Episode 514: Here’s How You Can Master Your Next Seasonal Digital Marketing Campaign by Ann Smarty #514

Welcome to the SEO podcast, Unknown Secrets of Internet Marketing. My name is Chris Burris, one of the owners of EWR Digital, and this is Matt Bertram. I'm the lead digital strategist at EWR Digital. Hopefully my sound sounds okay. I'm actually in a closet, you know, so I'm moving up the world. Is there something you need to share with us, Matt? I'm staying in now. Welcome back to another fun-filled edition of our podcast. This is podcast number 514. I actually had an interesting conversation with somebody who is now in the podcast industry, who has been listening to our podcast, also based in the Houston area. Matt might know who I'm talking about, who's been listening for a long time and was excited to get me on the phone and is actually going to be booking me for the other business on some other podcast. So that's exciting. We've had people who've been listening for such a long time. We are the number one SEO podcast, one of the top internet marketing podcasts in the digital known universe. And actually, I've got a review. Aliens are real, Chris. They just came out. I mean, there's been disclosure. Aliens are real. They're here. So, I mean, known universe. Is that why you're in the closet? You're in the closet. I'm hiding. No, I think that the known universe, like, you know, I mean, there could be other podcasts out there that we're not considering in other, you know, alien languages. So, you know, we just got to be careful of that. I can tell, you know. We are all about integrity. We don't want to be in the known universe. Um, well, I mean, maybe those ones that are more popular than ours and are talking about SEO, whatever the nomenclature for SEO might be in that, on that planet or galaxy or solar system, uh, maybe they're outside of our known universe. Well, you know, so I, I actually might start another book. Um, but essentially like how I'm training people to do SEO is like, it's

like the language of SEO. It's like how to talk to the Google supercomputer. Right. And it's a child right now. And so, you know, we're, we're creating signals and, and communication to talk with it, to understand what we're doing, who we are, what we're trying to do, uh, for ourself and our clients. So it's, you know, it's, you know, I'm going through the wormhole here on, um, uh, what, what we do here at EWR. So does it start with the Google you're so cute. Oh, that's a dog. I haven't tried that one, but put me on the top. Well, if, if it's the mentality of the child, we know the child, you and I both have children. We know that they will never stop asking, like they'll just never stop asking, uh, until they get it. Give me more content. Feed me. I need more content. I want to learn. All right. This review is from Mal Foxley. This was left on iTunes and it is of course, five stars, uh, Chris, it's a good title is great show. Chris and Matt hosts of the podcast highlight all aspects of SEO and more. And this can't miss podcast, the hosts and expert guests offer insightful advice and information that is helpful to anyone that listens. Mal Foxley, um, Patif to you. We really appreciate you taking the time to leave that amazing review. Um, so Chris, I was, uh, actually talking with, um, you know, uh, one of our new vendors and, uh, it's just funny because like, you know, don't like, you know, say what we do or whatever. And, um, we've been working with this contractor for maybe three or four months. We might bring them on full time. And, um, he goes, uh, Oh, I know who you are after like, you know, four months. He goes, I've been, I binge listened to your show. Like I've heard that really a lot. Chris is like, people start listening, uh, to the podcast and they, they binge listen to them. And there's actually

a lot of people out there, uh, that, that are listening. We've had some really big companies. We had to sign an NDA for one of them, uh, that called us, uh, after one of our podcasts. And, um, there's a couple of people in the crypto space that are, um, fans. And so, you know, it's, it's, it's kind of cool. So, yeah, it is cool. It's always kind of, I don't know. Um, maybe unsettling is the right word when you get on the phone with somebody who's like, I feel like I'm talking to a rock star, right. Or a celebrity because they've been listening to the podcast and they finally, uh, decided to pick up that phone and get some extra expert advice about SEO. Uh, and, and we've got, you know, some, some programs in place that can help, uh, even the little guy. So, um, so reach out to us. I'm disconcerted because it literally just said live now. No, it's, it's been live for, uh, over five minutes and it looks like there's a one person watching us. Okay. So we need to do this better job of like, um, when we set up, uh, it tweets out on Twitter, I can set up some web hooks. So like, you know, and then when we go live, it'll tweet again. And there, there, there's certainly some work that we need to do. We need to get a little more consistent. Cause also in addition to people saying, Hey, I, I, I love your show. Um, are you still doing it is like typically the next question that I get. So, um, really from when I spoke at podfest, um, and talking to the other speakers, uh, really consistency is super important. And, uh, we certainly are not quite there yet. We are lacking in the consistency area. Yeah, for sure. We deserve to be consistency, uh, shamed, uh, for, I mean, like we're, we're doing a team building, right. With Patrick Wanus and, um, that's, you know, accountability is the, uh, topic of

the, the, you know, exercise. So, yeah. Yeah. So that goes into accountability. Um, all right, let's jump into the article. This is the article. The title is the whole title is like how, uh, here's how you can, um, I put highlighter on it. That's too. Here's how you can master your next seasonal digital marketing campaign. Um, and we're going to jump right in. It's, uh, I think it's six points and it's from and smart, smarty, um, who, uh, smarty. She's smarty. I think she's at Marty. Like that's how you can connect, which is kind of, kind of cool. That's the great use of name and industry and everything. Um, so let's jump right in. So we're talking about how do you have a seasonal campaign? First off, should you have a seasonal campaign? Um, answers. Yes. Right. In almost every industry, take advantage of the seasonal nature. And if you're just doing consulting, uh, and I mean, just from the perspective of seasonal, have something seasonal, uh, to the marketing that you're putting out there, to the, to the assets that you're putting out there. But certainly if you're selling something that sells well, uh, based on the season, then yeah, absolutely. You need to have a seasonal campaign and here's how you can do a good one. Uh, you have anything to add before we jump into this, Matt? I think you teed it up nicely, Chris. All right. So number one is check your seasonal rankings now. So it's, it's interesting. You're thinking, right? Well, well, like right now, this podcast is actually being recorded in July. Uh, it's after July 4th. So in terms of seasonality, you're not going to be running a July 4th, uh, campaign. Why would I even bother checking, I don't know, Black Friday, whatever your product or services, why would I do that? And, and the point that Anne makes is those things don't fall out of the Google search engine, right? Unless you take the pages down, which is why she and we would recommend leave

those pages up. They can have good ranking right now. Uh, and you can be checking that and making sure, Hey, my coupon for Black Friday or more event for Black Friday or Thanksgiving or whatever is already in, in, in place. Well, you know, what I can tell you is we have a client that runs a lot of, um, regular campaigns, at least like once a quarter. And, um, you know, the not 4th of July, was it Labor Day right before that? Or was it Memorial Day? I can't, I think it's Memorial Day. Okay. And basically they were running a campaign and they, uh, you know, switch out the pages. Um, and so they had a page that was ranking, uh, for the holiday sale, but it was blank. Right. And so, so, you know, um, we just did a thrill and redirect to, um, the, the sale page. So there's a lot of like, uh, you know, structure that you need to think about when you're, you're setting up these campaigns and yeah, like, you know, Black Friday, um, big, big sale for a lot of people. And, uh, you know, a lot of times you rank for like Black Friday, 2020, right. And we're in 2021 or, you know, there, there, there's actually some prep work that, you know, unless you're running paid ads, uh, you, you really need to do. Um, and even if you are running paid ads, there's some prep work you need to do to make sure, uh, that everything's correct. And I'm sure we'll talk about it in this article. Yeah, absolutely. Um, let's see. So you want to set up, uh, yeah, you, the point is, is that you want to get started now, um, whatever the season is, uh, and we'll get into some of the things that you need to be focused on, uh, when it comes to SEO seasonality can be tricky, but it is, but it definitely needs to be planned ahead, um, as organic SEO takes time to yield results. So, uh, so

that's like tip number one, um, check your seasonal rankings and see where you're at, where, like, what is, what, what, what's your baseline, where you're starting from. Number two is start creating seasonal assets. And this is content and social. Your high season is going to be a busy time for you and your team. So while planning your upcoming campaigns, start creating and even scheduling your content assets beforehand. Um, like that's just goes without saying you should have this ongoing, especially if you're going to click, if you're going to tick the standard, uh, holiday boxes, Memorial day, 4th of July, labor day, like why not get that scheduled out six months, nine months, maybe even a year in advance. Cause you're probably not going to change that much between now and then. And if you do need to change it, you know, you are obviously have the opportunity to do that. Well, you want, you know, you want to rank for whatever the, uh, sale, like sale is like word sale plus, uh, whatever the holiday is, plus your name. You certainly want to rank up high for that, uh, for whatever page you're trying to promote. And then, you know, know that, um, you got to start early because, you know, people are going to be looking for that sale and people will, you know, just, um, I guess, um, vendors just extend the sale now, right. And it becomes like a week, two weeks long, uh, to cover that kind of sale period. And, and, and customers expect that. And so you really, um, want to have it on your radar, uh, right after the sale, like next year is like really the best time to plan for it because you can really, uh, know what, you know, what you did well, um, you know, just take a debrief of it and, and figure it out for yes year, next year and get it all planned out. So certainly, you know, have those assets. And if you can, if they're like evergreen assets that

you can change the year, or if you want to learn from whatever the offer was and change it, you can do that. Um, I certainly, uh, haven't read this article and so I don't want to give away. You're teetering on the edge of like, it's kind of obvious and is also point number four. Yeah, so I'm going to let you, uh, drive this and, and then I'll drive just context around whatever you're talking about. So in terms of creating seasonal content and Smarty, she says, I always turn to text optimizer. It's a tool that she used. It does a good job of suggesting related concepts and angles to potentially focus on and actually has some screenshots in the article. Uh, the retool, the tool relies on semantic analysis. We all know how important semantic, uh, like actually semantic SEO is. Uh, so it makes sense to have a tool that's focusing on that, uh, content marketing involves a lot of channels and I thought like, and she just goes on. And so the more you are prepared, the easier seasonal campaign will turn out to be. But I think that's something that a lot of people don't realize. Like they like, Oh, content marketing. I created the content I put on the blog. That's my one channel. And that's not really, uh, the, the hallmark of a quality content marketing campaign. Right. Yeah. So I, there's a concept called splintering. Um, and basically it's like repurposing of that content on multiple channels and platforms. And, you know, really from an SEO perspective, um, you know, Google and Facebook kind of made up. And so Google's indexing Facebook and, you know, there's other platforms like Twitter, uh, that, that Google pays a lot of attention to. And so, you know, you really want to, um, understand, um, you know, what platforms you're pushing it out on, what type of content, uh, there is for those platforms and how that could impact your SEO because, uh, whether, um, Google says it or not, I'll tell you right

now, um, social signals impact, uh, SEO, right? Yeah. Yeah. It makes sense. I mean, we're, you know, um, we're constantly talking about how build a good brand has an impact on, on, on Google's placement for you build. Yeah. I mean, if people are sharing a page or people are talking about a company or people are searching, uh, for a company, um, you know, Google does like brands. Right. And one of the interesting things is we're, we're running a campaign right now with, um, quite a bit of radio budget. Um, you know, I'm talking, uh, I'm talking a lot and, and I don't want to disclose the exact amount, but, um, it's been really interesting to see the lift and also to see the type of words, um, uh, that are, people are searching for, right? Like in search console. And so it's really just kind of interesting, um, when you run a radio campaign, the kind of, uh, lift that you'll get. And it, and it really actually helps with, uh, brand awareness and building that solid brand on different channels. I know we're kind of talking about social, but you, you, you start going to some of those traditional channels. Um, you can get a, you can get a lot of reach and you can get a lot of, uh, branded, um, branded search. So, yeah. Yeah. Um, she goes on to talk about, you know, creating cross-channel content. She uses boosted by light tricks, uh, which allows you to easily create fist, uh, festive videos in multiple formats. Obviously the formats being important to getting that content onto different platforms, uh, inside that tool, there's also a handy brand kit that features, uh, it's a feature that allows you to kind of make sure you have brand consistency across those videos that you're, uh, putting together on the platform. What is this called? I mean, she's promoting this platform. I've never heard of it. It sounds cool. Is it called boosted by light tricks? Okay. Right. So yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, that's one

of the reasons we do this, uh, podcast, right. It's for us to stay on top of stuff and for our audience to stay on top of stuff. Um, I think she gets into more details. The app is available on iPhone and Android for free. You can, I'm just reading, I wasn't going to read this originally, but you can choose to upgrade for $4.99 per month. Uh, she says that she's just been using the free tier. Um, the platform also offers a list of seasonal content ideas and hashtags to make your campaign even more effective. So go check that out. That's, uh, uh, boosted by light tricks. Very cool. Yeah. All right. Number three, evaluate your past seasonal campaign performance. Um, if you didn't do a seasonal campaign last year, then you're probably going to just skip to the next one, but let's jump into this. If you were publicizing any seasonal content over the years, find all of it. Right. And you want to do a couple of things with that one, explore an opportunity for an update. And you were talking about this. Like if it was 2020, the simple update is 2021, uh, but maybe a slightly more, uh, complex one would be post COVID 2021 Thanksgiving, right? Like talking about the current status of what's going on. Well, you could, you could add, um, you know, something at the top or something at the bottom, like add a paragraph to say, Hey, you know, all this stuff still applies. And then, you know, for, uh, the current time period, um, these are some of the trends we're seeing. And so I see that happening a lot, uh, you know, people getting blogs re-indexed, um, and it works well, uh, once you build that, uh, foundation of the campaign to, to build on top of it, because you can, you can move pretty quickly. And I think this is talking about, uh, using analytics to kind of see, uh, what happened last year to see if you can recreate some of that, or

if you can build on top of it. Yeah. Yeah. So one of the reasons you want to pull all of those resources, look for opportunities to update. The other one is to evaluate how effective it was in attracting traffic, as well as turning those traffic, that traffic into actual conversions. And she kind of dives in a little bit into Google analytics. They can, does a really good job of figuring out, uh, trends during particular timeframes, what pages actually got, what kind of traffic, uh, and you can actually take that further down and understand, uh, how did that traffic convert? And maybe it's a time to go visit those pages that were maybe placing well for Black Friday X, Y, Z, and maybe your, your user interface didn't work as well. And it's time to revisit that and play around with button locations, maybe throw a little video on there, uh, start tweaking that page that did okay last year, or maybe great in terms of traffic, but just okay in terms of conversions. I mean, one of the things that we use a lot, um, you know, either like crazy egg or hot jar to get some heat mapping going on. Uh, and, and certainly I think seasonal campaigns is really a great time to really look at how people are interacting with the site, um, and how people are interacting during a sale. And, you know, there's a lot of things that you can learn from that, that you can tweak, uh, to improve the effectiveness of campaigns. Um, and I know we're talking about SEO, uh, but like machine learning on the ad side of things, uh, really, really provide great insight as far as, uh, how images perform, uh, how copy performs, how buttons perform, you know, tools like even optimizely, um, you can do A-B testing. And so, uh, the, you know, holidays, I just think are a great, great time to, um, you know, run tests. So, you know, excellent. Um, yeah, that was not in the article at all.

That was just mine. Uh, to analyze conversions again, you can use Google analytics. She talked about something called Fintesa. Uh, I clicked the link, uh, it didn't pull up. It seemed like it was some sort of maybe kind of a click funnels, uh, competitor. And obviously that gives a lot of good conversion process because it's one funnel on one particular page. And so you could understand that a little bit better. All right. So number four, again, master your next seasonal digital marketing campaign. Number four is consider starting a tradition. I like the creativity involved in this. We all remember the overwhelming success of Elf Yourself, right? Uh, Ask Santa and NORAD, many projects that were able to engage and convert thousands of people over the years. Come up with something. If you need help coming up with something where you're creating your own kind of Christmas trend, Thanksgiving trend, whatever, shoot the turkey. I don't know. Uh, if you need some inspiration, check on a Namify. That's another tool. And she actually showed a screenshot of, uh, of coming up with like Christ mask, right? So Chris, Christmas masked, Chris masked. So, so Chris, I mean, this is a little bit off topic, but you know, um, we started, uh, you know, uh, SEO hosting company, uh, which we don't know if we've talked about that or not called co-hosta, right? Co host a right cohosta.com. And, um, and, uh, I used one of these tools to come up with the name. It wasn't Namify, but it was something else. And, uh, just when it came up, I really, uh, liked it and we got feedback from the team. And, and so these tools are really cool. There's a lot of these kind of, uh, tools and logo builders out there. And, uh, I'm sure that this one is fun. I, I would say, you know, really, um, you have a lot of keen insight into, uh, creating a term, right. And then, um, promoting that term, because if you create a term and you

promote that term, you don't have to compete. Um, I think you used to do it, uh, you know, before, before I, I really came, uh, we teamed up, um, you were doing it with, uh, what is it? Uh, guaranteed, what was it? Guaranteed leads guaranteed. Yeah. Internet marketing leads guaranteed or something, something like that. Yeah. And then, you know, and then your other business also like kind of building, uh, a phrase and, you know, really, you know, it, I think it takes a lot of effort, honestly, to, to, to build that brand, to build that phrase. Um, but, but I think that there's something to the tradition if you have, uh, loyal followers. Um, but, but when you do have that and people start searching for it, um, you, you typically get the majority of the traffic, right. That you generate, which is, which is nice. So you're not having kind of people siphoning off, um, your efforts. So, well, yeah. If you look at HubSpot coming out with inbound marketing, right. Like raise and they started marketing it well, if you come up with something that not that many people know about, whether, whether it's the tool that she just talked about, uh, right. For making the videos or whatever. And you're like, Hey, let me, let me take that tool. And I want to, I want to push it out there through a podcast you might have, or actually just through some traditional marketing efforts or standard digital marketing efforts. Why push out the name, the generic name, if you can white label it, if you're exposing new people to something that they've never heard of before, expose, like have it be something that you have some control over. Don't just throw them into the general bucket and hope they buy from you, uh, throw them into your bucket where they have to buy from you. And that's, that's really the concept. I think, and I do think it makes, it makes a lot of sense. How do you have any data points

on, um, uh, that effort that you've done that you, you would like to share as far as what you've seen with, uh, branding, uh, a term outside the norm? Well, I can tell you, I can tell you a little story. So, so inside of, um, of, of my vital C, uh, we've really trademarked the phrase ESS60, which is really C60, that kind of generic molecule. Uh, but we, what, what, what ESS60 is, is C60 that's been processed for safer human consumption. And it's something that we have a trademark on. We actually had a pretty important person in Dubai, uh, who was interested in our product, actually one of our white labeled versions of the product. And they were talking with a health guru and the health guru came back to her and said, Hey, I found this other company. That's even better than the one you're thinking about using. And that company was my company was my vital C actually. So the white labeled version was out there. They found my vital C. What I know is my vital C doesn't place that well for C60. I actually don't want it to, but what that meant is that health guru searched ESS60. They didn't search C60. So it kept it all in the same family really tightly. So that's like one anecdotal kind of point. I don't really have any good data. It's just conceptually, it makes sense. If you're throwing them in a bucket, throw them in a bucket that you have more, not all, you'll never have a hundred percent control, but throw them in a bucket that you have more control over. Yeah. And for everybody watching, like, I'm sorry that my video is so bad. I have such horrible, horrible lighting. I'm literally, you know, and I don't know, it looks like there's like waves of light or something. It's a fluorescent light, right? Yeah. Right. It's a fluorescent light. Yeah, I think so. I can't see. Thank you. I can't look at it directly. All right. Number five, look at

what your competitors did or didn't do, right? So competitive analysis is important because it motivates, I like this, because it motivates a business owner to do more and to do it better. She always includes, just like us, competitive analysis. And, you know, we include competitive analysis like, hey, should we focus on this term or that term? What kind of marketing direction should we go if we're focusing on this term? Like, what's the spin on it that seems to be working? That's all about competitive research. Well, you know, so, you know, quick, I guess, story. So, you know, I like to look at these different tools out there because there's certainly some interesting stuff on how people kind of interpret the data. And you have to use all these different listening tools to kind of triangulate what's going on. And I am part of like a mastermind or kind of, I don't know, top secret SEO group. I don't know. But, you know, and a lot of people in the group, we were talking about some different tools. And it was funny because I met somebody at a Bitcoin conference that worked at SimilarWeb, which, you know, I've used a free version in the past. And, you know, some of these SEOs had said, hey, you know, the data is way off, you know, and it's like, but SEMrush data is off and Ahrefs just like SEMrush maybe over, you know, compensates, you know, Ahrefs undercompensates, like, you know, you're using Alexa, you're like, you're trying to triangulate it, right? And what I was really trying to look at is, you know, if you have a website that has, say, 5,000 searches a month, you can get really interesting user background data, right? And so I wanted to see a lot of investors use SimilarWeb to analyze companies that they're invested in to see kind of how they're doing, right? Like, I don't know, like, we know the industry. And like, I bought Google a long time ago, because I was just like, this is like,

this is a beautiful business, right? And then almost like, I don't know, you know, but we know what Google changes are making, and we know how effective those ad changes are, and maybe what they're pushing. And that reflects in like the quarterly numbers. But anyways, so SimilarWeb, I was really looking at to get an understanding from a competitor analysis from a industry benchmark, you know, where traffic's coming from to other clients of where we might not be getting traffic or competitors for our clients, you know, where are these kind of pools to go find traffic that we're not looking at. And really, even from an outreach standpoint, looking at does this traffic from this link have the same type of visitor flow that I would have, right? Because you really want to look at it from a referral standpoint, as well as like, you know, Google, Google's not just looking at what what you're doing on your site, it looks up like, it's almost as important of internal linking as external linking, to be linking to people that are like you or backing up what you're saying, or high authority, and really, just understanding traffic in general, I think is incredibly important. And there's a lot of really interesting insights to maybe businesses, if you're not as familiar with them, to understand, you know, where where people are going, or what they're searching, or what other sites they're looking at, right, like that gives you an indicator, whether it be news sites, or technology blogs, or, you know, business sites, like it's, it's really quite interesting. And I know that, you know, really looking at what the competitors are doing gives you a lot of ideas on on, you know, what you could be doing better, or maybe something you haven't thought of before. And I think a lot of people, based on their client base, have a different mix, right, of like, where they're getting clients, or how they're getting clients, like everybody has a little bit different business model, and everybody's doing a

little bit differently. And so to see how other people are doing that, and then, you know, incorporate that into what you're doing, I think, is a phenomenal strategy, as you're trying to grow. So yeah, and, and, and it's not like, okay, we did it once, and now we don't ever have to do it again, because the, the landscape in your industry is going to be changing. And you want to keep doing that on a regular basis. And I love what she says, that it has value, because it motivates a business owner to do more, and to do it better. Like, that's, that's important. So I scrolled, I just scrolled down on the article here. And she talks about similar web next, like after age, right? So she talks about age reps, right? And she says, it's the only one. In the, it's the only platform in the industry that also offers an estimate of traffic each search query sends. That's incorrect. SEM rush does that. And then yeah, similar web is another tool for competitive research. I like looking at their referral traffic report to identify what sites are sending traffic to my competitors. So, you know, it's, it's not surprising an expert in the industry brought up points that another expert in the industry would bring up. So this, uh, and then she says that the basic report in that tool is free. So, um, great. Yeah, no, yeah. I looked at like the enterprise version to, to, to get a little bit deeper, uh, analysis. It was quite interesting. You know, it looks like she's talking about here, setting up a Google alerts. I think that that's a great best practice. Um, anytime, uh, you or one of your clients has mentioned, um, you know, maybe, maybe setting up a Google alert because it gives you, or even a competitor, right? Even a competitor to see kind of what they're doing to kind of keep tabs on, on what's happening. So I think actually from a competitor standpoint, um, that's not something that,

that I've done or we've done. And so, um, interesting, interesting. Yeah. Uh, and finally number six, uh, right. So we're talking about, uh, here's how you can master your next seasonal digital marketing campaign. This should not surprise you. Number six is create your editorial calendar. Cause the last thing that you want to do is like the week before black Friday being put together, putting together something that really should have been out a week earlier and then put together a month earlier. So create that calendar. Every year people seem to start preparing for big holidays earlier. It is not unusual to spot a holiday centric social media ad in October. Uh, this can actually cause both excitement and, uh, irritation, right? Like, okay, please wait until Halloween is over. Um, you gotta, that is, that is like Christmas, like, like how fast can we put Christmas stuff up is from Halloween. Yeah. Like, yeah. Trick or treat. And, uh, you want me to put up your tree when do I start publishing seasonal content is the ultimate thing. Look at, you can look at trends and Google analytics, depending on how long you've been in business. You can look at the long-term trends, depending on the tool you're using. You can look at these trends and understand when do they typically start to ramp up? Uh, and when should you start ramping up? So, so a metric that I typically use, I mean, it's, it, you know, it's going to certainly vary, uh, per industry, per site, per, like there's so many different factors, but think about when you do a post, um, typically that, that post or that link or, you know, whatever you created, it's going to take about 60 days to come to full strength. Yeah. Right. And so, um, you know, if you're doing predominantly SEO, like that's probably a good rule of thumb is you need to probably start two months out. Right. Um, you know, uh, and, and maybe you're, you're talking about prepping for whatever that is, or, you

know, maybe something that that's not as relevant, but certainly if you want it to rank, you might have to start earlier. You know, um, you could also, uh, run some, some ad traffic to that blog post or whatever to get, to get, get Google the data that needs. And that's, you know, something you can certainly use to, to, to, to move up in the rankings faster, because again, Google has a bigger data set to make a decision based on that new article. Um, so, so write good content and then, uh, make sure Google sees it. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Even if you have got to pay for it, uh, when it comes to, and I like this. So when it comes to organizing and scheduling your content assets, there are a few great calendar plugins to use. Um, she likes co-schedule, uh, because it allows her to schedule those updates to social media channels and she can actually get things assigned. Apparently that's a $29 product. Uh, I prefer the tool because it combines onsite content planning and social media scheduling. That's pretty sharp. Uh, also points out Instagram offers a helpful guide on planning your seasonal content strategy. And she gave a link to it. Um, and then finally, the earlier you start preparing for your big season or each of your seasons, if we're talking about a seasonal digital marketing campaign, um, the more time you have to handle an increased amount of sales, um, the, the earlier you start, the more time you have to get ready for that. So, um, and Smarty, Mike, great, great article, but tiff to you for, for putting this together. Yeah. I mean, one thing that I would add, um, is if, if you are a larger company and you're, you're planning out, uh, a lot of people do monthly goals or quarterly goals, or, you know, even some people do weekly goals, right. And, you know, how is the stores performing on a weekly basis? Um, and, and, you know, that's a lot of times how

the stores are looking at it. You know, if you look at it on a monthly or quarterly basis and you have a certain amount of ad spend, uh, it might make more sense to spend more money or more ad dollars, uh, during that sale, during that seasonal sale versus, uh, spreading it out equally, you know? And so, um, I think that when you're in this planning phase, I know we're mainly talking about SEO, but, uh, you know, when you're talking about seasonal campaigns, you know, I think ads are a phenomenal way to go because they're an integral part of it. Yeah. Yeah. You can, you can pay to skip the line and you can be at the top of, uh, the search results and in Facebook and what have you. Um, but spending more dollars, um, you know, ramping up into that campaign and throughout that campaign, because if it's a, if it's a big deal, sometimes people plan for it and it's not always as impulsive unless it's like an e-commerce business. Um, and you know, if you have a store, you, you, you want to weight that spending, uh, to maximize your return over, um, you know, a longer period of time, uh, and not just have maybe a myopic view of like, Hey, we're going to spend X amount of dollars per week, no matter what. Right. And so I just think that a lot of times in, in marketing, um, things are siloed and you, you want to, um, you want to look at a multiplier effect or a omni-channel strategy and you, you want to, um, make sure that you're looking at the big picture when you're planning these things. Yeah. I think kind of what you're saying is go, go back and to complete the story, go back and look at your data. What, uh, what, what was your marketing budget? What was your marketing spend for X, Y, Z holiday last year, seasonal, uh, uh, campaign last year and what was the results and what would have happened

if you had put an extra 10, 20, 30% into black Friday or an extra 5% into, uh, into 4th of July. Did you max those particular opportunities out? And that's the, one of the things that I don't, um, completely like about Google analytics. There's certainly some other, uh, tools out there. Um, but you, you want to map, um, spend, right. You want to map spend, whether it be, you know, money towards SEO, which, you know, like you got to figure out the metrics of how to measure it or paid ads or any of the traditional mediums. Um, but you need to tie the results in, um, analytics or, or whatever you're looking at to how much you're spending. Right. Because, um, again, there's multiple variables and factors that go into, uh, how successful or unsuccessful those campaigns would be. So. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. By the way, you mentioned co-host earlier. I just got to know you might not, you might be seeing it also that co-host is ready for launch. So literally while we're on the air on this podcast, this will be our first say, Hey, go check out co-hosta.com. Um, it's really, and we'll get a lot more details, a lot more talking points about it. It's really a hosting solution that's designed for SEO. It's designed for SEOers. It's designed for people who deliver SEO services. We understand the nuances of delivering a high quality hosting environment. We've actually been doing it for years. It's kind of Matt's guidance that was like, okay, Chris, you've been doing this for years. Good job. Now, why don't we do something with it and deliver a lot of value to a lot of people? Uh, so, so go check out co-hosta.com. Yeah. I mean, they're like server side caching. There's a lot of things that, um, you know, from the technical side of things that are really a lot more important with SEO and, um, to have like a system admins person, like you're talking a lot of money here. Um, and we

have like, I think the number three guy from GoDaddy, um, that, uh, on the cybersecurity side, uh, and, and his handpicked team, uh, that, that managed this for us. And it's really, uh, helpful in a lot of ways. And there's a lot of like recently, there's been just a lot of cyber attacks, um, recently. Um, and, and so I know that there are a lot of other, uh, freelancers or other agencies out there, uh, that don't have a good, uh, infrastructure piece. I mean, they use a lot of like GoDaddy resellers or, you know, stuff, stuff like that. And, you know, GoDaddy used to be a great company, uh, until they went public and, and there's just really nobody servicing from what I've seen, um, the needs. And, um, you know, we, we were kind of keeping it to ourself, uh, and, and that's grown to the point that we've added some people and we've added some bandwidth and we said, Hey, why don't we, um, why don't we offer this to, to other people that might need it? Cause it's a great service. And, um, you know, we, we, we mapped it all out. We built it all out. Certainly, um, there's some, uh, uh, post launch, uh, work we want to do, uh, even on the design side, from a security standpoint, everything we're doing is HTML coded. Uh, and so, so we're not overlaying anything at the front end, uh, from a security aspect. So, um, you know, so, so, so we're, we're kind of taking some time to tweak that, but I think in a couple months, it's going to be rocking and rolling, but really all the infrastructure is built out. You can go set up an account and, and we do offer some minimal web hosting services. And, you know, if there's, um, some problem solving, uh, that, that you need, we can look at that too, but we've just found that there's a lot, even on the enterprise side of, uh, clients that don't have the support internally

that, that they need to do these things. And really, um, you know, some of our people have a great pedigree, um, great security clearance. Um, and, uh, there's somebody that you would want to trust with your site. So, you know, you can go check it out. Um, we'll certainly talk more about it. I think we'll probably, uh, have William, uh, you know, on the podcast, uh, at some point in the future. So by the way, William kind of in charge of security and a lot of the, the technical setup of, of cohost, uh, it's really kind of born out of like AWS, right? So Amazon realized they needed these huge database infrastructures to support Amazon. And then like, well, we got this infrastructure and like, we could utilize it in other places, uh, and started providing that to the communities. And that's one of their big revenue generators kind of same with us. We we've, we've done hosting in-house for so long because we recognized it early on, uh, that it was so important to have that control over it. Um, and, and, and for all the reasons that are getting technical SEO right on the server level. Uh, and also I just want to say we will have William on, I'm not sure how much you'll be able to talk about this, but soon look for an article from him because he found a bug inside of WordPress, uh, and was actually on, on a, on a call with one of the leading security, um, providers kind of internet wide. And they're like, this is something that you should write a paper about. Yeah. Cause it was like a, the first time it's been discovered, I forget what it's called, like a zero day hack or, or, uh, what is it called? Do you know? But yeah. So you can't talk about it and what the nuances of it, because you want to present the hack to the people who, uh, created the software early enough so that they can get it fixed and

they can push that fix out and then you can present it. So, um, it's, it's, it's going to be a ways out, but, uh, it's, I, I can tell you, I've been doing this since 99. Uh, I think we started doing the hosting ourselves probably 2001 or something. Um, and, and it's impressive what he found and the way he found it, how complex of a hack it is that just leaves your WordPress basically like with the door. Well, there, there, I mean, a lot of these hacks are getting in like keystroke mapping of like, you know, you click on a video, um, you know, there's, uh, ways to steal credit card information. Um, like in, in, you know, the typical, uh, antivirus softwares is kind of like at this point, kind of a joke because they can't, they can't really find that stuff. You know what I mean? And so we've had to set up, uh, a late layers of security, um, and compartmentalize things like that. I mean, I mean, one example is like, I mean, how many people use, um, their domain for mail gun to push, uh, to push emails for clients, right? Like, uh, from, from the server, uh, through that. And they're using all the same. So, so you're exposing now your, uh, your, your, your login information and then, you know, you're, you're really tanking, I think your, uh, deliverability, uh, as well. But I mean, there's just, there's a lot of ways, like how you set up stuff that I know we don't talk a lot about on this call from a technical standpoint, but it's just becoming so incredibly important. It's not, it's not doing this or that. And it's a silver bullet anymore with Google. Um, it's a super intelligence that's getting smarter and smarter and you want to be doing the right side of things, but also, you know, from, from the server level. Yeah. From the server side level, it's, it's, it's, you know, speed is incredibly important, right? All right. Let's, let's, let's

table back. We'll talk more about co-host. Uh, don't forget about pro testimonial doc testimonials. Is it plural? Testimonial just one pro testimonial.com. That was like literally the only domain that was like, whatever, seven bucks. Like everything else was like the 2,500, five grand, 10 grand. I was just like, this is a great name. I'm going to think. Yeah. Pro testimonial. Uh, if you want to be able to get testimonials for your business or your customers businesses, um, it's, it's a great tool. Uh, and there's, I think that there's a process where you can actually, um, kind of resell it. So cool. Well, they're for 14 days, no, no credit card. Right. Um, uh, and, and you can use it and really we're recommending it to all our clients because video testimonials are absolutely the best engagement conversion. Um, and really this was born out of co, uh, COVID, um, uh, when our video crews got, um, round, basically grounded and, uh, and, and, and so we had to find a solution, uh, that would work in that new environment. And, you know, really this, the, this hosting us of all from, uh, that as well as, as a, a more stable offering, um, you know, uh, with troubling economic times. All right. So I think that, uh, that should wrap it up, Chris, I think we did a great job kind of sharing some of that, um, things to do for seasonal campaigns. So, yeah, absolutely. Um, yeah, I think that's it. If, you know, we would appreciate if you left us a review, we don't, you know, if you go to ewrdigital.com, uh, forward slash reviews, uh, or review, I can't remember which, uh, one of those will get you right where you can leave us a review, uh, or leave us a review on Facebook. We would appreciate it. Or, you know, iTunes or wherever, right? Wherever you're listening to this, please, uh, leave us a review. Um, and we appreciate it. So until the next time, my name is Chris Perez. My

name is Matt Bertrand. Bye-bye for now.