Often times companies — especially start-ups — compete in a crowded space with competitors who have similar messaging, services or products. They end up trying to outspend the competition in the wrong places. But you can set your business apart when you know what you're doing. How? SEO, or search engine optimization. SEO is about knowing what your customers are searching for and connecting them with your goods or services.  

In this episode of J&See: Views on Marketing, Meg Goodman speaks with Grant Simmons, a digital marketing expert who specializes in SEO. Grant and Meg break down what exactly SEO is, how it differs from SEM and how companies can take advantage of these each to drive meaningful traffic to their sites. Read on for a few helpful takeaways from his interview. And make sure to subscribe to J&See: Views on Marketing to hear a conversation about marketing like this once a month.

As we head into a new decade, we look back on how marketing has become more digital and more difficult to navigate than ever before. As words like “artificial intelligence” and “big data” enter the conversation, it can be hard to know how these concepts fit into your own marketing strategy. Lucky for us, we have Danny Flamberg, a marketing consultant who specializes in leading businesses into the new, digital age. His book, Dancing Through the Digital Revolution: A Marketing Playbook, serves as a guide for marketers looking to take advantage of the digital marketing wave. In this episode of J&See: Views on Marketing, Meg Goodman talks to Danny about the balance of personalization versus privacy, how data is more than a magic word and the impact of AI on our future. Read on for a few excerpts from their insightful conversation. And of course, make sure to subscribe to J&See: Views on Marketing to hear a compelling interview like this once a month.

Marketing and communications are in a rapid pace of ongoing transformation. Not only is that transformation from offline to digital, it is also growing beyond its traditional role. What was once made up of direct marketing, sales promotion and PR has now grown to include augmented and virtual reality, messaging bots and artificial intelligence. Marketing is shifting from “demand generation” to focusing on user experiences. One of the more recent aspects of the user experience is the focus on personalization. The task becomes: how do we leverage data to deliver individualized experiences that create value for that specific person — without crossing the line and abusing data at the expense of that person’s privacy?

Nonprofits have the same goal as any company: to increase their reach and spread their message. Normally, that’s what a marketing team does for a company. Large corporations typically rely on an in-house team with a massive budget or an outside agency to build the company brand. Nonprofits have none of that. A nonprofit is expected to create effective campaigns to achieve their mission with a fraction of the budget that corporations have. Most of the time, they don’t even have a marketing team, the work simply gets unloaded onto other positions in the company. So how do they do it?

To answer the question of “how," Meg Goodman spoke with Brooke Wiseman. Brooke is the CEO of Blessings in a Backpack, a charity that mobilizes communities, individuals, and resources to provide food on the weekends for elementary school children across America who might otherwise go hungry. Brooke explains how nonprofits leverage corporate partnerships, volunteer evangelists and social media to compensate for the lack of resources available to them. Read on for a few excerpts from their insightful conversation. And of course, make sure to subscribe to J&See: Views on Marketing to hear a compelling interview like this once a month.

Even as the use of social media and email push us further from written communications, direct mail is still one of the biggest marketing channels around. But as the world of marketing hurdles into a new digital age, direct mail has to adapt. To do that, marketers are now using customer data to personalize the user experience. Ron Jacobs, CEO of Jacobs and Clevenger, recently spoke on the Marketing Over Coffee podcast. In this episode, he talks about how brands must start hyper-personalizing in order to keep the attention of their customer base. Listen to the whole episode to hear Ron’s conversation with John Wall about direct marketing.

Described as economic theory with a dose of human nature, the concept of behavioral economics has been around for over 40 years. As marketers, we need to understand why consumers do what they do and what affects those decisions. Behavioral economics can help us identify behaviors and adapt to irrational biases that influence every consumer. Why do we trust others more than ourselves to make financial decisions? Why are we more afraid of what we might lose than what we might gain? To help us understand, Meg Goodman sits down with Lou Carlozo on the BAI podcast to discuss the nature of human decision making and how we as marketers can predict it. 

Marketing isn't limited to brands and agencies. In fact, it can be as simple as a resume sent to your dream company. In order to snag that job, you'll have to sell them on one product: YOU. In this episode of J&See: Views on Marketing, VP of J&C Meg Goodman sits down with career coach and recruiter Michelle Barnard to discuss how you can successfully market yourself to potential employers. Read on for a few key points from their conversation. And don't forget to subscribe to J&See: Views on Marketing to hear an interview like this once a month.

An average of 227 million adults tune to AM/FM radio each week, creating almost $20 billion in revenue for radio stations. The majority of that revenue comes from advertisements. Marketers have been using radio as a major channel since the first paid radio ad in 1922.

Although they are limited to only what the listener can hear, marketers use some of the same techniques for radio that they use for every type of marketing. In this episode of J&See: Views on Marketing, Meg Goodman sits down with Mark Long, the Production Director for Townsquare Media in Boise, Idaho. Mark breaks down the differences between radio and traditional marketing as well as the different types of radio. Mark also provides insight into the direction he sees radio heading and how marketers will need to respond. Read on for a few excerpts from his insightful interview. And of course, make sure to subscribe to J&See: Views on Marketing to hear a compelling conversation like this once a month.

As an expert in the direct marketing field, Jacobs & Clevenger CEO, Ron Jacobs, is always looking for the latest developments in the industry. Recently, Ron joined Mike Gastin on The Currency podcast to “demystify AI for direct marketing”. In this episode, Ron breaks down AI’s role in direct marketing and the possibilities AI will present in the near future. Listen as he also explains how businesses can use AI to predict and implement more efficient marketing strategies across all channels.

Although women make up half the population, many companies still treat them as a niche in the marketing industry. In the second episode of J&See: Views on Marketing, Meg Goodman sits down with Patti Minglin. Patti is the founder and CEO of Go Girl Communications, a marketing agency that specializes in helping clients reach female customers. Patti and Meg discuss how to successfully market to (or as Patti would say, with) women — and the common mistakes you should avoid. Read on for a few excerpts from her insightful interview. And of course, make sure to subscribe to J&See: Views on Marketing to hear a compelling conversation like this once a month.