5 Silly Things Digital Marketers DoOvercoming Common Mistakes to Elevate Your Digital Marketing Strategy
In today’s episode, we are joined by digital marketing expert and author, Jay Baer, to discuss common mistakes digital marketers make and how to overcome them. We dive into the topic of “5 Silly Things Digital Marketers Do” and provide insights on how to improve your marketing strategy.
Jay shares his thoughts on the importance of creating valuable content for both current customers and new prospects. He emphasizes the need to tell a bigger story with top-of-the-funnel content that isn’t directly related to your product or service, and how this can help engage and captivate your audience. We also discuss the pitfalls of striving for perfection and the benefits of adopting an agile marketing approach. In addition, Jay highlights the significance of humanizing your brand in the B2B space and shares examples of successful B2B brands that have broken the mold.
Throughout the episode, we explore various strategies for creating content that resonates with your audience and fosters loyalty. Jay provides tips for balancing content creation between new prospects and existing customers, as well as how to inject creativity into your campaigns. Listen in as we uncover the “5 Silly Things Digital Marketers Do” and learn how to overcome these common marketing mistakes.
Jay Baer and his brother Jeff (now deceased) were raised in America’s hottest town: Lake Havasu City, Arizona – which is also the home of the London Bridge.
His father owned a steakhouse, and his mother was an English teacher. It makes sense then, that his first job was at McDonald’s. There, Jay’s youthful grill skills were so strong the store manager tried to convince Jay to skip college and enroll in Hamburger University.
Instead, Jay leaned toward his mother’s side, and began his content creation career, leading the school newspaper to multiple prestigious awards, while writing sports for the local paper on the side.
Awarded a full-ride scholarship, Jay spent four years at the University of Arizona, where he co-founded the college radio station and oversaw all campus events as President of the activities board.
He met his wife, Alyson, in his first-ever college class, and moved to Phoenix after graduation.
Jay (and Alyson) fell in love, and fell in love with politics while in college, and post-graduation they both worked as political consultants and advisors. Jay was a direct mail specialist and managed all mailing for U.S. Senator and former Presidential nominee John McCain.
From political marketing, it was a short jump to “conventional” marketing, and Jay worked for several years as the head of marketing for Waste Management, Inc. in the southwest. He still gives a rock-solid landfill tour.
Pivoting back to government and politics, Jay was then the head of communications for the Arizona Department of Juvenile Corrections. Realizing that giving prison tours was less fun than landfill tours, he actively sought an exit and found one, in 1993.
Friends from college had started the first Internet company in Arizona, and they needed marketing help. Presto! Jay was head of sales and marketing for an Internet company, back when domain names were still free. Just one problem: he’d never seen the Internet.
Undeterred, he pressed on and Internet Direct experienced breakaway growth.
The spunky startup got on the radar of local business leaders in Phoenix, and Jay was next tabbed to start a full-service Internet business for the owners of a local television, radio, and magazine conglomerate. The result was AZFamily, which became the second largest TV-station website in America.
After that success, Jay began his first solo adventure, creating Mighty Interactive – going on to become Arizona’s most successful digital strategy consultancy.
He sold the firm in 2005, and in 2008 started over, creating Convince & Convert, a global digital strategy firm that’s served 40 FORTUNE 500 brands.
To build awareness for Convince & Convert when it consisted of just himself and a MacBook, Jay harkened back to his old high school journalism days, and started a daily blog about digital marketing and social media. It took off.
Within one year, book publishers called, and he published his first book, _The NOW Revolution_ (written with Amber Naslund) in 2011.
The subsequent book tour put him on stage, a place Jay decided he liked very much indeed.
Since then, Jay has published five more best-selling books, created 5 podcasts (including the award-winning Social Pros), given more than 1,500 keynote speeches, and been inducted into the halls of fame for professional speaking, word of mouth marketing, and good old Lake Havasu High School. He even gave a speech at McDonald’s headquarter. Full circle!
Jay sold Convince & Convert, and now devotes most of his time to writing, speaking, and researching about business growth, customer experience, and marketing.
In his spare time, he commiserates with his grown children, Ethan and Annika. And, Jay has recently parlayed his 25-year passion for agave spirits into a position as the #2 tequila influencer in the world, with hundreds of thousands of followers of his 4x/week videos on Instagram and TikTok.
He lives in Bloomington, Indiana (he moved there in 2010 without knowing anyone because it was easier for air travel to live in the middle) with Alyson and their dog, Marigold.
Podcast Timestamps/Outline
01:13 – Introduction
02:27 – About Jay Baer
05:14 – Adapting to Post-COVID Changes
08:37 – Silly Thing #1: Not creating enough content for your current customers
11:14 – Silly Thing #2: Not giving permission to tell a bigger story
14:42 – Silly Thing #3: B2B doesn’t stand for Boring-to-Boring
20:53 – Silly Thing #4: Being too slow
24:34 – Silly Thing #5: Not having radical relevancy
28:51 – Top mistakes that B2B marketers need to stop doing
31:35 – Intent data
32:32 – The 2022 Consumer Patience Study
41:14 – Jay Baer’s goals
42:58 – Connect with Jay Baer
Memorable Quotes
“Fundamentally, information produced by the company trying to sell you something is the least trusted source.”
“Most of the top-of-the-funnel content fails because it’s not inherently interesting – it’s just broad and vague. What can work is creating top-of-the-funnel content that isn’t about your product or service at all.”
“Your customers have other interests in their life beyond buying your stuff, and if you can tap into those interests, sometimes that’s the way to actually get them into your ecosystem.”
“It doesn’t matter what format it is, what matters is that it solicits a human emotion. If your content does not make people think, laugh, or get mad, it will fail.
“Perfect is the enemy of progress.”
“Passion is more important than position.”
“Success in B2B Digital Marketing is about the wizard not the wand.”
“Your current customers are your best marketers.”
Episode Links and Resources
The 2022 Consumer Patience Study: The Time to Win
Jay’s website: https://www.jaybaer.com/
Jay’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaybaer/
Digital activity ROI assessment: https://b2bdm.com/digital-activity-roi/
More episodes related to mistakes in marketing: https://b2bdm.com/top-mistakes-with-b2b-event-strategies
