian Drawing to Data in Paid Search Campaigns with Caroline Pham
In today’s office hours episode, we discuss all things data-driven marketing with Optidge’s Caroline Pham. She shares insights on creating and optimizing paid search campaigns, goal-type selection, and navigating budget increases. You’ll also learn how her drawing of a Dalmatian won her Best of Show at the Houston Rodeo and set her on her path to a great career in digital marketing.
An Optidge Office Hours Episode Our Office Hours episodes are your go-to for details, how-to’s, and advice on specific marketing topics. Join our fellow Optidge team members, and sometimes even 1:1 teachings from Danny himself, in these shorter, marketing-focused episodes every few weeks. Get ready to get marketing!
Episode Highlights:
Caroline Pham is a paid search strategist. Her journey into digital marketing started with a Rodeo award-winning drawing of a Dalmatian puppy. She then explored her creative side and realized that advertising was the path she wanted to take. While attending the University of Texas’s advertising program, she discovered her aptitude and inclination for data and statistics.
When it comes to setting the best foundation for a successful paid search campaign, Caroline knows that clear, solid goals are the place to start. Once the goal is determined, all other questions can be answered. For paid search, the goal is usually sales. When choosing between Cost Per Lead and Cost Per Acquisition, she operates by the rule of thumb of 30 days. If the conversion window is longer than 30 days, CPL will be the best metric on which to optimize.
Finally, if you have a campaign that is being limited by budget but is still performing well, the “budget increase” conversation can be an easy one to have. It’s essential to look at several metrics like share of voice, visibility, industry conversion rate, and more to determine what the ideal budget could be. Then you start the conversation armed with the data showing how the campaign can bring the client even more sales, and isn’t that why we’re doing all of this anyway?
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
22 Nov 2023
045: Destination: Digital Marketing Data with Duane Brown
Join us in this episode as Duane Brown, Founder & Head of Strategy at Take Some Risk Inc., shares his unique journey from college in Canada to the realm of digital marketing, unveiling the power of mentorship, strategic PPC tactics, and the often-overlooked nuances of data analysis in advertising.
Episode Highlights
Duane Brown first started his career in Public Relations after attending college and then university and getting two marketing certificates. His first (hard-won) digital marketing position taught him many business skills and PPC. He’s worked in the data-rich realm of paid search and paid social advertising ever since.
Mentorship should be tailored to the person. A mentor is someone who will root for you to succeed but not just give you the answers. They should guide you in your journey. He finds it necessary to discover what motivates his mentees and what they want to work on. He will then try and find the points where the business can help them achieve their goals.
Ultimately, PPC is about taking action. Duane and his team have a general rule that if a campaign is performing poorly for three or more days, that’s no longer an anomaly and has become a trend, and you need to make a change. People often underestimate the power of good ad copy and of delving deep into the data of a campaign. He knows how beneficial it can be to look deeper than just campaign-level metrics into the SKU, ad level, keyword, and ad group data.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
29 Nov 2023
046: From University of Houston Dreamer to Houston Exponential CEO with Natara Branch
In today’s episode, we discover the transformative journey of Natara Branch, from her early experiences at the University of Houston through her unprecedented career at the NFL to her pivotal role in cultivating a thriving startup ecosystem, as she leads Houston Exponential in redefining the city's identity beyond its traditional industries.
Episode Highlights
Natara Branch calls Houston home, even if she’s not a native Houstonian. And Houston happily welcomes Natara into its family. She attended the University of Houston after falling in love with its scrappy, underdog personality on a campus tour. After growing up in a military household, the blue sky, no guardrail type of dreaming and thinking that happened there was pivotal to her future career.
She has taken the concept of mentors and meshed it with a concept from a book she read many years ago and now has a life board of advisors. These people are family, friends, professional acquaintances, and former mentees of hers who mentor her in all aspects of her life. Mentors help hone and add polish to your life.
At Houston Exponential, Natara is passionate about its goal to bring startups and entrepreneurs to the Houston Region and help nurture partnerships and collaborations between new businesses and the legacy industries (petroleum and healthcare). She sees all the amazing things happening in the Houston Metro and is determined to help the city market itself and the amazing opportunities it offers.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
06 Dec 2023
047: Fairly Fearless: From Film to Flourishing in Marketing with Sicily Dickenson
In this episode, we explore Sicily Dickenson's unique journey from film to marketing, driven by fearless challenges and mentorships. Learn how she shapes careers, empowers customers, and tackles the intricacies of national brand marketing. Discover the importance of likability and responding to challenges in the make-or-break moments of branding.
Episode Highlights
Sicily started her career in the film industry to satisfy her love of creativity, working with others, and storytelling. She learned she was destined for a different industry and used her familiarity with computers (thanks to learning digital editing software in college) to enter the world of digital marketing.
A mentor, for Sicily, is someone with close proximity and immediate feedback. Her fearless approach led her to new roles, like VP of Marketing at NRG, mentored by Brad Fogle. Later, Karen Jones became a significant mentor, guiding Sicily's growth and even recommending her as CMO.
Sicily must believe in her mentees. She relates mentoring to the Montessori principle of teaching to master a concept. At Sun & Ski, she emphasizes customer empowerment and likability in marketing, tackling challenges from revitalizing sales to managing diverse regional preferences.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
13 Dec 2023
048: The Profound Pursuit of Problem-Solving with Pinny Gniwisch
In today’s episode, hear Pinny's extraordinary journey from Montreal to Harvard, shaped by mentorship, global ventures, and entrepreneurship. Discover the transformative power of an unconventional Rabbi, lessons from a father who survived the Holocaust, and the innovative era of early digital marketing with Ice.com. Join us for a conversation on life's variety of experiences, business adventures, and the joy of being a "Zadie."
Episode Highlights
With an education that spans Montreal, Los Angeles, London, and New York, two master's degrees, and a current Harvard degree program, Pinny has a unique upbringing and education. Guided by a Rabbi who taught him to go against the grain, he started his career in digital marketing with confidence and creativity that took him very far.
Pinny views mentors as guides, not answer-providers. His Harvard-assigned coach trades coaching for Chassidus study with Pinny. Pinny, as his mentors have for him, now emphasizes clarity without ego and letting others do the important work of arriving at their own solutions.
Pinny's venture, Ice.com, was a trailblazer in the early anarchic days of digital marketing. Starting in 1999, he navigated challenges, including high website setup costs, utilizing PPC ads, and employing customer-focused rebranding strategies.
Diagnosed with ADHD as an adult, Pinny embraced it as a revelation. Armed with newfound understanding, he strategically surrounds himself with finishers, leveraging his creativity while learning to navigate and thrive with ADHD in both personal and professional endeavors.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
20 Dec 2023
049: Navigating Personal Branding and Demolishing Imposter Syndrome with Stacey Piefer
Join us as Stacey Piefer shares her transformative career, from journalism to purposeful, personal branding. Discover the power of mentoring, authenticity, and Stacey's mission to banish imposter syndrome on the University of Houston campus. Unveil the truth in advertising and explore the evolving landscape of marketing through the lens of a perpetual student of life.
Episode Highlights
Stacey Piefer's journey began in broadcast journalism at Alvin Community College and led to a degree in Communications and Public Relations at the University of Houston. This shaped her impactful career in communications, personal branding, and career coaching.
Stacey emphasizes kindness, influencing, and listening as key mentorship skills. At the University of Houston's Bauer College of Business, she and her colleagues adopt diverse mentoring approaches, prioritizing what's best for each student.
Stacey's transition from PR to branding at Savage Brands led her to discover her purpose, evolving from "express" to proudly identifying as a "guide." Authenticity is the cornerstone of personal branding, embracing uniqueness and multi-dimensionality.
Stacey challenges the term "imposter syndrome," aiming to debunk the notion that students should feel fraudulent for being in a continuous learning phase. She advocates building confidence and dispelling unrealistic expectations, fostering a culture of growth and authenticity at the University of Houston.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
27 Dec 2023
050: Office Hours | Debunking, Diversifying, and Diving into the Data of Paid Social Ads with Joseph Wolf
Explore the dynamic world of social media advertising with Joseph Wolf, Optidge’s Head of Paid Social. From diverse campaign strategies to understanding audience behaviors, uncover the importance of quality over quantity and the nuances of tracking for optimal results. Join us as we debunk common myths and gain insights into crafting effective social media campaigns.
An Optidge "Office Hours" Episode
Our Office Hours episodes are your go-to for details, how-to’s, and advice on specific marketing topics. Join our fellow Optidge team members, and sometimes even 1:1 teachings from Danny himself, in these shorter, marketing-focused episodes every few weeks. Get ready to get marketing!
Episode Highlights
Joseph Wolf's passion for marketing ignited in high school, leading him from a marketing degree at St. Edward’s University to honing analytical skills in business intelligence. His career journey and expertise truly bloomed at Optidge.
Contrary to common advice from big media buyers and Meta reps, diversification is crucial for effective advertising, especially in low-budget scenarios. Joe advocates varied campaigns, content, and audience targeting to achieve success without massive spending.
Dispelling the myth of broad targeting success, Joe emphasizes diversification in demographics, regions, interests, and creative. Backup audiences play a vital role, ensuring sustained success as specific audiences may lose efficacy over time.
Optidge's approach prioritizes lead quality over quantity. Joe recommends focusing on the relationship between CPL and lead quality, leveraging diverse campaigns, and testing creatively to achieve success in the evolving landscape of paid social advertising.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
17 Jan 2024
052: Office Hours | Tracy’s Tale of Transition from Corporate to Creative Marketing
On this special Office Hours episode, we are talking with Tracy about making a grand career change. After nearly a decade of working, after achieving a doctorate in physical therapy, Tracy transitioned to freelance work in marketing. Listen in to hear how she faced the questions, both from others and herself, the imposter syndrome, and the challenges of starting a new career.
An Optidge "Office Hours" Episode
Our Office Hours episodes are your go-to for details, how-to’s, and advice on specific marketing topics. Join our fellow Optidge team members, and sometimes even 1:1 teachings from Danny himself, in these shorter, marketing-focused episodes every few weeks. Get ready to get marketing!
Episode Highlights
Tracy, a physical therapy director, felt unfulfilled and anxious in her 9-5 healthcare job. Pandemic uncertainties pushed her to transition to digital marketing, finding solace in ODEO's tailored support for career shifts. Leaving her secure job, Tracy navigated through a grieving process for her previous profession. And despite missing in-office friendships, she found new camaraderie in the dynamic world of digital marketing.
Tracy challenges the notion of university degrees as essential for marketing. ODEO, with its tailored support, exemplifies how knowledge and training are more accessible today. Soft skills from diverse backgrounds seamlessly translate into digital marketing.
Tracy's transition from a corporate salary to freelancing involved careful financial planning. She embraced a mindset shift, starting a few rungs lower on the career ladder, valuing service and adding value. Imposter syndrome is tackled through accountability and recognizing growth.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
03 Jan 2024
051: A Mosaic of Mentorship - Vicky’s Valuable Life Lessons
Venture on Vicky Charleston's transformative journey from art student to corporate leader. Uncover the profound impact of mentors, familial wisdom, and the challenges of breaking biases in the corporate realm. Explore the multi-chromatic blend of creativity and analytics in her digital marketing odyssey, proving that artistry and strategy can coalesce seamlessly.
Episode Highlights
Vicky Charleston's journey from abstract art studies at the University of Houston to graphic design success is marked by academic achievements, including a selective entry into the junior block of the graphic design program. She remembers this accomplishment to this day if she ever doubts herself.
Vicky's father, a strict military man with artistic insight, instilled valuable life lessons in his children throughout their whole lives. His encouragement, overcoming humble beginnings, motivated her through doubts. The mantra "never be afraid to ask" remains a guiding principle in her life.
Vicky emphasizes the impact of mentors throughout her career, acknowledging those who invested in her growth. She reciprocates by mentoring others, emphasizing honesty, listening, and empathy as essential mentorship qualities.
As a woman of color in leadership, Vicky gracefully navigates biases and challenges in organizations. She highlights the importance of representation for younger people of color, and her education through Optidge’s ODEO digital marketing program broadened her digital marketing knowledge, proving the value of diverse skill sets.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
31 Jan 2024
053: Effective Digital Marketing and Entrepreneurial Endeavors with Sarah Stemen
Join us in this episode as we hear about Sarah Stemen’s journey from programming through in-house marketing to starting her own business. From unexpected mentorship lessons to the art of being an accessible mentor, Sarah spills the beans on agency struggles, the power of conversation in consulting, and her unique approach to Google Ads.
Episode Highlights
Sarah Stemen began her digital marketing journey before the field fully existed, transitioning from a tech-focused background with an MBA pivot into marketing. Sarah's genuine care for doing good is reflected in her mentoring style. Accessible at any hour, she emphasizes nonjudgmental advice and building trust with mentees.
Like many agencies, Sarah faces challenges marketing her own business. Limited budgets and the common struggle with being objective about one’s own business guide her choices, emphasizing outsourcing for content and SEO.
With the guidance of other agency professionals, Sarah challenges the notion that agency success correlates with size, limiting her clients to four. Her focused, strategic approach echoes the value of staying small and niche. Like a video game player who is a “button-masher,” Sarah goes into a new client’s Google Ad account and pushes every button. She will find the settings and patterns to optimize an account through her own discovery.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
14 Feb 2024
054: Mentorship Musings: Advertising and the Art of Tailored Guidance with Raphael Gavin
In this episode, Raphael Gavin, the media-production master, spills the beans on navigating the advertising industry, humorous entry to his career, and the transformative power of mentorship. From his accidental title upgrade to the importance of tailored guidance, dive into the world of advertising with wit and wisdom.
Episode Highlights
Raphael Gavin, son of advertising legend Louis Gavin, found his own path in advertising after a chance meeting during his time at his father's agency. He believes no degree can match the power of learning from experience.
Raphael emphasizes three key elements of mentorship: clear communication, mutual trust, and tailored guidance. His mentors include his wife and agency co-founder Sean Dawson, who shaped his business acumen and taught him how to always show up better the next time.
As a mentor, Raphael prioritizes support, sharing experiences, and acknowledging that mentees may surpass their mentors. Flexibility, highlighted by COVID-19, is crucial in adapting to unpredictable situations in the advertising industry.
Raphael's advertising journey, starting as an account executive, led him to appreciate production. Despite challenges, working with family accelerated his career growth, providing constant strategic discussions at work and home.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
28 Feb 2024
055: The King of Paid Social's Path from Harmony to High-Performance Marketing
Join us on this episode as Andrew Foxwell shares his journey from St. Olaf University through Capitol Hill to California, revealing how mentorship played a pivotal role in his career. Discover the inception of Foxwell Founders, a thriving community connecting marketers and mentors. Andrew reflects on the power of mentorship, the challenges of parenting during a pandemic, and the evolution of digital advertising and paid social on platforms like TikTok.
Episode Highlights
At St. Olaf University, Andrew Foxwell delved into political science and business, finding solace in the college's renowned music program. As a choir member, he embraced singing as a unique form of worship, considering choir practice a meditative escape from the complexities of daily life. Andrew's journey into the political arena began in rural Minnesota, fueled by a fascination with government and a desire to be 'in the room where it happens.' His active involvement in political campaigns, including volunteering in the 2008 presidential campaign, eventually led him to a life-changing role in Washington, D.C. Working for a congressional representative.
The pivotal moment for Andrew in the realm of digital advertising occurred when Congress allowed social media ads. This opened the door for Andrew to run ads on platforms like Facebook and Google, eventually leading him to specialize in Facebook Ads. His journey into the advertising world involved working with a diverse range of politicians and agencies, fostering a bipartisan approach to his work. This experience laid the foundation for his later endeavors in mentoring and community building within the digital marketing space.
Foxwell Founders (FF) is a community founded by Andrew Foxwell, focusing on digital marketing mentorship and collaboration. Initially created to facilitate discussions on social media advertising challenges, FF has grown into a substantial online community of marketers. The community aims to provide a platform for members to seek guidance, learn, and connect with mentors. They've expanded their topics of discussion and launched specific communities, like the PPC community. Foxwell Founders is dedicated to building self-sustaining programs, fostering mentorship, and helping members learn and grow in the ever-evolving landscape of digital marketing.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
13 Mar 2024
056: Leveraging LLMs: Britney Muller's Insights on AI, Advocacy, and ASL
Join us for a captivating conversation with Britney Muller, where she delves into the realms of mentorship, AI innovations, and her enchanting ASL escapades. Explore the intersection of expertise and experience in this digital marketing adventure!
Episode Highlights
Britney Muller shares her journey from pre-med to journalism to internet marketing, emphasizing learning beyond the classroom through diverse experiences like waitressing and mentorship from industry giants like Rand Fishkin. She reflects on the pivotal role of informal mentorship, highlighting relationships that blur the line between guidance and friendship.
In the realm of AI, Muller warns against overreliance on LLMs for deterministic tasks like keyword research. She predicts a surge in industry-specific LLMs and advocates for thoughtful integration to maximize their potential. She discusses the importance of diversity in AI and shares a paper about the affinity group talks she saw poorly attended at NeurIPS. Additionally, she sheds light on biases in AI models and the importance of transparency in mitigating them.
Beyond AI, Muller discusses her passion for American Sign Language, recounting inventive experiences like introducing ASL interpretation on ski slopes. She emphasizes the value of quality content over quantity in marketing and PR strategies. Through her diverse interests and expertise, Muller offers valuable insights into navigating the ever-evolving landscape of technology and communication.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
27 Mar 2024
057: Mastering Google Ads: Secrets to Success in Search, Speaking, and Strategy
Join Susan Wenograd as she shares her journey in digital marketing, blending creativity with practicality. Explore mentorship insights and the evolving landscape of Google Ads and new strategies to optimize in a post-cookie world!
Episode Highlights
Susan Wenograd, characterized by her unique blend of practicality and creativity, recounts her transformative journey from initially considering film studies to ultimately carving out a successful career in the realm of digital marketing. Through her experiences, she embodies the ethos of adaptability and perseverance, demonstrating how embracing both sides of her personality has been instrumental in navigating the complexities of the industry.
Susan has seen a profound impact from mentors like Mike King and Jeremy Bloom, whose guidance transcends conventional boundaries, offering Susan holistic insights that extend far beyond their apparent roles. Their mentorship serves as a testament to the power of genuine connections and the invaluable lessons that emerge from meaningful relationships within one's professional journey.
Susan dives into the deep, ever-evolving world of Google Ads. She provides valuable insights into strategic shifts in bidding tactics, optimizations, and the differences in strategies over the past decade (and more). She offers a glimpse into her entrepreneurial venture with Can’tdles, a candle-making business that beautifully intertwines her creative flair with astute business acumen. Through her multifaceted experiences, Susan offers a compelling narrative that underscores the importance of adaptability, mentorship, and embracing one's unique blend of skills and passions in navigating the complexities of the modern business world.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
10 Apr 2024
058: Multilingual Maestro: Andrea Cruz’s Guide to Mentorship and B2B Marketing Excellence
Discover Andrea Cruz's journey from Venezuela to Boston, mastering business administration and international marketing. Learn about the power of mentorship and the intricacies of B2B marketing in this insightful episode.
Episode Highlights
Andrea Cruz's journey from Venezuela to Boston shaped her into a versatile business professional. Her degrees in Business Administration and International Business equipped her with digital marketing skills ahead of their time. Mentors like Jeremy Krantz, AJ Wilcox, and JD Prater played pivotal roles, guiding her through career transitions and public speaking fears.
Embracing diversity in Massachusetts, Andrea thrived among various cultures, fostering a deep understanding of global perspectives. Fluent in multiple languages, she embodies a polyglot identity, enhancing her ability to empathize and connect across diverse communities. Andrea's dedication to mentorship reflects her belief in holistic growth, emphasizing emotional openness and strategic planning.
As a B2B marketing enthusiast, Andrea challenges misconceptions and advocates for personalized strategies. Her managerial role allows her to empathize with team members and champion inclusive, hands-on leadership. With a passion for niche verticals and brand differentiation, she navigates the complexities of B2B marketing with creativity and purpose, emphasizing customer-centric approaches for sustainable growth.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
25 Apr 2024
059: Office Hours | Bringing Heart into Building Hubspot with Berlin Heart
In this episode, learn how Optidge teamed up with Berlin Heart to customize HubSpot, revolutionizing their data management. Explore the challenges Berlin Heart faced with spreadsheets and discover how Optidge customized HubSpot to streamline workflows and enable remote accessibility. Hear about the benefits of tailored CRM solutions and join us as we uncover the transformative power of this partnership with Berlin Heart.
An Optidge "Office Hours" Episode
Our Office Hours episodes are your go-to for details, how-to’s, and advice on specific marketing topics. Join our fellow Optidge team members, and sometimes even 1:1 teachings from Danny himself, in these shorter, marketing-focused episodes every few weeks. Get ready to get marketing!
Episode Highlights
Berlin Heart came to Optidge to help set up Hubspot, a customer relationship management system (CRM), for their unique needs. As a medical device company that develops, produces, and markets innovative devices for mechanically supporting the heart, Berlin Heart needed the CRM to do more, and be more of a database management system.
They needed to transition from a system of data management that existed in 12-20 spreadsheets, only accessible in the office, with multiple redundancies - to a cloud-based, interconnected database of data. They needed to track hospitals, staff, patients, devices, training logs, status updates, maintenance records, and more. And they needed to know their information was up-to-date and accurate.
Optidge utilized Hubspot’s custom objects to build out an expansive, interconnected database system for Berlin Heart. Through the creation and customization of custom objects, they could oversee a variety of data points configured in different ways. They could see all the device pump changes and their next needed timing. They could view all the patient status updates for a given week in one table. They could also look at a specific device and see which hospital, patient, staff, and crate it was currently connected to.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
08 May 2024
060: Brie’s BEAST Beacon: Mentoring Marvels and Analytical Adventures
Join us for an inspiring episode as we explore Brie Anderson's journey from soccer scholarship to digital marketing expertise, discovering the power of saying “YES!” to opportunities and effective mentorship. Gain valuable insights into navigating digital landscapes, leveraging data, and empowering yourself in today's ever-evolving world. Don't miss this enriching discussion filled with actionable analytics advice.
Episode Highlights
Brie Anderson's journey from scholarship soccer student athlete to digital marketing showcases the importance of embracing opportunities. Transitioning from communications to digital marketing, she learned and grew by saying "Yes" to new experiences. Mentors like her first boss and industry leaders guided her journey.
For Brie, mentorship is about open communication and taking initiative. She shares her experiences and insights to support others facing similar challenges. Despite initially not seeing herself as a mentor, her wife helped her see that her openness with her mental health struggles and readiness to share her technical skills and knowledge certainly qualifies her as a mentor to others.
As the founder of BEAST Analytics, she helps clients understand and use data effectively, navigating changes like the shift to Google Analytics 4. Brie empowers clients to adapt to evolving digital trends while addressing privacy concerns. Through education and practical advice, she ensures their digital strategies remain effective and responsive.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
22 May 2024
061: The Ins and Outs of Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising - The Best of PPC
Join us for this special episode of The Digital Marketing Mentor as we reflect on our conversations with various guests about their experiences with PPC advertising. We cover everything from why our guests entered this industry to bid management, control metrics, conversion tracking, and GA4. Whether you’re new to PPC or a seasoned pro, this Best of PPC episode will offer advice and anecdotes regarding this rapidly evolving industry.
Episode Highlights The many experts we’ve interviewed about PPC advertisingI seem to share a few understandings:
A detailed PPC audit is an excellent way to ensure a new or revamped campaign will move in the right direction and best utilize company budgets.
Manual vs. automatic bidding tends to be a popular topic in the PPC community and our guests believe that the intent and goals behind the campaign should drive the bidding strategy.
Digital marketers must pay more attention to the power of good ad copy as even small changes can steer a PPC campaign in the right direction.
In a lead generation campaign, some key indicators to evaluate and frame the budget include the length of the campaign (how long it has been running), CPL to acquisition, visibility, and conversion rate.
PPC experts emphasize the value of attribution since the cost-per-lead data often drives the connection between campaign results and company growth.
Google's elimination of third-party cookies will most impact companies that don’t conduct online transactions or have an e-commerce presence as it will make accessing customer data more difficult.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
05 Jun 2024
062: Queen of Content Solutions: Empowerment Through Mentorship
This episode features Purna Virji, principal consultant of Content Solutions at LinkedIn, and explores her holistic view of content marketing. She dives into what has shaped her perspective through her 20-year career in marketing as a content creator, program manager, SEO public, instructional designer, and brand evangelist. Tune in to learn more about mentorship's role in Purna’s journey in content marketing and hear some of the best engagement tips from one of the industry’s social media marketing gurus.
Episode Highlights
Purna says her life purpose is to ‘lift others’ through education and empowerment. She’s an active mentor to many professionals and feels the responsibility of the job includes shining the light on their strengths and talents while providing constructive criticism. Purna herself has several high-profile mentors she calls her ‘board of directors’. They are a fabulous sounding board when she has questions.
The foundation of successful marketing content rests in knowing your audience. Purna stresses the importance of ‘studying your customers’ to learn what they want, their motivations, and their problems. When you understand your audience, the content will write itself. Additionally, a company must identify its core values, brand purpose, and the ‘connective tissue’ that links its audience to its product or service.
Purna compares a brand’s message to water; it can take the shape of any container. So often, content that hasn’t been working is tossed. Purna argues that instead of wasting time creating new content, well-researched and ideated material can be reused or repurposed on a different platform; it still has value.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
19 Jun 2024
063: Wil’s Wisdom: Weaving Value, Vision, and Virtue in Digital Marketing
Buckle up for today’s episode as the Digital Marketing Mentor takes you on an exciting journey with Wil Reynolds, the founder, and VP of Innovation at SEER Interactive. As one of the most esteemed digital marketing agencies in the U.S., we’ll talk to this former economics teacher about his life-long passion for learning, creating value, and giving back to others and what led to his creation of SEER Interactive. Wil also discusses the power of mentorship and the importance of the human connection with customers through SEO in the face of growing AI influence.
Episode Highlights
Wil’s passion for giving back, creating change, and making an impact was born from his early professional years as an economics teacher. His passion was put into overdrive after being denied the opportunity to volunteer, which became a significant value he instilled in the creation of SEER Interactive.
Wil has been grateful for his mentors throughout his career and says they have taught him some of his most valuable life lessons. The truest indication that a mentor has done a good job is when the mentee has outgrown them, which has happened to Wil several times.
Will is not anti-SEO. Instead, he supports the most ‘frictionless’ way for users to access their desired information, which seems to be through AI.
The invention of AI has undoubtedly helped with SEO and content creation. However, Wil says it’s important not to lose the human connection, including using your ideas instead of those from a bot and connecting with your viewers through organic social media traffic.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
03 Jul 2024
064: Self-Taught SEO: Using Professional Setbacks to Inspire a Future in Freelance
Pack your bags and join us as we head to Minnesota to speak with Nick LeRoy, freelance SEO consultant and owner of SEOjobs.com. In today’s episode of the Digital Marketing Mentor Podcast, we’ll explore how Nick hit the ground running by learning SEO in his first job out of college. Having experienced several professional setbacks, he shares how he used this experience and leaned into mentors to propel him into entrepreneurship and a freelance career in SEO. We’ll hear about his passion project, SEOJobs.com, and his vision to revolutionize the SEO job market.
Episode Highlights:
Nick’s love of SEO began after learning the necessary skills on the job straight out of university. He credits reading ‘how to’ books at the local Barnes and Noble with helping him to understand the subject.
According to Nick, a mentor challenges another’s thinking and provides necessary guidance.
After losing his job twice, Nick has learned that he prefers working as a freelance SEO consultant instead of within an agency. Being his own boss allows him to be brutally honest with his clients, and he feels he produces better work.
The keys to success in the SEO industry include strong communication, genuine curiosity for SEO, and understanding the industry’s ‘hard skills.’
Nick enjoys mentoring uniquely by offering advisory services and actively seeking out employment opportunities for SEO professionals through his passion project, SEOjobs.com.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
17 Jul 2024
065: High School Side Hustle Turned Thriving Tik Tok Agency
This episode of the Digital Marketing Mentor takes us back to the classroom as we talk with Noah Frydberg, full-time university student at the University of Texas and founder of the multi-million dollar social media marketing agency, Maverick Creative. We discuss with this young entrepreneur about his greatest mentor, what led him to take the leap into starting his own company, and why he feels TikTok is a social media marketing goldmine that’s being underutilized by businesses looking to scale.
Episode Highlights
TikTok offers an incredible opportunity to grow your company or brand. Noah highly recommends taking the time to completely understand this social media platform’s potential for creators of all types.
As a member of Gen Z, Noah has used his age to his advantage. He often pursues clients looking to access that specific market. Noah is in a unique position as an entrepreneur in his generation that can make the most from his tremendous knowledge of TikTok.
Noah’s greatest mentor has been his father. He’s shown him the art of cold-calling, managing client demands, and making the sale and Noah has carried those attributes to his company when mentoring his own employees.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
31 Jul 2024
066: Politics to PR to Philanthropy: The Path to Creating a Cause-Driven Marketing Agency
Join us as we uncover the transformative power of mentorship and cause-driven marketing with Aimee Woodall, founder of The Black Sheep Agency. Amy unpacks her public relations experience for political initiatives and the pivotal role that her academic journey played in shaping her passion for politics and communication. She fondly recalls some of her most influential mentorship experiences and highlights the evolution of mentorship in business. Finally, we journey through Aimee’s establishment of a cause-driven agency, discussing the challenges and rewards of prioritizing social responsibility in marketing.
Episode Highlights
Aimee defines the relationship between a mentor and a mentee as a two-way street where both parties learn from the experience with each other.
One of Aimee’s mentors showed her that there could be meaning behind her work, and that propelled her into cause-driven marketing.
One of the greatest gifts Aimee received from her work is learning about all the different social challenges in our society and how to weave social responsibility into marketing strategies.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
14 Aug 2024
067: Office Hours | The Superpowers of Effective PPC Budget Management and Pacing with Alejandro Torres
In this ‘Office Hours’ episode, we examine PPC budget management closely. We speak with paid search analyst, Alejandro Torres, whose frustration with unpredictability of Google Ads’ spend tracking led to a revolutionary solution. With the assistance of his team, they built a robust tool designed to help them with pacing the spending schedule and optimizing the budgets of PPC campaigns for their clients. Tune into an episode packed full of tips on the technical aspects, team collaboration, and unique challenges faced in managing PPC campaigns.
An Optidge "Office Hours" Episode
Our Office Hours episodes are your go-to for details, how-to’s, and advice on specific marketing topics. Join our fellow Optidge team members, and sometimes even 1:1 teachings from Danny himself, in these shorter, marketing-focused episodes every few weeks. Get ready to get marketing!
Episode Highlights:
Despite Alejandro’s initial disinterest in digital marketing in college, his path led him back, allowing him to apply his practical knowledge in finance and management to his current role on the Optidge PPC team.
Alejandro initially heard about an innovative, data-tracking PPC tool, Dataslayer, from another department at Optidge and began testing the tool to see how its capabilities might help handle the headache of tracking PPC campaign spending.
Dataslayer and the custom solution put together by Alejandro and the team can now accurately monitor the spending habits of multiple campaigns at once and notify the PPC team when they’re under or overspending (with special thanks to color coding).
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
28 Aug 2024
068: Amplifying AI: Crafting Compelling Content and Superior SEO Strategies
This episode of The Digital Marketing Mentor takes us through the remarkable journey of Julia McCoy, President of Content at Scale, whose early struggles finding a passion inspired a career transition to the world of freelancing. In overcoming doubts and with the support of mentors along the way, she’s turned storytelling passion into a thriving career, pioneering several approaches to marry SEO, content creation, and AI to enhance efficiency and productivity. Julia reveals her take on the role of mentorship in shaping our professional paths - sharing stories of support through her launch into public speaking and entrepreneurial pursuits. Tune in to hear Julia’s predictions on the future of content and SEO, and how AI is powering the charge.
Episode Highlights:
Having transitioned to digital marketing, Julia shares her take on how mentorship plays a crucial role in shaping career paths, sharing stories of her own mentors who have encouraged her to step into entrepreneurship and embrace public speaking.
Julia says content writers should embrace the arrival of AI and learn to use it to their advantage, harnessing the power of these tools for more creative content solutions.
Julia has launched a feature that allows AI to replicate a writer's style and unique voice which helps maintain brand identity and integrity.
Her Unified Editor tool allows anyone to create powerful content regardless of their writing experience making the writing process more accessible and efficient.
AI is revolutionizing content marketing by allowing writers to focus on strategic thinking and creativity while keeping burnout at bay.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
11 Sep 2024
069: Optimizing Minds: Psychology of SEO, Cognitive Bias, & Neurodivergent Inclusion
The perfect blend of digital marketing and psychology, this discussion features Sarah Presch, Digital Marketing Director of Dragon Metrics, who shares her journey from studying marketing to pursuing psychology, emphasizing the critical role of understanding consumer behavior in this space. The conversation explores the rewarding nature of mentorship, emphasizing mutual learning, humility, structured success plans, and regular check-ins. In this episode, Sarah explores ethical considerations in digital marketing and SEO, including the influence of cognitive bias, the importance of psychological safety, and the challenges of ethical content creation. The discussion wraps with Sarah’s passion for music as a therapeutic tool and how it’s all tied into her achievements with Dragon Metrics.
Episode Highlights:
Understanding human behavior is crucial in marketing and the intersection between psychology and marketing promotes innovation and perspective.
Sarah founded Neurodivergents in SEO to provide a safe space for digital marketing professionals on the spectrum to talk and learn about marketing career paths.
Ethical considerations that exist in digital marketing and SEO, include the influence of cognitive bias - specifically a user’s confirmation bias, the importance of psychological safety, and the challenges of ethical content creation.
She stresses the importance for marketers in understanding an audience’s culture and language.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
25 Sep 2024
070: She Leads Digital: Inspiring Stories of Women in Marketing (Best of Episode)
It’s been said that the future of digital marketing is female: creative, data-driven, and unstoppable. Join us for an inspiring episode of the Digital Marketing Mentor as we explore and reflect on past conversations that follow the remarkable journeys of women who are breaking barriers and redefining the industry. From embracing unexpected or unplanned career transitions and the importance of mentorship to overcoming imposter syndrome and balancing expectations, this group of women is laying the groundwork for the next generation and leading the charge in digital transformation.
Episode Highlights
From journalism and physical therapy to theater and psychology, these inspiring women shed light on the non-linear career paths that can lead to success in digital marketing.
The prevalence of imposter syndrome and self-doubt in the workplace is growing and it's crucial to proactively address it by finding mentors and prioritizing continuous learning.
Mentorship has played a crucial role in all of these women's lives - fostering community and inclusivity in the workplace and allowing them to effectively build careers they are proud of.
This episode highlights the importance of supporting the next generation of female digital marketers by creating new opportunities, bridging skill gaps, and promoting diversity and inclusion.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
09 Oct 2024
071: Scaling with Strategy: Ross's Journey from Creative Writing to Digital PR Leadership
In this episode of the Digital Marketing Mentor podcast, host Danny Gavin sits down with Ross Hudgens, the founder and CEO of Siege Media. Ross shares his journey from studying creative writing to scaling one of the leading content marketing agencies through discussion on the role of mentorship, strategies for scaling a business, and evolving SEO practices in the age of AI. Whether you're a budding entrepreneur or a seasoned marketer, this episode offers practical advice and insights on business growth and effective digital marketing.
Episode Highlights:
Mentorship has played a crucial role in Ross’s career. Influential digital marketing figures and direct competitors such as Grayson LaFrance and Wil Reynolds have provided guidance and support in his successful pursuit of scaling Siege Media.
Effectively scaling his agency has meant Ross has had to learn to delegate responsibilities, particularly in sales and operations.
Ross’s approach to SEO has evolved from traditional link building to “product-led digital PR.” This includes creating unique, data-driven content that stands out in a digital landscape.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
20 Nov 2024
074: Blending Creativity and Data: Navigating the Children’s Toy Industry with Katy Katz
Katy Katz, Head of Digital Marketing and E-Commerce at Basic Fun!, discusses how mentorship, including her mother's early influence, shaped her career and approach to continuous learning in marketing. She emphasizes balancing creativity with data, fostering collaboration, and setting healthy boundaries to build effective growth-driven teams.
Episode Highlights:
Katy says traditional and non-traditional mentorship has always been incredibly important to her, and attributes her dedication to continuous learning in digital marketing from one of her earliest mentors, her mother. She values relationships that allow for mutual growth and learning, which she applies in her role as a leader.
Her unique approach to marketing blends creativity with a data-driven mindset. This balance is critical because she leverages data for e-commerce while fostering creativity in toy marketing.
Katy says it’s easier to set boundaries when working at an agency than in-house because the former always has a clearly defined contract.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
23 Oct 2024
072: Intersection of Brand and Performance Marketing: Transforming SEO at Wix with Mordy Oberstein
In this episode of The Digital Marketing Mentor, Danny talks with Mordy Oberstein, Head of Brand SEO at Wix, about his unique career path from teaching to SEO expertise. Mordy discusses the importance of mentorship and education, Wix's SEO transformation, and the impact of brand identity on search rankings. He also shares insights on balancing brand building with performance marketing, along with personal stories like his love for the Yankees and ground coffee.
Episode Highlights:
Mordy views mentorship as a deep interpersonal relationship, where mentors guide by sharing life experiences rather than just teaching skills. Key traits of a mentor include forgiveness, effective communication, and having a clear vision.
Mordy says it was community engagement, product improvements, and strategic rebranding efforts that helped propel Wix into an SEO leader in the industry.
Mordy emphasized the growing importance of brand marketing in SEO, arguing that brand identity, recognition, and reputation can significantly boost search engine rankings and long-term success.
Mordy explained the tension between performance marketing, which seeks immediate results, and brand marketing, which focuses on long-term relationship building. He stressed the need for businesses to balance both approaches for sustainable growth.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
06 Nov 2024
073: The Risks of AI-Generated Content at Scale: How One Business’s Strategy Led to Traffic Declines (Office Hours)
In this special episode, Senior SEO Strategist Mandy Politi reveals key strategies for mastering SEO in the age of AI, focusing on Google's EEAT guidelines. Through the compelling case study of a real Optidge client, Mandy and Danny highlight the risks of relying too heavily on AI-generated content for the sake of ramping up quantity, emphasizing the importance of aligning content with user intent. The conversation shares expert insights on on-page and local SEO, comprehensive content audits, addressing technical challenges, and best practices to ensure long-term success in search rankings.
An Optidge "Office Hours" Episode
Our Office Hours episodes are your go-to for details, how-to’s, and advice on specific marketing topics. Join our fellow Optidge team members, and sometimes even 1:1 teachings from Danny himself, in these shorter, marketing-focused episodes every few weeks. Get ready to get marketing!
Episode Highlights:
Mandy emphasized that AI is a valuable tool but must be used in alignment with Google’s EEAT guidelines. Content created at scale using AI can lead to a dramatic drop in traffic if it prioritizes search rankings over user experience and relevance, as seen with Client X.
Taking the approach of targeting every possible keyword, even those that are irrelevant, and producing low-quality content are both harmful tactics for a website’s long-term performance. These strategies were especially detrimental for a business in the medical field, where establishing trustworthiness is essential. Unqualified traffic results in users quickly exiting the site, signaling to Google that the content is irrelevant, leading to drops in rankings and overall site performance.
The conversation highlighted that duplicating content, especially using AI, dilutes SEO value and confuses Google about which pages to rank. For Client X, this led to non-indexed pages, poor rankings, and irrelevant traffic, showing the importance of targeting the right keywords and maintaining content quality.
The solution lies in a thorough content and technical audit, focusing on removing irrelevant content, resolving duplication, and optimizing for qualified traffic. By following these best practices, the client could see improvements in traffic and conversions over time.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
04 Dec 2024
075: Mentorship and Representation: Mike's Journey from Music to Mastering SEO
In this episode, Danny speaks with Mike King, SEO pioneer and founder of iPullRank, to explore the power of authentic representation through mentorship in the field of digital marketing and SEO. They discuss Mike’s journey from computer science to SEO leadership. These mentors helped shape his path and model for diversity in the industry and emphasized the importance of visibility for aspiring professionals reflecting all forms of diversity. Listeners will gain insights into the future of SEO, the impact of AI advancements, effective brand-building strategies, and tips on navigating the world of SEO and professional mentorship.
Episode Highlights:
Although Mike studied computer science, he found his true calling outside the classroom, ultimately leading him to a career in SEO.
Mike discusses the importance of explicit and implicit mentors, crediting individuals like Tony Effick, Rand Fishkin, and Will Reynolds for guiding his growth in SEO and helping him think strategically about the big picture in digital marketing and professional network-building.
Mike advises small businesses, particularly, to focus on building genuine brand connections and targeting long-tail keywords rather than relying on SEO shortcuts, as Google increasingly favors quality and user-focused content.
With the rise of AI-driven search, Mike predicts that SEO optimization will shift toward micro-optimizations within specific content segments and leveraging structured data.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
08 Jan 2025
077: Redefining Confidence, Culture, and Connections: Bo Bothe on Mentorship in a Digital World
What if the lessons of a logical classroom and a father’s breakfast table could transform your approach to leadership and life? In this episode of The Digital Marketing Mentor, we talk with Bo Bothe, president and CEO of BrandExtract, a brand strategy firm in Houston, to discover insights gathered over the course of his career journey - from his education, leadership style, and the importance of mentorship. Bo highlights lessons from his father, his MBA experience, and the value of resilience, personal growth, and community. Bo also explores the challenges of hybrid work, detailing his company’s evolving approach to maintaining team connection and productivity in a remote environment.
Episode Highlights:
Bo highlights the complexities of hybrid work, noting the challenges it poses for team connection and productivity. His company has experimented with various models over the years and has recently moved to a four-day in-office schedule to foster stronger collaboration.
He considers his father as a pivotal mentor, whose resilience, positivity, and unconventional wisdom has dramatically shaped his outlook on life. He also mentors others, from employees to young people in sports, and believes in understanding individuals’ personal visions and challenges.
Bo values mentorship and takes a personalized approach, tailoring his guidance to individual needs to promote positive personal and professional growth.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
18 Dec 2024
076: Mentorship, Metrics, and Mastering PPC: Insights from Sophie Fell
In this episode, Sophie Fell, Head of Paid Media at Liberty Marketing Group, shares her journey in digital marketing after motherhood, discussing her transition from managing Facebook posts for a startup to overseeing multi-million-dollar ad campaigns. She emphasizes the value of mentorship, data-driven decision-making, and the challenges faced with top-of-funnel PPC strategies. She highlights the advantages for beginners of being a “t-shaped marketer,” advocating for a blend of broad knowledge of all platforms with deeper specializations. The episode also explores the impact of AI on digital marketing and the evolving role of paid media professionals.
Episode Highlights:
Sophie built a successful career in PPC and paid media without a formal university degree. She started by managing Facebook posts for a startup and developed her skills through hands-on experience, emphasizing that practical knowledge often outweighs formal education in the marketing industry.
Sophie views mentorship as a collaborative relationship built on trust and mutual respect. She credits her mentor, Kevin Ashley, for shaping her career and now mentors others within and outside of her agency, focusing on helping mentees define and achieve their goals.
Sophie and Danny share in the belief in the advantages of being a “t-shaped marketer,” possessing a broad understanding across all platforms while having deeper expertise in one or two specific areas as they begin to align with career aspirations.
Sophie highlights the critical role of data analysis and optimization in PPC, especially for beginners in the industry. While learning platform UIs is straightforward, understanding metrics, making data-driven decisions, and translating those insights into actions are what set top professionals apart.
Many brands fail with top-of-funnel Google Ads campaigns because they focus on the wrong metrics, like direct conversions. Sophie advocates for redefining KPIs to measure engagement and awareness, which can better justify top-of-funnel strategies.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
22 Jan 2025
078: Office Hours | Problem-Solving in Paid Search: Best Practices & Common Red Flags with Brianna Deboever
In this Office Hours episode on The Digital Marketing Mentor Podcast, Danny sits down with Optidge’s Head of Paid Search, Brianna Deboever, to dive deep into Google Ads. As our resident expert in paid search, she shares her insights on spotting red flags, optimizing campaign settings, and avoiding common pitfalls. Whether you’re a seasoned marketer or just getting started, this episode will guide you through building stronger, more efficient paid search campaigns.
Our Office Hours episodes are your go-to for details, how-to’s, and advice on specific marketing topics. Join our fellow Optidge team members, and sometimes even 1:1 teachings from Danny himself, in these shorter, marketing-focused episodes every few weeks. Get ready to get marketing!
Episode Highlights:
When it comes to Google Ads campaign setup, a few best practices include limiting ad groups to 3-7 keywords, avoiding overuse of broad match keywords, and setting location settings to “presence only.”
Once your campaigns are ready to go live, Brianna recommends beginning with manual bidding and regular monitoring of conversion tracking to ensure accuracy and alignment before transitioning to automated tracking tactics.
Brianna suggests incorporating negative keywords to reduce wasted ad spend and reviewing search terms frequently to refine keyword lists, assign accurate values to conversions, and enhance targeting.
It’s good practice to utilize tools like Clickcease, Google Tag Manager and GA4 in paid search to block spam traffic, streamline conversion tracking, and ensure alignment with campaign goals.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
05 Feb 2025
079: From Microsoft to Mentorship: Jeremiah Andrick’s Journey of Lifelong Learning
What happens when nearly two decades of digital marketing expertise, an entrepreneurial spirit, and a passion for mentorship converge? In this episode of The Digital Marketing Mentor, Danny Gavin sits down with Jeremiah Andrick, a seasoned digital marketing professional who has worked with powerhouse companies like Microsoft, Logitech, and SteelSeries. Jeremiah’s journey is anything but conventional, as he shares how mentorship shaped his career, lessons learned from his immigrant grandfather, and his philosophy of building teams that thrive. Dive into this insightful conversation to learn how personal values, lifelong learning, and challenging the status quo can create extraordinary results in marketing and leadership.
Episode Highlights:
Jeremiah shares how mentorship is a two-way street, helping both mentor and mentee grow. He highlights the importance of shared learning, testing ideas, and embracing constructive challenges to achieve meaningful progress.
In today’s ever-changing digital landscape, Jeremiah emphasizes strategies like avoiding the ROAS trap, aligning marketing with financial goals, and revisiting fundamentals to create impactful, sustainable campaigns.
Jeremiah shares how his immigrant grandfather and mentors like Lance Binley shaped his leadership approach, instilling values of resilience, fairness, and investing in others. He also stresses the importance of diverse teams and creating space for all voices to thrive.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
19 Feb 2025
080: Curiosity, Community, & Confidence: Ameet’s Journey to PPC Leadership
This episode of the Digital Marketing Mentor features Ameet Khabra, founder of Hopskip Media, who shares her unconventional journey from studying business administration to an unexpected stint in audio engineering, leading her to become a prominent figure in the PPC space. The conversation explores the importance of mentorship through nurturing community and personal passions, as well as dissects the role of AI and the value of asking the right questions. In this uplifting episode, Ameet’s story serves as an inspiration for aspiring digital marketers, showcasing the power of curiosity, community, and confidence in navigating the complexities of the industry.
Episode Highlights:
Ameet shares her transition from business administration to marketing at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, where her exposure to email marketing and Google Ads sparked her interest in the field and her belief in the importance of curiosity and asking questions to unlock professional opportunities.
She describes mentorship as a guiding relationship that fosters critical thinking and transparency, recounting experiences with mentors like Julie Friedman, Brian Smith, and Idras Fashan, to showcase how they’ve helped to broaden her perspective.
Ameet advocates for authenticity both in her personal relationships and her online presence, noting how her experience sharing personal stories and challenges has helped to position her as a reliable and relatable mentor and leader.
Ameet and some of her latest research comparing human versus AI-generated copy reveals the significance of emotional context in effective marketing, advising caution regarding the implications of using AI in the advertising space.
She encourages listeners to get involved in supportive online communities, crediting her early involvement in the Google Partner community for her proactive learning and networking opportunities.
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
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