.jpg)
Welcome back to the Digital Marketing Masters podcast! In this episode, host Matt Rouse is joined by returning guest James Hipkin, author of "Journey to Success: Digital Marketing for Small Business Owners." James shares his insights on the importance of marketing strategy and how small business owners can navigate the overwhelming world of digital marketing.
James discusses the principles of marketing that have stood the test of time and how they are still relevant today. He emphasizes the need for a clear strategy to cut through the noise and be relevant to what customers need. The conversation touches on the importance of website performance, clear messaging, and the pitfalls of focusing too much on aesthetics without a solid strategy.
Matt and James also delve into the use of AI in marketing, sharing practical examples of how AI can assist in creating effective marketing strategies and content. They discuss the benefits of using AI tools to generate customer avatars, journey maps, and even color palettes for websites. The episode wraps up with a discussion on the future of AI in marketing and how small business owners can leverage these tools to stay competitive.
Don't miss this insightful episode filled with practical tips and strategies for improving your digital marketing efforts. Whether you're a seasoned marketer or a small business owner just starting out, there's something valuable for everyone in this conversation.
Red8 Interactive with James Hipkin.
Matt Rouse, Hook Digital Marketing, and SMB Autopilot:
https://hookdm.com
https://hookdm.ca
[00:00:01]
Unknown:
Hey
[00:00:02] Unknown:
there. It's James Skip can hear. Talking about the strategies, the ones you've gotta hear. Marketing secrets
[00:00:16] Unknown:
Welcome to the Digital Marketing Masters podcast with your host, Matt Rouse.
[00:00:22] Unknown:
Welcome back to the Digital Marketing Masters podcast. I'm here with author James Hipkin.
[00:00:28] Unknown:
James, how are you doing today? Hey, Matt. I'm doing great. I'm really looking forward to chatting with you, and, it's a great day in the neighborhood.
[00:00:37] Unknown:
It is. 2nd time on the show now. It's, back. Oh, no problem. And and I know we've been a little inconsistent on releasing the episodes recently, but I got a lot of chickens to deal with. So my buddy calls me the AI chicken wrangler. People always laugh too because I go to conferences and I wear shirts with chickens printed on them, and and then I just if somebody needs to find me, I say, look for the guy in the chicken shirt. I got a good shirt today too. This one is this is the molecules for caffeine. It's powered by. Hey. We should actually probably talk about what we're gonna talk about today. There's a thought. You wrote a book called Journey to Success, Digital Marketing for Small Business Owners, which I read. I really liked it. It's definitely like the 0 to 60 of trying marketing strategy. Right? It's like, if you have no idea what marketing strategy is, this is where to start.
[00:01:32] Unknown:
Right. I wrote it as a parable because business books are boring. So I wanted to make a story. And it's about John and his family, and they own a custom bike shop. Mhmm. And they're getting killed by the online shopping that's going on. And it's like we have to do something. And, you know, it's about their their fears and their concerns and different members of the family take on different aspects and they make all kinds of mistakes and they bring in some outside advice from from a consultant named Kyle, which is my alter ego. And he I'll helps keep them pointed on the straight and narrow because, you know, digital marketing can be very overwhelming.
All the choices and all the shiny things flying around. But truly, the principles that have existed in marketing since the beginning of time are just as valid today as they were when they first became principles. And if you keep those principles then then you can start to sort through the the noise and and figure out what's actually gonna matter.
[00:02:48] Unknown:
That's right. I remember going back and reading some old school ads, you know, from, like, the 19 fifties sixties, like newspaper ads. Mhmm. And they just read, like, email sales letters. Yep. Although much more sexist. But it's true. You know, the old advertising man of the the fifties sixties or earlier, the fundamentals get overlooked by the tactics. Yes.
[00:03:15] Unknown:
I hear it every day every day. Yeah. When I audit websites, when I audit digital marketing programs, the most common problem I see is an absence of strategy.
[00:03:27] Unknown:
That's right.
[00:03:28] Unknown:
It can be it can be badly done noise or it can be extremely pretty noise. But if there's no strategy, it's still noise.
[00:03:38] Unknown:
It's true. I think one of my favorite sayings, I can't remember who said it originally, I think it might have been Ryan Dice actually when I was at TNC 1 year. He said that if you look at the messaging on somebody's website and it's confusing to the client and then you go out and advertise, All you're doing is paying to confuse more people. Yep. And I think that happens a lot. Right. And recognizing
[00:04:04] Unknown:
that I I was presenting at a summit last week, and I proudly used the the world's most boring slide. It was a it was a blank white slide with a big giant gray blob in the middle of it. And my point was that this is the reality that your consumers are facing. They are completely surrounded by an overwhelming amount of marketing, So it just becomes gray noise. And at best, you are barely a dot in that massive gray noise unless you can break through. And you're gonna break through by being relevant to what they need. Not relevant to what you're selling, relevant to what they need. And that distinction is really important, and it it really differentiates the marketing that breaks through and supports the journey that customers are on versus just more pretty noise.
When people talk about
[00:05:05] Unknown:
the idea of marketing that breaks through, like, I gotta get my name out there and I gotta do this and that, Usually they think of stuff like putting a Tesla in space or like, you know, these these extreme versions, you know, like Red Bull having people on BMX bikes doing back flips 80 feet in the air, and they think that's, you know, breaking through the noise, which in a way it is, but that's not that's not relevant to your business. You know, as as one of the things we've mentioned before when we were talking. Like, if you're a commercial parts manufacturer for a bunch of service people, They don't care about, you know, something that is like a giant scene to get noticed by consumers. They care about what's relevant to them and their business.
[00:05:54] Unknown:
Mhmm. Right? Yep. Make it easy to find the parts that they're looking for,
[00:06:00] Unknown:
And guess what? They'll look for the parts on your platform. Yeah. I think that goes for just about any business. It doesn't matter if you are a dentist, which I'll come back to in a moment because dentists have one of the worst run of websites I've ever seen in my life, or if you're like a restaurant or you're selling machine parts or, you know, you're a transportation provider, whatever it is, the idea of strategy and relevance are more important than what your website looks like, what your logo looks like, what colors you're using for your brand, what your font is. All of this kind of stuff is important, but it's it's not important until you have the other stuff sorted.
[00:06:46] Unknown:
Right. And it's important if it's a means to an end. And if the end is supporting the journey that your buyer is on, then it's gonna it's gonna matter. Right. You know, one of the things that I'd like to talk about is the the 6 ways to engage website visitors in 6 seconds or less. I think we may have talked about that in the last episode we recorded. But the first way is page load performance. Right. You know? Because the 6 seconds doesn't start when the page is loaded. 6 seconds starts when the page is asked for. And that, you know, rapid loading builds trust because it's, oh, this this up this business is professional. Look at that.
What I asked for is right there. The second way is, am I in the right place? Right. And that's the things you were just talking about, Matt, about being consistent about fonts and colors, etcetera. But that's fonts and colors and and and language is a means to the end. And the end is to reassure people that, yes, you're in the right place. This is who you were looking for. You've got there. I mean, I have this conversation with with coaches quite frequently when they've got this beautiful fancy logo in the upper left hand corner of their website and with this this clever name that they've given their business.
And I'm like, so when people are looking for you, are they looking for that name? Right. Are they looking for your name? Because I don't see your name on the website anywhere. So if somebody gets to the website and they're looking for your name, suddenly they're thinking about, am I in the right place? Is this what I'm looking for? Is this what I want to spend? You know? And that's not what you want them thinking about.
[00:08:37] Unknown:
I see all kinds of advertisements, especially, just because, you know, we see so many advertisements in a day, where the questions that I have when I see it are, where is this place? What is this product? What would I use it for, like, it's being an ad is being served to me, so I'm in their audience. Why do they think I need this thing? And if I can't make those kind of answers, like I saw an ad for an eighties style arcade where you go and play, you know, stand up video games and and pinball and stuff. Right? Beautiful ads. Got the neon lights, old school. It looks like Flynn's arcade out of Tron. Right? I'm like, I would love to go there. Where is it?
No mention of where it is. I click it, goes to their home page, still doesn't tell me where it is. Like, it turns out it was in Calgary, which is 2,000 miles from here. So this this is not a good ad for me, unless they think I'm traveling there for some reason. But, yeah, like, I mean, just get the important bit out at the start. Right. What do you have to do? I have a conversation with a client who's runs a brew pub,
[00:09:43] Unknown:
and they hired a designer who did all kinds of beautiful things for them, and it was all very fancy. And I looked at the design for the home page that they wanted to do, and I looked at the owner of the brewpub. And I asked him, what do you think your customers are looking for when they get to your website? And he thought about it for a second. He says, well, I guess they're looking for what's our address and what are our hours. I said, yeah. I would say that's probably true. I don't see that information anywhere. It's
[00:10:15] Unknown:
It's true. For a lot of people like a lot of our audiences is marketers or people who are business owners who do their own marketing. And I think people forget this stuff, right, because you get so caught up with all of the other stuff you gotta do. You're like, I mean, just look at the the absolutely horrific user interfaces for ad platforms right now. Mhmm. I was trying to set up TikTok ads and and the TikTok shop for a business, and good lord, the the amount of hoops you have to jump through to set this thing up to integrate it. Just unbelievable. Right? And if you're a business owner and this is not your core job Yeah. Good luck. But, also, don't forget to do all the basics and have strategy and and, you know, like, I mean, you you get caught up in all the tactics and all the BS you gotta deal with. And it's hard to go back and think of it. Put on the customer's shoes, sit down at the computer or a phone or whatever it is or even knowing what device they're gonna use and say, what's somebody looking for? Right? Or is the do they just wanna know where I am, what I deliver, and what time I can get it or how I get it? Right. And those might be just the answers that they want. Maybe all the other stuff on your website is great if they wanna get more information than that. But if, you know, if everybody just wants to know where you are, how do I get there, what is it, then why don't you just put that at the front of your home page? Right.
[00:11:44] Unknown:
Another thing that and this this is a little controversial. Nothing wrong with a little controversy. No. No. I'm good with it. People's attention. I want people to stop putting calls to action on their web pages. And when I when I say that, people look at me and go, I have been told to put a call to action on everything since, like, since the beginning. That's right. Right? And I'm like, what I want you to do think about it. A call to action is a marketer shouting at a customer and telling them what to do. People don't want to be shouted at. They don't want to be told what to do. What's much more effective is if you create people like you pathways on your home page. Most businesses, 80% of their sales are coming from 20% of their audience, and there's probably 2 or 3 subsegments that represent the core of that business.
[00:12:38] Unknown:
This voice over used to be done by a human, but now it is synthetic. Oh la la. If you want to know if your job or business is safe from disruption, read Matt's new book, Will AI Take My Job? Predictions about AI Incorporations, Small Business, and the Workplace, Available now on Amazon. Trust me. It'll be worth it. Put in
[00:13:02] Unknown:
people like you callouts to those core parts of your audience visually with words. Give them a button where they can learn more. Give them a pathway to follow. And then when they choose that pathway, 2 very powerful and profound things have happened. They've told you exactly who they are, and they've given you permission to give them more information.
[00:13:29] Unknown:
Right.
[00:13:30] Unknown:
Now effectively, a pathway and a call to action are exactly the same thing, but the mindset shift is moves from tactical to strategic.
[00:13:41] Unknown:
Wow. And the wording can often get changed because of that. Right? I don't think it's helpful for someone who you know is gonna take the next step to say something like, you know, give me this now on the button or something, right? It's just, it's too abrupt. And I'm really a big fan. I know it was kind of popularized by StoryBrand, the the give put a plan on your website, a high level plan. Mhmm. I really like the 123 plan. Number 1, click the button below. Number 2, fill out your information. Number 3, get a quote. Yep. Right? Tell people in advance what's gonna happen when they do the thing, then they do the thing, and then you make sure that that's what happens.
[00:14:22] Unknown:
Right. Exactly. And but that supports the pathway that they're on. That supports the journey that they are on versus the homepage that's got in the hero section screaming at people to sign up for their newsletter.
[00:14:36] Unknown:
Yeah. You know Nobody wants to sign up for your newsletter. Beyond.
[00:14:40] Unknown:
No. They don't. Not not now. Maybe.
[00:14:43] Unknown:
You know what? People will sign up for your newsletter if you can overcome people's fear of you sending them a bunch of garbage, the amount of of material that you're gonna get. Right? We always use the plumber example on here. If I'm the plumber, the only newsletter that I'm gonna sign up for is, like, discover the newest products in plumbing that can save you time and money. Okay. I'll sign up for that, but I'm not gonna sign up for get news about plumbing parts. Right. Even though they're the same thing, it's gotta be worded in the way that encourages me to get the thing that I want,
[00:15:22] Unknown:
not what you wanna sell me. The the strategy that I often tell our clients about is the 70, 20, 10 strategy. 70% of your newsletter content should be just pure value that you are sharing that's gonna help your audience. 20% of the content should be curated value. That's things that other people are doing that you think your audience will find value in. Summits, for example, or podcasts that that I've I've run across. I will put podcast notices in my email. Podcasts I don't I'm not even on. Podcasts that I just think have a lot of value Right. For our audience. That's a good example of of curated content. And then 10% of the content can be sales oriented.
You know, if you're PS, my book's available on Amazon dotcom now. If that hierarchy of information is maintained, you will consistently get 40% open rates on on emails.
[00:16:27] Unknown:
If you if you just shout at them all the time, you're lucky if you get 10%. The other thing is I think people have started to get to the point, and and this is kind of a generalization, but just from all the different industries that we do newsletters for, I can see the open rates generally over time dropping. Right? And and the click through rates obviously dropping, you know, ever because we've been in this 20 years. Right? But the kind of bait and switch headline approach that a lot of companies still use is terrible. It's just saying don't trust me right out of the gate. Right. Right? So I think people need to stop doing that and people will go, well, yeah, but my open rate when I say, oh my god. Are you okay? As the subject line, and then I say July 4th sale. Yeah. But did you make any more money? Right? And the answer is probably no.
Right. If you have people who want the information you're gonna give them, you can just tell them what it's gonna be. Just Yep. Tell it like it is. Right? I really, really have this this sore spot right now for, you know, these bait and switch headline advertising, bait and switch advertising. It's always around, somebody always comes up with a reason why everybody should use it, whole bunch of people start using it and then all of it sucks. Yeah. You know? Yeah. I've also seen a big decrease in LinkedIn spam lately I think it's because people have started to catch on that. Oh, maybe if I do spam everybody, I don't make any money. Right. Oh, maybe LinkedIn's algorithms are improving to help keep it clear. I use a utility called TextExpander,
[00:18:07] Unknown:
which is really helps with the rapid you know, the stuff you have to write out all the time over and over again. Mhmm. And one of my one of my little macros that I have is pitch me. You know, semicolon pitch me. And what that does is park out a whole little email response to a spammer that says, hey. You wanna sell me something? Here's a link to the count my Calendly. Book some time. I'm gonna charge you a $150 for the privilege of talking to me for 20 minutes. If you're serious, I'm happy to chat.
[00:18:44] Unknown:
Alright. Alright. The other thing that you can do is you can reply to the email or the message say you're interested and then when they email you back from their actual account, then you mark that as spam because that's that's not their cold email emailer. That's their actual email. So you can beat the system. But, hey, I'll tell you. I got I got a nugget of gold for everybody, and and I know that you probably saw this already. But Apple did their developer conference, and they were showing the AI summaries. Mhmm. Well, instead and this showed this in the screenshots, but they didn't talk about it. It's not showing the preview line of emails anymore. It doesn't show you the first line. It's now gonna use their AI preview of the message as the preview line.
Ah. So if you're putting in the preview line information that's important to someone, that's not what's gonna show on iOS. Right. And that's probably gonna get adopted on most platforms. I think Outlook has an option for it now, but it's not automatic yet. So that means take your email, dump it into chat GBT or Claude or something and say summarize this in one sentence. Yep. And that better say what you wanted to say. Yep. Because that's what's gonna show on everybody's phone.
[00:20:02] Unknown:
That that's I didn't notice that. Although I did pay attention to the most recent developers conference, and I'll I'll tell you why. Bit of a proud papa moment. Oh, yeah? My son is a designer and an illustrator, and he works for Apple. Okay. His work was featured during the whole presentation around the iPad. Oh, nice. A lot of his work was being used during that presentation.
[00:20:28] Unknown:
I see a lot of backlash right now around AI art and music. I I kinda have mixed feelings about it. There seems to be this thing going on in especially online, and I know that discussions online can can get a bit dirty sometimes, right? People get overexcited or over upset, but there seems to be this thing like if you like to use AI then you're anti artist essentially. Right? They're like, oh, how dare you use, you know, Suno or something to make some music for your podcast because you're taking a musician's job or something. Right? And I'm like, no. They're not. Right? Maybe if you used to hire a bunch of session musicians every time your podcast came out, which no one ever did. Does.
Right? Except for maybe the top 100 funded podcasts in the world who are still doing it, by the way. And maybe now even more so because the copyright issues of the United States, they wanna make sure they own the copyright and not have an AI music piece. So I would say more people are paying for music in that world. Yes. But, yeah, this this you're either with us or against us attitude, you know, is prevalent in a lot of things right now, but I think it's kind of gotten into the AI and the arts community. And, I mean, that's uncommon for that type of community.
Being a musician myself, I use Suno and Yudio all the time, like, probably every day because I enjoy it. It's fun. Skilled copywriters that I know
[00:22:02] Unknown:
and work with, they're all using AI every day.
[00:22:07] Unknown:
Right. 6 months ago, they were like, that thing sucks. And then, you know what? And this is I I don't wanna get on my soapbox too much here, but I guess it kinda comes up all the time. So everybody who is not familiar with kind of working back and forth with an AI system to kind of coax it to get to do the things that you wanna do because it's like working with an intern or something. Right? It's it's not it's not like working with, you know, software. Where they say, well, I told it to write this thing and it did not write this thing, and it can only, you know, predict the next word or the next token or whatever, which is completely false. Right? It just means you don't understand anything about how AI works. Yep. And, like, I always wanna put, but I don't because I don't wanna get into a big online battle. I actually have this little image that says, tell me you don't know how to use AI without telling me you don't know how to use AI.
And I don't mean to make fun of people, you know, who who whose jobs might be threatened. Right? I mean, I even wrote the book. Right? Like, will AI take my job? Yep. I've done the research. I know where things are headed. I'm just saying better get used to using it. I know you're a a fairly heavy AI user yourself.
[00:23:27] Unknown:
Yeah. We think of it as a smart intern. Yeah. And with the right training, it can really, really help with all kinds of tasks. An example, our content specialists are they're well trained. They do a good job maintaining websites. They do a good job building websites for small business owners, etcetera, but they're not designers. Right. And one of the key pieces that separates a well designed site from a amateur site is how color is used. And there's this idea out of the interior design industry called the 60 30 10 color palette. 60% of the colors are background colors, 30% are primary and secondary colors, and 10% are the accent colors. That's why when you see a picture of a living room, there's a red cushion on the sofa. Right. Right? I work for it took me about a month working with ChatGPT using a single color to have a ChatGPT generate a range of x codes that would represent the 60 30 10 color palette. And I worked on it, worked on it. I spit it out a bunch of examples.
I sent those examples off to my to designer friends of mine, people I've known in the business for a long time, top tier designers. They gave me feedback. I worked on the prompts some more, sent out another round of examples. They gave me more feedback. The end of the month, basically, they came back and said, look. It's not where I would put it, but it's 90% of the way there, And it's about a 100% better than any average person's ever gonna be able to do. So we turned that prompt into a WordPress plugin that's now available on the in the repository. Right. So anybody with a WordPress site can download this plug in, put in one color from their brand logo, and it will give you a color palette that you can use that will lift the design of your website. Perfect. I mean, this is a perfect example. You have something that let's say it's graduate high school graduate level
[00:25:33] Unknown:
in process of thought and it's not obviously people always talk about accuracy. It's not a 100% accuracy, but I don't know if you've ever talked to a high school person. They're not a 100% accurate either, you know, most of the time. You know, you've got this this this thinking machine that can help you with all of these things, especially when you combine it with automation. Right? I mean, I have a super simple automation that I set up. I think it took me 15, 20 minutes to get going. We have a ecommerce store, and when someone purchases something, it goes in, digs out the information I wanted out of the purchase in I always Pabbly connect, which is kind of a Zapier, except it's one time payment instead of a monthly. So anyway, it goes in to Pabbly.
I send it to GPT to actually just reformat it into the the the way that I want it and how the variables work rather than having it do any kind of reasoning or anything. I just say don't change any of the data, but I want it in this format. Here's an example. And a 100% of the time, it has spit back exactly what I asked for in the format I wanted. It's never had a problem. And then it sends it into our company's internal chat so that everybody involved with the business knows the sale came in and how much it was for. And then I even have it give us a little quote about productivity while it sends it just for fun. Yeah. And I'll change it to a joke sometimes or something, but that use of AI probably saves people in our company, you know, a couple minutes a day. And you take 3, 4 people at a couple minutes a day, and we're saving 20, 30 hours of work. We have a we've
[00:27:16] Unknown:
developed prompts 2 prompts. 1, when we get copy from small business owners, it's often what I call inside out. Right? It's feature focused. They're all very proud about the products that they're selling, etcetera etcetera. People don't buy features. People buy benefits. They're looking for solutions to their problems. So we wrote a prompt that said put in put in a feature focused headline into the prompt, and the prompt will turn around and turn it into a benefit headline. Right. And my content specialist use it all the time. They they'll get content from the client. They'll put it in. It'll turn it into a benefit, and they'll use the benefit headline on the website rather than what the client gave us. And it's always better. Always.
[00:27:58] Unknown:
Yeah. I Is it as good as a professional copywriter would do? No. Probably not. But is it better than what they we got in the first place? Absolutely. Well, I think there's a point to this. Right? And we both mentioned it several times. But the point is, you wanna use the AI for a task that's relevant to the amount of benefit you get. Yes. Right? If I need something that's gonna be looked at by clients who are gonna drop $100,000 to buy some kind of system. I'm gonna pay a professional copywriter Right. You know, and a professional designer, and I do all the things. Right? A 100% go with the best expert that I know of for those things. If it's a small business who has a $3,000 budget, which is less than I would pay just a copywriter Mhmm. The AI text is gonna be, you know, with some editing, is gonna be better than they can afford. So now I can give them more value for the same money.
[00:28:54] Unknown:
Exactly. Yep. And, you know, and and another example, if if I may, we talked earlier in the conversation about how important strategy is. Right. Big brands, and I have a big brand background and so do you. Big brands with budgets will go out to research researchers who will organize focus groups. They'll bring in customers. They'll interview the customers. They'll analyze the interviews. They may do quantitative research as well, and they will generate, you know, 22 things that big brands use all the time to manage their digital marketing. That's the customer avatar and the buyer's journey map. Right? I have a friend in San Francisco who I've worked with off and on for years.
She does this work. Her typical fee for a project like this is in the area of $50. Right? Got it. Yeah. Every small business owner can't afford to spend that kind of money on something like this. And this is a good example of where we're using AI engineering. And my colleague in San Francisco who does this for a living in building up, interview guide that a business owner can use to interview a half a dozen of their existing customers, record the interviews, put the recordings into the platform, and the platform will use the machine learning algorithms to turn those interviews into customer avatars and journey maps that a business owner can now use to manage and create their marketing so that they're to quote the old direct marketing axiom so that they're getting the right message to the right person
[00:30:36] Unknown:
at the right time. And that's a powerful use of that tool, and I think you also get the benefit of kind of the generalized knowledge
[00:30:45] Unknown:
of the AI improves with each generation. Generalized knowledge of the AI improves with each generation, but also I'll be looking at this and my colleague, the researcher will be looking at this, and we will be constantly like I did with the color palette AI, it's a question of iterations. The algorithm can be adjusted and changed. We see what Right. We listen to the interviews ourselves. We look at what the algorithm has spit out and go, look. We need to tweak it here. We need to tweak it there. And you're getting the benefit of my 40 years of experience and her 30 years of experience doing this at a high level at a fraction of the cost.
[00:31:24] Unknown:
Yeah. And I I mean, a lot of people will say, well, you're just putting yourself out of a job. But so far, that has not been the case. No. I don't I don't see it that way. I think what I we're doing is we're making
[00:31:35] Unknown:
we're using AI technology to make some of these tools and techniques and resources available to business owners
[00:31:45] Unknown:
that they just don't have access to them now. Right. Otherwise, they wouldn't be able to afford that information. That's right. And I think as the tools, you know, as your AI foundation models get bigger and, you know, AI agents are gonna be a thing this year, I mean, there's already some out. They're not great yet, but they're gonna be great few months down the road. And then they will start to be like your interns, but they still need guidance, right, because they don't have real world experience. And it's like the old adage of, like, the book learning versus the street smarts. You can you can read about how to act when you're walking through a bad part of town as much as you want. Right. But it's not gonna help you when you walk through a bad part of town. You know? Right? And and that's you know, it's just 2 different things. So, yeah, the idea of, like, content creation and stuff, if you look at something like one of the new video creation tools, the person like, the characters will morph into other characters or they'll put their arms up in the air, but the microphone floats in front of them on the stage because it doesn't have a a perspective of the world.
Mhmm. That's gonna get there eventually. Who knows how long that is? I'd say you got at least, you know, 3 years before we see that kind of interaction with AI. And I know that's not that far off, but that doesn't mean it's gonna be good. That just means it's gonna start doing that. Yeah. So and and there's two things about the AI world, and this kind of drives me crazy, It's the same people who say that AI is trash and that nothing that it does is good are the same people who are like, AI is gonna kill everybody. Right. Was it gonna kill everybody,
[00:33:28] Unknown:
or is it trash? Because it can't be both. You know? Yeah. Well, if you look spend a little time with history. And when I started in this business, the Internet didn't exist. That's right. You know? And just think about the changes that have happened over the course of our lifetimes. I mean, I remember as a young account executive rushing to a client meeting, tripping up some stairs, and having acetates spew across the floor. 22 things happened out of that experience. I learned the value of page numbers. What do you think? You know, if I ask the average person to do so do you have you ever presented from acetates?
They're looking at me like, what? So much has changed.
[00:34:17] Unknown:
I remember when Yahoo was the front page of the Internet. That's what it was called to everybody. Right? Yep. And everybody's getting AOL online CDs in their mailbox every day and people were like, this is the end of stores and other people were like, no it's not. Those websites are garbage, everything's slow, the images are terrible and take forever to download, Nobody's gonna put a credit card in the Internet. No one will ever trust it. Look where we're at now. Now people put their credit card in to buy a $30,000 car.
[00:34:48] Unknown:
Yep. One of the positives that came out of the pandemic was a whole new generation of people discovered that shopping online is not that hard.
[00:34:58] Unknown:
Yeah. And reasonably safe. I mean, the place that most people get their credit card numbers stolen from is either the credit cards were in the mail or they were used by someone physically at a location. Gas stations. Or yeah. Gas stations, restaurants, whatever. Right? Anywhere somebody physically has access to to your card. Read someone the card number over the phone. There's nothing stopping that person from writing it down. Or they're used in basically wholesale number theft, you know, there there will be someone will sell a batch of credit card numbers online. You're not losing your money because you typed your credit card into Amazon. Right? I mean, it's just and when you go to the average website, it's going to the payment provider and their website is not storing that data at all. Like, they're not even involved in that data. No. As a payment processor, I can honestly say that's how it works.
So, James, I know we could talk for forever, but I don't also don't want this to be so long that nobody wants to listen to it because it says it's an hour. If somebody wants to get Journey to Success, digital marketing for small business owners, or they wanna reach out to you, what are the best ways to do that? I'll tell you, best way is is to go to vipchatwithjames.com.vipchatwithjames.com.
[00:36:14] Unknown:
And you can grab a few minutes of my calendar, and I would love to chat about digital marketing, about your business. What's keeping you up at night? How can I help? My wife teases me all the time about isn't it time to retire? And I still get a great deal of joy and satisfaction out of helping business owners be successful using marketing. And I've got the scars to back it up. So happy to share that knowledge.
[00:36:42] Unknown:
James, your wealth of knowledge. I appreciate it. Everybody out there, we'll see you again next time I actually get around to recording the fun.
[00:36:50] Unknown:
Remember to tap like, subscribe, and follow to never miss a show.
Hey
[00:00:02] Unknown:
there. It's James Skip can hear. Talking about the strategies, the ones you've gotta hear. Marketing secrets
[00:00:16] Unknown:
Welcome to the Digital Marketing Masters podcast with your host, Matt Rouse.
[00:00:22] Unknown:
Welcome back to the Digital Marketing Masters podcast. I'm here with author James Hipkin.
[00:00:28] Unknown:
James, how are you doing today? Hey, Matt. I'm doing great. I'm really looking forward to chatting with you, and, it's a great day in the neighborhood.
[00:00:37] Unknown:
It is. 2nd time on the show now. It's, back. Oh, no problem. And and I know we've been a little inconsistent on releasing the episodes recently, but I got a lot of chickens to deal with. So my buddy calls me the AI chicken wrangler. People always laugh too because I go to conferences and I wear shirts with chickens printed on them, and and then I just if somebody needs to find me, I say, look for the guy in the chicken shirt. I got a good shirt today too. This one is this is the molecules for caffeine. It's powered by. Hey. We should actually probably talk about what we're gonna talk about today. There's a thought. You wrote a book called Journey to Success, Digital Marketing for Small Business Owners, which I read. I really liked it. It's definitely like the 0 to 60 of trying marketing strategy. Right? It's like, if you have no idea what marketing strategy is, this is where to start.
[00:01:32] Unknown:
Right. I wrote it as a parable because business books are boring. So I wanted to make a story. And it's about John and his family, and they own a custom bike shop. Mhmm. And they're getting killed by the online shopping that's going on. And it's like we have to do something. And, you know, it's about their their fears and their concerns and different members of the family take on different aspects and they make all kinds of mistakes and they bring in some outside advice from from a consultant named Kyle, which is my alter ego. And he I'll helps keep them pointed on the straight and narrow because, you know, digital marketing can be very overwhelming.
All the choices and all the shiny things flying around. But truly, the principles that have existed in marketing since the beginning of time are just as valid today as they were when they first became principles. And if you keep those principles then then you can start to sort through the the noise and and figure out what's actually gonna matter.
[00:02:48] Unknown:
That's right. I remember going back and reading some old school ads, you know, from, like, the 19 fifties sixties, like newspaper ads. Mhmm. And they just read, like, email sales letters. Yep. Although much more sexist. But it's true. You know, the old advertising man of the the fifties sixties or earlier, the fundamentals get overlooked by the tactics. Yes.
[00:03:15] Unknown:
I hear it every day every day. Yeah. When I audit websites, when I audit digital marketing programs, the most common problem I see is an absence of strategy.
[00:03:27] Unknown:
That's right.
[00:03:28] Unknown:
It can be it can be badly done noise or it can be extremely pretty noise. But if there's no strategy, it's still noise.
[00:03:38] Unknown:
It's true. I think one of my favorite sayings, I can't remember who said it originally, I think it might have been Ryan Dice actually when I was at TNC 1 year. He said that if you look at the messaging on somebody's website and it's confusing to the client and then you go out and advertise, All you're doing is paying to confuse more people. Yep. And I think that happens a lot. Right. And recognizing
[00:04:04] Unknown:
that I I was presenting at a summit last week, and I proudly used the the world's most boring slide. It was a it was a blank white slide with a big giant gray blob in the middle of it. And my point was that this is the reality that your consumers are facing. They are completely surrounded by an overwhelming amount of marketing, So it just becomes gray noise. And at best, you are barely a dot in that massive gray noise unless you can break through. And you're gonna break through by being relevant to what they need. Not relevant to what you're selling, relevant to what they need. And that distinction is really important, and it it really differentiates the marketing that breaks through and supports the journey that customers are on versus just more pretty noise.
When people talk about
[00:05:05] Unknown:
the idea of marketing that breaks through, like, I gotta get my name out there and I gotta do this and that, Usually they think of stuff like putting a Tesla in space or like, you know, these these extreme versions, you know, like Red Bull having people on BMX bikes doing back flips 80 feet in the air, and they think that's, you know, breaking through the noise, which in a way it is, but that's not that's not relevant to your business. You know, as as one of the things we've mentioned before when we were talking. Like, if you're a commercial parts manufacturer for a bunch of service people, They don't care about, you know, something that is like a giant scene to get noticed by consumers. They care about what's relevant to them and their business.
[00:05:54] Unknown:
Mhmm. Right? Yep. Make it easy to find the parts that they're looking for,
[00:06:00] Unknown:
And guess what? They'll look for the parts on your platform. Yeah. I think that goes for just about any business. It doesn't matter if you are a dentist, which I'll come back to in a moment because dentists have one of the worst run of websites I've ever seen in my life, or if you're like a restaurant or you're selling machine parts or, you know, you're a transportation provider, whatever it is, the idea of strategy and relevance are more important than what your website looks like, what your logo looks like, what colors you're using for your brand, what your font is. All of this kind of stuff is important, but it's it's not important until you have the other stuff sorted.
[00:06:46] Unknown:
Right. And it's important if it's a means to an end. And if the end is supporting the journey that your buyer is on, then it's gonna it's gonna matter. Right. You know, one of the things that I'd like to talk about is the the 6 ways to engage website visitors in 6 seconds or less. I think we may have talked about that in the last episode we recorded. But the first way is page load performance. Right. You know? Because the 6 seconds doesn't start when the page is loaded. 6 seconds starts when the page is asked for. And that, you know, rapid loading builds trust because it's, oh, this this up this business is professional. Look at that.
What I asked for is right there. The second way is, am I in the right place? Right. And that's the things you were just talking about, Matt, about being consistent about fonts and colors, etcetera. But that's fonts and colors and and and language is a means to the end. And the end is to reassure people that, yes, you're in the right place. This is who you were looking for. You've got there. I mean, I have this conversation with with coaches quite frequently when they've got this beautiful fancy logo in the upper left hand corner of their website and with this this clever name that they've given their business.
And I'm like, so when people are looking for you, are they looking for that name? Right. Are they looking for your name? Because I don't see your name on the website anywhere. So if somebody gets to the website and they're looking for your name, suddenly they're thinking about, am I in the right place? Is this what I'm looking for? Is this what I want to spend? You know? And that's not what you want them thinking about.
[00:08:37] Unknown:
I see all kinds of advertisements, especially, just because, you know, we see so many advertisements in a day, where the questions that I have when I see it are, where is this place? What is this product? What would I use it for, like, it's being an ad is being served to me, so I'm in their audience. Why do they think I need this thing? And if I can't make those kind of answers, like I saw an ad for an eighties style arcade where you go and play, you know, stand up video games and and pinball and stuff. Right? Beautiful ads. Got the neon lights, old school. It looks like Flynn's arcade out of Tron. Right? I'm like, I would love to go there. Where is it?
No mention of where it is. I click it, goes to their home page, still doesn't tell me where it is. Like, it turns out it was in Calgary, which is 2,000 miles from here. So this this is not a good ad for me, unless they think I'm traveling there for some reason. But, yeah, like, I mean, just get the important bit out at the start. Right. What do you have to do? I have a conversation with a client who's runs a brew pub,
[00:09:43] Unknown:
and they hired a designer who did all kinds of beautiful things for them, and it was all very fancy. And I looked at the design for the home page that they wanted to do, and I looked at the owner of the brewpub. And I asked him, what do you think your customers are looking for when they get to your website? And he thought about it for a second. He says, well, I guess they're looking for what's our address and what are our hours. I said, yeah. I would say that's probably true. I don't see that information anywhere. It's
[00:10:15] Unknown:
It's true. For a lot of people like a lot of our audiences is marketers or people who are business owners who do their own marketing. And I think people forget this stuff, right, because you get so caught up with all of the other stuff you gotta do. You're like, I mean, just look at the the absolutely horrific user interfaces for ad platforms right now. Mhmm. I was trying to set up TikTok ads and and the TikTok shop for a business, and good lord, the the amount of hoops you have to jump through to set this thing up to integrate it. Just unbelievable. Right? And if you're a business owner and this is not your core job Yeah. Good luck. But, also, don't forget to do all the basics and have strategy and and, you know, like, I mean, you you get caught up in all the tactics and all the BS you gotta deal with. And it's hard to go back and think of it. Put on the customer's shoes, sit down at the computer or a phone or whatever it is or even knowing what device they're gonna use and say, what's somebody looking for? Right? Or is the do they just wanna know where I am, what I deliver, and what time I can get it or how I get it? Right. And those might be just the answers that they want. Maybe all the other stuff on your website is great if they wanna get more information than that. But if, you know, if everybody just wants to know where you are, how do I get there, what is it, then why don't you just put that at the front of your home page? Right.
[00:11:44] Unknown:
Another thing that and this this is a little controversial. Nothing wrong with a little controversy. No. No. I'm good with it. People's attention. I want people to stop putting calls to action on their web pages. And when I when I say that, people look at me and go, I have been told to put a call to action on everything since, like, since the beginning. That's right. Right? And I'm like, what I want you to do think about it. A call to action is a marketer shouting at a customer and telling them what to do. People don't want to be shouted at. They don't want to be told what to do. What's much more effective is if you create people like you pathways on your home page. Most businesses, 80% of their sales are coming from 20% of their audience, and there's probably 2 or 3 subsegments that represent the core of that business.
[00:12:38] Unknown:
This voice over used to be done by a human, but now it is synthetic. Oh la la. If you want to know if your job or business is safe from disruption, read Matt's new book, Will AI Take My Job? Predictions about AI Incorporations, Small Business, and the Workplace, Available now on Amazon. Trust me. It'll be worth it. Put in
[00:13:02] Unknown:
people like you callouts to those core parts of your audience visually with words. Give them a button where they can learn more. Give them a pathway to follow. And then when they choose that pathway, 2 very powerful and profound things have happened. They've told you exactly who they are, and they've given you permission to give them more information.
[00:13:29] Unknown:
Right.
[00:13:30] Unknown:
Now effectively, a pathway and a call to action are exactly the same thing, but the mindset shift is moves from tactical to strategic.
[00:13:41] Unknown:
Wow. And the wording can often get changed because of that. Right? I don't think it's helpful for someone who you know is gonna take the next step to say something like, you know, give me this now on the button or something, right? It's just, it's too abrupt. And I'm really a big fan. I know it was kind of popularized by StoryBrand, the the give put a plan on your website, a high level plan. Mhmm. I really like the 123 plan. Number 1, click the button below. Number 2, fill out your information. Number 3, get a quote. Yep. Right? Tell people in advance what's gonna happen when they do the thing, then they do the thing, and then you make sure that that's what happens.
[00:14:22] Unknown:
Right. Exactly. And but that supports the pathway that they're on. That supports the journey that they are on versus the homepage that's got in the hero section screaming at people to sign up for their newsletter.
[00:14:36] Unknown:
Yeah. You know Nobody wants to sign up for your newsletter. Beyond.
[00:14:40] Unknown:
No. They don't. Not not now. Maybe.
[00:14:43] Unknown:
You know what? People will sign up for your newsletter if you can overcome people's fear of you sending them a bunch of garbage, the amount of of material that you're gonna get. Right? We always use the plumber example on here. If I'm the plumber, the only newsletter that I'm gonna sign up for is, like, discover the newest products in plumbing that can save you time and money. Okay. I'll sign up for that, but I'm not gonna sign up for get news about plumbing parts. Right. Even though they're the same thing, it's gotta be worded in the way that encourages me to get the thing that I want,
[00:15:22] Unknown:
not what you wanna sell me. The the strategy that I often tell our clients about is the 70, 20, 10 strategy. 70% of your newsletter content should be just pure value that you are sharing that's gonna help your audience. 20% of the content should be curated value. That's things that other people are doing that you think your audience will find value in. Summits, for example, or podcasts that that I've I've run across. I will put podcast notices in my email. Podcasts I don't I'm not even on. Podcasts that I just think have a lot of value Right. For our audience. That's a good example of of curated content. And then 10% of the content can be sales oriented.
You know, if you're PS, my book's available on Amazon dotcom now. If that hierarchy of information is maintained, you will consistently get 40% open rates on on emails.
[00:16:27] Unknown:
If you if you just shout at them all the time, you're lucky if you get 10%. The other thing is I think people have started to get to the point, and and this is kind of a generalization, but just from all the different industries that we do newsletters for, I can see the open rates generally over time dropping. Right? And and the click through rates obviously dropping, you know, ever because we've been in this 20 years. Right? But the kind of bait and switch headline approach that a lot of companies still use is terrible. It's just saying don't trust me right out of the gate. Right. Right? So I think people need to stop doing that and people will go, well, yeah, but my open rate when I say, oh my god. Are you okay? As the subject line, and then I say July 4th sale. Yeah. But did you make any more money? Right? And the answer is probably no.
Right. If you have people who want the information you're gonna give them, you can just tell them what it's gonna be. Just Yep. Tell it like it is. Right? I really, really have this this sore spot right now for, you know, these bait and switch headline advertising, bait and switch advertising. It's always around, somebody always comes up with a reason why everybody should use it, whole bunch of people start using it and then all of it sucks. Yeah. You know? Yeah. I've also seen a big decrease in LinkedIn spam lately I think it's because people have started to catch on that. Oh, maybe if I do spam everybody, I don't make any money. Right. Oh, maybe LinkedIn's algorithms are improving to help keep it clear. I use a utility called TextExpander,
[00:18:07] Unknown:
which is really helps with the rapid you know, the stuff you have to write out all the time over and over again. Mhmm. And one of my one of my little macros that I have is pitch me. You know, semicolon pitch me. And what that does is park out a whole little email response to a spammer that says, hey. You wanna sell me something? Here's a link to the count my Calendly. Book some time. I'm gonna charge you a $150 for the privilege of talking to me for 20 minutes. If you're serious, I'm happy to chat.
[00:18:44] Unknown:
Alright. Alright. The other thing that you can do is you can reply to the email or the message say you're interested and then when they email you back from their actual account, then you mark that as spam because that's that's not their cold email emailer. That's their actual email. So you can beat the system. But, hey, I'll tell you. I got I got a nugget of gold for everybody, and and I know that you probably saw this already. But Apple did their developer conference, and they were showing the AI summaries. Mhmm. Well, instead and this showed this in the screenshots, but they didn't talk about it. It's not showing the preview line of emails anymore. It doesn't show you the first line. It's now gonna use their AI preview of the message as the preview line.
Ah. So if you're putting in the preview line information that's important to someone, that's not what's gonna show on iOS. Right. And that's probably gonna get adopted on most platforms. I think Outlook has an option for it now, but it's not automatic yet. So that means take your email, dump it into chat GBT or Claude or something and say summarize this in one sentence. Yep. And that better say what you wanted to say. Yep. Because that's what's gonna show on everybody's phone.
[00:20:02] Unknown:
That that's I didn't notice that. Although I did pay attention to the most recent developers conference, and I'll I'll tell you why. Bit of a proud papa moment. Oh, yeah? My son is a designer and an illustrator, and he works for Apple. Okay. His work was featured during the whole presentation around the iPad. Oh, nice. A lot of his work was being used during that presentation.
[00:20:28] Unknown:
I see a lot of backlash right now around AI art and music. I I kinda have mixed feelings about it. There seems to be this thing going on in especially online, and I know that discussions online can can get a bit dirty sometimes, right? People get overexcited or over upset, but there seems to be this thing like if you like to use AI then you're anti artist essentially. Right? They're like, oh, how dare you use, you know, Suno or something to make some music for your podcast because you're taking a musician's job or something. Right? And I'm like, no. They're not. Right? Maybe if you used to hire a bunch of session musicians every time your podcast came out, which no one ever did. Does.
Right? Except for maybe the top 100 funded podcasts in the world who are still doing it, by the way. And maybe now even more so because the copyright issues of the United States, they wanna make sure they own the copyright and not have an AI music piece. So I would say more people are paying for music in that world. Yes. But, yeah, this this you're either with us or against us attitude, you know, is prevalent in a lot of things right now, but I think it's kind of gotten into the AI and the arts community. And, I mean, that's uncommon for that type of community.
Being a musician myself, I use Suno and Yudio all the time, like, probably every day because I enjoy it. It's fun. Skilled copywriters that I know
[00:22:02] Unknown:
and work with, they're all using AI every day.
[00:22:07] Unknown:
Right. 6 months ago, they were like, that thing sucks. And then, you know what? And this is I I don't wanna get on my soapbox too much here, but I guess it kinda comes up all the time. So everybody who is not familiar with kind of working back and forth with an AI system to kind of coax it to get to do the things that you wanna do because it's like working with an intern or something. Right? It's it's not it's not like working with, you know, software. Where they say, well, I told it to write this thing and it did not write this thing, and it can only, you know, predict the next word or the next token or whatever, which is completely false. Right? It just means you don't understand anything about how AI works. Yep. And, like, I always wanna put, but I don't because I don't wanna get into a big online battle. I actually have this little image that says, tell me you don't know how to use AI without telling me you don't know how to use AI.
And I don't mean to make fun of people, you know, who who whose jobs might be threatened. Right? I mean, I even wrote the book. Right? Like, will AI take my job? Yep. I've done the research. I know where things are headed. I'm just saying better get used to using it. I know you're a a fairly heavy AI user yourself.
[00:23:27] Unknown:
Yeah. We think of it as a smart intern. Yeah. And with the right training, it can really, really help with all kinds of tasks. An example, our content specialists are they're well trained. They do a good job maintaining websites. They do a good job building websites for small business owners, etcetera, but they're not designers. Right. And one of the key pieces that separates a well designed site from a amateur site is how color is used. And there's this idea out of the interior design industry called the 60 30 10 color palette. 60% of the colors are background colors, 30% are primary and secondary colors, and 10% are the accent colors. That's why when you see a picture of a living room, there's a red cushion on the sofa. Right. Right? I work for it took me about a month working with ChatGPT using a single color to have a ChatGPT generate a range of x codes that would represent the 60 30 10 color palette. And I worked on it, worked on it. I spit it out a bunch of examples.
I sent those examples off to my to designer friends of mine, people I've known in the business for a long time, top tier designers. They gave me feedback. I worked on the prompts some more, sent out another round of examples. They gave me more feedback. The end of the month, basically, they came back and said, look. It's not where I would put it, but it's 90% of the way there, And it's about a 100% better than any average person's ever gonna be able to do. So we turned that prompt into a WordPress plugin that's now available on the in the repository. Right. So anybody with a WordPress site can download this plug in, put in one color from their brand logo, and it will give you a color palette that you can use that will lift the design of your website. Perfect. I mean, this is a perfect example. You have something that let's say it's graduate high school graduate level
[00:25:33] Unknown:
in process of thought and it's not obviously people always talk about accuracy. It's not a 100% accuracy, but I don't know if you've ever talked to a high school person. They're not a 100% accurate either, you know, most of the time. You know, you've got this this this thinking machine that can help you with all of these things, especially when you combine it with automation. Right? I mean, I have a super simple automation that I set up. I think it took me 15, 20 minutes to get going. We have a ecommerce store, and when someone purchases something, it goes in, digs out the information I wanted out of the purchase in I always Pabbly connect, which is kind of a Zapier, except it's one time payment instead of a monthly. So anyway, it goes in to Pabbly.
I send it to GPT to actually just reformat it into the the the way that I want it and how the variables work rather than having it do any kind of reasoning or anything. I just say don't change any of the data, but I want it in this format. Here's an example. And a 100% of the time, it has spit back exactly what I asked for in the format I wanted. It's never had a problem. And then it sends it into our company's internal chat so that everybody involved with the business knows the sale came in and how much it was for. And then I even have it give us a little quote about productivity while it sends it just for fun. Yeah. And I'll change it to a joke sometimes or something, but that use of AI probably saves people in our company, you know, a couple minutes a day. And you take 3, 4 people at a couple minutes a day, and we're saving 20, 30 hours of work. We have a we've
[00:27:16] Unknown:
developed prompts 2 prompts. 1, when we get copy from small business owners, it's often what I call inside out. Right? It's feature focused. They're all very proud about the products that they're selling, etcetera etcetera. People don't buy features. People buy benefits. They're looking for solutions to their problems. So we wrote a prompt that said put in put in a feature focused headline into the prompt, and the prompt will turn around and turn it into a benefit headline. Right. And my content specialist use it all the time. They they'll get content from the client. They'll put it in. It'll turn it into a benefit, and they'll use the benefit headline on the website rather than what the client gave us. And it's always better. Always.
[00:27:58] Unknown:
Yeah. I Is it as good as a professional copywriter would do? No. Probably not. But is it better than what they we got in the first place? Absolutely. Well, I think there's a point to this. Right? And we both mentioned it several times. But the point is, you wanna use the AI for a task that's relevant to the amount of benefit you get. Yes. Right? If I need something that's gonna be looked at by clients who are gonna drop $100,000 to buy some kind of system. I'm gonna pay a professional copywriter Right. You know, and a professional designer, and I do all the things. Right? A 100% go with the best expert that I know of for those things. If it's a small business who has a $3,000 budget, which is less than I would pay just a copywriter Mhmm. The AI text is gonna be, you know, with some editing, is gonna be better than they can afford. So now I can give them more value for the same money.
[00:28:54] Unknown:
Exactly. Yep. And, you know, and and another example, if if I may, we talked earlier in the conversation about how important strategy is. Right. Big brands, and I have a big brand background and so do you. Big brands with budgets will go out to research researchers who will organize focus groups. They'll bring in customers. They'll interview the customers. They'll analyze the interviews. They may do quantitative research as well, and they will generate, you know, 22 things that big brands use all the time to manage their digital marketing. That's the customer avatar and the buyer's journey map. Right? I have a friend in San Francisco who I've worked with off and on for years.
She does this work. Her typical fee for a project like this is in the area of $50. Right? Got it. Yeah. Every small business owner can't afford to spend that kind of money on something like this. And this is a good example of where we're using AI engineering. And my colleague in San Francisco who does this for a living in building up, interview guide that a business owner can use to interview a half a dozen of their existing customers, record the interviews, put the recordings into the platform, and the platform will use the machine learning algorithms to turn those interviews into customer avatars and journey maps that a business owner can now use to manage and create their marketing so that they're to quote the old direct marketing axiom so that they're getting the right message to the right person
[00:30:36] Unknown:
at the right time. And that's a powerful use of that tool, and I think you also get the benefit of kind of the generalized knowledge
[00:30:45] Unknown:
of the AI improves with each generation. Generalized knowledge of the AI improves with each generation, but also I'll be looking at this and my colleague, the researcher will be looking at this, and we will be constantly like I did with the color palette AI, it's a question of iterations. The algorithm can be adjusted and changed. We see what Right. We listen to the interviews ourselves. We look at what the algorithm has spit out and go, look. We need to tweak it here. We need to tweak it there. And you're getting the benefit of my 40 years of experience and her 30 years of experience doing this at a high level at a fraction of the cost.
[00:31:24] Unknown:
Yeah. And I I mean, a lot of people will say, well, you're just putting yourself out of a job. But so far, that has not been the case. No. I don't I don't see it that way. I think what I we're doing is we're making
[00:31:35] Unknown:
we're using AI technology to make some of these tools and techniques and resources available to business owners
[00:31:45] Unknown:
that they just don't have access to them now. Right. Otherwise, they wouldn't be able to afford that information. That's right. And I think as the tools, you know, as your AI foundation models get bigger and, you know, AI agents are gonna be a thing this year, I mean, there's already some out. They're not great yet, but they're gonna be great few months down the road. And then they will start to be like your interns, but they still need guidance, right, because they don't have real world experience. And it's like the old adage of, like, the book learning versus the street smarts. You can you can read about how to act when you're walking through a bad part of town as much as you want. Right. But it's not gonna help you when you walk through a bad part of town. You know? Right? And and that's you know, it's just 2 different things. So, yeah, the idea of, like, content creation and stuff, if you look at something like one of the new video creation tools, the person like, the characters will morph into other characters or they'll put their arms up in the air, but the microphone floats in front of them on the stage because it doesn't have a a perspective of the world.
Mhmm. That's gonna get there eventually. Who knows how long that is? I'd say you got at least, you know, 3 years before we see that kind of interaction with AI. And I know that's not that far off, but that doesn't mean it's gonna be good. That just means it's gonna start doing that. Yeah. So and and there's two things about the AI world, and this kind of drives me crazy, It's the same people who say that AI is trash and that nothing that it does is good are the same people who are like, AI is gonna kill everybody. Right. Was it gonna kill everybody,
[00:33:28] Unknown:
or is it trash? Because it can't be both. You know? Yeah. Well, if you look spend a little time with history. And when I started in this business, the Internet didn't exist. That's right. You know? And just think about the changes that have happened over the course of our lifetimes. I mean, I remember as a young account executive rushing to a client meeting, tripping up some stairs, and having acetates spew across the floor. 22 things happened out of that experience. I learned the value of page numbers. What do you think? You know, if I ask the average person to do so do you have you ever presented from acetates?
They're looking at me like, what? So much has changed.
[00:34:17] Unknown:
I remember when Yahoo was the front page of the Internet. That's what it was called to everybody. Right? Yep. And everybody's getting AOL online CDs in their mailbox every day and people were like, this is the end of stores and other people were like, no it's not. Those websites are garbage, everything's slow, the images are terrible and take forever to download, Nobody's gonna put a credit card in the Internet. No one will ever trust it. Look where we're at now. Now people put their credit card in to buy a $30,000 car.
[00:34:48] Unknown:
Yep. One of the positives that came out of the pandemic was a whole new generation of people discovered that shopping online is not that hard.
[00:34:58] Unknown:
Yeah. And reasonably safe. I mean, the place that most people get their credit card numbers stolen from is either the credit cards were in the mail or they were used by someone physically at a location. Gas stations. Or yeah. Gas stations, restaurants, whatever. Right? Anywhere somebody physically has access to to your card. Read someone the card number over the phone. There's nothing stopping that person from writing it down. Or they're used in basically wholesale number theft, you know, there there will be someone will sell a batch of credit card numbers online. You're not losing your money because you typed your credit card into Amazon. Right? I mean, it's just and when you go to the average website, it's going to the payment provider and their website is not storing that data at all. Like, they're not even involved in that data. No. As a payment processor, I can honestly say that's how it works.
So, James, I know we could talk for forever, but I don't also don't want this to be so long that nobody wants to listen to it because it says it's an hour. If somebody wants to get Journey to Success, digital marketing for small business owners, or they wanna reach out to you, what are the best ways to do that? I'll tell you, best way is is to go to vipchatwithjames.com.vipchatwithjames.com.
[00:36:14] Unknown:
And you can grab a few minutes of my calendar, and I would love to chat about digital marketing, about your business. What's keeping you up at night? How can I help? My wife teases me all the time about isn't it time to retire? And I still get a great deal of joy and satisfaction out of helping business owners be successful using marketing. And I've got the scars to back it up. So happy to share that knowledge.
[00:36:42] Unknown:
James, your wealth of knowledge. I appreciate it. Everybody out there, we'll see you again next time I actually get around to recording the fun.
[00:36:50] Unknown:
Remember to tap like, subscribe, and follow to never miss a show.
Introduction and Guest Welcome
James Hipkin's Book: Journey to Success
The Importance of Marketing Strategy
Engaging Website Visitors
Effective Calls to Action
AI in Marketing
Customer Avatars and Journey Maps
Evolution of Technology and Marketing
Closing Remarks and Contact Information
