Show notes from Quuu’s podcast, in which Lucia Fontaina-Powell interviews leading markers and entrepreneurs to learn about them and from them.
In the fifth episode of Conversations with Quuu, Lucia chats to digital marketing powerhouse, Shane Barker. Listen to the full interview here:
Highlights
- On whether it’s necessary to have formal qualifications to get into marketing.
“The stuff I’ve learned over the last twenty years has been me going out and doing it…My templated answer is yes, go and get an education, but there are other ways to do that — you don’t necessarily have to have a degree.”
2. Why marketers need to find their niche.
“People will email me saying they want to get started with digital marketing. That’s like saying I want to be an attorney. The bankruptcy attorney is going to be so different from the DUI attorney. It’s the same thing with digital marketing; there are so many things that play into that.”
“One of the biggest problems with digital agencies is if you have 15 different services that you do, then what do you really specialise in? I always ask my clients, what are the core things you want to go after?”
3. The pros and cons of starting your own business.
“There are some huge upsides: you’re your own boss, everything is awesome, but then there’s the other side of it, which is that you’re your own boss! Nobody’s paying your bills. You want to go to a conference, you’ve got to pay $2000 to go to the conference. You don’t have insurance…You’re always fighting for the next client.”
4. Learning to delegate as an entrepreneur.
“Delegation is one of the hardest things for entrepreneurs to do. What you have to realise is, for the most part, people aren’t going to be as passionate about your business as you are, and that’s OK because it’s your baby.”
5. The perks of having a global, distributed team.
“Another thing about having an international team that I absolutely love…is that I have a 24-hour clock. If I assign stuff out at 6pm PST, and it’s something that takes 4 or 5 hours, when I wake up in the morning it’s done.”
“Internationally, there are some absolutely phenomenal people. For me, there are no borders.”
6. How inbound marketing can benefit your business.
“It takes a while to get [a blog] up and going, but once it’s up and going, the inbounds are phenomenal. Most of my leads come from inbound…from creation of great content.”
“The idea is to educate people…if you feel like you can do it, then great — there’s the content and I showed you how to do it. If you don’t have the time, then you might want to reach out to me.”
7. Where he thinks businesses commonly go wrong in their marketing strategies.
“There’s no magic pill that’s going to push your business, but what you can do is make educated decisions about where you want to allocate that money. Education is key.”
“It all takes time. If you get someone that says they can get you on the first page of Google for $95, please run. Take that $95 and go buy some drinks…if it seems too good to be true, it’s probably too good to be true.”
8. B2B vs. B2C influencer marketing.
“B2B is a different beast…you have to look at the qualitative vs. quantitative side of things. What are you going to measure and how is it going to benefit the content or message you’re putting out there?”
9. Why influencer marketing isn’t for everyone.
“Most influencers aren’t marketers. The problem is that they don’t know what to offer the brands. We’re trying to make influencers marketers, which is an issue, and we have brands that don’t really know what to negotiate or how to do influencer marketing. It’s that education piece that’s missing.”
“Just because you can do it doesn’t mean you should do it.”
10. How he built a name for himself as a blogger.
“I would go after smaller publications — I invested that time writing blog articles and it’s foundational. Then I would go to the next site and say hey, I write for XYZ and now I’d like to write for you guys. Today, I write for Forbes, and Huffington Post, and all these great sites.”
“You have to start somewhere. The only way to fail is by not starting.”
11. Where to find Shane.
Shane’s website: www.shanebarker.com
Shane’s Twitter: twitter.com/shane_barker
Shane’s Instagram: www.instagram.com/shanebarker/
Shane’s email: shane@shanebarker.com
If you enjoyed this episode, please call into our Anchor FM station to tell us your thoughts or leave us a review on iTunes 🙂
