Click the image below to see all the fun images from our April, 2018 Meeting

See the Facebook Album.

Thanks to everyone who attended our March 8th general meeting with the amazing Dan Tyre of HubSpot. Not only did we talk about “SMarketing” and Marketing Automation, Dan gave us some valuable business and life lessons.

It was a really inspiring talk!

In fact, we couldn’t fit everything in the time allotted, so as promised here is a link to Dan’s presentation. There are some SUPER helpful resources for Sales and Marketing alignment mentioned here – so don’t miss out.

On that note – our April 12th meeting features 12 Actionable Ways to Boost Your Video Marketing with Holly Starks and Jeremy Vest – it’s time to sign up now and get it on the calendar.

See you next month.

Photo courtesy of Grant Wickes at Wickpoint.com

Why online legal wrangling is wild and weird

The internet is more integrated into our lives, but there’s still an element of wild west out there. Anyone with a little time and even less money can set up a site or leave oodles of comments that can make life difficult for you or your clients.

That’s where DFWSEM’s September speaker Mazin Sbaiti comes in. He’s like Batman, only without the secret identity and the gizmos and the billions and billions of dollars. Which…uh. Hm. So he’s nothing like Batman. But he is out there trying to make the ‘net suck less.

[Read more…]

His Email and Facebook Marketing Moves, That Is!

Directive Consulting’s Andrew Choco flew into town last week from the OC to teach us all how to combine Email Marketing and Facebook Ads to create dynamite marketing campaigns – and boy did he deliver the goods! From creating custom and lookalike audiences in Facebook, to best practices for launching email and social campaigns simultaneously, Andrew gave the audience actionable intel they could take back to the office.

[Read more…]

Mike Esordi saves you money, makes you look great

Playwright August Wilson said, “Style ain’t nothing but keeping the same idea from beginning to end. Everybody got it.” But how do you put your best style foot forward without breaking the bank? At July’s DFWSEM event, Mike Esordi offered some insight on how to get million dollar style on a $100 budget because he wants to make the internet a more beautiful place.

[Read more…]

Why your content needs data and where to get it

In May, Ruth Burr Reedy got deep into data for DFWSEM. But she was talking about your internal data. How to make it sit up, beg, roll over…basically how to learn all the fascinating things people do when they visit your site.

For June, Tyler Hakes was on hand to discuss how to use data to get people to your site in the first place.

First things first

DFWSEM sponsor Advice Local was on hand, and President Jeff Rudluff gave an overview of the upcoming speakers, but the biggest treat was news about State of Search. Not only are tickets selling faster than usual, not only have speakers been selected, but by virtue of growth, State of Search will be taking over the entirety of Gilly’s, even the largest room that’s seen acts as diverse as Blondie, Willie Nelson, and Faith No More.

Yeah. It’s kind of a big deal.

Additionally, if you’d been there, you would also have received a secret discount code available only to attendees to save you even more off the already low price of admission to State of Search. Advice Local had a treat to offer, too – 10 free tickets to Rocks Digital at the end of the month. There was also a hint of something secret and swanky happening for DFWSEM in November, now that State of Search has moved to October, but that has yet to be announced.

Tale-teller Tyler

Then Tyler Hakes took the podium, shamelessly flaunting his beard, and got to work breaking down where to find, as the cliché says, news you can use.

But first, a quick SEO primer for those who need a refresher:

• Links are good
• Good links are even better
• Links that generate traffic are the best

Links are good. They build domain authority, which increases search ranking, which generates traffic. @TylerHakes #DFWSEM

— DFWSEM (@dfwsem) June 15, 2017

Here’s the bad news, y’all, and we all know this song: Getting links is hard. You can go black hat, and be shady, and see how long you can escape Google’s all-seeing eye. You can go gray hat, which is marginally less shady, but you might hate yourself in the morning – and again, there is the looming danger of a Google penalty.

As for white hat SEO? Well, that’s hard, too. You can write the world’s most beautiful blog post and get a handful of hits. Rework existing content into something better and more efficient, and hear nothing but crickets. So what’s an SEO to do? Well, if Content is King, it needs an army of facts to rule.

Get your data on

People love data. They love it. They share it because it makes them look informed, because it’s genuinely useful, because answering questions for people is awesome. But getting data? That can be tricky. Not every business has the wherewithal to spend money on research or hire a statistician to work with the data they might be lucky enough to have on hand.

So go get some! Where? Check it out:
• Data.gov: Available to the public, this is information free to all Americans as it is paid for with our tax dollars.
• Google Scholar: Top-notch researchers at world-famous institutions publish academic papers every day.
• Facebook ad data: Look at your dashboard. See that approximate number of folks who’ll see your ad? Data!

There you are, sitting on a goldmine of data. You can even take data from different sources and combine it. Now you need to do something clever with it. And that means defining your goal.

Don't. Do. This. #DFWSEM pic.twitter.com/JWAXsyqebk

— Stephanie Studer (@Editrix_Steph) June 15, 2017

No one piece of content can do everything. So decide what you want each particular piece to do. Looking to drive traffic? You want something easily shareable, so an infographic might be the way to go. Hoping to build links? That can be a larger piece, like a bigger chart or graph that’s difficult to compress into bite-sized chunks. Want to lure organic traffic? That might call for something evergreen and long-form. If capturing sales or leads is your goal…you did put a contact form on there, didn’t you?

Final thoughts

The data for great content is out there for little or no cost. And once you determine what you want to accomplish with it, you can tailor its use to your goals. Just imagine if you had some insight on how best to use design and styling to increase the effectiveness of your content.

You’re in luck, friend. On July 12, DFWSEM features Duotribe’s Mike Esordi. Design might not actually be Mike’s middle name, but it is in his DNA. That’s why we asked him to come show you how to create million-dollar site style on a $100 budget. Sounds like the sort of thing you might want to check out.

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Stephanie Studer is a writer, editor, cook, and massive nerd who calls Dallas home. A social and content marketer, she’s deeply in love with all that language can do. She blogs at storytellingforsuccess.wordpress.com, tweets at @Editrix_Steph, and posts entirely too many pictures of dishes she’s made on Instagram. Don’t ask her about ukuleles or comic books unless you have nothing to do for the next several hours.

Google Tag Manager loves you and wants you to be happy

There are some things that can’t be measured. Love. Longing. The aching need for a cheeseburger. But you know what can be measured? What folks do on your site. That’s why Google, in its wisdom, created the Google Tag Manager (GTM). And that’s why Ruth Burr Reedy, in her even-wisdomier wisdom, hit DFW from OKC to talk GTM to DFWSEM.

It was a big crowd, but not quite packed. There was a seat for you. And are you ever gonna wish you were in it.

Opening Act

It’s fair to say Ruth is well-regarded, and that people were looking forward to her presentation with an appropriate level of decorum.

Y'all, @ruthburr is going to talk #Google tagging at @DFWSEM tonight & it'll be cooler than a penguin's ass. #theresagifforeverything pic.twitter.com/0p8SLjrXUU

— Stephanie Studer (@Editrix_Steph) May 10, 2017

But before she took the stage, some other excellence. First up, some exciting news from State of Search. (You have your ticket, right?) This year, it will also be State of Research, featuring the release of original research and information vital to your digital marketing needs. Keep your eyes peeled for more details, y’all, because this is going to be resplendent mojo. And speaking of resplendent, Justin Liles of DFWSEM sponsor Advice Local, who has truly resplendent eyewear, gave a short primer on how to clean up data, even huge piles thereof.

See? You wish you were there, don’t you?

Main Event

But it was when Ruth took the stage things really got fast and furious.

When you aim your browser at a URL, it toddles off and gathers up all the components of that site, assembles them, and presents them to you. All these component parts are called the Document Object Model, or DOM. Yes. Exactly like Vin Diesel’s character in the movies that go zoom and boom. The DOM is a tree-like directory of all the objects on a site.

If you want to track how people interact with all these objects – and you do – then you add tags, little bits of JavaScript that send out info about those interactions. The problem? They pretty much have to live in the head of your site, where they can cause code bloat and slow things down.

Enter GTM. It’s a box of tags that sits in your site head. You can add things to or remove things from the box without 1) bothering your developer, or 2) slowing down your load times.

So how do you get GTM goodness on your site? If you’re in WordPress, there’s plugins. If you have to bother your dev and get them to do it, at least you only have to bother them once, and then you can use Screaming Frog or a similar program to make sure it’s on each page. Then you can get to work.

But wait. A couple of things to consider before you go tagging.

• But wait. A couple of things to consider before you go tagging.
• Be consistent: Establish a naming convention so that tags make sense, making them useful for everyone.

GTM has, in Ruth’s words, “a ton of built-in templates for commonly-used tags.” So make use of them. They’re shiny, and they have the added bonus of being easy to remove later.

If you want to get really truly, Tokyo Drift-style wild, you can customize. You’ll want to be proficient in JavaScript for this maneuver and get your jQuery on, but just think of all that lovely data.

What to do with said data?

• Drive site redesign!
• Track form abandonment!
• See your users’ deepest thoughts and fears!

Ok, not so much that last one, but you can get useful, actionable data to study over time. And that’s what it’s about. Making use of the information available to you to make the web work better for customers, clients, partners – and yourself.

Speaking of data, next month DFWSEM will host Tyler Hakes who’ll talk about using public data to create amazing content. In the meantime, study Ruth’s deck. It’ll make you a better marketer, but we can’t guarantee it will make you a better driver.

Slide deck

Pearl Higgins wants you to kick narrative ass

Jackie Kennedy is famed for saying, “Pearls are always appropriate.” Jackie must’ve been onto something, because Pearl Higgins certainly came correct at DFWSEM’s April meeting — so much so that folks in the crowd seemed a little starstruck. There were ooo’s. There were ahhh’s. There were literal gasps.

Basically, if y’all missed out? Y’all really, really missed out.

First things first

Things got started before they got started. The pre-meeting happy hour at Twisted Root is becoming a tradition, even though some people go to the happy hour and don’t come to said meetings (*cough* Grant and Jackie *cough*). But once things started rolling at Noah’s Event Center, it was off to the races.

First up, thanks were gleefully tendered to sponsors Advice Local. Then on to the list of swanky upcoming speakers. We’re talking Ruth Burr Reedy here, y’all. Tyler Hakes. Mike Esordi. Andrew Choco. Matthew Barby. And, of course, State of Search on October 9th and 10th at Dallas’ historic Gilley’s.

Then Outspoken Media’s Pearl Higgins quietly and determinedly blew everyone’s mind.

Who tells the story?

Pearl grew up a little more Laura Ingalls Wilder than most folks. Her parents’ house was 200 ft shy of the line for cable tv — and for electricity. But your audiences aren’t that limited in their entertainment options. Gone are the days of the family gathering around the tv for one of three channels or everyone you know reading the same newspaper.

They’ve got options, y’all. So many, many options. Which may be contributing to a literal decline in the length of the attention span. One study from the New York Times indicates the average adult attention span is down to eight tiny seconds.

So, how do you make yourself memorable?

You could make the world hate you. It’s a choice. Comcast seems to be embracing that philosophy, and United is coming on strong. But are people going to want to do business with you? Hard pass on that option. Instead, why not impress people? Why not delight them? Why not embrace joy?

Yeah. She went there. Joy. Something gorgeous or funny or interesting enough to stick. And nothing is stickier than a story.

Who’s killing it

Who’s making things joyful out there? There are some brands really taking advantage of Instagram’s possibilities. The Netflix original series The OA has built a mosaic of mystery on their page. Ballentine’s has created an entire online whiskey magazine. And Land Rover built a multimedia journey into the aspirational outdoors with Solitude in Sawtooth.

How’d they do it? Drama.

Story is narrative, and narrative requires drama. Drama doesn’t necessarily require lots of room. Obvious places for story are About Us pages or Mission Statements. But have you got text on a button? Don’t be satisfied with a plain old “submit.” Have an empty shopping cart? Warby Parker reminds site visitors that an empty cart is a sad void that needs topping up. Even 404 pages can contribute to your brand’s narrative.

Now, this is only scratching the surface of Pearl’s presentation. Which you’d know if you’d been there. Join DFWSEM today and start getting the good-good in real time, y’all. What are you waiting for? We’ve got more stories to tell together.

Next month’s meeting

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Stephanie Studer is a writer, editor, cook, and massive nerd who calls Dallas home. A social and content marketer, she’s deeply in love with all that language can do. She blogs at storytellingforsuccess.blog, tweets at @Editrix_Steph, and posts entirely too many pictures of dishes she’s made on Instagram. Don’t ask her about ukuleles or comic books unless you have nothing to do for the next several hours.

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The third DFWSEM meeting of 2017 was thrice awesomeness. January featured Jenny Halasz unveiling the mysteries of Google Analytics. In February, it was Dave Synder’s turn to bring the noise and/or funk about content. But March belonged to Rebecca Gill, who not only rocked a serious pair of heels, but rocked faces with the realities of SEO. It isn’t enough to use a plugin, chase that green dot, and call it a day. Because in the end, SEO is about helping.

The core of SEO is helping others. #dfwsem

— Dylan Brooks (@Texicane) March 9, 2017

Before the Dr. Seuss themed goodness unfolded, DFWSEM President Jeff Rudluff and Executive Director Scott Vann gave a shout out to event sponsor Advice Local, shared the love for new and renewing members, and listed the amazing upcoming speakers for the DFWSEM monthly meetings this year. Check out this list.

• April: Pearl Higgins of Outspoken Media on incredible storytelling
• May: Ruth Burr Reedy of UpBuild on genius-level Google tagging
• June: Tyler Hakes of Optimist on data-driven content badassery
• July: Mike Esordi of The Marketing Center on million dollar style for $100
• August: Andrew Choco of Directive Consulting on Facebook + email = swank
• September: Matthew Barby of Hubspot on huge organic SEO gains

As for October? Brace yourselves, y’all.

State of Search

Not only is State of Search back at Dallas’ own legendary Gilly’s. Not only are keynote speakers like Dr. Pete, Bill Hunt, and returning favorite Duane Forrester confirmed. Not only are speakers pitches open right now. You can also save $50 through the end of April with the code SaveSomeGreen.

And registering before the end of April is a good idea. May 1st, the early bird prices end, and tickets go from $500 to $600! Save that cash and spend it on something nice. #TreatYoSelf2017

The once and future SEO

Rebecca took the stage with an all-Suess, all-the-time themed presentation that started in the halcyon days of yore, when the world was young and SEO was simple. Keyword stuffing? Check. White text on a white background? Check. No mobile devices messing with search? Extra-crispy check.

But then things got real. And for “real” read “weird and at the mercy of unseen forces.” Rebecca started to hate what she did. But instead of jumping ship to another field, she got to thinking about why she’d started to care about SEO in the first place.

SEO is a process. A journey, not a destination. And ultimately, it is about helping. Being the good guy. Why do you think they call doing it right white hat?

The basics in the past are still the basics now. Create a positive user experience. Educate. Build authority and gain trust. And, of course, prove to Google that someone other than your mother is reading your content.

Rebecca doesn’t buy links. She doesn’t play shady tricks. Most importantly, she doesn’t forget the user. Here’s how she does it.

Here's how @rebeccagill does it. Process! Organization! #DFWSEM pic.twitter.com/kcIIYJUx9i

— Stephanie Studer (@Editrix_Steph) March 9, 2017

Research: Start with questions. Who are you? What does your business do for people? Who is your target audience? (Have you ganked your competitors best ideas? Protip: see if they’re still using meta keywords and steal ‘em.)

Plan: Build a seed list. Check out search volume. See what people are really looking for. And don’t think you don’t need a sitemap. Just as before, you need to make it easy for Google to index your content goodness.

Execute: Write. But don’t just write any old stuff. No keyword stuffing, no shortcuts, no foolishness. Quality content is usable content, and that’s what Google — and your customers — are after.

Competing for eyeballs has changed, no doubt about it. That’s why standing out from the crowd is so important. Rebecca’s got some advice on that front, too: celebrate what makes you unique.

"Embrace your weirdness" Rebecca Gill #DFWSEM

— Lorraine Santiago (@LorraineMSP) March 9, 2017

Brilliantly enough, next month’s speaker is the perfect follow-up to Rebecca’s insightful presentation. Pearl Higgins will get you in touch with your inner storyteller so you have the mojo to create the kind of content people really want. Register today so you don’t miss it!

Slide deck

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Stephanie Studer is a writer, editor, cook, and massive nerd who calls Dallas home. A social and content marketer, she’s deeply in love with all that language can do. She blogs at storytellingforsuccess.wordpress.com, tweets at @Editrix_Steph, and posts entirely too many pictures of dishes she’s made on Instagram. Don’t ask her about ukuleles or comic books unless you have nothing to do for the next several hours.

He kicked ass, took names, and showed us how to be awesome marketers

Riddled with gifs and brimming with knowledge, Dave Snyder’s presentation blew the audience’s collective mind at the February DFWSEM meeting last week. Think we’re exaggerating? Just check out the tweets!

Starting with @prattprattpratt so it's going to be a GOOD. NIGHT. #DFWSEM https://t.co/pbVLktRVKa

— Christina Galownia (@cagalownia) February 9, 2017

Pure Gold presented tonight at #dfwsem from CEO Copypress @davesnyder ??

— Kris O'Connor (@repairgarage) February 9, 2017

SERIOUSLY, #DFWSEM – we REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY need to get @davesnyder to come speak at #stateofsearch

— Greg Gifford (@GregGifford) February 9, 2017

Now that we’ve got those out of the way, let’s dig in.

Knowing what makes content tick (and stick) with your audience

After telling the audience he has a degree in creative writing with a concentration in poetry (yeah, we weren’t going to let that go unnoticed, Mr. CEO), Dave kicked off his presentation by highlighting the three main points everyone needs to consider when it comes to creating content:

• How people learn and understand content
• How people react to content
• How to build a content strategy

It sounds simple enough, right? But the reality is that creating content has become more and more challenging over the years, just because there is so much of it on the Internet.

Dave actually coined a new phrase to explain this phenomenon: infobesity. Content has become the high fructose corn syrup of the Internet (aka, junk food). “It’s everywhere,” says Dave, “and while we consume it, we don’t think much about it outside of that consumption.”

This is the challenge for marketers, who’ve literally been tasked with the job of making money for someone else. “If you’re not doing that, you’re failing. Big time.”

This is where understanding how people learn and process content comes into play.

Tricking people to consume healthy content

Marketers shouldn’t just spew out content for the sake of spewing content. You need to tell stories that resonate with readers and compel them to action. In the words of Dave: “You can mold great information into amazing content that matches what the reader is looking to consume, or even better, draws their attention in even if they happen by it.”

You have to find people in their “learn mode,” and then deliver the answers they’re looking for in the format that best suits their learning style (visual, auditory, verbal, etc.). Dave refers to these different learning styles as “modalities,” and his presentation revolved around ways to reach people with a combination of different modalities.

Covering all your (content) bases

“The more modalities you can pack into your content, the more likely your content is to stick with different content consumers,” says Dave. A great real-world SEO example of this is how Google shows Rich Snippets in its search results.

The Search Engine doesn’t just use text, it uses visual and interactive content to reach and engage with more searchers. Your content should be doing the same thing. Doing so will help your content stick with your audience, which gets them closer to converting on whatever product or idea you’re trying to sell.

Interactive images and dual coding are two other points to consider when creating adaptable content, both of which are often used when creating infographics. Dave cited research that shows people are more likely to remember an item if it can be shown interacting with another item. Dual coding takes this a step further, by targeting two cognitive subsystems — one that deals with processing imagery, the other with processing language (think about the data graphs you often see in infographics).

This interactive infographic Dave mentioned in his presentation is the perfect example.

So the real takeaway here is to layer different learning styles together when creating your content. People can process, learn, and remember content much faster when you’re covering all of these bases.

Easy reading, better learning

Of course, you want to make sure people are actually reading the content you produce by making it concise and scan-able. Doing this makes the content visually appealing to intrapersonal learners, but you’re also tackling the infobesity issues. “Give consumers the gist and structure with concise data in a way that entices the consumer to read more.”

Not only that, your content needs to be personal to your readers. Why should they care about what you’re writing? How does the concept affect them? These are the questions you need to ask, to understand how your readers are reacting to your content.

Going viral isn’t everything

Yeah, we all want our content to explode on the Internet and get shared by everyone — but more important than that is understanding how people digest your content. Because the truth is, not everything will go viral, so you need to focus on making the best piece of content that actually speaks to your audience. If you can hook your readers with what you’re offering, that’s more important than meaningless shares — which is why you want your content to stir up emotions in your readers.

This was the biggest takeaway Dave wanted the audience to get: emotions are greater than how people digest your information. Yes, understanding how people consume your content is super important, but if you want your content to resonate with your readers, it needs to be emotive and memorable. Even the most boring topics can cause an emotional reaction! It all depends on how you frame it, and how well you understand your audience. Y’all gotta hit those pressure points!

Time to build your content strategy

Dave’s content strategy is built in ten steps.

First, you need to decide how often you’re going to publish your content. Quarterly or monthly? The answer to this will be based on your KPIs, so be sure to figure them out!

Second, Dave loves a content plan that’s focused on a single time period or theme. Once you have that plan/theme in place, then you can start building ideas from there — and ALL of your content should revolve around the theme you choose.

Third, create an editorial calendar that plans out every step of your content plan — from production to publication to marketing! But be mindful that you should be planning content ideas here, not details for specific pieces of content.

Fourth is the ideation phase! You want to come up with 2-3x the ideas you actually need for your calendar, and then drill down from there. This will help you get the most refined ideas to flesh out. Some good tips for this phase are developing content personas (who are you writing for?), figuring out how to carve up content for different learners, and deducing which emotions you want to trigger in your audience.

Fifth, you want to actually start planning your content. Ask yourself why this content should exist, what problems are you trying to help your readers solve. You should also look at what your competitors are doing to see what’s already out there. This will help your basic ideas become fully formed.

Sixth, start creating your content. If you’ve done all the legwork we’ve discussed, this should be the easy (and fun!) part.

Seventh, publish your content — and not just on your blog! “A blog does not fix all issues,” warns Dave. You want to send emails and consider locking some content in a resource center.

Eighth, you need to start marketing that published content, via email, social media, and syndicated marketing. What’s the point of creating content otherwise?

Ninth, measure, measure, and measure again how your content is performing all the way down your funnel. Boost what’s working, and fix what’s not!

Tenth, repurpose your existing content. You can refresh and republish content that has worked for you in the past, or even polish up content that might have underperformed. Either way, you don’t have to always start from scratch.

Wrapping things up

At the end of the day, the most important piece of advice Dave could give you is to just identify and know your audience. Understand how they learn and how they process content, and hit them with the same ideas in different ways, over and over and over again. Repetition is key when it comes to learning, and you want your audience to be engaged with what you’re offering.

Slide deck

That’s about all we’ve got for this blog post! If you want to dig a bit deeper into anything we mentioned, check out Dave’s gif-filled presentation below.

Register for next month’s meeting

Don’t forget, Rebecca Gill of Web Savvy Marketing is coming next month to show us why SEO is NOT a Plugin. Be sure to register today to secure your ticket! If the last two meetings have been any indication, it’s going to be an event you can’t miss.