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Author: Tyler Hayzlett

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Best Practices Marketing Personal Development

How to Start a Successful Podcast For Your Business

The Complete Guide to Launch a B2B Podcast

 

 

The old way of marketing is dead…

Gone are the days of hassling people and interrupting them, it’s far too easy for consumers today to ignore us. Let’s change that. Me and you. Right now.

Rather than interrupting the content people want to consume, create the content people want to consume!

With over a hundred million people tuning into podcasts, businesses are finding a creative new way to tap into that growth.

Which is pretty cool…

 

3 Reasons Why You Should Start a Podcast

There are  3 major reasons that are not exactly obvious for starting a podcast. I’ve listed them for you here.

 

 

1. Stop Creating Content That Sucks

Does the world need more content? Hell no! It needs better content that people actually like.

The B2B world is way behind B2C in that way.

But we’re coming for you B2C…

 

Avoid Marketing Myopia:

In 1960 Theodor Levitt, literally wrote the book on marketing in his book Marketing Myopia. You can read more about that in this Harvard Business Review article.  He explains historically how nearly every business and industry becomes obsolete and how to avoid it.

 

Stop Creating Content Like Everyone Else:

Levitt described that  the railroad industry didn’t decline because airplanes and automobiles commoditized the transportation market.

They lost market share because they thought of themselves as being in the railroad business instead of the transportation business.

They focused more on selling than marketing to the consumer what they wanted.

 

We’re All in the Media Business Now!

Today, when consumers consume limitless amounts of content, on their own terms and devices, the battle for their attention has now become the obstacle.

Companies have recognized these developments overtime and are reaching to the same conclusion.

We’re now all in the media business, we just happen to be selling services.

 

Marketing Myopia is Happening Everyday to B2B Brands

In the internet age we are living through a literal communication revolution and most of us are still marketing the same old boring way we did 10 years ago.

Take advantage of new media! The way people prefer to access the information they want.

 

2. Content Is King

The phrase “content is king” came from Bill Gates in 1996 when he published this article on Microsoft’s website explaining that content is where he expected much of the wealth would be generated on the internet.

The brands that develop the most relevant content to help the audience they serve will rise to the top in today’s digital internet chessboard.

On the internet, content is like real estate.

The more you create, the more chances people have of discovering what you’re up to.

 

 

3. Amplify Your Brand

Your brand is your business reputation.

What better way to build your reputation for creating insanely useful content to help people achieve the results they want?

On a platform that has the potential to reach millions of people to stream and share it is pretty high up there on the awesome scale.

 

 

Connect With More People!

Did you know that the average adult consumes over 11 hours of media content? EVERY. SINGLE. DAY! 

People are constantly seeking answers or solutions. Podcasting is a perfect media to connect with them.

Launching a podcast will help you take advantage of one of the largest growing media platforms online to connect with more people and amplify your mission.

 

 

 

Take a Look at These Numbers:

  • 40% of small business owners listen to podcasts
  • 72% of owners with between 100-500 employees do, too!
  • 70 million active listeners. EVERY. SINGLE. WEEK
  • Along with another 118 million that tune in monthly

 

 

Teach Your Niche To People Searching How to Get S@$# Done!

Podcasts are so popular because it’s an easy-to-consume format for both business and personal topics.

Listeners can take it with them from the car to home or to the the office without missing a single second.

People listen to podcasts to learn new “how-to” content like growth tactics for their business and to get inspired by interviews to get better informed on specific topics.

By providing more content to educate and inform your industry you instantly create more value to it.

 

 

Create educational content to add value to the audience you aim to serve.

Determine A Goal For Your Audience

Focus your topic on an outcome you want for your audience.

Where are they stuck and what content can you share on a consistent basis to help them achieve the results they want faster?

By concentrating on the outcome you want for your audience and the obstacles that will get in their way – will act as your “northern star” to keep you focused on what content to create.

 

Some Essentials You Need to Get Started

Podcast Show Art

Now that you’ve decided on your content you need to actually set up your podcast.

First things first, every podcast needs show art.

Just like record labels and CDs, Podcasts require show art too.

 

 

There’s 3 Ways To Create Your Show Art…

Whether you want to go through the set up process on your own our hire it out there’s 3 easy paths to choose from.

 

Do it yourself (ie. FREE)

The cheapest route to design your own cover art on a budget is to go to Canva.com and search Podcast in the search bar (I did it for you click here).

Choose a template you like and just edit the background and text. Then download to export.

Then save it for when we create and add your show to a podcast directory section.

 

 

Hire a Freelancer

If you don’t want to waste time creating your own show art a faster option is to hire a freelancer.

There’s a million out there, the easiest is to find on Fiverr.com and search “podcast cover art” (I did it for you click here).

You’ll pay anywhere from $20-$100 for someone to create your graphics for you. But you will need to manage the process and provide the vision, copy, and edit suggestions.

 

 

FIVERR Buyers Be Warned!

Fiverr is an amazing platform to get graphics done but it can be a total crap shoot with regards to quality.

Most Fiverr designers are just updating a template or two they have pre designed and results vary greatly on the designer.

Expect to hire multiple jobs before landing on one you actually love.

To get the best results hire a designer based that has a 5 star rating with a high number of reviews like this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Can’t Someone Just Do This Stuff For Me?

The fastest and easiest path to getting started podcasting is to outsource the startup work to an agency to set up your show art and intro music with voice over talent done for you.

Some agencies can even edit your show, enable hosting and advertising (more on this in a bit).

Head over to C-Suite.media to learn more on available done for you services.

 

I Want to Podcast But Don’t Want to Set it Up! (CLICK HERE)

 

Set Up A Hosting Platform

Intro to RSS Feeds:

In technical terms a podcast is nothing more than a string of audio files connected by an RSS feed that allows any user to subscribe to the show and receive notifications that a new episode is available.

Think of it as a blog, only with your voice…

While the RSS feed may be unfamiliar and sound complicated to build, it’s not. That’s where the hosting platform comes in.

The hosting platform will set the RSS feed with subscription capability for you.

Anyone who subscribes to your feed will automatically receive notifications when new episodes are available to download.

 

Don’t Overthink the Hosting

When it comes down to core functionality of hosting platforms, they are the same, podcasters upload audio episodes to hosting platforms so that subscribers get notifications of new episodes.

The differentiator between podcast hosting platforms comes down to support, storage, and integrations.

Also, don’t stress too much about your hosting, it’s possible to change hosts even after you have launched.

We use Megaphone for our podcasters. It’s easy to use and lets our team set ad spots on behalf of the shows we represent.

 

Here’s The Catch About Hosting!

Before you choose your hosting provider there are a couple things to know.

Especially if you want the option for integrating ads to monetize your podcast down the road as your podcast audience grows.

If you don’t care about advertising integrations, then any podcast hosting platform will work.

 

Here’s a list of the most popular to ones choose from.

 

 

If you are considering advertising on your show or want to build programmatic ad capabilities into your podcast down the road, there are a few things you’ll need to know before choosing your hosting platform.

Which brings us to how podcast advertising works.

 

How Podcast Advertising Works!

Before we talk about advertising there’s something we need to be upfront about.

Despite what anyone else might tell you, from our experience, you shouldn’t get into podcasting for the sole purpose of making money.

In fact, it’s hard to do  and it takes a lot of time and energy.

 

What Podcasting Really Is:

Podcasting is an amazing marketing and communications tool first and foremost.

Think of podcasting as a great tool to share your message to the most people.

 

How Podcasts Actually Make Money

Podcasting is a lot of work and integrating sponsors and ads is an optional way to recoup your time and efforts only when and after you create a powerful audience.

Right now the average CPM for podcast ads for a business audience is around $20-$70.

$50-$70 for live read-ins from what we have experienced in selling.

 

 

How to Project Ad Revenue?

Getting paid on ads is based on a CPM bases (or cost per thousand downloads).

The ad payouts are directly tied to the number of downloads your show has per month.

There are also a number of additional variables such as the number of ad spots defined on your show and the ability to fill your ad inventory.

 

How to Calculate Podcast Advertising Revenue?

Here’s how it works…

 

A Simple Breakdown How CPMs Work

Let’s say you set or defines 3 ads spots per show (1 pre-roll and 2mid-rolls). So if your selling ads at a $30 dollar CPM that’s $30/1000 downloads per ad spot.

If your episodes downloads are up to 20,000 that would work out to:

$30.00 x 20 = $600 per ad spot x 3 spots= $1,800/Episode.

Assuming you do 4 episodes per month your total monthly revenue could be worth= $7,200/Month.

On a $20cpm @ 3 spots is $60/1000 downloads.

60.00 x 20 = $1200/Episode.

 

 

Revenue Summary:

When looking at the numbers you can see why some shows start to do 1 show a week or even daily instead of a month to increase ad spot volume.

But again all of this only happens if you can actually fill your ad inventory.

You also need to be producing a show that has a significant audience size in order to generate any ad revenue on your show.

If you work with an agency (which almost everyone with a large audience does) you’ll also have to factor in the commission % the agency will require to compensate their efforts to sell your ad spots so take the above projections with that in mind.

 

Why Work With An Agency?

Podcasting can become a full time job to find guests, prep shows, record, edit episodes, and then promoting the show as you are ultimately responsible for your own growth.

Finding advertisers and negotiating media buys for ad placements is another full time job in and of itself and one frankly, most podcasters don’t want to get stuck in the middle of managing.

 

 

How Does the Advertising Process Actually Work Though?

For most podcasters, it’s the wild west with regards to advertising.

 

It’s Pretty Much Agency Dominated

Most podcast ads get negotiated by podcast advertising agencies that negotiate pre-roll, mid-roll, and post-roll advertisements to be inserted as either live read ins.

 

Live Read Versus Programatic?

Live reads are where the host reads the ad live in the show based on a provided script.

Programmatic ads are automated ads that pause the show for a quick ad (like Hulu and Youtube experience but for audio).

 

 

To be represented by an agency to do live read-ins, the rough rule of thumb is that you need to be at about 50k downloads per episode.

So for most niche b2b podcasts we are left in the dark for live read-ins, which leaves programmatic ads as the default if you want to monetize your podcast with ad integrations.

 

Programatic Ad Supported Hosting Options:

2 Options to Consider:

Megaphone and soon to be Libsyn are the 2 hosting providers that have programatic ad enabled options.

Libsyn is currently in the process of acquiring Advertise Cast to offer programmatic ads to be placed on hosted shows. By the time you’re reading this – this feature will likely be in place.

These are the 2 main podcast hosting sites that have built-in programmatic ads for brands to go in and automatically schedule ads to be run on any show that contains the audience demographic they want to feature their ads against.

 

Hosting Summary:

Whether you go through Libsyn or Megaphone your still operating on your own to find, negotiate, and fulfill advertising contracts as both programmatic options will only fill a certain % of your overall inventory without a designated sales team actively selling and negotiating contracts for their network.

Which again, leads us to a third and more comprehensive option done for you.

 

C-Suite Radio

Before reading on, NOTE: I’m the CMO of The Network that owns C-Suite Radio so I am incredibly biased to tell you how wonderful of an option this is. Not just because I see everyday, how awesome it is, but because I’m also paid to tell you so.

Disclosure aside, let me tell you why you should consider it for your B2B podcast.

 

C-Suite Radio Was Built For B2B Podcasters, By B2B Podcasters

C-Suite Radio is a designated network that caters to business podcasters.

Because at the end the day you have a business to run, and you can let us do the heavy lifting when it comes to getting set up, helping you get your show on directories, and our dedicated team helps sell advertising  and technical support so you don’t have to spin your wheels when growing your podcast audience.

 

 

Learn more about “Done For You” podcast services Here

 

How to Get Your Podcast on Directories?

Podcast Directories are where most people go to download podcasts.

It’s like the movie theater for movies. Distribute your podcast where people are already going to discover and find new shows.

 

 

Podcast Directory Instructions:

Right now, Apple Podcasts is the goliath in the podcast industry, stitcher comes in second there are a handful of others that make sense to get listed in as well.

If you want a detailed description of how to get listed in each one and links for where to submit your show, CLICK HERE and follow the instructions with links for where to submit your RSS feed.

All you’ll need is to copy and paste your RSS feed in the instructions in the link and wait for your podcast to get approved and voila – your show will appear in all of the major places people are already searching for amazing new podcast content like this:

 

 

 

Booking Guests:

Reaching out to potential guests can feel like an intimidating task in the beginning but think of it from the guest’s point of view.

They are being asked to talk about their business and are looking at it like a media opportunity.

You may be surprised how many doors open up and how receptive people are to being featured as a guest on your podcast.

 

 

Download our Free Podcast Booking Letter: CLICK HERE

Click the link and download the same letter we use that have booked guests like Arianna Huffington, Seth Godin, Pierce Morgan, General Wesley Clark and many others.

 

Podcast Marketing 101

If you’re interested in some simple tips to promoting your podcast check out The 9 Tactics Podcast Experts Use to Grow Their Audience.

Podcasting has been a great way for us to connect with tens thousands of people on our company podcast.

The shows on our network reach millions collectively.

Podcasting is definitely a great way to take advantage of emerging media for businesses that are willing to invest in the time and effort to grow their audience.

 

PS. If you need more information or have questions on getting started feel free to contact me at C-Suite.media.

P.S.S.  Go kick some butt!

 

For more information visit tylerhayzlett.com

Categories
Best Practices Marketing Personal Development

Marketing Has a Marketing Problem…

MARKETING HAS A MARKETING PROBLEM

Don’t Make These Common Mistakes

 

How to Attract Customers Today?

Right now, EVERY business is wondering how to reach customers to grow their business. And how to build and attract an audience of loyal customers and fans online? It has become the biggest marketing problem every business is dealing with.

One of the greatest challenges we all face today is our ability to stay relevant to the audience we want to reach. If we’re not relevant, our customers will ultimately find a business that is. In the digital age, creating a strategy to build an audience and engage customers online has become the core business challenge. What’s worse, is that most of us are failing at it.

To become the leading voice in our fields, we’re being told to create content and marketing assets to get our message out: pay for ads, write books, start podcasts, become speakers, publish blogs, create videos, blast email campaigns, create social accounts and YouTube channels. So we are, but the truth is, so far, according to recent reports, it isn’t working that well.

  • 94% of B2B businesses claim to be doing content marketing
  • only 9% rate their efforts as highly effective

While we’ve all been taking steps in the right direction, our marketing efforts over the past decade have been more reactionary attempts that lack a clear approach to attract the audience we really need.  Until now…

Up until the digital age, competition consisted of only three differentials:

  • Speed
  • Quality
  • Price

 

Where Was This in the SWOT Analysis?

But now, that’s all changed. Business leaders today have the added pressure of answering not only why a customer should simply buy from them versus their competitor, but also why people should like and follow them to consume their content.

 

 

Businesses today are not just brick-and-mortar stores anymore. We’re digital networks focused on common goals, values, and beliefs.

Today, the primary currency in business is our ability to create awareness for the problems we solve for customers. The question is “How?”

 

Produce Content THEY Actually Want

As trivial as it may sound it’s surprising how many businesses produce content that lacks focus on the customer’s interests.

Whether we like it or not, we’re all part of the media landscape which makes us media companies. Even if you don’t want to accept the responsibility, the writing is on the wall.

“The customer comes first.” How many times have you heard that? But when was the last time you applied this “rule” to your marketing? When you think more like a media company rather than an advertiser, you give your customers the content they want.

 

Put your customer at the heart of your strategy by creating an inbound audience that comes to you by providing quality content that adds value to the situation they face.

 

The Customer Is in Control. Not You!

Mike Volpe was the original CMO of HubSpot, a leading tech platform for marketers. He had been with HubSpot since he was their fifth employee. Volpe helped scale the company from 12 beta users to 1,000 employees generating $150M in revenue with a successful IPO leading to a $1.78 market cap. Today, they’re valued at over $500M.

How did they do it?

In part, they created content to attract and add value to their ideal client marketing companies. Mike focused on creating content to help other marketers be successful. By teaching potential customers how to be impactful in their messaging and marketing strategies, HubSpot became a tool, or resource, for best marketing practices taught by HubSpot.

“You don’t want to interrupt the content that people are trying to consume but be that content they want to consume. The buyer is in control, but you’re still marketing as if that’s not true.” – Mike Volpe

Another way of thinking about Mike’s lesson is to stop creating content that is less about promoting a product and more about respecting your audience by finding out what their interests are and acknowledging them

 

Buyers Consume Information. Give it to Them!

If you weren’t reading this right now, you’d be consuming information somewhere else. Do you know how much time the average person is consuming information online today?

Over 11 hours each day — that’s how much time. US adults are spending more than 11 hours a day on average, or about two-thirds of their waking time, consuming media information.

Customers now have a new level of control over how, when, and where we’re permitted to attract their attention.

Companies that put out 16 or more posts a month receive 3.5 times more traffic to their website than companies that post four or fewer posts per month. According to the Content Marketing Institute, content marketing attracts three times the number of leads than outbound marketing and costs 62% less. Small businesses with blogs get 126% more lead growth than businesses without them.

 

 

Help Them Reach Their Goals Faster

The truth is marketers have become more fixated on HOW to promote than WHAT consumers actually want or care about.

Ask most people what they think about marketing, and they will tell you it’s an ad or some form of promotion. Marketing has a marketing problem. In the real world, marketing is just the process of building relationships and satisfying customers. Customers who understand their buying power know they have many options.

The brands that win more customers are the ones who put their customers ahead of their desire to sell more stuff.

The core of the human experience is looking for solutions we need and those in which we feel we belong. People want to feel that they’re getting closer to the goals they have set out to achieve on their journey.

Which passion are you sharing with them in this journey? What journey or goal are you ultimately looking to connect and achieve with your audience?

 

Bring People Together

We join tribes to surround ourselves with people who share the same journey and want the same outcomes. Our tribes bring us together around a common goal. So, build one. Whether it’s politics, religion, national identity or a brand, people are hungry to define who they are and what they want.

We join communities and clubs to find other people who are like us.

We do business with brands that “get us” and who understand what really drives us forward. This is why the largest, most successful brands think of themselves and communicate as “movements” instead of products and services.

 

 

 

Isn’t There Already Too Much Content Out There?

A surprising 84% of people actually expect and want brands to create more content for them!

Unfortunately, our attempts are letting consumers down in a big way, especially considering 60% of branded content is reported as poor, irrelevant, and fails to deliver. That’s a massive gap in consumer expectations and what we’re delivering against so far!

Most businesses produce content to fill sales quotas rather than produce content designed to inform, delight, or entertain audiences.

Instead of promoting and floundering like every other business, we now have the opportunity to publish information people actually look forward to learning and enjoying. Whether through articles, videos, or podcasts, we can publish content designed to help our audience achieve the results they desire.

 

Today, business leaders are learning that most businesses fail because they fail to capture the attention of the customers they really want.

Grow your results faster with a few of these tips to avoid the same marketing problems your competitors do.

PS. If you found this article helpful, you may want to learn why Content Marketing is the Only Skill You Really Need!

 

For more information visit tylerhayzlett.com

Categories
Best Practices Marketing Personal Development

What Does “Content is King” Really Mean?

What Does “Content is King” Actually Mean?

The origin story of where the phrase, “Content is King”, was born

 

 

No doubt you’ve heard it before, if not a thousand times, that content is king. Likely from someone with a background in marketing.

But what does it mean exactly? Where did it come from?

The origin of the phrase, “content is king” came from a very original source from a very recognizable person of interest.

 

Content is King Microsoft Essay. 1996

In 1996 Bill Gates published an essay titled, “Content is King” on the first page of Microsoft’s website.

In Nostradamus like fashion, Bill Gates predicted that the future of those who succeed (at the time and still to this day) on the internet was based on one singular ability; one’s capacity to create content to inform, educate, or entertain people online.

 

 

Summary of “Content is King”:

The context of the phrase can be summarized in the following excerpt; (or you can read the entire essay here for further context).

“Content is where I expect much of the real money will be made on the Internet  –  just as it was in broadcasting.”

… the broad opportunities for most companies involve supplying information or entertainment. No company is too small to participate.

I expect societies will see intense competition-and ample failure as well as success-in all categories of popular content.

Those who succeed will propel the Internet forward as a marketplace of ideas, experiences, and products – a marketplace of content.”

 

Fast Forward to Now…

You can’t escape a conversation today with anyone in marketing without hearing the word content.  Create more content!

Gary Vaynerchuck, CEO and founder of VaynerMedia is internet famous for encouraging businesses to create over a hundred pieces of content a day!

 

Why is it so important to create content?

 

What Does This Mean For Me?

Because Gary’s right, just like Bill Gates was before him and countless others saying the same thing. Those who create the most content win.

Content is the internet’s equivalent to real estate. The more you create, the more you own. The more of the internet you own the more you have a chance of people landing on your “Boardwalk” and actually paying you rent in the equivalent of discovering your services and doing business with you.

 

We’re All in the Media Business Now

In 2006, Conde Naste purchased Wired Magazine  for $25 million.

Later that year, one of the original founders, John Battele, was recognized as being one of the first media moguls to point out the fact, that for the first time in history, there’s absolutely nothing stopping brands from becoming media companies by producing content for the audiences they serve.

 

Think of Yourself Like a Media Company

In the past, brands had to pay publishers, like Wired and others, to advertise to a specific audience they wanted to reach in THEIR industry publications, magazines, newspapers, TV programs, and trade shows.

In the past, we had to rent consumer attention from publishers, but today, we can own it. For free. Now, the long game is building a digital audience for our businesses.

  • Today, we can build an online following of people who share similar interests and passions.
  • Today, there’s nothing stopping us from becoming the publishers for the audiences we aim to serve.

And all of that starts by creating valuable, contextual, and sharable content. That’s why it remains the proverbial king of the internet jungle.

P.S. Shout out to Gary Vee, the master of content. Find more about him here.

P.S.S. If you enjoyed this article on the origin of where the phrase Content is King came from. Learn why content marketing is the only skill you really need.

 

For more information visit tylerhayzlett.com

Categories
Best Practices Biography and History Management Marketing Personal Development

C-Suite Case Study: The Making of the Yeti Cooler Brand

The story of the notorious Yeti cooler started in 2006, when two dreamers turned what was once a boring consumer product into an iconic American lifestyle brand beloved by outdoor adventurers, tailgaters, bull riders, beach bums, and novelty hunters across the nation.

The company more recently went public in 2018 and is currently valued at $4.3 billion dollars with sales expected to reach $900 million by the end of 2020. Yeti is living proof that innovation can be developed even in one of the most unlikely commodity markets.

But how did that happen? I mean, to be fair, this isn’t the next silicon valley tech start up, it’s a cooler designed to keep you beer colder for longer…

They took a product category that nobody was thinking about innovating since Igloo put wheels on a cooler in the 1990s. More to the point the company successfully transformed the icebox into a coveted lifestyle brand.

That’s an impressive undertaking even for a well-established business with access to unlimited resources, funding, and marketing experience. But the Yeti Cooler brand was born from a series of homemade paper drawings, a personal need, and an unwavering determination to create something the founders wanted for their own hobby.

Here is the story of how two brothers from Austin Texas started a cooler company out of their dad’s garage and turned  what was once a low-end commodity into a high-priced, high-end, globally recognized brand.

 

Two Brothers, a Passion, and a Problem:

Ryan and Roy Seiders, spent their entire childhood making memories in the outdoors. Their passion for the outdoors was infused with business potential when their father Roger Seiders, quit his job as a teacher and turned entrepreneur decades ago after he designed a fishing rod epoxy called Flex Coat he has been selling since 1977. The brothers got to see up close how to take risks and turn a personal interest into a business by finding a gap in a market by creating a solution to a common problem.

After graduating college, the boys set out to follow the familiar footsteps of their father. They attempted to start a series of businesses ideas of their own. Ryan tried his hand at building a custom-fishing-rod business and Roy began building modified fishing boats for anglers, specifically those targeting redfish in the shallow, hot, coastal waters off the Gulf of Mexico.

 

Neither venture was a success by their own admission, but it was their first dip into the waters of entrepreneurship. Like thousands of entrepreneurs before them, they sought out to solve a problem for the customers they served until one problem presented a unique and unexpected window of opportunity for the duo.

The first hint of Yeti began when Roy was customizing fishing boats for his clients. A challenge emerged when Roy was tasked with determining the best spot to put a cooler on his clients’ fishing boats that had very limited  storage space. He knew that many fishermen (himself included) liked to stand on their coolers while casting, but the conventional cheap plastic models would buckle under their body weight, ultimately getting damaged or completely ruined.

Not satisfied with the available coolers on the market, Roy enlisted the help of his brother Ryan to help identify a more durable cooler for the custom boats at the outdoor trade shows they frequented.

Their agenda was pretty straight forward. They set out to locate a heavy-duty cooler to purchase for the custom fishing boats they were selling. Only to find, there wasn’t one. They needed a cooler strong enough that their clients could confidently stand on, that would also stay cold in the hot southern coastal temperatures.

 

An Idea Emerged:

The  coolers available just weren’t up to the outdoor adventures the brothers were experiencing with their friends and clients. Not only did the cheap lids cave in, the handles would break, and the latches would frequently snap off due to the heavy weight of the ice and cargo. Forcing them and their clients to replace their portable coolers after every fishing season.  It was out of this frustration that encouraged them to solve the problem on their own.

The idea of the YETI coolers was founded by the Seiders brothers: two outdoorsmen who needed a solid, durable cooler that could also keep their catch, kills, and beverages cold for a longer period of time in the hot Texas heat.

On a Mission:

They quickly dismissed the popular idea that coolers should be cheap and affordable. Instead they turned their attention on building an indestructible cooler built for serious outdoor performance.

As their website states, they decided early on that product innovation would have to come from a place of necessity and firsthand experience. Not relying on market research and data analysis.

The mission statement for the emerging company was founded on the belief that life is about having a good time doing what you love. And for the Seiders brothers, that was getting primal in the outdoors hunting whitetail, catching fish, and spending time with family and friends making lifelong memories.

“We’re wild at heart. So our coolers couldn’t be anything less.”

– Yeti Coolers

 

Reinventing the Wheel:

While attending trade shows looking for inspiration, Ryan stumbled across a rugged cooler model from Thailand, and the brothers set up a business to distribute their coolers for a short-lived time.

But eventually they found, the product just wasn’t what they were ultimately hoping for. While at the time, it was the best cooler out there, the product quality wasn’t up to their standards, and the brothers weren’t in love with the design either. They traveled to Thailand to meet face-to-face with the manufacturer to suggest changes only to discover the manufacturer couldn’t actually fulfill on their specific expectations.

Ryan and Roy took more steps to realize the product they envisioned. They mocked up their own handmade drawings with specs and soon found a manufacturer in the Philippines who was willing to try their ideas and provide them with a working prototype. The game was on. But they needed seed capital they didn’t have to build the initial proof of concept model.

To help fund the idea, Ryan sold his fishing rod business, and the brothers pooled what little money they had to cover the cost of the initial prototype and tooling.

 

The New & Improved Yeti Design:

The YETI shell is made from a common plastic material called polyethylene in a plastic manufacturing process referred to as roto-molding, that infuses high temperature and low pressure to create one piece of solid piece of plastic molding. It’s the same process used to create durable kayaks, eliminating any seams and joints making them stronger and more insulated.

By making one solid plastic case equates to higher plastic strength integrity and allowed less cold air to escape the seams. The shell walls were additionally injected with 3 inches of industrial strength foam and they installed a freezer quality rubber gasket sealer found in high-end refrigerators to make the lid air tight.

The solid design, combined with the depth of the insulated walls, insured the cooler’s contents would stay frozen longer.

With their protoype nailed solid they had to focus on selling the product to regain their initial capital investment.

 

Paving a New Path to Distribution:

They soon realized they would have to sell their product for $300 apiece for their smallest model in order to cover the costs of the premium design. They understood what they were up against from a retail perspective from the start. Yeti couldn’t focus on high volume sales through traditional retail distribution in the beginning. Instead they went after a niche clientele willing to pay top dollar for a quality product.

YETI didn’t try to compete with traditional retail’s cheap $30 coolers available at big box retailers like Target and Walmart. Instead they focused their efforts on specialty sporting goods stores and targeted the outdoor trade shows they were familiar with attending. It was here, in their familiar outdoor network where they could attempt to capture the attention of their primary audience. The goal was to get the buy-in from hunting and fishing guides to build Yeti’s grassroots reputation.

In addition to outdoor tradeshows, they spent their early days cold calling local hardware stores, tackle shops, and small outdoor retail owners offering them a new value proposition: Why waste your time selling a $30 cooler only retain a $5 margin? When you can sell their premium $300 cooler and keep $100? The grass roots approach slowly made progress but it wasn’t an overnight success.

Growing Pains:

The brothers launched Yeti in 2006. Sales reached $5M by 2009, and by 2011 they were pulling in an impressive $29 million which would earn the company its third consecutive appearance on the Inc. 5000 listing for their explosive growth.

They started hitting their stride when they finally broke through to premium outfitters like Bass Pro Shops and other specialty retailers. But that win brought them a whole new set of problems. The coolers were flying off the shelves faster than they could meet the production demand. Yeti ran into a major supply chain obstacle. They were selling more coolers than their suppliers could build on time. The Seiders’ needed to outsource help, fast, and the brothers proved their resourcefulness once again.

 

Private Equity Partnership:

They were now in a dead sprint to find a partner to help them navigated the next stages of growth to help fulfill their growing supply chain constraints.

The Seiders reached out and vetted pitches from more than a dozen private equity firms.

In June 2012, they pulled the trigger and sold two-thirds stake of the company for $67 million to a private equity firm that specialized in leveraged buy-out transactions. The Cortec Group firm targets specialty middle-market manufacturing, distribution and service companies, particularly family-controlled companies.

Cortec, based in New York, was founded in 1984. Since inception, the firm has raised over $2.6 billion of capital across six investment funds and has completed more than seventy transactions to date.

Cortec had major strategic advantages with IP and manufacturing connections that Yeti desperately needed. Cortec proved invaluable in navigating the necessary trademark battles (including going up against and winning a lawsuit with Walmart and other large players)  that soon plagued the popular brand.

Cortec also proved useful in helping the brothers expand the product line beyond $400 heavy-duty coolers to include drinkware (mugs and tumblers), bags, lawn chairs, and even an off-road electric scooter eventually dropping the “Coolers” name from the now Yeti brand. This product category growth would soon prove to future WallStreet investors that they were no longer a cooler company.

Additionally, Cortec offered a subjective external perspective the company needed for high growth, negotiating new venders, marketing agencies and process management for the now 700 employees under the Yeti label.

By 2014’s year end, they quickly grew to $147 million in retail sales as the brand started creeping into the new expanding brand categories.

Yeti went public in 2018 with an IPO valuation at $1.7 billion. They were well on their way to building a globally recognized brand.

 

Marketing a Household Name:

How does one make a cooler company cool? The answer in short; marketing.

Yeti developed a marketing strategy that told their story, engaging people on a shared love for the outdoors and the best equipment to enjoy them with.

The combination of high-quality, field-endorsed products and outlandish prices translated to high consumer interest and desire.

The company leveraged a network of influencers they named their YETI Ambassadors, who had already grown like audiences to endorse the brand. YETI’s influencers include hunters, fishermen, snowboarders, professional skiers, bull riders, and cowboys.

 

YETI Ambassador Video Example: 

Embracing their audience on social media YETI currently has more than 1 million followers on Facebook and 1.4 million Instagram and are leveraging Youtube with millions of views across their 197 original videos to date.

They even share social proof of their brand promise claiming for example, that Yeti’s are even Grizzly proof.

Here’s the proof:

 

Yeti took their marketing strategy a step further when they hired Melisa Goldie as the company’s very first chief marketing officer. Goldie was formerly global CMO of Calvin Klein Inc.

You might think, why hire someone previously responsible to sell a clothing label to oversee their marketing strategy?

But considering over 70% of Yeti’s consumers are under the age of 45. Goldie came with a breadth of experience in lifestyle branding, promoting product lines across a wide range of consumer categories at multiple price points across a wide range of geographies.

 

YETI Business Strategy:

Yeti was a brand that arrived onto a product category that existed since the early 1900s. Instead of fitting into what others were doing they made bold moves to set themselves as far apart from their competitors as they could get in terms of price, quality, and speed to production, to gain a competitive edge.

In order to manufacture such a high quality product in mass, the company deployed an “asset light” strategy. They outsourcing the production and distribution their products keeping their overhead low while focusing on growing sales year over year.

While forgoing profits by investing in third-party production, they were able to capture faster market share as the first premium quality cooler brand while other copy-cat brands started following their coat-tails.

Yeti recognized the need for strategic help to grow the company by partnering with the Cortec Group. This deliberate decision rapidly increased operating efficiency to  overcome supply chain growth deficiencies.

Similarly, Cortec was essential in diversifying the product lines for Yeti into drinkware and soft (bag) travel coolers which accounts for nearly half their sales which is something Wallstreet investors rewarded in their IPO. Their experience in strategic licensing positioned the company as a global player.

The brothers scaled by bringing in the right growth partners yet again by hiring outdoor-retailing executive Matt Reintjes to replace Roy as chief executive officer. While Roy remains the Chairman of the company, by giving up some of the control as founder to an external CEO, the Seiders were signaling to Wallstreet that they were playing the long game of strategic growth by putting all of the right players where they needed to be positioned.

While the company is experiencing peak growth their story is very likely far from it. The Yeti Ice Monster started out as an idea, turned opportunity, and ultimately into another great American business success story.

For more information visit tylerhayzlett.com

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Best Practices Growth Personal Development

TOP 9 TACTICS EXPERTS USE TO GROW A PODCAST AUDIENCE

 

  1. Promote your show on other podcasts

Reach out to be on other podcasts (especially in your network). Here’s how.

 

  1. Publish Expert Articles

Summarize the best of your interviews,  the top lessons you learned from ___(Insert Major Guest name here)

Publish the article and share on social media (remember to tag your guest) and enable your guest to share the episode to their audience

 

  1. Repurpose Your Amazing Content

Leverage services like Repurpose House to triple the exposure of the insights from the interviews you worked hard to produce

 

  1. Engage Your Audience

Create anticipation for future episodes by asking your social followers who and what they would like to hear from in the next episodes. Creating content your current audience wants will keep them coming back for more.

 

  1. Network, Network, and More Networking

Reach out to others in your community, business groups, and networking events. Tap into your available contacts, invite them to be on your show and cross promote to their audiences.

 

  1. Create Media Worthy Headlines

Help your content get discovered by creating media worth headlines that make people curious about. Don’t have a team of journalists to write a buzzworthy headline for your next episode? Don’t sweat it. Use headline generator tool like Headline Generator to create 700 newsworthy headlines with one simple click. Just add the subject of the interview. Best of all, it’s free.

 

  1. Increase Your Discoverability

Adults are consuming 11 hours of content every single day. Go to where they are searching for content by getting your podcasts on all the podcast directories and consider joining a podcast network. One of the big advantages of being on an established network is being able to leverage their domain authority to let Google’s algorithm know you exist.

 

  1. Create a Clear Brand Message:

Think of your podcast as starting a movement. What will your podcast solve your audience? Why should they tune in every week? Communicate about your podcast as the bridge to get your audience to where they ultimately want to go? If they don’t immediately know why your podcast is relevant to them, they wont engage.

 

  1. Don’t Neglect Your Call to Action!

Did you know that 96% of the overall most-dedicated podcast subscribers recommend the content to their family and friends? Passive listeners are not the ones who will create word of mouth. WOM comes from your subscribers. Make it easy for people to subscribe by telling them where to do so. While podcasting is widely available it’s still new to most people. Give them the action steps for where to subscribe for more amazing content.

For more information visit tylerhayzlett.com

Categories
Best Practices Growth Leadership Personal Development

Are You Making This Mistake With Your Mission Statement?

 

Why Mission Statements Don’t Work

Just because we have mission statements doesn’t mean they should magically inspire people. Only 1 in 4 employees actually believes in their company’s mission statement, let alone their customers. The truth is most businesses don’t have very compelling stories because we focus our attention on telling our stories rather than the customers we serve. Most companies explain their products, services, benefits, and features, not WHY we should care or about the ultimate outcome we provide for the customers we serve.

The fundamental question every business must answer is what problem we’re actually solving. To tell our story in a way that attracts customers, we have to put the customer at the center, not just values and ideals.

In Lisa Cron’s book, Wired For Story, The Writer’s Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence,  she says that “story was more crucial to our evolution than the opposable thumb. Opposable thumbs let us hang on; story told us what to hang on to. Story is what enabled us to imagine what might happen in the future, and to prepare for it. A feat no other species can lay claim to, opposable thumbs or not.”

To form a bond with customers, knowing what’s important to them and where those customers can be reached in the media landscape, and developing the type of content and experience they desire requires a level of storytelling. After all, we don’t buy fortune cookies to eat them. We buy into the stories they tell. The future they inspire is more potent than the product itself.

What message should we really tell our customers?

  1. Who is the Hero?
  2. What is the conflict they’re confronting and struggling to overcome?
  3. What future outcome do they really want us to help them achieve?

Most businesses talk about what they sell, not what conflict they help resolve. Over time companies have been selling solutions to external problems, but people buy solutions to internal issues. Nobody is interested in our products. They’re interested in what your product can get them.

When people ask us what we do, what they’re really asking is:

  1. Does what you do matter to me?
  2. If so, why?
  3. And exactly should I do about it?

Make the Customer the Hero of Your Story:

If you need advice on your heart, you go to a cardiologist. When you need help with your marketing message, you go to NY Times Best-Selling Author and former screenwriter, Donald Miller. Miller says the biggest mistake businesses make with our marketing is describing our companies as the attractive character or the Hero of the story instead of the customer. Instead, we should play the role of the guide to our customers’ needs. By being the guide, we, in turn, become seen as the Hero to them instead. We’re describing too many benefits and not the potential outcome we provide the customer.

In his famous book; Building a Story Brand, Miller writes: “If The Bourne Identity were a movie about a spy named Jason Bourne searching for his true identity, but then also included scenes of Bourne trying to lose weight, marry a girl, pass the bar exam, win on Jeopardy, and adopt a cat, the audience would completely lose interest.” There are too many directions that deviate from the original goal. Instead, Miller argues we need to provide a common goal we can agree we want for each member of the audience or community we’re trying to reach.

When we clarify our marketing message into a single want, we bring our audience into our story by getting them to want the same future outcome instead of the process and tools it takes to get them there. We should focus instead on explaining the results we provide than what we have to sell them.

 

For more information visit tylerhayzlett.com

Categories
Marketing Personal Development

Why CONTENT MARKETING Is The Only Skill You Really Need

The Rise Of Content Marketing

In 1995, journalist Esther Dyson asked an important question about the burgeoning web:

“What new kinds of content-based value can be created on the internet?”

Dyson observed almost 30 years ago that as the internet becomes more populated with all kinds of content, the value of intellectual property will depreciate. “The likely best defense for content providers,” she argued, is “to distribute intellectual property free in order to sell services and build relationships.”

What worked in marketing in the past won’t keep working in the future. And it isn’t, we know it. In a world with unlimited competition for attention, we must find a way to deliver value to our customers before they ever make it to a pitch to sell them something. Because if you don’t, someone else will. The modern era of marketing has been an entire shift from advertising what we do to teaching what we know to help the most people. Businesses today are treating their information as the product to attract people interested in learning about their field to add value and gain the attention of the customers we want.

The Rise of Value-Rich Content

Subject matter experts today are standing out by providing the most useful, easy to find content to create a community around the passion they share for their subject matter. It’s NOT about producing content for the sake of promoting content for our business. It’s about providing beneficial information that informs & delights people who are searching for what you know that can help them.

The term content marketing isn’t new. It was simply adopted by the marketing industry wishing to put a stake in the ground in 2007 to highlight the shift away from annoying traditional interruption advertising to the maturing discipline of differentiated value-oriented content creation. To help people not just sell people. 

78%  of CMOs believe custom content creation is the future of marketing, which isn’t surprising given how it influences 61% of consumer’s buying behavior with a 6x higher conversion rate compared to marketing without a digital content strategy. Businesses today that produce the most relatable content. Win.

The content marketing funnel is the new sales funnel. 75% of people visiting a site are just seeking useful information. 23% are comparing solutions they are looking for, and only 2% are ready to take any immediate action. That means we need far more content to attract and engage people into our funnel. Create episodes, videos, articles that help your customers overcome the conflict stopping them from achieving their goals. Create articles on examples of other people or companies reaching the goals you can help them achieve to get them interested in those results. (The mountain they want to climb).  Then create content that outlines every step they need to obtain what they desire and the tools and resources they need to reach their ultimate goal (be the guide).

Instead of interrupting the content, your potential customer is consuming. Produce the content they want to consume.

For more information visit tylerhayzlett.com

Categories
Marketing Personal Development

How to Make Competitors Irrelevant

How can we position our businesses in a way that makes our competitors completely irrelevant? The answer: Avoid the trap of competing like every else.

 

What’s A Blue Ocean and Why Should You Care?

Blue Ocean Strategy was named one of the leading business books of the Century by Financial Times after successfully selling over 4 million copies. The book was based on a study of over 150 of the most significant strategic business moves spanning more than 30 industries over the last 100 years.

The authors of the book sought to answer the question: “Why do some companies succeed in creating new market spaces while others fail?” What they found is that most companies tend to compete in the same overcrowded marketplaces, with identical solutions and value propositions, vying for the same attention and diminishing profits.

What the Blue Ocean Strategy discovered was that the most successful businesses approached their customers in a different way than any of their competitors, and in so doing, made them entirely irrelevant for the marketplaces they serve. The goal of a Blue Ocean Strategy is for organizations to find and develop “blue oceans” (uncontested, growing markets) and avoid “red oceans” (overdeveloped, oversaturated markets).

 

“They’re called red oceans due to the cutthroat competition that results in the blood spilled from rivals fighting over shrinking profit pools.”

A company will have more success, fewer risks, and increased profits in a blue ocean by redefining the way we approach customers.

Change Your Approach to Make The competition Irrelevant:

Taking a Blue Ocean approach means your goal isn’t to outperform the competition, but rather to re-think the old approach everyone else is doing in the marketplace.

We can create new market opportunities by providing a different approach to the industry we serve by becoming the leading platforms of information to the markets we serve.

For example, with the launch of iTunes, Apple unlocked an entirely new market approach in providing access to digital music that has dominated the delivery of music for more than a decade. Apple observed a flood of traffic to file sharing sites that began in the late 1990s, with platforms like Napster, Kazaa, and LimeWire. While everyone else in the music industry fought to stop the cannibalization of physical CD sales, digital music consumption, the consumers preferred continued to grow.

With the democratization of digitally available “free” music, the trend toward digital music was clear. Apple capitalized on the consumer trend with the creation of iTunes in 2003, overcoming the need to purchase an entire CD when consumers only wanted only one or two songs they really wanted.

The value Apple offered attracted customers around the world to adopt iTunes as their preferred platform to consume digital music. iTunes is estimated to account for more than 60 percent of the global digital music download market.

But what does any of this have to do with YOU?

 

Provide More Value to Your Market By Providing More Information

Approach customers the way they consume information. In the information age, how can you produce insights to the customer you want to attract by becoming the go-to source of information in your space?

Instead of creating a website with an about page and a few blog posts, think about publishing the most comprehensive information on how to help most people achieve success in your industry. Most business experts, thought leaders, and influencers are hoarding their information behind paywalls via speeches, books, courses, consulting when 75% of web traffic is consuming free information, 23% are considering solutions. Only 2% of web traffic are active buyers.

Today our websites are designed in the reverse order pitching services to the 2% of buyers and not providing and attracting the other 98% with helpful insights they’re actively seeking.

Up until the digital age, businesses only had to compete on three differentiating factors: Speed, Quality, & Price. But now that’s all changed. Business leaders today also have the added pressure of answering why people should like and follow their content. Today, the most successful business platforms are creating uncontested markets by thinking about themselves as media companies providing the best most comprehensive information on their subject matter they’re passionate about sharing with others. Creating followers who begin to know, like, and trust them.

“You don’t want to interrupt the content that people are trying to consume. Be the content they want to consume. The buyer is in control, but you’re still marketing as if that’s not true.” –Mike Volpe

Once you build an audience, it’s yours. They’re on your channels, your site, and consuming YOUR content. In the past, businesses had to rent attention on other media sites by advertising on them. Today companies have the tools to create our own media sites to attract the customer’s attention.

For more information visit tylerhayzlett.com

Categories
Marketing Personal Development

Move Your Customer up the Value Chain with Content

Want to add more value to your customers? Create content to help them.

Content marketing today isn’t about marketing for promotional sake. It’s about providing extremely valuable content to the people that matter most to your business.

The  definition of the value chain are the full set of activities that a firm operating in a specific industry performs in order to deliver a valuable product for the market.

Now that over 80% of the private sector is no longer producing raw material goods, but rather information-based service businesses. Today, the value chain begins with informational content.

Leading to the rise of “thought leaders“.

In short, today’s value chain begins with a value-added content strategy that leads prospects into the traditional sales funnel by attracting leads to customers and then creating advocates.

Starting with free content to create awareness.

The value chain purpose remains the same. The purpose of analyzing a company’s value chain is to increase productive efficiency so that a company may deliver maximum value for the least possible cost.

Small and medium-sized service businesses are taking massive advantage of content marketing by providing content that drives value to their target audience and minimizes the costs associated with traditional advertising and marketing methods in the process.

The bad news? Producing helpful content to your consumers takes time.

The good news? Your competitor knows they should be moving up the “thought” value chain but isn’t getting around to it.

The great news? There has never been an easier time to produce content to become the most helpful and in-turn valuable authority in your industry.

What’s the ROI of contributing content in your field?

  1. Establish domain authority on your subject matter
  2. Build brand awareness
  3. Engage your target audience
  4. Generate leads!

For more information visit tylerhayzlett.com

Categories
Marketing Personal Development

Can Your Customer Hear You? Start a Podcast Already!

It should go without saying, that on the go, mobile audio podcasting, is super convenient!

Most consumers nowadays don’t want to “read all about it” the way we used to. They want useful and entertaining information the easiest and most efficient way possible.

Podcasts have become one of the most popular conduits listeners go to gain knowledge and learn helpful personal and professional insights.

And now, with over 800,000 shows and 30 million episodes as of December 2019 it’s safe to say the audio medium is getting all grown up.

Podcasting is a smart way to develop your reputation on your subject matter expertise

For subject matter experts and businesses, podcasting offers a unique experience to provide highly valuable, in-depth information, to their target audience to enhance their value and brand experience with current and potential customers.

Beyond short-form content like social posts and blog articles, podcasting allows hosts to cultivate deeper relationships with your audience by connecting on shared topics of interest and stories.

It’s fun and effective.

Sharing helpful advice on your subject matter on a consistent basis can position you as an authority in your industry or subject niche.

Podcasting isn’t for hobbyist anymore

They’re a valuable business marketing strategy as an enhanced form of content. They’re more engaging than blogs and articles and they’re evergreen.

Not to mention the volume of decision-makers that are tuning in:

  • 40% of small business owners listen to podcasts
  • 72% of businesses owners with 100-500 employees do too

Here’s a guide to get started podcasting today.

 

For more information visit tylerhayzlett.com