While the current coronavirus pandemic has provided us some urgency in which we need to tweak our marketing, the fact of the matter is that anyone in charge of marketing their business always need to pivot amidst the constant change that existed before we first heard the term "COVID-19." I can't think of anyone better to help guide us through this change than Ken Fitzpatrick, CEO of the Digital Marketing Institute, who provides:
This episode is being sponsored by Freshbooks and SocialBee, who have a special campaign for listeners of this podcast. You can see their special offerings by clicking here:
Freshbooks: https://nealschaffer.com/freshbookswin
SocialBee: https://nealschaffer.com/socialbeewin
For those that want to win a copy of The Age of Influence, please make sure you send me a screenshot of your chosen review to neal@nealschaffer.com along with your mailing address.
Key Highlights
[03:49] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Ken Fitzpatrick
[07:11] Who is Ken and Digital Marketing Institute
[08:18] The Changes That COVID19 Brought To Marketing Industry
[13:33] Marketing Budget Cut
[18:12] The Important Role of Content
[19:08] The Biggest Challenge for Marketers
[21:13] Investing in Upskillinh and Rescaling
[21:37] 5 Top Areas Marketers Should Look At
[22:42] The Impact of COVID19 In Customer Experience
[25:00] How Digital Marketing Institute Tap Customer Touch Points
[31:04] The Key Areas Marketers Should Focus On
[35:14] Connect With Ken
Notable Quotes
Learn More:
While the current coronavirus pandemic has provided us some urgency in which we need to tweak our marketing, the fact of the matter is that anyone in charge of marketing their business always need to pivot amidst the constant change that existed before we first heard the term "COVID-19." I can't think of anyone better to help guide us through this change than Ken Fitzpatrick, CEO of the Digital Marketing Institute, who provides:
This episode is being sponsored by Freshbooks and SocialBee, who have a special campaign for listeners of this podcast. You can see their special offerings by clicking here:
Freshbooks: https://nealschaffer.com/freshbookswin
SocialBee: https://nealschaffer.com/socialbeewin
For those that want to win a copy of The Age of Influence, please make sure you send me a screenshot of your chosen review to neal@nealschaffer.com along with your mailing address.
Key Highlights
[03:49] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Ken Fitzpatrick
[07:11] Who is Ken and Digital Marketing Institute
[08:18] The Changes That COVID19 Brought To Marketing Industry
[13:33] Marketing Budget Cut
[18:12] The Important Role of Content
[19:08] The Biggest Challenge for Marketers
[21:13] Investing in Upskillinh and Rescaling
[21:37] 5 Top Areas Marketers Should Look At
[22:42] The Impact of COVID19 In Customer Experience
[25:00] How Digital Marketing Institute Tap Customer Touch Points
[31:04] The Key Areas Marketers Should Focus On
[35:14] Connect With Ken
Notable Quotes
Learn More:
If you are involved in the marketing of your business, the world is changing. Yes, we have the Coronavirus pandemic, but even before that the world is constantly changing. How can you keep up with those constant changes and thrive even in the current environment? We're going to talk about that today on this episode of the maximize your social influence podcast. Welcome to the maximize your social influence podcast with Neal Schaffer, where I help marketers, entrepreneurs and business owners grow their businesses using innovative marketing techniques, leveraging the concept of digital influence throughout digital and social media. Hey, everybody, Neal Schaffer here. Welcome to August, how is your summer going? This is a summer unlike any other I'm sure that you would love to go on a summer vacation. Maybe some of you are on a summer vacation. We've decided to stay safe. Although normally we would be going back to Japan over the summer. So it kind of sucks. But it also makes us appreciate everything and everyone around us and how thankful we should be for that. So before we get on to today's episode, I have a special announcement to make. Well, it's not so special. So well, you know what it is kind of special. I suppose. This episode is being sponsored by two companies, which I adore FreshBooks and social B. So I recently sponsored or I should say they recently sponsored an Instagram book giveaway that I did that some of you might have heard on this podcast, participated in won some free books. So well, it was great. Got a lot of engagement. But guess what, there's still some free books remaining. So I thought, well, Instagram is Instagram podcast is podcast, I really want to give you the opportunity to win a copy of one of these books. And interestingly enough, I am now willing because it's my podcast, I know how international my listenership I don't know if that's a word is I want to offer my free book to you, wherever you are in the world, I'm going to send it to you sign it on my dime. So my ask you knew that was coming? Right? My ask is, if you've already read the age of influence, maybe you read electronic copy, maybe you want to have another copy that you want to give a friend. Or maybe you just bought it but you want to get a signed copy because you'd like to collect sign things I don't know. But if you want to get a signed copy, all I ask and that you've read the book, and hopefully you find it recommendable that you'll post a review online. And you'll send me a screenshot of that review once it's published. Right now, if you haven't read the book, don't write a review, because that's a fake review. But instead, what I'd love for you to do is just write a real simple review of this podcast one or two sentences, just recommending it to others. If once again, you find it to be recommendable, once it gets published, just send me a screenshot either one of these these screenshots send to Neal at Neal schaffer.com. I'm gonna put it in the show notes. And as a reminder that FreshBooks is an amazing, the leading software solution for small businesses. And social B is a social media dashboard. Agora Pulse is the main dashboard that I use. But I use social media for some strategic content curation tasks. And I've yet to really publicly talk about how I use social media in conjunction with everything else I do. That's maybe for a future episode. But if you're intrigued, go into the shownotes makes you click on the links for fresh books and for social media. And there's going to be some special freebies for you. Because you're a listener of the maximize your social influence podcast, and because well, you're awesome because of that. Okay, so let's move on to the topic of today's episode. So this is going to be an interview episode. And I'm really excited to bring you the CEO of the Digital Marketing Institute. Ken Fitzpatrick. Now, if you're listening from Europe, the Middle East Africa, you've probably heard of the Digital Marketing Institute, they are out of Ireland. They are one of the leaders in providing global education for digital marketers. I know that they are also active in the United States, being that they're from Europe, that's where their initial market was. They created a Global Advisory Council, of which I'm really honored to be a member of we had our annual advisory meeting was last year actually in Chicago. Lee Odden of top ranked marketing Larry Kim of mobile monkey, you know, executives from a number of fortune 50 companies it was really honor to be together with them, but also to help them drive forward the vision and the coursework for the Digital Marketing Institute. So it can is in you know, as the CEO is in charge of delivering the latest and greatest digital marketing education to 10s of 1000s Boy, by this time, I'm sure they've been educated more than 100,000 digital marketers worldwide. So we're going to talk about navigating the marketers world of constant change. Obviously, this is even before Coronavirus. We recorded this obviously after Coronavirus, but Coronavirus just adds another dimension to this, obviously, we're going to talk about the fear of becoming irrelevant that marketers have. And if you don't have that, you should have that because that is what's going to keep you growing as a professional. And speaking of that, we're going to talk about the skill sets that marketers are going to need in the now as well as in the near future. So regardless if you're marketer or an entrepreneur or business owner, I think there's something in here for everybody. And if you're listening to my podcast, you're already investing in your education. So I think you're really going to enjoy and find insight in this podcast. So without further ado, my friend, Ken Fitzpatrick of the Digital Marketing Institute. Alright, so today, we have Ken Fitzpatrick, who is CEO of the Digital Marketing Institute. Now, some of you if you're listening to this from the United States, might not be as familiar with this institute as those in Europe, Middle East, especially those in Ireland, United Kingdom, Digital Marketing Institute is really one of the global leaders in providing digital marketing education, to professionals, students, what have you, I found out about Digital Marketing Institute because they invited me to be on the Global Advisory Council, which I'm honored to be a member of. And after I found out what they were doing, I had a chance to visit them at their headquarters in Dublin when I was teaching at the Irish Management Institute, and just a fantastic organization that is creating world class content. But really going above and beyond that, to really become a resource for enterprises that are digital marketing, talent is actually becoming harder and harder to find. So we're gonna talk about a lot of things. And Ken and I, we could talk just for like two hours about what we talked about at our last advisory meeting and the research findings, but but today, we are in the midst of COVID-19. And this does sort of change, change the rules, in many ways for companies and for marketers. But before we get to that, can I gave a brief introduction, could you please introduce yourself as well as the Digital Marketing Institute for those that are not familiar with your organization? Sure.
Ken Fitzpatrick:Thanks, Neil. Well, you gave an incredibly brilliant introduction. I don't know if I could tap that. But yes, I can. Fitzpatrick CEO of the Digital Marketing Institute, based here, in Dublin, in Ireland, where it's currently raining, which is hugely unsurprising. But DMI as we call it, is a training and certification business, for digital marketing for marketing professionals, typically who want to upskill and stay relevant in digital marketing. So we have about 75,000 members, we've we've certified over 20,000 people all over the world, over the last nine or 10 years or so, really, our focus is becoming the largest certification provider of digital marketing all over the world. So that's what we sort of spend our days trying to work out.
Neal Schaffer:Great. We've all seen with COVID-19, it's brought tremendous change to the way that businesses can communicate with, with consumers with clients, what have you. So from your perspective, and obviously seen the world of digital marketing from from where you're at? What are the changes that COVID-19 has brought about to marketing, digital marketing, that everybody listening really needs to better understand and take action on? Okay,
Ken Fitzpatrick:so the EVPs know, we actually just completed a bunch of research with our member base, because we actually wanted to find out how this was affecting them. So, you know, obviously, we're not the first people to run research in this area in the last couple of months, but, but actually, this is very specific to marketing professionals. So it's probably of interest to your listeners. So we pulled about 47,000 people, and we got just shy of about 500 responses. So it's pretty robust in terms of, I think, there's three main parts of changes that are coming out here. The first is people's personal situation, which is obviously hugely impacted from in terms of marketing professional, so 38% of the people who responded to us and had a change in their employment status of some description. And I don't mean a positive change. In most cases, that was a negative change. So 25% actually said that they were now unemployed, which is quite significant. This research was probably done about six weeks ago, nails of some of those fingers may have changed since as some economies began to emerge in the other side, but just it's a universal impact is probably the key conclusion that I took from that. And those who were still working actually have more work to do, which is also one surprising after because there's less people around there was to be able to do it because, you know, companies have let people go and the vast majority of other stuff are impacted in some way or nearly have said in a negative way that their sound. So a lot of people have had their salaries sort of frozen. But nearly half have said this, but actually the negative impact. So I think just even for a professional operating in that environment, that's tough, you know, that's a tough change, because there's a lot of uncertainty about the future, and uncertainty for people on a personal level in terms of their career. So that, for me was the first big sort of cluster of changes that we saw. The second is companies, two thirds of them said that their company's revenue was down, okay. And a third of them said that they were down more than 30%. So that's, again, a big challenge. Often people I think 92% of them said they were working from home at the time, which is, again, surprising. But dealing with that, in as a marketer is challenging, you know, what do you how do you respond to that? What's your role in trying to change that? And I think the problem when revenues fall is that the third big part of this is what happens to people spent, half of them have had their marketing budgets. So again, not hugely surprising, another 25% said, it's flat. So you're talking about three quarters of people where they may have the same, most less to spend? They did a few months ago. So is there a bright light in there? Yes, there is for the break lies is that 49% of them said that digital marketing spend, actually increased. And only 11% had said they had seen a decrease, which is I presume, people who are just so affected by COVID, that they had to make cuts everywhere. So you're seeing digital, leading the way out of the difficulties that people are facing digital leading the way in helping companies respond to a loss in revenues, and marketers having to double down on their activities in this space. So we said to them, what are you doing now? Or what's different? Or what's happened? Some trends that were happening have just now gone into hyperdrive. So what did they say was gone, or reduced? Print events, direct mail, no huge surprises, here they are. But they just they've taken a huge shift even faster in terms of of the move from there to digital. What has increased everything from email, and social to content, people said content is somewhere they've really, really focused in on very often taught leadership lead content, people said, we've got through the phase of telling everybody, we're still here. And, you know, kind of we're all in this together. And now people are trying to move to the Tory leadership position of, of saying, Well, okay, we're not just here, we're actually doing some different things at the moment. And the last piece is the website if has always been important, as we know, but it's actually becoming even more important. So it's really, for many businesses, who are physical presences. It's the only window that they have to the world now. And UX, SEO and E commerce all came up as as as items that, again, were probably important pre COVID. But I've had more money and more emphasis put on the since since the crisis happened. And those are some of the big changes that people said,
Neal Schaffer:yeah, thanks for sharing that, Ken. That's really interesting. You know, it's funny, for instance, in influencer marketing, specifically, one company that I know of, they cut 30% of their staff. They're like an influencer marketing agency. Whereas another influencer marketing tool company I talked to said their sales have never been higher. And I know that the marketers that I talked to that are, you know, obviously people that listen to this show are very involved in digital and social, they've never been busier, and they're finding new business, I know that I found new business. You know, I would tend to believe that those that were never very digitally mature, and also the industry, I assume, are probably the ones that took that took the biggest cut, whereas, you know, assuming you already had the infrastructure in place you already had, you're already selling digital products and services, or E commerce, then you're you're probably all those sales will go down. And with that, you're going to need to cut marketing budget it still becomes more it's never been as a central part of your business as it is today. Right?
Ken Fitzpatrick:100% of retail a friend of mine, who obviously had to close his outlets was online, because he had infrastructure built but they've never they've never gone to they had a website but it was never the full monty as it were. within 48 hours. He was up and running online. And as you say, although his his sales are down, he's actually bringing in income that otherwise he wouldn't be able to do. We ourselves have a lot of partners To deliver programs in the classroom, we immediately allow those customers to use our learning management system so that those programs can be delivered online. And about 30 of our partners did that. And it enabled them to keep trading through what could be a non existent commercial time for many of those with a count real Classroom program.
Neal Schaffer:And then the other interesting point you brought up, and this is, recommendations, or I should say, advice I can give you my clients is, there may be a time where you need to sort of stop, for instance, you know, advertising spend that there are some marketing expenses that I realized are being what we would call rationalized. Right? But those basics of you know, where should you invest that when you can't do events? Where should you invest that budget? I know a lot of that, from what I hear is going to influence marketing. But I'm a big fan also of that, that backbone of your company that they use or interface, you know, revision that you've been wanting to do for the last two years, right? The SEO, refined the e commerce Store, things on the back end that are only going to pay dividends, now is really the time to double down sort of like in Southern California, all these highway construction projects are, you know, steam ahead right now, because you have less cars on the road, it makes it easier to do that. Right? The infrastructure? Yeah, the fact that people were talking about that makes a lot of sense. And
Ken Fitzpatrick:people move from events to webinars almost overnight, because they, it was the only option to them. And people are comfortable webinars. And now people are saying, well, actually, you know what, I may never go back to all the events I previously had. Because these are working out for me. I think one huge thing in the middle of this deal is that the consumer behavior has changed as well. And that's the other thing that we need to be aware of. So what we're hearing is that people, consumers, particularly on the b2c side, are much more engaged, because they very often have more time on their hands. So they're spending more time researching, they're making more considered decisions, because maybe they have less money and purchasing power, they're probably a little bit more skeptical. And they've got a huge amount of choice. So items, like that's why the website is so important. That's why something like influencer, marketing is much more important. So that you can have people decide between one option rather than the other. So you're dealing with a consumer, who's now probably tougher to get over the line. And things like customer service, which you had all set up in a beautiful bay in a physical environment, they now have to be redone, in order to work in an online environment. And people who can get that stuff, right are actually with this customers who are maybe a little bit more demanding than they were in the past, that's going to be the maker break so that that reaction to the consumer behavior changes, I think, not just the platform changes is actually pretty, pretty important. It actually
Neal Schaffer:you know, in crisis is opportunity. And it actually gives tremendous opportunity to those brands that might not have been on store shelves of the big stores, because people just aren't going to those stores as much as search online for content, right or in media being influenced. And therefore that role of content and getting out there will provide opportunities for businesses, right?
Ken Fitzpatrick:I think so. And that's why I think people have moved, I think you're right, I think content has just become even more important than it was it is a proliferation of content. But companies that are moving fast, that are making decisions, rather than perfecting decisions that are getting into the midst of the new world seems to be performing better. And as you said earlier, digital is actually the shining light on this because it's it's leading the way else for many companies.
Neal Schaffer:Yeah, so all of you listening, you're obviously in a really, really good position. And even though that we talked or can talk the survey at the beginning of people losing jobs, losing, I still believe can I'm sure you'd agree that there's still a lack of really experienced in train marketers. And the demand is only going to increase with with with what we're seeing. So
Ken Fitzpatrick:I couldn't agree more do because actually, we had done quite an amount of research with marketers all over the world about a year ago. And the biggest challenge for many marketers is staying ahead of the pace of change that happens in the market, even experienced digital marketers, there's always something new, there's always a new channel, a new platform that you need to get your head around that. Gone are the days where a customer dealt with you in one way only now their touch points could be 1012 touch points that they deal with customers are much more real time than they were. And marketers have told us that staying ahead of that change is actually really important to them, not only because of the help that they give to their company, but it actually keeps them in demand at a personal level for roles. And as you say it's difficult to find those people so whoever can find to stay ahead of that change is going to be in a very, very good position, particularly as opportunities, I think, increase around the digital space, we call it the, they have their marketers have the fear, phobia fear of becoming irrelevant, because they're always afraid that they're going to fall behind the next thing. So that that's sort of staying ahead of the game or, or staying up to date that's really important than in remember research. That's why unsurprisingly, a lot of them said, Look, I'm going to use a lot of arbiters are saying, I'm going to use this crisis as a time to upskill and rescale. And take some time out to do some training and education because I know I'm in a good place here, when we, when we things get better or even now, but if I'm not sort of ahead of that, then the fear and I don't like to start with our fears too much. But that's just underneath there that just, I don't want to be the guy who doesn't know the answer to the next question, or the next thing that's happening in digital.
Neal Schaffer:So similar to companies should be investing in infrastructure. professionals should also be investment in their infrastructure, it's a great time to do that they now have that time on their hands to get up to speed on everything. Yeah. So
Ken Fitzpatrick:you're seeing a lot of online learning platforms, ourselves included, huge amount of increase in, in usage. Everything, I think, from people doing stuff, they always wanted to do on a personal level to stuff for them. So for us, I think if we were if I was to say what should you focus on in terms of those areas, CMOs tell us that there's, there's the five top areas that they think are the most important today, most important tomorrow. And the toughest to recruit for, those are the things that I think that marketers should look at. So just for your listeners, customer experience was first, which was obviously a very sort of trendy topic over the last 12 months, data and analytics was next to an interesting one, digital strategy was third, which is a little bit of a cultural. Next one was web design, optimization, and UX, that's a big area. And then content marketing was was fifth social actually came in sixth, which is, I think, more reflection of the fact that a lot of people are using social for quite a significant amount of time now. But I actually think that that's going to change again and become four. So if I'm out there, thinking, what do I need to upskill on? Those are the sort of areas I'd be thinking about?
Neal Schaffer:So those were based on the survey that we talked about? So I'm just curious, what do you think with COVID-19? What impact that's had on customer experience, for instance, when it's all digital, I mean, it's still there. But yeah,
Ken Fitzpatrick:I that's a really brilliant point there because my dishwasher is broken downstairs, right. And we've been trying to get it fixed for weeks now, which, which has resulted in all of us in the house having to wash dry dishes, which is unusual skill for my children to learn. But their problem, for example, in dealing with our query and customer service side is that they're all working at home, and they can't recover telephone calls, using the technology they have at home. So therefore, I can't speak to the customer resolutions. So it's a small example of a situation where their delivery of customer experience is poor at the moment, not necessarily due to the intention or intent of them as individuals, they want to soar to those. But because they can't record they can talk to you. And therefore, as a customer, you're feeling very frustrated. I think that's the biggest challenge is delivering customer service in an online only world is incredibly
Neal Schaffer:hurt. So I've had a similar experience or microwave oven for two weeks now. And but because this manufacturer was set up digitally, I was able to do everything online, and therefore whether it was COVID-19, or whether it was before it probably would have taken the same amount of time, it would have been the same experience. And I guess that's really the question. Obviously, the company in Ireland that you speak of hasn't been able to do that. But that's really comes down to that digital infrastructure. And obviously, we focus on the marketing side, but it comes across the entire customer journey, right. And that's the challenge. So I want to ask you, you know, you talked about the fear of being irrelevant. And so every few years, there's a new social platform, the flavor this year's tick tock, yeah. Or, Hey, we got to be doing QR codes or how does Digital Marketing Institute I guess you have a huge user base that you can tap into for their insight. How do you decide at one point, we need to include tic toc in our curriculum, or we need to do something on on this subject or that subject
Ken Fitzpatrick:There's three sources of data information there. One is the wonderful and brilliant Council and global council of advisors that we use, that is genuine, you guys tend to give us insights into what's happening. Next, we talk to the members, and we ask them what's missing. And we do that to tons and tons of customer touch points in some surveys, and so on. And then we also talk to our partners like academic partners, and training companies and corporates who we deal with to say, look, what are we missing here, what's what's what's coming up, the rule of thumb that we tend to use is that if it's brand new, and it's bright and shiny, that's great. And we'll provide membership content around that. But we probably won't test you on it until it has moved slightly more into the mainstream, where it's, it's not just 2% of companies using us, it is a bigger percentage of companies using it. And the reason for that is we provide news and we provide information for the latest things, but a marketer can only do a certain number of campaigns and approaches to its customer base over the course of a year. If you're constantly moving just to the next thing that looks kind of cool and interesting, you're actually gonna end up wasting a lot of time and effort. So we tend to provide that information in us form and then put it into the syllabus, when it's sort of reached a tipping point of being, you know, this is something that's in most companies marketing mix or marketing activities. So tick tock is definitely in there already, because it's moved so quick. But I still think tick tock is still one where people are figuring out exactly how to get the most out of it. But if you're talking about influencer and determine tick tock, those are two beautiful words right now. And that is really hitting home as particularly for targeting the younger demographic. It's, it's where it's at at the moment, and, you know, people like Charlie, Amelia, and so on. They're just what they do matters to a core demographic, typically are teenagers and the like. So I think tick tock is probably more than a fad or a phase or, you know, it's kind of moved in. But I still think the challenge there is to work, what am I going to do on tick tock that's actually going to make a difference from a business? Or should I be there in the first place? Is it actually relevant to me?
Neal Schaffer:Yeah, it's funny at Social Media Marketing World, which is the largest social media marketing conference, it was right before lockdown the first week of March. And tick tock, I'll never forget, like during one of the breakout sessions, there was like a, like a free tick tock presentation going on in this networking area. And it was just overflowing with people. And it was obviously top of mind. But can I just think, since we've been in this industry a while this historical perspective of okay, I remember when there were people saying b2b need to use Snapchat. Yeah. Or everything was about Google Plus, you just got to Google Plus, because it's Google. Yeah. MySpace? Yeah. MySpace? Exactly. So I think marketers really need to have a dose of sanity. And for those listening, I'm sure you'd agree, can it really tick tock is that if you do serve that demographic, it's obviously critical. And I would consider the Tick Tock demographic and the Snapchat demographic to be need to be very similar, although a lot of older people are, are trying to use this. And they're not using it in the way it was intended to be used. But every social network morph. So we'll see what happens. Right?
Ken Fitzpatrick:Yeah. So I think you're right, it's at the moment is for a certain demographic, something like Instagram started as a board interactive, fixed demographic, that's much more mainstream. I think a lot of brands, mainstream brands, as it were, could live on Insta quite easily. And that's, that's what if I was in a more traditional marketing role or marketing in, in an industry where I'm looking at an older demographic, I think it might offer some some interesting options for people.
Neal Schaffer:Yeah. And I see just looking at my, you know, my own children are my, you know, my test, test might or test guinea pigs, whatever you want to call them. Seeing now that will because all the parents on Instagram, I see a lot of them now actually going back to Snapchat. Because the pawprints there is never been about that. You know, you could call I've seen data that shows Snapchat as more of a mobile messaging app. And young people use Instagram the same way for the for the messaging capability. I don't think talk although I'm sure has the capability was not really it's more about the entertainment value, right? Is a distinctive differentiator.
Ken Fitzpatrick:Yes. I think you've hit the nail on the head that entertainment angle is probably the difference.
Neal Schaffer:So tick tock, influencer marketing any other things in the horizon that people listening to be?
Ken Fitzpatrick:No, I think people are busy enough getting their head around how to run their business and keep their customers happy in a pure online world, but there is a little bit of back to basics going on at the moment deal in terms of revisit my web Simply visit by SEO strategy. And I think that was the message I was hearing from other people, I was expecting to see more feedback around, say, newer platforms or whatever. But it was actually, you kind of forget that something like direct mail or printer events are still so huge for many of companies that are out there, that actually the removal of them was bigger news and moving, I get my content strategy race, or my website, right, or my email strategy, you know, an old school digital approach. But that stuff matters, particularly when, you know, you might be increasing your data capture on your website. And so what are you going to do with all these people who are now having a free trial? So I just got a sense that danger is winning. But there's a bit of digital back to basics kind of gold, as well.
Neal Schaffer:So looking forward, we already talked about that survey with, you know, customer experience, digital strategy, what have you looking forward as to the skillsets, that marketers or for you know, there's always a contingent of entrepreneurs and business owners that listen to this podcast as well. So looking forward, what are those key areas that visa V digital marketing that our listeners should be focusing on? You think?
Ken Fitzpatrick:Yeah, I think the ones I mentioned are, they're probably the ones that are on top of Clos minds. And if they're on top of CMOS mindset, they're probably driving the change. I look, I'm slightly biased in the sense that we generally we provide both specialized but kind of general digital marketing training. And I always think a good place to start, even if you're working in digital marketing, which none of our students members do, having a broad brush view and knowledge of digital as a whole is actually really critical. So, you know, you don't want to be the Tick Tock specialist, and that you know, in a company, and then they decided to use a different platform. So I would actually say they are just again, given the current climate, then they're getting that broad across social across analytics across SEO, across PPC, the typical sort of traditional things, and influencer marketing. That's the best way to approach it right now. And don't pigeonhole yourself into an area until you feel actions, you know, what I really want to do CX, I think this is gonna, so yes, the analytics, website optimization, the things I talked about earlier, they're in most demand. But I think having a broad base and actually Nielsen silanis scope, DMI has done a deal with the American Marketing Association. So if you study our core DMA pro program, you actually you do one course you do one test, and you get a cert from us and again, served from the American Marketing Association. So I think that's a good thing for people to tag on to their resume in these tough times.
Neal Schaffer:Oh, that's fantastic news. Congratulations. Thanks for that. It's funny, I mean, just getting back to basics. I see so much email marketing, communication from companies that never sent me an email before. And in fact, I've done a series of webinars, I've probably been a dozen or so webinars since the lockdown started. I think the most popular one in terms of numbers of attendees, as well as number of clicks was on one on email marketing and lead magnets, right. So there's something to be said, for getting back to basics and making sure you have all your bases covered. Because these are all the different digital touchpoints. I mean, the way I look at it, can I really simplify like, Okay, if you need to have a digital first mindset with your marketing, what are people doing digitally? When they're online? Well, they're either searching, they're reading email, and yes, they may be looking at their texts. But because they're at home, there's probably more email reading going. On there. They're in social media, right? And, and you have all those bases covered. And obviously search, it brings up SEO, it brings up content and brings up Pay Per Click things that you know, they're not sexy, but it's a critical touch point that you can't ignore. Yeah,
Ken Fitzpatrick:like we're in our space, the search volumes have gone up for certain terms anywhere from 23% to 80%. So if you're not present in that activity, you're in difficulties. I'm sure some of your platforms usage has gone through the roof as well. And I don't know the exact figures. And then as you say, email, there's just and there's so there's still quite a lot of or email communication on personalized or just the same thing over and over again. And I think people have an opportunity to think Hang on, I need to tell I've got an opportunity to talk to these customers not just cut a shout out. Because they're now taking the time to read my emails, probably more than they did in the past. So if I had that customer sitting in front of me in in their living room, what would I say to them, and I think you know that people need to think about their emails. They've got pots and pans typically, of leads or databases. Let's revisit it. An email doesn't have to be just boring. It can be nice and interactive. They can bring you to the right place and the landing pages can be cool. And you can have nice messaging and give people stuff and you can Bring influencers in on your landing pages and so on. So it can be brought to life
Neal Schaffer:as well. Yeah. And the technology with marketing automation, that technology exists for personalization at scale, right? And really leveraging that data for a lot of different reasons. So awesome. So Ken, for those listeners that want to find out more about the Digital Marketing Institute, what would be the best way to to find out about the organization or give it a test Ben,
Ken Fitzpatrick:so you can come to our show? No. You can visit the website, which is the longest URL in the world, which is Digital Marketing Institute calm. And you'll find out all of the options we have for people right there. So I've been preaching about the website being the most important vehicle for a company. So all your listeners can come along and challenge our website and tell us how we can improve and find out information there.
Neal Schaffer:But correct me for my Didn't you do a complete revamp of the website? Like?
Ken Fitzpatrick:Yeah, we did the beautiful website, and that's why I'm happy to give them to you.
Neal Schaffer:And the URL has all those keywords for good SEO
Ken Fitzpatrick:correct with so there is that benefit? It's not as sexy as you say. But it does work.
Neal Schaffer:It works. Awesome. Well, Ken, thank you so much for being on the podcast, any last minute advice for the listeners? Any points, you want to make sure people are aware of going forward?
Ken Fitzpatrick:I think we've covered everything. And I've really enjoyed our discussion. And I hope people get something out of the chat that we've had for some people in an opportunistic times.
Neal Schaffer:I believe so as well. I know we started off on extremely negative news.
Ken Fitzpatrick:Yeah, no, sorry. I didn't mean to bring us down. But I remember the first two weeks in March and I saw I was looking at traffic to the website. It was just down at the lowest level for ages. And then from then on. After two weeks, I think we get into opportunity mode and we've seen a great increase in our businesses.
Neal Schaffer:Yeah, that's excellent. All right. Thank you for listening. Thank you can definitely check out Digital Marketing Institute comm we'll have that you're on the show notes for the poor spellers that might be listening. And again for being on the podcast, and everybody have a great day. Bye bye. I thoroughly hope you enjoyed that episode with Ken. He's really a great guy. And I really love what the Digital Marketing Institute is doing, actually had a chance to visit their headquarters. When I taught at the Irish Management Institute late last year, they're really a great group of people located near Dublin, which is an additional benefit if you love Ireland as much as I do. So hope you enjoyed that. And as a reminder, I don't do these like book giveaways forever. As you've probably heard me mentioned in earlier podcast, this is part of my leave no stone unturned approach of doing everything I can so that this new Baby of mine called the age of influence has the chance to be seen and by and be read by as many of those that it will help including those fans of mine, regardless of what medium you're consuming my content in. So I'm not going to do these like forever. This is really a great chance if you haven't picked up a copy, I urge you to just write that review on your favorite podcast app and send me the screenshot we'll get you hooked up. But like I said, previous giveaways have been limited to the United States. This one I'm going to do Worldwide there are limited copies. So when the copies run out, they run out so make sure you act earlier rather than later. If you really want to make sure you get a copy for yourself or if you already read the book you want to recommend it and send it to others just let me know who you want to send it to. I'll send it to them with a little note from you signed by me. All I want you to do is just write that review for me see you helped me and I will do my best to help you. Alright everybody. As always, I really appreciate your being a subscriber the comments you let me know in social media about how this podcast has impacted you. I am fully invested in giving you more and more great information. We still got some great interviews lined up and hey, my solo episodes hopefully you enjoy those as well. So make sure you hit that subscribe button regardless of what podcast listening application you're on. And wherever in the world. You know, I don't even want to edit that wherever you are. I get so excited. I trip over my own words. We're everywhere in the world. Make it a great virtual social day. Stay safe, everybody. Until next week.
Unknown:Bye bye