Community Discussion - How can we apply the skills we have as marketers in new, creative ways?

[MattRoney]

Hi everyone,

I hope you all had a wonderful week! This week's discussion question comes from Tuesday's (December blog post by John-Henry Scherck, The Step-by-Step Guide to Turning Link Prospectors into Lead Generators. From the post:

"Digital marketing is a pretty introverted industry. This tends to make us a bit hesitant to embrace sales and outbound selling. There’s no beating around the bush: Sales can be difficult, scary, uncomfortable, and awkward — but if you want to grow your client base, it may require getting out of your comfort zone."

John-Henry shows us the opportunity for people who are good at link prospecting to apply those skills to lead generation, improving business opportunities by creatively using the skills they already have. SEOs and marketers wear many hats, and have a diverse skill set at their disposal—how else can we apply the skills we already have in creative ways?

[MattAntonino]

For me, I've always had something "on the side" of my marketing/agency life. I want to have personal experience with ecommerce. How does it feel to sell clothing online? What are the concerns? How can I help clients? What are the hiccups with certain sources of traffic (Stumble, Reddit, Pinterest, even Digg back in the day). When does that traffic help?

I like to always have at least a couple side projects so I can keep a bit of "skin in the game."  If I'm spending MY money on Adwords, I get better at it. If I'm spending MY time building a site or generating links, I find ways to maximise the resources I have. If you don't have your own site, maybe split/share one with someone. Just a simple side project and always have at least a little stake in the outcomes.

That goes back to how I learned - I learned marketing by owning a business. I learned SEO by ranking #1 for my own keyword. I learned Adwords after wasting thousands & thousands of dollars. I learned CRO after wasting thousands & thousands of website hits. Make it PERSONAL somehow.

[MattRoney]

I love this idea! That "boring industry" mindset can be extremely difficult to break out of, too.

[danwebman]

One thing you could try is answering questions which your customers are asking and have pages with the questions being the sole content of the page.

e.g. What can get traffic to my page?

Customers ask how we can get traffic to your pages. One idea would be to have page with answers to the most popular searched questions (Found by looking in Google Adwords Keyword Finder) or by starting to type a question about your product in Google and seeing what it suggests.

Then write an amazing page which gives the visitor his perfect answer, what has this achieved? They have seen your brand and they relate it back to the correct answer for their problem. (Ensuring it is the best answer!)

All of this is SEO Structured of course and therefore gets a high rank on Google and more traffic comes your way which Google will notice and also perhaps deter-main your a guru in your field.

This then has a knock on effect to your product pages and get them high ranking too. Of course inter linking between the pages is good too!

[ChrisAshton]

Good question Matt and a tough one to answer!

In a general sense, good SEOs can become very powerful entrepreneurs if they put the time into it. We already have exposure to a broad number of industries and have a great understanding of just how those clients go about finding various products and services.

Combine this with our well-versed ability to plan, document, communicate and build a powerful network of people we can leverage effectively as well as access to designers and devs and there are few things we can't do well in the online space.

As for how we can apply our skillset within SEO, I completely agree with John-Henry in that the same tactics we use for link prospecting can be fantastic for outbound marketing. Used effectively, they can ultimately turn an outbound campaign into inbound leads; potential clients seeking you out as a result of your demonstrated value and the referral network you've built.

[EGOL]

A lot of marketers would benefit if they pulled their energies out of the "marketing cloud" a few times a year and invested some time in their content area.  Most industries have numerous trade shows, conventions, and other gatherings where you can try out new products, talk with manufacturers, meet retailers, attend presentations and more.

Depending upon your industry, these can ranges from small events that occupy a single building - to enormous events that fill every venue in a good-size city and with courses, boutiques, demonstrations and more filling half of the available hotel space and even parking lots.  They are often attended by people from all parts of the world and from every stage of the industry pipeline, from design, materials sourcing, manufacturing, distributing, retailing and even the consumer.

These are the places where you learn about trends, problems and opportunities in the industry.   They are where you get the real industry-stuff that you need to be competitive on an intellectual and practical basis.  Attending these events should cure your "boring industry" mindset.  You should return to your office with a suitcase full of samples, literature, swag and other booty; a camera full of great photos;  and a mind full of great ideas for producing creative, current, competitive, content.

Added:  This morning's Moz Blog had an article by Ruth Burr Reedy.  While reading it I remembered that she wrote an article about "how to build links in person" a short time ago.  Attending meetings in your content are is a great opportunity to follow her advice.

[erikabarbosa]

It’s always important to go outside of your comfort zone and exercise your brain in ways you typically do not. For example, if you are typically using your analytical skills, try working on a creative project that makes you think outside of the numbers. As digital marketers, we have to constantly hone our skills, test them in new ways and evolve with the times.

Do you typically write your PPC ads in a certain tone? As Larry Kim says, try finding a unicorn opportunity, get creative and don’t just write the first ad that naturally comes to mind.