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In 2021, digital marketing is marketing. Co-Founder of DigitalMarketer, Richard Lindner, joins Melissa Dixon, BigCommerceâs Director of Content Marketing, to discuss the current state of marketing and where itâs headed.
The past year has forced brands to get even more creative in order to stand out in a crowded digital space and connect with customers. But, the basics still remain true: Itâs the marketerâs job to channel and direct customersâ desires, not create them.Â
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Melissa Dixon: Tell us a little bit about how you got started [in marketing] and also ultimately what led to you founding DigitalMarketer?Â
Richard Lindner: âAbsolutely. I got started 100% by accident. I did not intend to go into marketing much less digital marketing.Â
âWhen I first started, I didnât really understand the Internet and wasnât all that tech savvy, but I [came across] a business mentor who was a serial entrepreneur and had just transitioned from the traditional brick and mortar into online. [I] was able to mentor and almost apprentice under him as he really went from offline to online and quickly grew up [a] $20 to $40 million business in a very short time, just leveraging the Internet in very, very early daysâŠ
âThe thought of founding a company or co-founding a company that taught other people how to market effectively and efficiently online, I wouldâve never imagined the path from that to where we are today.
âWe maintain that serial entrepreneur bug and launched a ton of new businesses launched or acquired, leveraged the media that we own to stand up new properties and new businesses and saw a ton of growth. We started teaching what we were doing because different founders and principals were being asked to speak on different events and share what was working. And we started productizing some of that knowledge and charging for it, making courses in very early course days, but we always saw it as a way to sell the by-product of what we were doing to reinvest into our âreal businesses.â
âWe started an event called Traffic & Conversion Summit 11 years ago and had the first one in Austin, Texas. And the third year in a row, 1,000 people paid to come. That was before DigitalMarketer existed.
âIt was then that we stood back a little bit in all and said, âI donât think this is what the kids would call today a side hustle.â
âSo I think weâve engaged in audience and we need to serve that audience. So it was day two of Traffic & Conversion Summit 3, when we made a commitment to launch DigitalMarketer. And because we are the consummate planners, we announced it on day three of year three at Traffic & Conversion Summit.
âSo there was something about that extreme ownership, extreme accountability, and just going all in. Thatâs where it accidentally started and how we ended up here with DigitalMarketer.â
MD: Letâs talk about the current state of marketing. I know it may sound like maybe an overly simplified question, but how would you describe marketing in 2021 and what does it mean to you?
RL: âMelissa, Iâll tell you, I love that you asked the question how would you describe marketing? Because most people say whatâs the state of digital marketing? How would you describe digital marketing? Hereâs the great news in 2021, all marketing is digital marketing.
âDigital marketing is marketing. Itâs just marketing now, at some point, no matter where youâre marketing through a digital platform or not your marketing transitions over to digital, right?
âItâs either digital ad space or youâre going to the web at some point. So everything is becoming digital. Radio ads are driving to digital, TV ads are driving to digital, print ads are driving to digital. So the origin of marketing, the origin of how you engage or make your person aware of your marketing message.
âMaybe [thereâs] one thing that may not always start digitally, but everything comes back to digital. So digital is mainstreamâŠ
âDigital marketing is now marketing, all marketing is digital. What we saw this year, this past year during the pandemic is we saw 10 years worth of growth in online sales. I mean, thatâs crazy. So what the pandemic forced, it can never take away. There are new habits. We all form new habits.
âThe first three months of COVID, 10 years of growth. Thereâs no signs of stopping. And even though the world may open back up and we may go back to some aspect of what used to be as weâre establishing our new normal, those buying trends are not going away.
âWhat we expect as consumers from even non-online businesses, those expectations will not be reduced back to pre pandemic days. All marketing is going to be digital. That is not industry specific, business model specific. That is world specific.â
MD: What is your perspective on how to really become an expert in empathetic marketing and how to truly understand your audience and build that connection? What are some of the ways they can do that?
RL: âI fully understand that a lot of marketers and a lot of ecommerce store businesses and any kind of digital marketer, thereâs a high probability that they are potentially an introvert. I get that, I can suffer from that as well.
âI can play an extrovert on TV, but at the end of the day, Iâm an introvert. And I preface this because Iâm pre-apologizing and Iâm telling the introverts out there, you can do it. Itâs okay.
âThe first step in figuring out how do you clearly articulate what your customers are saying or feeling. Whatâs the conversation that theyâre already having, whether or not youâre participating or not? She got to talk to him, you have to talk to him. And I donât mean through a phone, like 100 customer conversations. That should be your goal. When the headline on your website is just a tightened-up version of something your ideal customer has said to you 15 times or more, when their ideal customer thatâs never heard of you hits it. Itâll resonate with them.Â
âThe type of content youâre creating should just be content that would solve the problem or make the average day better of that customer youâve already talked to. You need to have real conversations with your customers to understand that pain, to understand the desires and to kind of start to walk a mile in their shoes, for lack of a better term.â
MD: From your perspective, what do you view as some of the fundamentals of good copywriting and why you think theyâre so important?
RL: âCopy is copy. [Copy] should be broken up and chunked out and copy chunks should be used to drive to two bigger copy chunks, but what I see all the time is someone pulls up Microsoft Word or a Google Doc. And instead of having a conversation like you and I are, it becomes very formal even today, even when you think, like, I donât know.
âI remember thisâll date me that I remember having to learn how to in middle in high school, write a formal letter, write a business letter. I see marketers that just revert to this tone of formal, speak in marketing messages. And that is the best way to not form a connection.Â
âSo the conversational tone is critical. I think the next step is knowing who youâre talking to. And again, if you understand that, I love what you said, that empathy or empathetic marketing. If you understand the hopes and dreams, the desires and the outcomes of your customer, and you understand the frustrations today, then thatâs step one.
âNow we have to clearly articulate those. Hereâs where youâre at and hereâs where you want to be. And here is how whatever Iâm offering you will expedite your journey there. So, so much of marketing is conversational. But itâs very clear and concise, itâs benefit-based, we start with the benefit. And I think I see in marketing people confuse features with benefits.â
MD: When it comes to graphic design and enhancing the brand experience, what do you think that brands should really focus on?
RL: âThe physical manifestation of that brand. Or physical embodiment, the human embodiment of that brand. I think everything has to be in alignment. If you look at your copy, your message has to be there. And if youâre messaging empathy and understanding, then the voice in your podcast that has to be there. The design is just a little bit deeper in, but it has to all say the same thing, like images need to represent your customerâs core desire.
âThink of the average day of your customer, today and think of the desired average day. No matter what it is, if itâs a widget, if itâs clothing, if itâs coffee does not matter, what are you selling?
âRemember, what are you marketing? Are you marketing happiness? Are you marketing luxury and [its] status, elevation, but images need to represent the before and the after.
âSo when youâre looking at your site, whether itâs a landing page or a product page, or a cart, your checkout, how are you reinforcing that message?â
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