Monday Manufacturing Motivation – with Nicole Donnelly

Curt Anderson  00:05

Oh, hey, Damon. Dude, how are you? Happy Monday.

Damon Pistulka  00:09

Live today.

Curt Anderson  00:10

We are live today I thought we’re just gonna hang out world problems and like you know, we’ve got a new rock band going here just a fun juicy stuff. So how was your weekend?

Damon Pistulka  00:23

It was awesome. Awesome. We’re hitting spring and it’s just everything’s good with that

Curt Anderson  00:27

spring is in the air speed ring put a little spring in your step today. How about how about this amazing, incredible wonderful guests that we have on our program today we have the one the only Nicole Donnelly Nicole Happy Monday How are you

Nicole Donnelly  00:44

happy Monday I feel like I’m part of the family now I don’t I feel like I’ve really moved on from guest to manufacturing ecommerce success. Daughter

Curt Anderson  00:57

daughter niece. What are those

Nicole Donnelly  01:00

favorite places to be it’s super fun. I’m excited to talk about SEO Yeah, and we’ve got some right now

Curt Anderson  01:07

we have some really exciting things to discuss so yes you know as a repeat offender you know just you might you know judgment a character I don’t know just hanging out with Damon and I quite a bit just you know I don’t want to ruin your reputation or anything hanging out with you know, two old guys but I’m just teasing. Welcome to Manufacturing Monday motivation guys. We got Gary wood here. We’ve got John bye. Bye by Gary is here. So guys, happy Monday. drop us a note. Let us know you’re there. We are going to take a deep dive into SEO strategies and none other than the SEO expert is in the house. So the COPE you know before we go there since you are a repeat offender, you know, you know my favorite question, Damon right. Now, you’ve been asked that multiple times. You’ve heard it multiple times. So I’m gonna put a little spin. I have a different I’m throwing you a curveball.

Nicole Donnelly  01:59

Oh, okay. I’m ready.

Curt Anderson  02:02

Are you sit down for this?

Nicole Donnelly  02:04

I am not. I’m not standing. I’m gonna stay standing.

Curt Anderson  02:09

You better hang on you better. Hang on. Okay, epically. Anybody that catches a show. I love to ask when you were little girl growing up. I would say Who was your hero? But I think I’ve been I think I’ve asked you that. But I think you’ve heard that one. Correct.

Nicole Donnelly  02:24

You have asked me that. And I have answered it. Yep.

Curt Anderson  02:27

Okay, so since you’ve, I’m gonna go somewhere else. Okay,

Nicole Donnelly  02:31

so I’m a little nervous.

Curt Anderson  02:34

Other than Daymond and myself, right, other than Daymond and myself, who on this planet considers you their hero? Who plan it was Damon and myself? If I asked that question, then they would say the code Donnelly is my hero who who is that human being on this planet and hopefully make theirs would refer you as their

03:04

tougher question.

Nicole Donnelly  03:06

That is a tough question, man. Well, I’d like to hope that my daughter’s right as parents, but my 12 year old right now she’s gonna turn 13 soon. And I think I’m the like, furthest thing from hero to her. Right? Yeah,

Curt Anderson  03:24

well, that’s not true.

Nicole Donnelly  03:28

You know, look, he says I’m his hero. That’s amazing job. They, you.

Curt Anderson  03:33

They come back around. They come back. Yeah, that’s

Nicole Donnelly  03:36

a great question. I don’t know. So I love that question. Because it makes me think you know what, it makes me think it makes me think, what am I doing for others? How what am I doing for others to really like, have that kind of an impact. So it’s, it’s a great question for me to think like, sheesh, am I really being a hero for others? Like, what can I be doing more? Yeah. Thank you for the knowledge. You know, I feel I feel cool.

Curt Anderson  04:03

So I would Sophia and Charlotte would absolutely say mom is our hero. I feel comfortable vouching for them. Absolutely. So Gary Woods says that you are one of his heroines. I love that.

Damon Pistulka  04:18

Nice. Love it.

Nicole Donnelly  04:19

Thanks, Gary. i The feeling is mutual. I felt like my spirit animal turtle

Curt Anderson  04:27

because you are my hero. So absolutely appreciate everything that you do. We do. We’ve been really digging deep together working with different clients and what have you. And I think our clients would attest to that. You’re just making a huge impact. And we’re going to dig into this today and we’re going to talk about your superpowers as an SEO expert. You are HubSpot guru. So let’s just like hey, we’re not gonna pull any punches here. Let’s just dive right in a lot of changes. Maybe one or two changes are going on in the world with this whole little AI thing and SEO. Let’s just Let’s just play All right, in Nicole, you’re working with manufacturers all over the place, fourth generation entrepreneur. And as you begin that engagement work with folks on SEO, and this is brand new to them. Let’s hit the beginning like starting point, let’s go through the basics of SEO, where do we go?

Nicole Donnelly  05:16

Oh, great question. And you’re absolutely right, the landscape is there’s a huge technological advancement that’s happened in the last four months, that’s happened with AI that we fully I don’t think, can comprehend how it’s going to change. Everything we do in our lives. It’s just mind blowing, it’s mind blowing, is when search came out, you know, what, 25 years or whatever kit and, you know, you know, when the user interface came out, way back in what early, late 70s, or whatever. So I don’t think we can fully comprehend how that’s going to change the way we work. So. So I think it’s important for us to have that conversation, because what’s going to happen with SEO going forward is going to be a little bit unknown, but it’s still very relevant today, what we’re doing so here’s what we do, what do we do for manufacturer, we first start, there’s a multi multi step process that we do to help them uncover and get trying to work on getting those first page rankings, right, so that we can say they can stop being the best kept secret. And the first thing that we do is we help them uncover what their ridiculously important keywords are. So we really do an exercise with them, we first we understand who their buyer is, first and foremost, like, Who is that they’re serving? What are the pain points and challenges that those buyers are having? And then we dive deep to say, what are they searching for on Google? What are the what are the questions, things that they’re looking looking for, and we’ve come up with a list of ridiculously important keywords that they want to rank for. So and that list can include anything from like 10 to 15 keywords, and you have to be really strategic about it. Because, you know, there’s a lot of saturation for some of these really broad keywords, meaning there’s a lot of people who’ve already created a lot of content on really broad keywords. And so the challenge for manufacturers is to really try to niche down as much as possible on the keywords that you want to show up for. So making sure that those keywords are like four or five words, at least, and not just like a to, you know, to keyboard phrase. It’s like, I’ll give you an example. I loved the band Coldplay when they first came out. I’m sure you guys have heard of this band. Right, Coldplay?

Curt Anderson  07:37

I saw Coldplay live in 2003 on Long Island.

Nicole Donnelly  07:43

May amazing. I used to go to all their concerts. Okay. I was obsessed with Coldplay Chris Martin had my heart. He was I just loved him. So I remember going to one of the concerts and it was it was a huge auditorium. Like it was massive arenas. Okay. Just massive. Okay, could barely see him. He was way down there on the like this little speck, okay. And so for people that are out there trying to bid on these, like really broad keywords, you’re like this little speck in this huge arena. Okay. Chris Barton is your ideal customer. Right? And you’re trying to reach him. You want him to see you. You’re like, Hey, look at me. I’m over here. Awesome. See me Chris Martin. I’m here for you. Do you see me Chris Martin, I have something really amazing to give you right. And so when you’re when you’re bidding on these really broad keywords, that’s what it’s like. It’s like you’re in this huge pool of like, millions and millions of people. Chris Martin’s never gonna see you, right. So I went to this concert. And I was just like, so excited to see him. You’ll never believe it in the middle of the show. All of a sudden, they leave the main stage and they run the whole band runs down. And they come all the way out. And you’re I’m not kidding you. There was like this little makeshift stage right behind where we were sitting right behind us. And all of a sudden he comes up and he’s like this far away from me. He was sweating on me. I was like, I was in heaven. Okay. And he got on that stage. The whole band got on that stage and they sang this. They said that song was scientist, okay. And I was like, and he saw me, I saw him look at me and I was like, he sees me, oh my gosh. Nicole Donnelly, I was like, I was in heaven. Okay. And that’s what you’re doing. Like that little stage he was on that’s niching down. Okay? As a manufacturer, that’s when you really identify that really important longtail keyword, right?

Curt Anderson  09:42

That you want to back for the feet. Right? Exactly.

Nicole Donnelly  09:45

And so, because he saw me there, I was like, yes, he’s leaving Gwyneth, for me. He’s totally whatever but that’s the difference right? When you try to go broad, you’re a woman. A huge arena, right? But when you really try to niche down and try to target those four or five keywords, that’s when you’re playing with like the little stage on the side and you’re having this intimate and they’re like they get you and it’s just what you need. Right? How’s that for an analogy? How to do?

Curt Anderson  10:14

How about John wiggly? No. How about that being our first of many my traps right there. So, you want to treat your SEO strategy like Chris Martin from Coldplay? What a perfect analogy. Hey, I’m gonna give some shout outs here. We’ve got some friends chiming in our dear friend Diane is here today. Diane, happy Monday. We’ve got Karen’s coming to us live from the airport. Karen sorry, but we said hello. So thank you for joining us. We got Gary’s here today. So again, guys, you know, give a greeting give a big hello. If you’re, if you’re new to us here. Absolutely want to connect with Nicole Donnelly, as you can tell, just an SEO guru. So let’s do a quick recap, Nikhil know your ideal customer know that ICP know your ICP know your ICP, right? Smart. No risk part and Crystal Barton right whoever your favorite band is, you want to dig in. And that’s you know, that’s another I always like using a rock band analogy of like, you know, if the three of us were starting a band, and we were very broad, but you’re not going to get any followers. But when you niche down, you find them, you know your mantra and you find like your jam, you’re going to hopefully find a few fans and you can get some momentum from there. So number one, number two, you kept saying ridiculously important keywords, we’d like to call them those Rick’s so you want to find your ridiculously important keywords. And then we’re encouraging folks to niche down as Nicole just said, but the average search now was about four to five keywords. So as a manufacturer, think about man, I’m a CNC shop. But Damon, what do they do? They do CNC machining for? Yeah, for buying engines, or hey, we make circuit boards. Well, we make circuit boards for, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, so complete that sentence, Nicole, keep the party rolling, please. What’s that play. Another

Nicole Donnelly  11:56

example is like Made in USA. So many people, they want to say that’s a great thing that you can add to whatever product or service that you’re offering in your

Curt Anderson  12:06

Oh, wait in USA, hey, by the way to call real quick. Guess who loves your story?

Nicole Donnelly  12:11

Please? I have a feeling you and I went to a concert together, we would have a fabulous time it’d be the best. How

Curt Anderson  12:19

about Jason? Same thing he loves Coldplay? So great analogy. So I’m starting to cool. Keep it rolling.

Nicole Donnelly  12:26

Yes. So first step is identifying those 10 or 15 keywords, right? That’s going to be like your Northstar list. Okay, that’s what you want to optimize for. Make sure they’re longtail, you know, and use some great adjectives like Made in USA like or just said, maybe it’s a specific industry that you’re serving that you can use to niche down. So finding those specific things that you can do to niche down that keyword even further. The next thing, and this is really critical is what we do. It’s called a customer journey mapping exercise. And this is where you bring in the sales magic and the sales team. So, you know, SEO keywords are important. But that is not the most important important part of SEO, the most important part of SEO is creating content that speaks to the challenges that your buyers are having, and who better to help you with that. Then your sales team and your marketing leadership, getting in the same room together, sitting down and actually hashing out your buyers journey, breaking down your buyers journey into stages, and really having a brainstorming conversation with your sales leadership to say, hey, what’s the first touch point we’re having with a new lead? And what are all the questions? They’re asking us at that touchpoint? What are their questions? When they first saw that first discovery call? What do they want to know? Literally just brainstorm as to you know, this can take one to two hours, you just brainstorm out and list out this, you know, rapid fire. Here’s all the questions. Then you ask well, what are the objections that they’re having that keep them from getting to the next stage? What is stopping them from moving to the next phase in the buyers journey? Then you write all those objections out. That’s just for the first phase of the buyers journey. That’s that first call. Then you talk as a team and say, Well, what content do we already have created? That answers these questions? And that helps people overcome these objections. I will tell you every time we do this exercise without fail, there is a massive gap. Every client’s like, oh my gosh, we’ve got like 10 questions. I will do you have anything on your website that talks about any of these questions, we’ll know we don’t actually opportunity. So there you go. There’s like huge, massive opportunity. And it’s amazing. We go through this exercise, just the wealth of content ideas. And so you do that for every stage of your buyers journey. And now you have this great diagram map of questions and objections that are all the things that your your ideal customer they need answered in order for them to feel comfortable to make a purchase. You use that content and to use that in combination with For your ridiculously important keywords to come up with your content strategy, okay, this is what we’re hearing from buyers over and over again, these are the objections they have. These are the keywords we need to rank for. Let’s map out our content strategy and put together a content calendar that brings all of that magic together. So I would say like SEO at the end of the day going forward, as you look forward, as we look ahead to the unknown of what’s, you know, we don’t really know what’s going to be around the corner with AI, right? But the number one thing you can be doing is staying close to your customer understanding their questions, understanding their objections, and if you are creating content that answers those, you will always win, you’re always going to be you know, helping to build that. That engagement, that community with them. And that is, that is, that is what we love to do. Amazing.

Curt Anderson  15:50

That’s all right. So let’s recap that. And so Nicole, having gone through that process, numerous times with you, can you describe how important it is to have a secretary that knows how to type with two fingers? Even when we do so Nicole, I tell you, it’s matter of fact, Lisa is how about Lisa Bachman and Steel City Steel’s so they they absolutely crushed it when they did a customer mapping process. Lisa, I would love to have you in like come on the show. Damon, you would love it. They did an amazing job. And so Nicole takes folks through these people, you know who Nicole secretary is. Nicole, it’s just magic, isn’t it? My channel is two fingers like fly? Oh,

Nicole Donnelly  16:32

it’s amazing. Yeah. So and it’s just like, it kind of like breaks down, I’ll tell you breaks down the overwhelm. I will tell you, I was a solo marketer. And I remember my first SEO mentor, okay, this was like 11 years ago, 12 years ago, and his name was Bill Hamilton, okay. And he taught me all about meta tags. So we can talk about meta tags a little bit back in the day, it was all about keywords and meta tags. And I don’t like making sure you have a lot of keywords on the page. So I remember he was like, you just got to make sure that you have your meta tags, your keywords need to have the your your meta tag and your meta description, need to have those keywords in for each of the pages. And so for people who are listening, they’re like, What the heck is a meta tag? Well, let’s talk about that for a second. So every web page that you have on your website, there is a place in your content management system, whether it’s WordPress or HubSpot, where you can set up a meta title for that page, which is basically a 60 character, just quick summary of what the title of that pages and your meta description is 150 character, you know, statement about what people can expect to give them that those two are really critical. Because what they are is those are the signals. That’s what when Google is sending their you know, algorithm to crawl your site and look and see what’s on your page. The meta tag and the meta description are really important signals that Google uses to understand what’s on your content so that it knows how to surf. So yeah, so it’s really important for those meta tags to be optimized and include the important Rex, those ridiculously important keywords for each page that you’re trying to rank for. So that’s just like, kind of like a first step. Seo 101. Make sure you have meta tags and meta descriptions on all of your pages.

Curt Anderson  18:22

Can you get with more? Can we see my screen? Yeah, yeah. So just guys, just recap. So when Nicole was talking about is what I have highlighted right here. So Nicole, just if you want to point out, you know, the meta description, meta tag, you know, the SEO title, just to show everybody what we’re talking about here?

Nicole Donnelly  18:37

Yeah, exactly. So the meta title shows up in the search engine results page, as choose example is 100%, free shipping and returns, that’s the meta title. And the description is that subtext right below it. So that’s what Google is going to show. So you want to be really intentional about what you’re putting there. If you do not have a meta description, Google’s going to choose it for you. So we don’t want to give Google the control as much as possible. They’re already a monopoly. Let’s just say I just I set it. So let’s not let them have that control. Let’s have some control over that part of the process and be really intentional about that.

Curt Anderson  19:12

Perfect, yeah. Okay. Stop. Yes.

Nicole Donnelly  19:16

Well, look at that. That’s so yeah. And then I think the next thing is content marketing, right? When you talk about when we were talking about really understanding your buyers questions and your ridiculously poor keywords, you’ve got to take that information. And this is where you create your content strategy and your content plan. And that’s where the real magic happens, right. And I’ll tell you, when I was a solo marketer, this was so overwhelming to me. This was like 11 or 12 years ago, and I remember I was talking to HubSpot for the first time, like we have this great platform, you can get our platform and you can just send out content to all of your customers and you’re gonna get all these inbound leads and everyone’s gonna come to you just use our platform and send out the content. I was like, that’s really great and all but like how the heck am I going to create all this content, like, who am I, you know, like, I’m not subject matter expert, I remember the time just feeling like, I’m happy you have this great platform. But like, that does not help me because I still have to create all this content, right? And so it was overwhelming for me at the time, because I was like, cheese, where do I even start? Right? And how do I get this content created? And so like, the process of figuring that out was a very long, hard journey, you know, like, I remember like really pulling teeth to try to get like engineers to talk to me to like, tell me about what it is that they do, right. So once you have that content calendar fleshed out in your content strategy, then the next step to make it really simple is to do what we call these subject matter expert interviews. Okay, this came from a lot of trial and error of like, things that weren’t working well, things that didn’t work was when we would try to just create the content on our own, just like doing research on the web and trying to create it on our own. That was not great, because we didn’t really have expertise on the topic, right? You’re not going to get that you know, when you’re when you’re working for a manufacturing company. And you’ve got people on the team. And you’re like, this is like spec technical, really, incredibly technical information, to expect a marketer to go out and create like a really quality piece of content. Without the experience of those engineers have, like I learned the hard way it is, it’s not going to set you up for success. So we tried that and didn’t really work very well. And then we will try to like pin down the SMEs. And we realize over time, we’re like, Well, what if we just like, we have our regular marketing meetings, let’s just have them come to the marketing meeting. And we’ll just ask them questions in the meeting. They’re already there. And we can just capitalize on their time. So that is like what I found to be like, the real key to getting this content created is to schedule it, like have it part of your monthly process. And literally just schedule once a month, whether it could be just in your marketing meeting, have a different subject matter expert every month, they come to the meeting, literally, you tell them the topic in advance, you tell them in the five questions, and you record them on the call, you auto transcribe it. And now that one hour, no joke, you can usually get like at least two to three blog posts. You can splice up the interview and turn it into like so many video clips. And you literally can create all these social media posts from that one hour interview. So now you have like a month’s worth of content that you can publish from just that one interview. And so yeah, so that process is great, too, because you’re getting it directly from the mind of your SME. It’s like their experience. It’s not, you know, it’s directly from you. They’re sharing their stories. They’re sharing their experience. It’s not derivative content that any chat GBT can just like, try to source on the web for you. It is like, gold. Right? Way. I’m keep grinding out. Stop talking.

Curt Anderson  23:03

Well, that was that was my honor. I’m not sure which one we’re on. But I’ve got John Leno, John’s on fire here 10 To 15 keywords. And he says I feel attacked. I love it. John, that was absolutely fantastic. All right, Nicole, Nikolas. Let’s just do a recap there. And a couple of things. I just want to clarify for any of our new friends out there listening to this for the first time, or they’re new to SEO. So just to recap, what Nicole described is really just getting granular on like, Who is that ideal customer? Who are you speaking to? We talked about those ridiculously important keywords. Then we’re tying in like, where do I get this content? I hear content content content, when a call is done through lots of child air, as she pulls in the subject matter expert of that company folks that like eat, drink, breathe sleep, they could they know this inside and out, like nobody else, but they’re not going to sit down and type out a blog post. It’s just not going to add to it. When Nicole does it. She interviews this person. She mentioned the word otter. So otter, if you go to otter.ai, you’re like, oh, no, another AI. Let me tell you, it’s so easy that even I can use it. Right? Yeah, I mean, I think David, I think you introduced me to otter, and it’s a transcription tool. So would that would that interview, Otter will take that transcription and then now you have all the words and now you can convert that into like meaty, juicy, wonderful content. Damon if guys if you check out edgier way, you go to Damon’s website, and then talk about ridiculous ridiculous amount of content between our live streams that we do your faces of business, not putting out just a ton of just here, just like how you started your content journey.

Damon Pistulka  24:41

Well, it was it was I honestly, I wrote a few blog posts and I hated writing. So I started doing video I mean, that’s what it was and then found otter AI and how you can transcript ascribe them and and you really over time you develop how do we do but I really love the The process and Nicole talks about because talking to a subject matter expert, allowing them to share, it gives you your content is so much richer. And that is where you get the benefits, I believe in the content itself being more valuable to the end customer. And Google can tell whether or not you’re just kind of, oh, this is how you do this, bla bla bla bla bla, like everybody else, or if it’s got something different or more useful or valuable, I mean, they really look for the detail and the richness of the content that you can get, like, if you’re talking to an engineer that really knows what they’re doing, they’re gonna have phrases they use, they’re gonna have things they say that you just won’t pick up on, on a normal search of whatever to do that, and then writing the content from that way. And that’s really what it does. But over time, like you said, it’s really about building around those keywords. You know, and I believe it was, someone introduced us to the lotus flower idea where, you know, you’ve got your keywords and the work around him to do it, you know, we use and just different things like that into what you do. And I back again, to what Ian Cole said about the process, though, what you’re talking about, and going through the process, like you’re saying, you go through the steps in the sales process. And in the questions and the objections. I mean, there’s so much gold in there, right. There’s so much gold in there from, from answering those questions, because I’m a big Marcus Sheridan, they asked you answer, fan 100%. And just answering those questions in the content, because I think that those questions that they get, and the objections that you hear, gives you all the I mean, you’re going to be built up and content until you’re sick of developing. Oh, yeah,

Nicole Donnelly  26:51

absolutely. And the great thing about it, too, is that your sales team is bought into it. So and I think that is like such a such a problem area. In manufacturing, I see it all the time, where marketing and sales are not working, they’re not aligned. They’re not they’re two different silos. And so doing that exercise is a great way to break down the silos, show some respect to your sales team and say, Hey, come help us with this. And then I’m telling you, when the sales team comes in, they get all excited about it. They’re like, Oh, yeah, this would be great. And then they start to see the wheel spin and see like, oh, marketing can help me with this marketing can help me create some sales enablement resources that I can use when I’m talking to my prospects. Wow, marketing is not just sitting there, like creating pretty brochures and websites, like they’re actually going to create something I can use every day. Like, that’s awesome. So then you get them involved. And now it’s not just for SEO, it’s for sales enablement, which is just going to help speed up your sales cycle, because you’re getting that information in front of the prospects sooner when they need it.

Curt Anderson  27:55

This is all right, this is fantastic. And so Nicole, let’s slide right into this. And Damon, I think the word that was just really hitting me like a ton of bricks, as you were talking, you know, what you’re creating is authenticity. You know, just the way you described it, is you’re just creating authenticity. And I just I don’t know if I can emphasize that word enough. Is there? What’s stronger than authenticity? Is there? Is there a word out there that somebody trusted, building that trust, it’s just authentic and Nicole you love preaching, you know, curiosity, and empathy, understand your customer, meeting them where they’re at? And you know, we hear that that line a lot, but that’s what this approach does. Let’s dig into this. Okay, with Damon, when we used to do our webinars, workshops, always talk about good eats, and is like lunchtime here in eastern time zone. So in a call with SEO, it was all about eats. And I’m saying e a t, we’re going to dig into that one second. Now you’ve added there’s a new E on the block, right? Daily Block. Block. Can you describe to everybody? What is e a t for goodness

Nicole Donnelly  28:58

gracious? Yes. Okay. So historically, Google’s ranking was based primarily on three criteria. Okay. Expertise, authority, and trust. Okay, expertise, authority and trust. That’s what has been traditionally, well, how do they measure expertise? Okay, well, what are your credentials? You know, authority is based on backlinks who’s linking to your content, they’ll use that Google uses that as a signal to say, oh, you know, this, this is, you know, there’s Forbes is linking to this content, or, you know, someone that’s really reputable helps boost up the authority of the page, right? And trust, same thing, right? Like, how can I trust this person? Well, how much content do they have? How rich is the content, who’s you know, where’s, who’s backlinking to this content? How many people are viewing the content, all of that kind of thing. So there’s a new E on the block, and the new E is experience. And I think this is really interesting. So Google is now not only Looking at expertise, authority and trust, they’re looking at experience, which means like, I need you to tell me how you’ve specifically done learned anything related to this topic. So for example, we have a client that does ground mount solar systems amazing company, it’s their product is totally innovate, like, it’s an incredible innovation, the way this product they’ve created. And so basically, someone wants to know, well, how have you like, what is your unique approach to a ground mount solar system? What is your experience, tell me a story about how you’ve installed this system. And why you know that people want to know about your experience, sometimes to the point now where they don’t necessarily even care as much about how much you know about it, they want to know what you’ve done about it, you know, and so I think this also speaks like really, really, really in alignment with what’s happening with AI right now. Because, you know, experience is something that AI just cannot replicate. It is your unique secret sauce, as a business, the experience of your subject matter experts, the experience of your founders experience of your team, and how can you take all that experience and create content around it by creating really cool stories, you know, sharing experiences of how you install this system, and what went wrong and what went right, or, you know, all of those things, and that’s what people are looking for, when they’re, you know, they want to see your experience, they want to see the social proof, they want to see the case studies, they want to see the testimonials. They want to know all of that. So how can you bake that experience into your content?

Curt Anderson  31:38

Yeah, yeah. So we may have we got so much to cover here. Okay. You know, let’s jump into what Karen seen here. So I see when dealing with a channel distribution, how do you recommend applying these tactics? So both the OEM and the rep partner benefit?

Nicole Donnelly  31:57

Oh, my gosh, that’s a huge question.

Curt Anderson  32:00

Shoot the question, Karen, thank you so much. She’s coming to us from Texas. And she is a frequent friend here. David, we got to get Karen on the program here. Yeah. All right, Karen. Happy Monday. Nicole. Any thoughts on? All right, how do you recommend applying these tactics? So both the OEM and rep partner benefit? I’ve got a couple of comments would go. You go first. Let’s dig into this. As a matter of fact, I think I saw Chris Harrington and our friend, Brian back, or was it last week or this week? They’re doing a webinar on this hot topic. This is an extremely hot topic. We encountered this frequently. Daymond, we’ve encountered this. So you’re the OEM, you’re the original equipment manufacturer. And there’s always a challenge of like, hey, what about our rep benefit or rep partner? Nicole, we’re just with a company in Minnesota, we were just talking, you know, had this situation last week, right? So the thing is, as your OEM Daymond, even like, our gosh, we have a great interview on Friday, or what did you keep? Yeah, this is this is a common common chance it is as the OEM, okay, and just, um, I, you know, I’ve worked with small OEMs, I’m not dealing with, you know, the fortune 500, small OEMs. You know, like, there’s a little bit of an attitude of like, you know, what, I don’t care who sells my product, just as long as somebody, the end user is buying my product. Yeah. So whether I’m using I’m selling it through a supply chain channel of like, you know, we had Digi key on Friday, or Zorro or Amazon or a marketplace. I don’t care as long as they’re buying my product. So here now the question might be okay, well, if it’s a distribution network, we’re like, Hey, are we cannibalizing, right? With the polls process, what she’s doing like that sale, but taking that interview, not only does it help for SEO, they can take that information and provide it to your, your partner, and they can use it as sales in a move enablement. Treat your, your distribution partners as internal sales reps and treat them as such. Right. So iClone that’s kind of my response is I man, just the more information, the merrier. You know, helping that distribution channel, we’re dealing with a company that they manufacture covert antennas. And so when you see like your local state trooper or a police sheriff or whatever, you know, some type of emergency vehicle, you see that antenna, and they encounter similar type situations where it’s going through a distribution channel, or they buy direct from the OEM, the more information you can put out about that product that subject matter expertise that you have as a manufacturer, man, get that out to your channel. That’s my two cents. Damon Nicolini. Any feedback from you guys?

Nicole Donnelly  34:40

I would just say everything you just said, Yeah, you know, make sure that you’re if you’re using distributors as much as you can make them feel like they’re, they’re part of your sales team. And, you know, make sure that you’re arming them with all the information so that they can just really sell for you and answer those questions that would absolutely be and as part of that customer journey map Being exercise, making sure maybe you need to make sure that you have someone who is a distributor part of that process to help understand maybe they might be getting different questions than your internal sales team. So maybe as you’re starting to think about your strategy, how can they be involved in the building out of that content to so that you’re speaking to their unique challenges that maybe you don’t even know about?

Curt Anderson  35:21

And Nicole for a shameless plug Daymond and my mom’s favorite books, that being the best kept secret we talked about, you know, one of our tag lines is how do you dominate search in by aligning with those distributors and market those online marketplaces, they’re going after the same Rex, they’re going after the exact same ridiculous, important keywords. So if somebody’s typing your niche keyword, we want to own that page. And a great way to do that is by aligning yourself in partnering with your distribution partners. So the thing is, like Daymond, you know, my famous ground strap example. Right? So the word ground strap, I want my client coming up, I want Zorro coming up. I want Digi key coming up, I’m on Amazon coming up. I want mcmaster carr line like all their channel partners coming up, because I want to own that page, you know, so anyway, let’s get back on track.

Damon Pistulka  36:06

And if you and I’m gonna take a little bit differently, because you guys are talking about an OEM with the distribution distributors, right? Yep. If you actually are an OEM that has your own reps around the United States, we used to have us run companies like this, where we have reps covering the entire country. In that case, you are doing similar things that you would with a distributor, but you’re really trying to localize it in some of what you’re doing, right, because what my representative needs in the Northeast made me much different than what they need in the southwest, for our current kind of clients that are in there. I mean, we used to service large grocery chains. So those things are even within the southeast division of Kroger compared to the Midwest division, they have different needs and wants in those stores in the way that they buy things and, and what they really need around the products that we were building and selling. So we would arm them with different information. And and then also try to localize it as much as you can to because what you’re doing with when you have people, that geographies, you really want them to help dominate their geography with that as well as the subject matter.

Curt Anderson  37:19

Yep, that’s, yeah. A wine with those folks. That is, you know, that’s a part and I know it’s always it’s touchy. It’s like, Man, I don’t want to cannibalize I don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings. I don’t wanna stop anybody’s toes. And I it’s an, you probably need to dress it on a case by case. But yeah, we hit that really hard. So Nicole, let’s keep the party rolling here. So recapping, we’ve just we’ve been, we’re just the call, you’re making everybody just an SEO expert out there. I just, I can just feel it. I can feel everybody just like the overwhelm has just been reduced. They’re just really digging this are enjoying us. And you know what, Nicole, and I came up with a really interesting thing recently Daymond I, to be an SEO guru, you know what you need to do? It’s one thing, it’s really it’s one thing. Just understand your customer. Like if you can understand and dedicate yourself to solving your customer’s problem, you can definitely become an SEO guru. So Nicole, let’s dig into this. We’re talking about AI. And boy, there’s just a lot of uncertainty. It’s hard to predict where we’re going, Damon, we’ve had a couple of folks on, you know, digging into this. I know you guys talked to Morgan, from true marketing I was on and you guys dug into it. We’ve had Wendy Covey, we’ve talked to Wendy about it. So Nicole, there’s some great ways to number one, strengthen your SEO. Number two not know, so I’m not gonna use word combat, but to help like, strengthen, like whatever is going on with AI. We’ve been talking about community, owning some of your own assets. Can you like shed a light on the focus on like, what are some strategies that will be

Nicole Donnelly  38:51

perfect? Yes, yeah. So for manufacturers, I will say that so many manufacturers, there’s still incredible opportunity to rank for SEO, because you’re in such niche industries. And there’s just no one competing right now on some of those. So there’s still opportunity there. And the other challenge with AI is its derivative, what does that mean? It’s just taking the average of whatever’s out on the web. And it’s even like, I think the the chat GPT for models, the last piece of data is from 2021. So it’s not even current. So the problem is, is that if you’re in a very technical topic, where there’s not a lot of stuff out there, then then this this generative AI is not going to be able to provide you any good information. So you there’s still a need for you to interview your subject matter experts because there’s not a new information for the chat GPT to even pull from frankly, it’s too technical. And when they try they get it wrong. Like we’ve had situations on our team internally where we’re trying to create really technical topic content for our clients, and our subject matter experts looking at the content saying this, you know, on our team, who knows the industry is saying This isn’t correct. This is not accurate. The only way someone would know that is if you know the industry. If you’re in, you know, an insider, so you have to be really careful. So on our team internally, we’re using church PT as a research buddy, we use it whenever we’re trying to like, whenever we have a new piece of content to find out what else is already out there on the topic, you can easily use it to do research, and it’s speeds up that process significantly. And it’s really great at repurposing existing content. So if you have audio transcript, that you want to turn into a blog post or turn into social media posts, or, you know, turn into some sort of an email campaign, it’s really great for repurposing existing content, highly encourage you to use it and leverage it for those purposes as much as you can to help speed up. It’s kind of like your writing admin, you know, outsource all of the tasks that you don’t want to do to do them. And then the harder more technical tasks you can handle. What was the other thing I don’t? What was the other part of the question? Well, hey,

Curt Anderson  41:05

we’ll grab a cup of chemistry here. So hey, Whitney is with us today. Happy Monday. And so in Karen says, Hey, we’re more in line with the example of Damon is stating love the idea of unique situations based on geographical regions and localization. So that’s huge. And then hey, on USA, we are in a Twitter chat group, we’re talking about GPT. Nice, you know, and let’s go here to the coast. So, one great way to build things up in the gym. And we’ve talked about it multiple times on here. And let’s totally geek out right now is community. Okay. You know, Damon, we have our manufacturing ecommerce success, you have your faces of business, Nicole, you have your misadventures as new exciting podcasts that you launch for 2023. These are all opportunities to create content, and build community. Now I am super excited to share with you guys can see that can you see this? So we are posting live on on b2b tail website. So we just started doing this. We’re not like we tested it last week. And so this is officially our first launch. And so now what we’re doing is building a community here. We’re like, you know, we want to out teach the competition. Yeah. So I’ll teach and Damon, you’re doing webinars. We’ve done what ton Oh, my goodness, tons and tons. Yeah. So Nicole, building that community being dedicated to out teach the competition. Let’s let’s just let’s take a deep dive there on what’s what are things that folks can be doing to our teach a competition and build their own community?

Nicole Donnelly  42:36

Absolutely. Wonderful question. So I think the opportunity for companies looking ahead, is to focus on community led growth. Okay. So the first community led growth for businesses, well, how do you build a community, the first step to building a community is having an audience, right, your audience can be your already existing customers that you have in your database, your audience can be the people that can interact and engage with your content on your social media platforms as an organization, you know, so you’ve got to build an audience first, before you can build a community. And so that’s what’s great about content is when you create content, and you distribute it, you are building an audience, you’re sharing it, like if you email it out to your customers, you’re building that sense of connection community, with your existing customers, when you share that content on social, you’re pulling in people who are interested in what you have to say, who connect with you, and you’re starting to build that audience. So content is the first step to building that audience, that’s never gonna go away. You always need content to build an audience, you got to have something to say, You got to have a point of view, and you got to share it for people to say, Hey, I like what they’re saying, I’m learning something, it’s helping me. Then once you have the audience, the next step is how can you convert that audience into a community, a community for your business? That’s going to help you innovate? Right? So you have this audience now? How can you keep them engaged? How can you create a place from them for them? Separate from social media, like your own community, maybe its Slack channel, maybe you create your own community website? Maybe it’s a Facebook group. But as businesses be thinking about, like, how can I take and convert my engaged audience, create a community for them? And then let them co create with me what the future is going to look like? How can they help to create new products and services? How can they help me make my products and services better than what I’ve already have? And letting them help you in that process is really going to be what like, great marketing is going to be all about. So like, how can we get there? So the first start is you got to create the content first. You got to create it, and then you got to share it so you can get the audience going. And then leverage that to turn it into the community so that you can grow from there because like, we just don’t really know what’s going to happen with SEO with search engines like we don’t know, but what we do know, is right now people need and are looking for community. And what better way to innovate as an as a company than to let your customers do it with you, you know, like, your your, it’s all like, it just goes back to those marketing fundamentals. What is the marketing fundamentals? Know your customer stay very close to your customer? Like, I know that sounds really banal and like maybe super, but that’s just what it comes down to. So how can you stay really close to your customers? And if you’re always close to them, you’re always going to be one step ahead. of everyone else.

Curt Anderson  45:37

Well, I just made I dropped the mic number. I don’t know. John McLean. And what do we make 10? Right now. So you know, build an audience first statement, you did it, you know, took a leap of faith. You know, we did it here with our show. You didn’t face the business. Nicole share a little bit what inspired you, you just launched your podcast in January? What inspired you to start putting out your content going that direction with the podcast?

Nicole Donnelly  46:02

Yes. What inspired me my I was inspired because I wanted to help those people who are maybe aspiring entrepreneurs, small business owners, or even this business owners that are in the trenches struggling, I wanted to provide a place where they could go to feel like they could get support and hear from other people who have struggled through some of the same things, and start to build an audience of people who are like, Yeah, I’m in this too, or I want to be in this and I want help, and I need support. And I want to hear from other people who have gone through something similar. So I wanted to create a place where people would have would be able to get that kind of resource. And probably same thing for you when you started this, right. You wanted to help people find a place where they could connect on these problems that they’re having. Right? So yeah,

Curt Anderson  46:45

right. All right. couple great comments here. Hey, our dear friend, Jason, Jason is coming to us live on Jason. So hey, treat your customer hate your treat your customer relationships. Like they’re your friends, love and help them and they will trust you and love you back. That was on my job moment. Jason, thank you, I can’t I can’t get him to come into the program, demon. Mic drop is equal to the number of keywords you need to narrow down 10 to 15. John, I’m sending you tons of love here in a call. So in a cold restart, we’re gonna start winding down here. Man, I know, we could just geek out about this all day. So just kind of recapping, SEO, SEO solutions made simple for manufacturers. We’re gonna recap Know Your Customer inside and out. Help your customer insight enough. Going into those keywords. John, don’t worry, we’ve got your back. Dude, we’ll geek out this week. And we’ll talk further about your keyword strategy. Talking about building that audience taking that leap of faith. Any advice suggestions for someone out there boy, like, Man, I know I need to build an audience, but I’m just not sure where to start? How do they like? How do they just get off the sidelines and just get started?

Nicole Donnelly  47:52

I think you just have to get started. You just have to do it. Like when I was starting my podcast, I’ll tell you like, I was like, oh, man, I gotta do all these things. And I was like, You know what, if I don’t just schedule this and do this and get it going, it’s just going to continue to delay. And so I was just like, I’m just gonna, I don’t know, like, I don’t think I had all of the details of how it was going to be distributed yet. But I was like, I’m just going to schedule my first interview, and just gonna go in and do it. You just got to go for it. I know that sounds, you know, but like, you just got to start. You got to start. So start with start with something simple. Like what is maybe the most number one question you hear over and over again, from your sales team. Start with that it’s usually price. How much does it cost? Yeah, yeah.

Damon Pistulka  48:41

Talk about that. How much does it cost to do

Nicole Donnelly  48:43

blah? Yeah, exactly. And all the factors that go into it, create, create an article on that. And then there you go. And and when I say create an article, I mean, interview your subject matter expert on that topic, and see how easy it is like literally just take the video recording and publish it on your website and take the transcription and repurpose it using chat up to a blog post, you know, so that’s what I would suggest just get started. Start with like the most popular questions.

Curt Anderson  49:11

What’s been most exciting, or maybe some surprises that you didn’t expect with your podcast so far, Nicole, like since from what you going into it, compared to like, now that you’re into it, what would be like say, you know, some of your most fun, exciting surprises that you didn’t expect during your podcast.

Nicole Donnelly  49:30

You know, this is gonna sound a little selfish. But what’s been most surprising to me is what I’ve learned from people. It’s like, it’s almost like I do it, because that’s, I mean, I’m just being you know, like, every time I have one, I’m like, Oh my gosh, I’m so excited to talk to them. They’re going to, I’m going to learn so much and I always have so many cool notes like I just interviewed someone last week that’s going to be coming, that that episode is going to be published I think at the end of April and he is doing this amazing startup and he had like he’s like in it he’s in the grind trying to build this startup building software and he just had so many like great just nuggets that I you know like one of the things he said is abdicate don’t delegate and I’m just like, oh my gosh, that’s so smart. Are not abdicate don’t delegate delegate don’t have to delegate educate. You guys would look at me like what is she saying? Telling me like how, you know the difference, and all of that was just, you know, so that’s what I would say is like, you just learned so much. i What are you?

Curt Anderson  50:43

What do you mean, I don’t know, like what you think but like, you know, just a couple weeks ago, we had Tony Damon, you’re away we had gentlemen Tony. He’s a buddy of mine. And I’m reading his I just I almost finished. I’m reading this book right now. And I got done. I’m like, I felt guilty. I’m like, I just got a free coaching session. Yeah. It was just it was so mind blowing. So amazing. And just the gift of meeting and these conversations do you have at times we’re laughing hysterically, we’ve been in tears. We’ve learned so much Dino like you’ve done hundreds of these.

Damon Pistulka  51:16

The same thing. I mean, you just go some of these people. And we’ve been able to I’ve been thing for me too is we’ve been able to I’ve been able to talk to them on the faces of businesses on the come here on manufacturing ecommerce success. We talked to them, and it’s just like, you learn something else. That’s even more incredible. Yeah, yeah. But it is the learning the learning that you get from a meeting cool people. I mean, how the heck would we have ever met, like Alison Levine, who climbs all seven continents, continents or whatever? Or just some of these people that that love

Curt Anderson  51:48

to share experiences? Yeah. Joe Foster’s longer real Foster?

Damon Pistulka  51:51

Yeah, my goodness.

Curt Anderson  51:53

Yeah, Nicole. So you know, we’ve had,

Nicole Donnelly  51:56

I just think it’s like all about relationships. And I listened to this great podcast from Ed my lat, about this happiness study that that has been going on for 80 years. Okay. And what did they find? Like spoiler alert, like, what is the one thing that people need to be happy is the quality of your relationships. So as businesses like having a platform like this, what you’re doing businesses need to be thinking like, this platform is tremendous for SEO hugely massive for SEO. But even more importantly, it’s tremendous for building those relationships, those long term relationships of trust with partners, potential customers, that’s really what keeps your business going and operating and successful and thriving.

Curt Anderson  52:40

Absolutely. In John buck, lino says, Hey, invest in yourself and John, the king of hunting relationships, and he knows better than anybody. So Nicole, as we wind down parting words of wisdom, thoughts for our manufacturers out there as far as SEO? Any any last thoughts on strategies that you want to leave them with today?

Nicole Donnelly  53:03

I feel like I’ve talked enough. Um, I guess, I would say learning, let’s see, what would I say great advice for SEO? I would say, just keep it as in the words of Emily Wilkins, our friend who did the webinar, just keep it stupid, simple. It’s not that complicated. If you just kind of follow the process, we just walk through, where you really understand what are the key words? How can I make them four to five, you know, words long rather than to, you know, and really like understanding your customer journey, bringing your sales team involved in that process, creating a content calendar that marries both of those things, and then just start interviewing or subject matter experts. Like it’s a very straightforward, simple process that makes the overwhelming part of like, SEO much more like easy to tackle for a small manufacturer.

Curt Anderson  54:01

That’s right, keep it super simple. So Nicole, Damon, what do you got?

Damon Pistulka  54:07

She just rolled it all up in like 45 seconds, right.

Curt Anderson  54:12

That mic drop number 19. I think we know so we got to be at least there. Alright, so we’re the cold last question for you of the day. Okay. Okay. So as John biglietto and many Lisa just you are just such a breath of fresh air. You’re such a gift, just amazing individual and you crush it with your clients on a regular basis. Lots of celebrations. When you absolutely just kill it for a client and you feel like celebrating and you’re like you know what? Damn, I need like a great genius what Coldplay song are you turning to Now David why she’s thinking David she she took her place

Nicole Donnelly  55:08

and you love that was definitely a winner

Damon Pistulka  55:11

that was modified because I knew she was as Coldplay

Nicole Donnelly  55:17

will play but you know like if I’m like really jazzed up and excited lately it’s gonna probably be like if I’m really excited like we just crushed it with the client and I’m like in this like really happy mood it’s probably don’t laugh at me but it’s probably going to be Harry Styles.

Curt Anderson  55:35

A huge Harry Styles fan. So

Nicole Donnelly  55:38

for the weekend, have a

Curt Anderson  55:40

good weekend. Your friend you know about oh, Amy. Amy’s on our team Whitney says hey, I love that song. What a throwback. So Damon when you’re off let’s see we’ve got Hey James Brown I feel good you know drop a note in the comment section guys what song you’re celebrating with when you’re just when you feel like you just crushed it. So we had Tony on a couple of weeks ago it was St. Patrick’s Day Nicole shared with Damon one of our favorite songs that you opened up with

Nicole Donnelly  56:08

oh yes this is my like it was so appropriate Van Morrison into the mystic like that never gets old it’s just beautiful.

Curt Anderson  56:19

It was it was a mic track moment Damon you missed it she opened up with Van we opened we should do that more often. So guys will we’re gonna wind down here. I know we’re getting a little off track here. So the call if you guys have been sitting down for the past 56 minutes and 34 seconds, I invite you I encourage you I welcome you to stand up. Get a little stretch and how about we give Nicole Donnelly a huge roaring standing ovation. So Nicole, thank you for breaking down SEO. Thank you for making it super simple for us. And hey, Nicole, how about this man? You’re live on the website today.

Nicole Donnelly  56:59

Guys, just like just pay be paying attention because we’ve got big things coming. Big things are coming.

Curt Anderson  57:04

We’ve got Hey, Gary says hey, how about a little Tina Turner. I’m a Tina Turner. And hey, Lisa, we need to have you on the show. I’m gonna I’m gonna we’re gonna get her on the show. So my cousin Mike Anderson command so guys, thank you. Thank you for joining us today as Damon I always say we never take this for granted Damon any parting thoughts for today? You’re not gonna be here Friday. Any parting thoughts for the week?

Damon Pistulka  57:30

I’m just happy to be here.

Curt Anderson  57:32

I’m just I’m just happy to be here. Thank you as mere fact Nicole is gonna be back with me on as a guest host on Friday we’re interviewing go lives man and get a good night’s sleep for that one to call because Barney be in the chat

Damon Pistulka  57:47

of in the

Nicole Donnelly  57:49

spirit animal is a golden retriever with a bowl combined and I’m like all man I’m that’s

Curt Anderson  57:57

she’s a pitbull. So we’re going to be on Friday. So guys, we’re gonna be here Friday. This week. The next week, Dave and I are taking a week off. And so Hey, guys, appreciate you. God bless you, Nicole. Thank you for joining us today. We appreciate you sharing and so you guys have an amazing, incredible week. And what we’d love to say is go out and just be someone’s inspiration just like Nicole was our inspiration today. Go and be an inspiration. So Alright, have a great day and we’ll see you Friday.

Nicole Donnelly  58:25

Thanks for coming everyone. Have a great week. Yeah.