Trigger Points
Trigger Points is a podcast for B2B marketers ready to challenge the status quo and push beyond traditional marketing boundaries. Each episode explores the latest in B2B marketing insights, offering listeners an arsenal of strategies to grow their brand, boost revenue, and expand their audience. Produced by Hired Guns Agency, Trigger Points serves as a catalyst for marketing professionals seeking to innovate their approach and leverage cutting-edge tactics. Whether you're looking to disrupt old methods or find inspiration for your next big campaign, this podcast is your go-to resource for making a measurable impact in the B2B marketing landscape. Join us to explore actionable tips, hear from thought leaders, and ignite your marketing efforts to new heights.
Trigger Points
How A Podcast Can Help Your Business
Unlock the full potential of your B2B marketing efforts with the transformative power of podcasting! Shaun Raines, from Hired Guns Agency, joins Trigger Points, sharing his wealth of knowledge on how podcasts can elevate your brand. Imagine turning each podcast episode into a dynamic "content engine" that not only entertains but also introduces your brand to an audience not yet in purchase mode. Learn how to leverage both audio and video channels to build relationships, create loyal audiences, and open doors to networking and partnerships.
Discover the endless possibilities that come from treating your podcast as a "content wellspring." Shaun shares the strategic advantages of repurposing a single episode into multiple formats, including blog posts, social media updates, and white papers. This stream of valuable content can greatly benefit your sales team, providing them with bingeable, trust-building information to showcase your expertise. We'll also discuss how podcasting can give you a competitive edge, using real-world examples from Hired Guns' clients who differentiated themselves through unique educational content.
In this episode, we explore the value of podcasting for customer retention and targeting future markets. Learn about the 95-5 rule and how engaging content can keep your brand top of mind, even for those not currently in buying mode. Shaun shares actionable strategies for building relationships with future clients, emphasizing the importance of consistent content creation. Don’t miss the inspiring anecdote about a loyal follower who turned into a customer, highlighting the long-term benefits of engaging with your audience. Tune in and learn about the power of podcasting to drive revenue, enhance customer relationships, and build a compelling brand personality.
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Podcast Directed and Produced by Hired Guns Agency, of course: https://www.hiredgunsagency.com
Welcome back to Trigger Points, the podcast where we break down the strategies and tactics that are shaping the future of B2B marketing. I'm your host, Crystal, and in today's episode we're going to explore how podcasting can be a powerful marketing and sales tool for your business. That's right. If you thought podcasting was just for hobbyists or true crime junkies, think again. We're going to share with you 10 innovative ways you can leverage podcasting to not only boost your brand, but also your bottom line. With us again today is Sean Raines, Hired Guns Agency founder and experienced marketing pro, who has seen firsthand the transformative power of podcasting. Welcome back to Trigger Point, Sean.
Speaker 2:Thanks, Crystal. I'm excited to be here and talk about one of my favorite subjects.
Speaker 1:And it's a subject that triggers a lot of questions. So let's start with the concept of relationships. How can creating podcast content help brands build a loyal audience?
Speaker 2:Well, hopefully people don't get tired of me talking about this, but let's start with the obvious. When I'm talking about podcasting and video series content creation for the 95% or more who are maybe in your target audience but they're not in purchase mode when I'm talking about that, I'm talking about creating. Think of it as a content engine that helps businesses create relationships really with people that they don't have relationships with yet but need to, and I always think sometimes asking ourselves questions or making statements that can help put things into perspective is helpful. So think of it this way. I can't, nor can any consumer, buy what I don't know exists. And even if I know you exist, you have to convince me that you matter to me and to my business. So if you think of it in that, you will probably shape a lot of your thinking of podcasting around this marketing tool and this concept of building relationships and building loyal audiences. Building relationships and building loyal audiences, because you won't have an audience and you can't build relationships with people that don't even know who you are. They don't know why you exist and they don't know if you even matter to them. So I always like to also think of it as think of it as your morning coffee chat with people, if you were going to have a conversation over a cup of coffee with people, sharing insights, relative stories, your expertise, all of these things that help build a strong, loyal audience, people who will follow you.
Speaker 2:Relationship always comes before transaction. A good friend of mine said that many, many years ago. I never forgot that and it's really true. I mean all of the things that matter to us in terms of business decisions. We establish a relationship with that brand, with that company, with that business, with those people, always before we enter transaction mode. And that's very, very true and has been in this kind of modern era. So if somebody has a better way to do that, show me.
Speaker 1:I don't have a better way to do that. Show me I don't have a better way to do that.
Speaker 2:Well, it sounds like this can help companies who are trying to build their audience as well. Absolutely yes, yes, yes, yes and yes. Audience building pretty much goes hand in hand with building relationships, of course. So I guess to just maybe add a little bit more to my initial thoughts there, I'm kind of building relationships. Think of your podcast or your video series as your audio and video channel. There are some people just doing audio podcasts these days. That was the beginning of all of it, but nowadays and really just so people understand we're always, when we're talking about podcasting, we're advocates of not just having an audio-only podcast, because the video side of it gives you so much more opportunity to create content that really connects with people.
Speaker 2:So think of your podcast as your audio and video channel where you deliver your news, your information. That's where you present it, that's where you share it, where things are released and new launches, and so when you treat your podcast as a channel like that, you're using it to build audience. You're using it sometimes to build an audience from scratch. You don't even really know who you're in an industry, but you're so deeply niched that you're trying to figure out exactly who you are. A community that's interested, obviously, in. What you have to say is what you're looking for, and you may not know not all companies. We work with a lot of companies and some of them have already done the work to know who their audience is and some of them haven't.
Speaker 2:So when you think of your podcast as this news and information channel, well, you're presenting content out there to a group of people that sometimes what you're literally doing is building up the audience, who didn't know you existed and you didn't matter to them. But now all the things that you're saying seem to resonate and that helps you define even more so, exactly what that audience is. And it's important to note that when you're building an audience, it's impossible to do that if you haven't gone through the marketing exercise, or motion some people would call it, if you haven't defined who your audience is, and that's a whole other exercise. The folks that consume this content that are familiar with, especially in the B2B, business to business marketing world. They will know what that exercise looks like of trying to figure out what is the persona, some people would say, of your ideal customer or ICP, ideal customer profile. That exercise really needs to be done before you start to kind of build into that audience. They can be done simultaneously, but it's hard to pull off.
Speaker 1:Well, what about using podcasting as a tool for building relationships with industry leaders? Can you explain how it might help connect with those really hard to reach people?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so. If you're inviting industry leaders or potential even partners of your business or your company onto your podcast, that can open doors right. There are people who you may never really have a chance of meeting. All of a sudden you've got this great icebreaker that could lead to opportunities, partnership, like I said, opportunities, referral opportunities, new customer opportunities. An example, or at least what comes to mind right now, is Michael Cirillo. So Mike Cirillo has the Dealer Playbook podcast. He's been doing that for I over 10 years a long time.
Speaker 2:His podcast in the automotive industry actually is, um, the one that I know of in terms of, uh, longevity that's, I think, the longest. Maybe there's somebody else out there, but I don't know anybody that's maybe recorded as many episodes and mike started that um, it still is An interview style show Still running. He probably has more downloads than maybe any other automotive podcast. He's a lot. But even in the beginning he was using this question that you're asking about hard to reach people. He was using that podcast even to reach people that were very difficult to get in touch with, like Gary Vaynerchuk. Most people in marketing probably people consuming this content are familiar with who Gary Vee is.
Speaker 2:Mike Cirillo had Gary Vee on, he had Guy Kawasaki on and it's a hit list of people in the automotive industry that have been on his podcast. But he's certainly gone outside of automotive and talked to people that without the podcast and an invitation to come and partake or be on it be a guest, that probably wouldn't have happened. So the podcast has been a great relationship connector and a builder for Mike, who I think he would agree with this but he wouldn't have those relationships, those partnerships that have been really, really beneficial to his vision as a founder and an entrepreneur. Um, and what an amazing network he has today, and a big part of it was what he does in podcasting and that's he's a very ambitious guy. So he you know he owns several businesses, but that podcast has been a foundational piece for him for a long time and it's absolutely opened the doors to connect with people and build relationships with people that are hard to reach or that may not even give you the time of day without it.
Speaker 1:Amazing. Let's talk a little bit about branding. How does podcasting help in building a personality difference for a brand?
Speaker 2:I love that question.
Speaker 2:So I love this question because the best brands win period.
Speaker 2:No one has to look very far to see they're all of their favorite brands or even if they're not your favorite brands, but the brands that win, they're typically the best for a multitude of reasons.
Speaker 2:A podcast allows your brand's personality to shine through and it's consistent, right. That's one of the things that's really important about you know, if you start to podcast as a marketing tool, it becomes something that, because you're doing it consistently and it features your subject matter experts again that I'm a broken record, but when your thought leaders are the ones that are featured on your video series or your podcast and it's this foundational piece of how you're creating content, people see that on a consistent basis. Over time, the personality of your distinct voice, if you will, it begins to differentiate you in the market and it builds a stronger connection with your audience. I would just challenge people when you're thinking about that or considering it in your own business, why did you connect with all the brands that you really love or you feel loyal to the ones that you like to consume their content, that you can't wait until they make more stuff?
Speaker 2:because it's helpful to you, it's insightful. You engage with it because it's meaningful, it matters to you. Well, I guarantee you that part of that is that their personality comes through their brand, and it's one of the reasons why we all like to connect that way. So remember when I said earlier that I can't buy what I don't know exists, and companies have to convince us that they matter to us. Well, the personality of your brand goes a long way in that effort.
Speaker 1:Very true. You talk also a lot about podcasts being a content wellspring for other marketing channels. Can you elaborate more on that concept?
Speaker 2:It's constantly pouring forth all this great, new, refreshing content that you need information. But so sure, when you record episodes I feel like I will say this millions of times, but maybe it's the first time somebody hears me explain it explain it when you record one episode, just like the one we're recording now, we can take this long form and we can chop it up into all kinds of content articles or blog posts, social media posts, posts that include video clips, video clips on their own, video clips that qualify as a YouTube short, a reel that you're going to throw up on instagram, um, maybe something that you're going to put in one-to-one format and throw it into linkedin. We do a heavy amount of linkedin video for ourselves as well as for our clients, because it's a awesome playground for b2b. Uh. White papers, um, all kinds of different research, um paperwork that can are what I'm trying to say. There's white papers and research projects that you would see in a lot of B2B marketing resources that get dedicated to doing things like this.
Speaker 2:Because why do you make content like that? It's because that's the stuff that your audience is expecting from you. That's what helps them long before they actually sign the dotted line. So, essentially, just one podcast, your wellspring, your fountain. One podcast episode could fuel a content strategy across multiple platforms for weeks, two, three, four weeks, especially if it's an episode that was 40 to 60 minutes in length. As long as it's well planned, you're going to end up having a whole bunch of content from just one episode, and I know I've said it a million times, but that's why I like to call it the content wellspring, because it just keeps on giving you just plan and then you know you're going to get good stuff.
Speaker 1:Well, and once you've established a content wellspring, or a content creation engine, like you've called it, such as this, are there any other use cases for it?
Speaker 2:I like that. You said content creation engine. There's some other folks in B2B that call it that. That's a really good, appropriate way to say. It is because and before I get into the the answer on that I think it's really important that people think of their content creation engine as something that, once you start that engine, don't ever, ever shut it off. Just make sure you have enough gas or enough gas money to get. Get the gas and keep it in your engine because it's such critical. It's a critical component to your B2B marketing strategy to make content like this. So I just think that's really good.
Speaker 2:So, once you start that content creation engine, you don't want to shut it off and, in fact, if you know that you're not really committed to it, I would tell companies don't even start. Do not start doing this and then stop doing it. It's just a waste of everyone's time and it won't help your business at all if you do it for three months and stop so anyway. So once you've established this, yes, there are other use cases. So think of when a prospect, somebody from your ideal customer, profile your audience, your target, the people that you want to sell to, when they're evaluating their options. They're going to always all of us like to do this We'll go into a deep dive, right, and we'll look at once, if we start to find a brand or you're in consideration with maybe a couple of different brands or different companies, we're going to dive into the content to see what you're all about. That's what your prospects do. That's what, once you've gained their interest, they've engaged. Well, you matter to them at that point, which is, of course, really important. And once you matter, they're going to start to dig in. And if you have, think of it as a bingeable content, a trail of short form content, perhaps full episodes as well, that showcase the fact that you are experts in this area, that you matter and that you can help their business, well, all of that builds trust and while you're showcasing that you're the best at what you do, all at the same time, which is super important. So your podcast well, yes, it will definitely be this amazing resource of marketing content. It also becomes a resource for your sales team and their efforts, and I don't talk about this as much as I want to, so I'm just going to take a little time to say think about this.
Speaker 2:Your prospects. They have all these really critical questions. They want to go deeper and your sales team sometimes some of them are really equipped to answer all of those questions and no problem. But there's a lot of time in that marketing and sales relationship, everything that's been done for the prospect, where the prospect might need to go deeper, and sometimes they want to do that without you holding their hand all the way through it. So if they've got those types of questions, they want to go deeper about your product, your service, your company, all the above.
Speaker 2:Imagine your sales team being able to direct them to your podcast episodes maybe just on the fully baked episodes on your youtube channel. And now, instead of them just trying to pick through it because they asked a specific question, and you have a podcast episode where you guys went really in depth and it wasn't salesy. Those podcast episodes are to make helpful content. Now you direct your prospect to hey, here's this, without having to sit there and watch it with them. You just send them the link that answers the questions they have and then some Well, that's powerful. Maybe you don't need the whole episode. Maybe some of the clips that you've made from yours are categorized and they're in playlists on your YouTube channel, and so you just send them the playlist on the XYZ of whatever it is they're asking about or they want to know more about. So when you have all of that and the content specifically discusses what your prospects are interested in, that's powerful and it can't be much easier than just planning the things, the topics of your episodes, recording those and then categorizing them in the places where they can be found and, of course, in YouTube. That's one of the best places to put that. There's no pressure to the prospect right. They can consume it freely.
Speaker 2:Oftentimes we see this with our clients, where we've made that content and we're managing all that content in YouTube for our clients, and we see that people are sharing that with other interested parties that might be in the same company with them other decision makers on their team, it could be other people that are their peers in industry. This happens all the time. So leaving a sales sheet behind like a one pager or emailing a PDF to people is, I mean, it's. There's still a lot of that that's done, but it's kind of lame in comparison If you had really something. That was that living piece of video content that you talked about, and now it goes way beyond what somebody may or may not completely understand from your one pager. So this, I think, energizes sales teams. I think they love that when they have that as like that's a new weapon for us right. That's very, very, very powerful and when it's done correctly, it can also shorten people's sales cycles, which everybody loves it when that happens.
Speaker 2:So, and while we're on this topic, I just want to mention don't sleep on the fact that when you have a business podcast, this can also, and often does, inspire eBooks, ones that are actually worth reading.
Speaker 2:Whether you are making that type of content to gate it and get an email address in exchange, for now you can have the e-book, we can talk about that on a different episode. But the idea here is don't sleep on the fact that your business podcast will inspire really good e-books, ones where you don't feel like you had to go to AI to just make something up. It will inspire, potentially, infographics. If you're a company that has a lot to do and data is a really big part of what your company does, it could be huge. On inspiring ideas for infographics stories about customers, maybe testimonials, but even better, like a comprehensive story about a customer that had great success, but maybe where did their struggle come from. You will also have kind of new marketing and messaging ideas that will come from just having a business podcast. So I think it's really important to think, yes, this can be very helpful for your sales team. It can also be a huge inspiration for content that will basically help your salespeople get more people interested and engaged with your content.
Speaker 1:Well, I love that you said a bingeable trail, because I always think about Netflix or something, a show you're watching and you just binge on it. But this is really true because I know we've looked at things we've wanted to purchase before and we have literally binged on their product. And then the other thing is that you get you feel like you know the person, you know you. I mean you feel like they're already kind of your friend, especially if they have a good personality. You know that makes a difference. But then that is true, you can binge on products or services, on videos of products or services. It doesn't just have to be a TV show.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, if we wanted to tell people all the things about even our personal lives, of experiences like that, there are countless examples and I think that's really important and I think it's great that you actually brought that up just in context, because everybody can relate to that.
Speaker 2:Right, you just start going down the rabbit hole on something and it could be anything.
Speaker 2:But certainly when we're going to make purchases, we establish relationships with people, and it's not always just hey, relationships with people and it's not always just, hey, just product. Right, we, we feel like we know certain people, um, that are authors that have written books about you know, you know how, how to, how to make the world a better place, how to take care of yourself better, like, and the more of that content you consume, yeah, you, relationship's getting established and then you're paying those people, you're buying their books, you're engaging with that content because they have educated you, they've given you all of this for free. That makes you feel like you know them, but they establish that they're valuable and now, so you know they exist and they really matter to you, because it just unlocks those doors to what we really want, between that content creation, trying to get it out there for people who, once they find it, it matters to them. And now, all of a sudden, that becomes a relationship builder. It connects us with people, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, and podcasts can separate one company over another right.
Speaker 2:Oh my goodness, yeah, well, and podcasts can separate one company over another, right? Oh my goodness, yeah, I all the all of 2024,. I've been having so many conversations like this. So, yeah, the short answer is yes, definitely, podcasts can absolutely separate one company over another. We started Hired Guns and proved that very thing I think our first two or three customers. That's exactly what we were basically trying to prove.
Speaker 2:So, if you're the only one with a podcast, creating content your target audience is interested in, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, you have a competitive advantage, and this goes for B2B. And then, even recently, we're more B2C examples. You know the clients that we work that are in health and wellness and naturopaths and all local businesses, but there's so many people, if you're in a major metro alone, but even outside of that, that there's big opportunities there could make content that would be helpful for them building their brands and separating themselves over the other. Let's say you're a toyota dealer in dfw and you want something that separates you. Can you, you can, it's so it's. It's a very interesting place for people to try to compete with.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, we, like I said, we did this with our first customers, our very first customer. Their podcast was primarily their content pillar that was used to create a bunch of content that never existed before from them, and they really are the type of company that needs to make kind of educational content about who they are but also why they matter and kind of what niche they serve, and it absolutely elevated them far above all of their competitors. It wasn't even close, actually, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah well, you mentioned education, so can you talk a little bit about educational content or education advertising and how podcast clips can be used creatively in ads?
Speaker 2:I don't know where that came from. I love that concept. Podcast clips can be used inside of ads. They can grab attention, educate your audience right there. If you think about the average thought leader is a subject matter expert. Whatever the subject is, they know it front back, east west, north south, front back east west, north, south. If you're that person's audience, then you know whether or not they're full of it or not. Right, you know if their stuff is really good and when it is good. If they're talking for 15 minutes, there's probably at least going to be a quote or two or maybe a question that they ask that make people think deeper about their circumstances or their business or their needs. So those kind of thought provoking quotes and questions and statements happen all the time and those can be very effective in terms of you know that getting attention like in terms of clips. So intelligent content it's hard not for it to educate your audience, compels them to engage with you and when you're putting that stuff, think about that in terms of digital ads.
Speaker 2:You see this a lot in LinkedIn right now, where there's a lot of people that do kind of founder-led content CEOs, subject matter, experts of people that do kind of founder-led content CEOs, subject matter experts and they're sponsoring that content. Imagine being able to not only be sponsoring that content but also have your organic that's going into LinkedIn and covering both sides kind of of the fence with that same type of messaging. That's huge, because what you're really trying to do as well with people, especially in LinkedIn, is to make content that makes them want to follow you as a business. But, even more importantly, if you have more people following you as an individual, both places business and individual are places where you're going to be pushing this type of content. But when you do that, here's what's really important. When somebody says I want to follow your business or I want to follow you as a person on LinkedIn, they've just opted in for your content. Prior to that, you organically found them, or you sponsored an ad, you did a digital educational advertising and you got their attention and as long as it was great content, so let's just assume it worked, whether it was the sponsored version or the organic version, but they decided to follow you. They're not buying yet, but they found your information compelling, they know you exist, you're starting to matter to them and they follow you.
Speaker 2:When that happens on LinkedIn, that tells LinkedIn hey, sean, just followed you. We're going to start to put some of your content into Sean's feed. Right, how do you start to see all that different stuff in your feed of LinkedIn and really everywhere else, but in this case, with LinkedIn, a big part of that are the people that decide to follow you and then, once they start to consume your content, maybe they start to share it, maybe they repost it, and then what happens? Then more people see your content and they start to follow. So you know, thinking about that in terms of an educational advertising opportunity, your thought leaders are going to be dropping stuff like that in podcast episodes like crazy and taking just a little segment out and putting it into something as an ad that educates. It's super smart. Everyone should be doing it. Super smart.
Speaker 1:Well, what about using podcasts to gain important insights from your industry and customers?
Speaker 2:That's a good question, you know. I'll use a recent example. So the automotive industry was recently just smacked in the face with a super ugly cybersecurity attack on CDK. Cybersecurity attack on CDK and it felt like it only just took a few minutes before all the self-proclaimed experts of everything were posting about it and making comments about it. This is, of course, especially on LinkedIn.
Speaker 2:In contrast to the bullshit artists, a business with a podcast focusing on the automotive industry, who went out and found actual cybersecurity experts and not just cybersecurity experts, but maybe some dealerships who actually were riding that struggle bus riding that struggle bus that episode or episode series could create some very insightful, helpful content and in the process, you and your company will likely discover your own insights that can help you maybe refine your messaging, maybe improve your service delivery or inspire product development. There's a whole lot of things that can happen there. So I like the question on insights, because a lot of times when I'm talking about this, I'm advocating businesses to make podcasts and make content where they're providing the insights, where they, you know, insightful, educational, sometimes entertaining that type of content. That's at the core of why you would be doing this as a business. But I think it's really important to think that there is the possibility to use your podcast in ways where you can also be setting up episodes on topics.
Speaker 2:Sometimes it's you know, it's spontaneous, right? Nobody knew when an attack like this was going to happen on CDK, and so if you have an industry-focused podcast and there are a couple that I think did go and eventually have episodes like this hugely important because you're making content again for the audience that's really going to like that. But in that process your company might be actually discovering some things about itself insights for your own business. So don't just think about the insights that you're going to be providing, which is great. That's probably the majority of what you're doing, but there are opportunities sometimes where you get insights back from the industry that might help you deliver your product and or service even better to the market.
Speaker 1:Well, and this is our last question, and so this will be a nice way to wrap this up based on everything you were just saying, but retention is crucial, and so how does podcasting help with retention reinforcement?
Speaker 2:That's another really good question. So okay, so, just like I talk about this a lot too, just like most companies don't make any content for the 95 plus percent who are not buying at the moment, while most companies are not making content to support the retention of the customers they work so hard and spend so much money to obtain. So you know it's about a lot of things, but it's also very much about keeping the customers that you have worked so hard to get, that you keep them engaged and you keep reminding them why they chose you in the first place. Right, if you did all the hard work, then one of the things that you accomplished was you made yourself relevant, you made yourself apparent, you revealed yourself relevant. You made yourself apparent, you revealed yourself, you introduced yourself.
Speaker 2:That's marketing and advertising, all of those things. And so now your target customer knows that you exist, and then you continue to tell them more about you by all this content you're making. You continue to tell them more about you by all this content you're making, and then they say, yes, because you also did that second important step. They know why you matter, more importantly, why they matter to them, why you matter to them. So, when you do all of that. You want to, of course, keep reminding them of those things. It's very important.
Speaker 1:And when you're making regular podcast episodes, it makes it really easy to reinforce your value and keep your brand top of mind for people. Well, I know I said that was going to be our last question, but I thought of another one, so will you, just before we finish up this episode, will you explain a little bit about the 95 5 percent? You just mentioned it because you're saying that most companies don't make content usually for the 95, which that's a lot of people of the target audience so can you just explain that a little bit, the 955 kind of rule or concept that you're talking about?
Speaker 2:Sure, 95-5 really is one of it's probably more common in B percentage of the marketplace that is actively in purchase mode. They're doing research but they're in buy mode, so they're going to be buying soon. And there's a percentage of people who are not in the market, are not in the market, and so when people talk about 95.5, what they're talking about is that, on average, 95% of the market is not buying today, only 5%. And so when you're making marketing content, most people are making marketing content based on that 5%, and you have especially if you have a lot of competition everyone's fighting over the 5%. And so let me give you a contextually example for the automotive industry.
Speaker 2:There are several parts of the auto industry that are really competitive Website providers. Websites are very, very competitive for a lot of reasons. I won't go too deeply into all of that, but every dealer has a website, every car dealer has a website, and so there is no new market. There are no new unless the very small percentage of new dealers that come into the market, but that statistically isn't enough to say well, that's going to change the way all the website providers plan to go sell. So all of the website providers are fighting over and it's not even 5%. It's probably closer to 3% or 2% of all of the dealers in North America that might be shopping for a website provider at any given time North America that might be shopping for a website provider at any given time. The question would be then if it's 97% of all of the car dealers in North America who are not shopping for a new website today, will they in the future? Probably Almost every single dealer in the country who's been in business for, let's just say, at least 10 years has had more than one website provider. They've changed for whatever reason, and so, in an environment like that, highly competitive, the question would be if there's only 3% of the market buying today, what are you doing for the 97% who aren't buying today but will be in the future? How are you introducing yourself to them? How are you trying to make yourself known to them so they know you exist? And then, furthermore, how they would decide that you matter to them, that they would do the research, that they would start this progression, this journey, if you will, to potentially choosing you as a business.
Speaker 2:So when I say 95.5 and I talk about people are not doing anything for the 95%. It's the 95% of people who are not your customer today. They're not interested in shopping today. They are not in the market actively shopping today, but they will be in the future and they don't know who the frick you are and you're like. Well, I mean.
Speaker 2:So why are you not making content? That's why I say well, podcast is the easiest thing for you to do, video series is the easiest thing for you to do. Blast it all over linkedin and all of a sudden, even if they're not going to buy from you today, you might be able to actually sneak right in and build a relationship with them over your little coffee moments every morning, all the clips you're putting out there talking about all the things that matter to them, and they may not have even known that those things matter to them until you started bringing things up that they should be informed about, that they should care about. Oh, your website only converts it 1.8%. Does that sound reasonable to you? Because you spend a lot of money to get traffic there, so is that really acceptable? Hey, well, we solved that problem, or any number of other things that you could make as content that would get somebody's attention. So I know that's maybe not the perfect answer. But the 95 is the 95% of people who aren't buying today but they will be in the future and you should be making content to get their attention so that the day your salesperson calls them up they've at least heard of you, if not say oh my goodness, I watch all your. I see all your stuff on linkedin. I actually watch your podcast on youtube or I listen to it on apple or whatever, like I get a lot of great stuff.
Speaker 2:I won't say his name, um, but I, in answering this question, I just literally was reminded of. There's a guy um here in texas who, um, I just because I'm not asking him, so I'm not going to say his name, but I he was a fan of the content that that I made with Greg Gifford, a dealer on for years and he was a huge follower and he would come, you know, pick our brains and talk to us at trade shows. You know, nada, digital dealer, all of them. He would come to every single DealerOn webinar. He was on all of them and he was not DealerOn's website customer, he was because of OEM regulations, mandates, you know. He was in a situation where he couldn't change that but that company made no content for them and we had his attention. And when he moved to a different dealership or dealership group, it didn't take very long before.
Speaker 2:Guess who won the business? Dealeron got the business. We didn't just get their website business. We got their digital marketing business. We got their SEO business. We got their everything business because we'd been talking about all the things that mattered to him. And so that's why I say it may not even happen in the exact company you're in, but if you're informing, engaging, giving all these people this content in the 95% who aren't buying today, you're giving yourself a chance to win, and most people are not thinking about that percentage of the market. They're all fighting over the 2, 3, 4, maybe 5% that are going to be buying in the next two weeks to 30 to 60 days. That's a short-sighted strategy.
Speaker 1:Well, thanks for explaining that. And thanks for for joining us today. I'm going to wrap it up and thank you for sharing these amazing and very helpful insights my pleasure to sum it up, podcasting isn't just a trendy marketing tool.
Speaker 1:It's a multi-faceted strategy that can drive revenue, enhance customer relationships and build your brand's personality. From creating a loyal audience to providing a wealth of insightful and engaging content, the opportunities are endless. So to our listeners. If you're ready to unlock the potential of podcasting for your business, make sure to connect with us on LinkedIn or visit HiredGunsAgencycom. Stay tuned for more episodes of Trigger Points. Hired guns agencycom. Stay tuned for more episodes of trigger points, where we will continue to explore the strategies that are revolutionizing B2B marketing. So until next time, see ya.
Speaker 2:See ya.