Introduction To The Marketing Lyfe Podcast Ep.5
What’s up guys? Episode number five today. We have Braden tobler on this show. This kid, we go way back. We were on student government together and we both ended up going into the digital marketing space. Kind of interesting, right? So he goes over some simple keyword research, some tips on getting some back links and some tips to getting on podcasts. So let’s dive in. What’s out braid in. I’m excited to have you on the show today. So to get started, let’s just tell me a little about yourself. Tell me a little backstory on how you got into marketing.
Introduction With Braden Tobler
Braden: Awesome. Thanks Taylor. I’m glad to join you on this. I’m happy to let me join you on the podcast. I’m essentially my backstory. It’s pretty cookie cutter for a lot of people. Went to college down here at Dixie State University in southern Utah and that was a good experience. No struggle my way through there. Changed my path a few different times as most college kids do. Didn’t we all? Yeah, seriously. And everyone didn’t know what they wanted to do so and to change it up more than you planned on. So finished up college, um, but while I was there I had a lot of good experiences that kind of piped me into the marketing space and it was pretty good. So, um, some of the overlap that me and you had was, um, we probably met in student government, which was really out of the box for me.
It wasn’t my normal, I guess a social circle. So getting into student government, I uh, got involved in the marketing department there. Um, help them out with some website stuff and events and all kinds of different things. Just marketing what a we could do to get the students out and about, um, but I’ll have some more stories on that to come. Um, well I college. I also got involved in Deca and some other clubs which kind of are all business focused. So a deck. It was a great experience for me. Um, met some good people, met some good mentors, um, got some good experiences, was able to go to state competition and do all right there and then went to an international competition, was able to win, is pretty, pretty awesome experience. I’m doing that essentially the, uh, international competition was able to highlight some of the, it was technical, digital marketing was the category, and for Deca that was a pretty easy step for me and that was an awesome experience essentially.
So from there, um, during college I had a couple of different mentorships, um, through students’ friends and uh, some professors as well and that, those guys all really pushed me to learn more, a little bit about, um, marketing business in general, which was kind of always my interest. But like I said, changed up my degree in a couple of different times. Didn’t know if I wanted to do website design, figured out quickly, that coating is not my strong suit. But, uh, that was a good time. Went into graphic design for a bit, decided to graphic design by itself, wasn’t something that I was super strong at and I wanted to make more money than the average graphic designer. So stepped away from that as well. Um, and it kind of overall ended up finding some mentors and some classes that prepared me for more broad digital marketing. So, um, because of my involvement at student government, uh, and the network that I had there, I was able to get picked up and um, go get a job at the campus stores. I’m at Dixie State University, so that was essentially the main bookstore, you know, the place that steals all your money and charges you way too much for books. That was A.
Taylor: Yeah, we definitely paid way too much for books in college. I can say amen to that one percent of the time. I never used them so seriously.
Braden: I worked there and I still didn’t buy a man. I mean I was there trying to make the marketing sound a little more appealing, but once anyone found out about Chegg or anything else, they had no interest in buying books from us.
Taylor: Gotcha. I definitely did take advantage of the student discount on adobe.
Work Experience And Breaking Out Of The Box With Marketing
Braden: So yeah. So that was an interesting experience. It was my first time really working for a cashflow business in the marketing sense. I’m working with student government. There’s all like a lifestyle brand. So that gave me experience in marketing, something that’s fun and engaging people that have to pay money for student government events, whereas stepping into campus stores, um, and they had a few auxiliary stores that I tried to get out there a little bit more. That was a very different animal for me to learn how to get people to actually buy your product or come into your store. So that was a great experience for me. Um, worked there for a, bout a year and a half until I was graduating. Um, and at graduation I was lucky enough to pin my bosses at the campus stores against a marketing agency in St George called boxy. Um, and that was a great experience.
Is a good, a good way for me to learn. I’m a little bit about negotiating, I’m finding my value, figuring out what I was good at and I’m essentially taking two offers from those places and deciding which one was the best route for me. So when I stepped away from the campus stores and worked for Boxy, I worked for them for about four years. And so I’m stepping over. There was a whole new battle instead of working for just one company marketing to them, it was working for 10 to 20 clients and a lot more technical aspects, so boxy was awesome. They specialize in Seo, but they do web development, traditional marketing, social media, marketing, paid advertising and all kinds of different other strategies. So that was a good experience. Um, and working with them for four years. Um, I’ll go more into detail about that.
But, uh, essentially the bosses, there were very good friends still go mountain biking with them on a regular basis, still catch up. But after four years we had kind of a mutual agreement that, um, it was time for me to take the next step. Um, I was always excited to take the next step, um, and just needed a good nudge and they instilled quite a bit of competence in me. And so for the last eight months I’ve been on my own as a single consultant. I’m working with a team of writers, developers, it, people and other partners just to serve a small client base and a surf clients. Little bit more in detail than some agencies can do. So
Taylor: that’s awesome, man. Yeah, there’s something magical about that four year mark, you know, I uh, I actually stepped away around that time as well from the agency I worked with. So that’s pretty funny that there’s just something about that. Number four when it’s like, it’s time to go. So. Totally get that man.
Braden: Yeah. I had some people that I was brainstorming with cars, essentially millennials nowadays we want to jump from job to job every year and I’m pretty stern on that mindset that hey, you need to stick it out long enough to prove that you, uh, you really dealt with it. So for years is definitely putting in your time and learning your expertise and getting good mentorship out of it.
Taylor: Gotcha. That’s awesome man. So you just said a key word there. Expertise. So what are, what are you an expert in man? Like it sounds like you have a ton of stuff that you’re good at, but what do you consider yourself to be an expert in?
Understand Your Vision For Search Engine Optimization And SEO Expert
Braden: Yeah. Uh, essentially box these kind of built me up to be what I am today, um, and their specialty was seo, so I would say that I’m an seo specialist, but that involves various aspects of digital marketing, so you have to really put your hands in every jar of the business and work with every department pretty fluidly. Um, Seo really has to work with the content team as the social media team needs to kind of understand that kind of vision. Um, pay strategies are heavily involved in Seo as well, but it’s, there’s a little bit of overlap. So yeah, I’m an expert in Seo and that’s what I specialize in, but a lot of my clients need some assistance in many other areas and I’m pretty happy and enjoy, put my hands in every jar, the business. So.
Taylor: Gotcha. That’s awesome man. So I want to dive in a little bit. Can you just give us some, give the audience some simple tips and tricks on Seo, like overall that for years that you worked at vox AC, you learn a lot about seo. What are some general tips and tricks that you can, that you can, that these people can take away and go try and apply them in their business?
Tips and Tricks on SEO
Braden: Yeah. Seo is always adapting. So I would just highly suggest that everyone do good research and listen to people that have been tried and true in the industry, um, strategies that happened three years ago, most likely maybe outdated. Um, and so because seo is multifaceted, there’s a lot of things happening, a lot of tools being used and I suggest that people do the research, make sure they’re up to date and don’t take the easy way out because there’s always, there’s always some blanket strategy that might be a little easier than something else. Um, so I just suggest you really got to step back and educate yourself.
Taylor: Gotcha. That’s a great takeaway. Step back and educate yourself. Uh, one thing someone talked about recently on this podcast was Nicole and she just said, spend an extra 10 minutes on your articles that you’re writing because a lot of times you miss all those little key points in there. So definitely I can fully agree to that. So let’s dive into a marketing campaign that actually, that actually felt for you. What’s, what’s something that actually felt, because I know that, you know, online marketing is a lot of trial and error. So what is a marketing campaign that actually ended up failing you?
Marketing Failure: Moab Outdoor Guide
Braden: Yeah. Happy to highlight the failures. Everyone kinda needs to understand that. Yeah, you can look at everything as no, it’s not a failure I learned from it and that’s, that’s an awesome way to look at it. But if you don’t really dive in, you won’t learn. So just recently I’ve had a client that a, was essentially a good friend. We shared very good times together as doing our passions essentially. Um, some of our hobbies aligned and this person was in a very competitive market. So, um, I wanted to help him.
Taylor: Could you give us a general topic of the industry?
Braden: Yeah. Um, it’s in the outdoor industry as a guide, so.
Taylor: Okay, cool.
Braden: Yeah. This guide was located in Moab, so it’s more of cliffs and canyons. They do great work. They’ve been in business for 20 plus years. They’ve been very known in Moab. It’s a small little city and everyone knows that team and what they do and that they do a very good job. Um, malaria is just expanding so fast. Listeners, if you haven’t checked out Moab in Utah, it’s an amazing Mecca for the outdoors.
Taylor: Oh, I love that place.
Braden: Yeah. They got the climbing, they got the biking, they have river tours. Everything you could imagine. So it’s incredible experience. Um, but essentially I was very excited to help this client out. I’m looking forward to the project. What we saw was their website had a few technical issues that we needed to resolve early on. And now looking back, I wonder if I would have not done that if we would have signed, seen more success. I’m an Seo. One of the big things that recently came out was Google’s going to pretty much put a big billboard in front of your website if it’s not http s certified and they would essentially market as not a six year website and you’d see massive dips in traffic. Um, so this client didn’t have that set up. So at the beginning of our arrangement, we set them up with https and because of that, rankings can fluctuate a bit. So, you know, they, uh, the issues that were had was they saw traffic dip even though they saw ranking improvements with high value keywords. So we tracked it all. We saw what was happening in the back end. We could see the ranking improvements were happening for the key words that we wanted to focus on. Um, but in analytics we saw a dip in traffic and that’s never fun to see. So.
Money Wins With SEO And Marketing
Taylor: So what was your biggest takeaway from this? How do you feel like you could’ve fixed this situation and turned it from a bad to a good?
Braden: Yeah. Essentially a few factors that came into play. Was it a short term project? They had low budget, um, and when you make raking improvements in the right direction, sometimes that can put on that website up against other big competition. Um, I essentially, if you’re working with this site and you make them start ranking for a highly competitive keyword, there’s a lot more players in that space. Um, so what I learned from that was I really need to understand your market and the level of competition you’re about to step into and then market potential that there is, um, I found that it’s very important to be clear and concise with your clients, manage their expectations. That’s really important moving forward. Um, and the sad truth is low budgets often will make you the king of the hill if the current king is spending big time cash. A SEO is a king of the hill game. There’s only one slot at number one on Google and if you’re not spending enough money to stay up there, the next person will take you over. And my assumption and a belief about I was that there were some new big players in the industry that we’re spending big time cash and had become king of the hill.
Taylor: Gotcha. Yeah man, I totally understand that. Basically whoever has the most money wins unfortunately in the, in the online marketing space. So definitely got to have some big time strategies out there to, to overcome these things. And I like how you said, you know, really do your research before, you know, pulling on a client and setting those expectations. So those are some really great takeaways. I appreciate you for sharing that failure. So diving in next, you know, what was that, what was that little first online marketing success, the it hat. I know everyone out there has had that little success that put the fire in them about online marketing. So tell us about that success story.
Marketing Success: Edwards Campaign
Braden: Definitely likes to say that I had many successes, but I’m like you said something that like lights a fire under the yet is what’s important. So, I mean it was a slow battled get to where I am. Um, and there’s been a lot of little successes, but what I’m going to share is more focused on what my mentors taught me. Add boxy. It was a project that wasn’t exactly mine but I was involved in, um, and it was essentially something that made me believe that Seo can positively benefit any other aspects of the marketing campaigns involved. So this was a Edwards campaign that needed to be improved. So essentially a client that came to us with, um, adverts campaign that was spending 30 k a month is large spend from what we had seen and uh, what we did as seos first and paid specialist second was we looked at what they were doing to target their key words and uh, we felt that there were some adjustments that needed to happen. These guys were, um, using some high cost keywords that were really broad. Um, they were very relevant related to the topic at hand, um, but as seo is we wanted to focus on a searcher’s intent. So that’s maybe a term that’s not used too often, but more so focusing on what a searcher wants from this search rather than what they’re telling you they want. So there’s very big differences between like a conversion keyword and a purchasing keyword. Then a keyword that’s related to wanting to educate themselves a little more.
Taylor: Cool. Could you give us just a small example of that?
The Difference Between Conversion Keyword And Purchasing Keyword
Braden: Yeah. So, um, if someone, let’s say if someone’s searching for a retreat in Zion national park, they’re potentially looking more for an actual place. So they want to find that hotel, the retreat center. I’m a resort near Zion national park, whereas if they’re searching for fun places to stay or things to do around Xi’an, uh, those searches are more educational. So another one of my clients is, isn’t that space and just trying to explain to them that yes, we can educate people. Um, but our first priority seo focus might be on the keywords that are directly going to be involved when someone is ready to take the step and actually cut the check. So.
Taylor: Gotcha. That’s awesome man.
Braden: So anyways, sorry, this client again, I said they were spending 30 k a month, um, and what, uh, my mentors and bosses did and the team was, we, we’ve refocused their keywords. I’m focused on searcher’s intent and slimmed it down the high spending keywords down to stuff that were more purchasing, converting focused. Um, and then we also adjusted landing pages and the checkout process to make it a little more fluid and that can improve the quality score and conversion rate. So in the end, these, uh, this company saw I’m 18 K in spend per month with an increase in m and a, so an increase in conversions and leads. So not alone, they already spent less, but they saw more leads and more convergence.
Taylor: That’s awesome man. Yeah, just making small tweaks like that. It’s crazy to see how, how that affects, you know, different conversions and things like that. So overall, like, what’s the biggest takeaway you’d have to say from that?
Use Broad Traffic Keywords
Braden: Well, the biggest thing is essentially this isn’t a solid wall for all paid strategies out there. Um, many companies in many industries do need to target the broad traffic keywords. Um, but again, this reiterates the fact of research your industry research, what you need to do to get people to convert. And the takeaway I have is that paid strategies don’t always need to focus on grabbing massive amounts of traffic. Um, sometimes you just need to find that person at the point they’re ready to cut you a check and if you have a good presentation and your process smooth, uh, you can get those leads and you can make some money.
Taylor: So that’s awesome, man. That’s a great little first little success story that put the fire. And so diving into the next section, you know, what’s that big Grand Slam, you know, last kid I had on called it a slam dunk because he said he was still constantly. But what’s that big success story that made you go, I know how to do online marketing?
Marketing Success: Law Firm
Braden: Definitely. Yeah. I was pretty lucky to get some awesome first clients right out of the gate after stepping away from boxy. I’m one of those was a legal firm in Texas.
Taylor: That’s tough. I’m excited for this story.
Braden: The legal industry, it can be pretty a pretty brutal, so I’m with these guys. Essentially. They had a good website or it was one that was working and they had a fair amount of content already on there, so stepping in and they had a awesome product. They had a good team. They had a good offering, but as an Sdo stepped in there, saw that they had all this content and quickly was able to diagnose that they had some technical issues set up and all of this content was not being seen. So they had put in lots of work at 165 or so blog posts that were not being seen. I’m like Google it all completely be indexed so that some Seo jargon for yet essentially means Google has no idea that stuff exists.
Taylor: Oh Wow.
Braden: Yeah. The work had been put in place. So with just a few technical stuff that, um, oftentimes you need a specialist to see. We, uh, had that stuff ranking really fast and so massive, massive organic growth in traffic over like a month or two period. And because of that we saw ranking improvements just skyrocket. Leads were coming in that were appropriate and this company just essentially saw hypergrowth mode, um, revenue grew and they were able to hire on much more manpower, um, and really push their product out to their market. There is many more things involved, but this, this company had what they needed. They had an awesome niche offering, so the next step was just getting it out to the market.
Taylor: That’s awesome man. So what was the biggest takeaway? What are some of like the simple seo tips that you feel like you’ve implemented that helped skyrocket this law firms seo?
Braden: Yeah. Essentially the thing that makes it the biggest success is if you guys had an niche product and a team that can stand behind it, it makes marketing a lot easier. So with that company, we, we didn’t want to waste our time attacking a massive market. They have a sub niche that we could target and not waste a lot of ses spend and content creation spend fighting to get can become king of the hill up against the other big players. Essentially. I worked with them. We built a seo strategy for the content they already had. We brought on team members to have a stellar, a writing team and continue to create more content, look into other linking strategies, other pr strategies like getting them on podcasts. Um, which was a super successful avenue for them, um, and found other ways to get them very recognized and have google come to understand how valuable were they were offering was.
Taylor: So that’s awesome man. So basically it just makes sure you’re getting links to your site. It sounds like that’s the biggest takeaway with this getting, getting their name out there through podcasts.
Braden: That’s correct. Yeah. Links are always going to be valuable. Seo will battle that in and out. Um, but yeah, valuable, honest quality links when, when they talk about an awesome product offering and they get on a podcast that’s in the industry, uh, it makes it extremely valuable and Google can recognize that very quickly and then understand that your website deserves to show up as well. So it’s all about getting that exposure and making sure google can easily understand that exposure as well.
How To Get On Podcasts
Taylor: That’s awesome man. Would you be willing to share a few tips on how to get on podcasts?
Braden: I’m getting on podcasts is, is not as hard as some people think. I’m a lot of times it’s just asking a lot of people out there want to, want to bring on an awesome guest, so I mean you can ask away, but if you don’t have a good, good product or a good offering, maybe maybe you’ll have a little bit more of a struggle. So with them, um, we had a professional team, we had a lawyer with good experience and after getting on a few good podcasts that can be used as leverage to get on more. So once you’re validated and the industry says, Hey, this guy has something good to share, it makes it a lot easier to get on more and more. So for anyone out there that’s trying to get on more podcasts, essentially, get on something good, expose that, get out there more and keep at it.
Speed Round with Braden Tolber
Taylor: So cool man, that’s awesome takeaway for that. So thanks for sharing those tips and tricks. So Braden, let’s dive into what I call the speed round. So what do you do for fun, man? Tell the. Tell these guys some of both, some of the adventures that you do.
Braden: So I like to think I focused on rock climbing, mountain biking, and canyoneering, so don’t give me a ball. I can’t, can’t handle that at all. I can’t do any ball sports, but put me on a mountain bike out in Moab or canyoneering in Zion. That’s my, uh, that’s my zone. So, so puts you on a bike or a rope. You’re in the zone.
Specific Updates in the Online Marketing Industry and SEO
Taylor: Sounds good. That’s awesome man. So any specific updates in the industry as far as online marketing, SCO in your niche?
Braden: Yeah. Essentially in the industry there’s always going to be high and there’s always going to be people pushing broad blanket strategies. I would decide to say, do your research, make sure that you’re understanding, broaden stuff isn’t a magic bullet one strategy, one business might not be the best for others. And in that same comment, Seo doesn’t work for all companies. And I would say the same thing about every other strategy. So
Favorite Marketing Book
Taylor: I can say amen. Hallelujah. To that response, man, I, every industry I’ve worked in, even if they’re in the same industry, different marketing strategies work for different brands. Seo doesn’t always work. PPC doesn’t always work, facebook doesn’t always work, but I found using different things for different businesses always gets different results. So definitely like that small little update. So what’s your favorite marketing book, man?
Braden: Yeah, this one’s an interesting one. I don’t really have one specifically because seo is not covered in books almost ever. Um, marketing books outdate themselves pretty fast, so I follow a lot of blogs and people that I believe are just awesome in the industry. Um, do those would be a like maus distilled a google search blog webmaster blogs, a dress seer, interactive, a raven tools or blumenthal’s. These are guys that are all in the scs space. They’re tried and true, uh, they’re given out real information that you got to keep at it. Keep an eye on.
Favorite Thing About Online Marketing
Taylor: So awesome man. That’s, I mean, marketing books, marketing blogs, it’s, it’s all reading, so I’m totally cool with that answer. So favorite thing about online marketing,
Braden: man, man, it’s just fast paced, challenging keeping you sharp. I mean it’s nonstop. People keep asking for more questions where they want to do to make their business excel. But the thing is you gotta go back to square one and do your research for each business sometimes. So it’s enjoyable working fast paced.
Taylor: Can fully agree to that one. It’s a 100 miles an hour all the time. Always thinking about it nonstop. So can definitely agree to that favorite marketing podcast.
Braden: This one on, it’s going to be tailored. Timothy’s bless. Unemployable gripe. Ryan Clark is one that I just fell in love with stepping out on my own. It’s pretty awesome. Freelancers, single consultants and digital marketers. So highly recommend that one.
Taylor: Awesome. So give us a little overview of the podcast.
Braden: Um, yeah, the title pretty much says it unemployable. So people that are just passionate about the fact that they can get a job but they don’t want one, um, they’re happy to work for themselves and work through the grind and just make it happen. So the team, they’re really just highlights awesome tools, strategies, and ways to grow your business as a single entrepreneur. There’s a lot of people out there that want to tell you how to grow the next facebook and the next big company. But, uh, a lot of successful businesses are in business of one. Um, and that’s what that podcast Kinda can highlight is how you can do it really well, just focusing on yourself and your skill set and a small team of people.
Favorite Online Marketing Tool
Taylor: That’s cool, man. I haven’t heard about that one. So I’ll have to check that out. I’m a little podcast horror. So just press play at the gym and keep listening. So favor online marketing tool.
Braden: Hmm. So it’s a whole suite of um, uh, something called Google here with me on this, but a google suite as of course, google my business search console analytics goal conversions, the keyword tool. Um, all those things are super essential when it comes to Seo. Um, and using them all to their full extent is extremely valuable. So Google is pretty awesome when you look when they give you three free tools.
Advice You Would Give to Online Marketers
Taylor: Yeah, no kidding. I can say amen to that one. That’s all I use is google. It’s crazy how many companies I’ve worked with right out the gates and they don’t even have google tools or the google suite even implemented to their business. So definitely. Amen to that tool your mind. So what advice would you give to, you know, every marketer, maybe upcoming marketers, current marketers, what kind of advice would you give them?
Braden: So I found that a lot of clients don’t really understand the technical stuff. You can drown him in data, but it rather have a mountain of money, that amount of data to look through. So it really, uh, sometimes your technical spreadsheets and tons of data tools don’t, uh, don’t do it for the client. So I would give them advice to say be personal, take care of the people and make sure that they understand what you’re trying to do for them rather than drowning them in data.
Taylor: Awesome man, I like that advice. So last question kind of similar, but what advice would you give just an online company in general, you know, basically your own little sales pitch of, of why you’re the best. So
Braden: I’m essentially, if they want to focus on Seo and this isn’t me touting and why I’m the best, but just to give everyone a break, take a deep. Um, results are not interest instant in the seo industry. So what you want to do is just take your time, do the research, learn and execute, um, focus on executing and not on just tools and data.
Contact Info for Braden Tolber
Taylor: That’s awesome, man. I, I can say even that, you know, it takes time for facebook, it takes time for an adwords, youtube, Seo, the whole Shebang, you know, it takes time. And that’s one of the biggest frustrations I think across the board we have as marketers, is that people think these results are instant. So definitely amen. Hallelujah to that answer. So tell the audience, Braden, how they can find you. Where were, are they gonna? Find Brayden tobler out on the web.
Braden: Awesome. Well, I appreciate it. A great [inaudible] dot com. That’s where I’m at and I’m pretty clean and simple. So linkedin and twitter where you can find me professionally, uh, Braden tobler or my usernames as well as if you want to connect with me on instagram or facebook, a Braden tobler as well. Uh, go ahead and check out some of my adventures and see that, uh, I’m not just sitting behind a computer all the time. It’s a good time to get out and expand.
Conclusion
Taylor: Amen to that one. So again, thanks guys for listening and thanks again, Brayden for being on the show. So piece. What’s up guys, let’s do a little recap for the end of episode number five. Just to recap from Braden, do your keyword research. Make sure your site’s so have any technical issues, get good quality, reliable backlinks, and better yet, make sure you explain to your clients that what you’re doing takes time. It doesn’t matter what it is, facebook, youtube, your ad words, campaigns, whatever it is, it takes time. If you guys have any questions, feel free to reach out to me at Taylor, Timothy, d dot Com and I’d love to chat with you guys better yet. See you on the next episode. Peace.
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