2022 Year In Review: Specific examples of how marketers and entrepreneurs put lessons they learned into action (plus unsung marketing heroes)

This article was published in the MarketingSherpa email newsletter.

In the year 2022, the team at MarketingSherpa and MECLABS Institute (MarketingSherpa’s parent organization) brought you:

• A free digital marketing course – “Become a Marketer-Philosopher: Create and optimize high-converting webpages” is now complete, and there are 26 on-demand FastClasses available to take at your own pace.

• A new marketing podcast focused on lesson-filled stories – We’ve already released 42 episodes (wow, time flies) of How I Made It In Marketing. No thought leaders with vague ideas here. Marketing leaders from Saatva, Mint Mobile, Cuisinart, Batteries Plus, NYU, Merrell, Capgemini Invent, Dashlane, Nationwide, RingCentral, and many more organizations share the hard-won lessons from their career and take you into the room where it happened to hear the stories and people behind those lessons.

• A new way to optimize your marketing with your peers – The MECLABS SuperFunnel Research Cohort is a 40-day journey to optimize your marketing funnel, led by MECLABS patented methodology and supported by fellow marketers and entrepreneurs. A new cohort will begin in January 2023, and you can learn about it in this six-minute video.

OK, this is the problem with me writing the year-end marketing wrap-up article – it has already become sickeningly braggadocious. Yuck!

So I thought it would be more helpful to turn to your peers, and ask them what lessons they gained from our content this year and how they put those lessons into action…hoping to inspire your next great idea with at least one of these lessons.

200% app download increase by using QR codes in content marketing

Simon Bacher, CEO and Co-founder, Simya Solutions, creators of the Ling App:

I came across one of your case studies, Content Marketing: Strategies of businesses that improved (and replaced) digital content marketing. I was impressed how Accrue Real Estate’s team uses QR codes to track ads and create customized mobile-optimized landing pages.

Because of this great content-generation strategy, I started searching how to use QR code to help our app users learn basic foreign words and pronunciation and attain my content marketing goals. I also use it for social media marketing on Twitter and Facebook. I’m thankful to MarketingSherpa because my app’s download rate increased 200% since I implemented this content development and marketing strategy using QR codes.

Creative Sample #1: QR code use by language learning app on Twitter content

Creative Sample #2: QR code use by language learning app on Facebook content

Freelance copywriter doubles conversion rate for DTC brand by mastering the delicate balance of “authenticity” and “professionalism”

Jeff Poppe, CEO & Founder, Jeffcopywriter LLC:

After reading your article on “Authenticity” vs. “Professionalism,” I quickly discovered some giant flaws in my copy. I realized that my content was either taking a strictly “professional” tone or a more “casual” voice. Only after discovering how to strategically combine the two, was I able to dramatically increase engagement and conversions in my copy.

The invaluable secrets I was able to learn in the case study were able to propel me to new levels in terms of the overall strength of my writing. You see, readers were looking over my articles and seeing statistics, yet I was never able to truly resonate with them on a deeper and more personal level. Slowly, I started adding more “authenticity” in the form of real-life events and common pain points that my target avatar deals with on a daily basis.

This served to create a MUCH deeper bond between me and the reader than I ever thought possible. When I began to master the combination of a genuine authentic voice and the social proof and authority that comes from a professional tone, my copy quickly became much more powerful – and it showed in the data, too.

A great example of this is when I wrote a sales email for a DTC brand in the alternative health niche. My main objective was to increase conversion rate, and I thought the correct way to do that was to “load up the copy” with as much professional, authoritative language as possible.

After seeing a poor conversion rate, I knew I needed to find a new strategy. It was then that I came across the one article that taught me how to integrate an authentic “one-on-one” feeling inside of the reader. Discovering this, I was able to DOUBLE my conversion rate in the rest of my sales emails for that client.

Food blogger increases email signups 44% by focusing on the customer’s interest instead of her own

Shrey Sinha, Founder, Countertop Pizza Oven:

I downloaded your Landing Page Blueprint and the Landing Page Checklist, and I have implemented a few strategies on my website, and they have worked very well.

After implementing what is being taught in the Landing Page Blueprint, I have seen massive results; I got almost 50 percent increase in my sign-ups (with the same traffic).

This was a game-changer for my blog, and I'm looking forward to growing my list with the techniques taught in the blueprint. I'm soon releasing a cookbook on my website, and I would also use the techniques for marketing it.

Focusing on the consumer’s interest and the “talk” style on my landing page was key to my improvement. I could focus on the reader’s interest and make changes accordingly without focusing on how “I” want things to be.

Before I just had a pop-up to collect emails. Once I thought of the user's interest when they land on my page, I offered them a recipe eBook since they are landing on a recipe-related page – “how to cook a pizza on a griddle.”

In June, I only had an email sign-up and got 68 subscribers.

But in July, after working on a free eBook with recipes, I got 98 subscribers.

That is a 44 percent increase in my email sign-ups.

Financial content website removes the element of pressure in CTAs, doubles conversion rate

Adam Garcia, CEO and owner, The Stock Dork:

With your episode, Growth Marketing: Give a choice of "yes" or "yes" (podcast episode #37), we realized that properly placing CTAs would significantly improve our marketing growth. This is especially true when customers give our services a shot out of willingness and not because they are pressured to do so.

We had this belief that a compelling call to action (CTA) should automatically entice people into subscribing to our services. Some highly effective CTA phrases we included were "Get Started," "Buy Now," and "Sign Up" – and these were all aggressive ways to convince customers to do the action instead of giving them the option to familiarize our offers first.

However, this specific episode has helped us ensure we grab the attention of our target audience by removing the element of pressure in our CTAs. Instead, we allow them to learn more about the offer once they click the initial CTA button before making a final decision on the subsequent landing page. This has doubled our conversion score for November, and we expect a steady increase even for the next few months with consistency in mind.

Marketing agency attacks the big problem with urgency, gets more consistent workflow and more satisfied clients

Scott Ingram, Director, Helium Marketing Agency:

While many of Marketing Sherpa’s podcast episodes have struck a chord with me, none more so than Episode 34 with Edithann Ramey on throwing out the business model.

Ramey shared her experience of navigating through the Covid-19 period in the hospitality space. Although our digital marketing agency did very well during this period, our business alternates between times of feast or famine from one-off project work. Sometimes this creates too much work and other times we don’t have enough, putting a lot of stress and pressure on myself and the rest of the team at our agency.

This episode highlighted to me that we needed to “attack the big problem” with urgency and it was time to throw the traditional agency business model out the window and instead rebuild the business around what accommodates a better lifestyle for our team.

So we shifted our business to a monthly retainer-only model and developed a brand new “marketing essentials” cost-leading service for small business owners where the arrangement isn’t based on worked hours, but rather outcomes and service.

This has been a big shift for us (and we’re still shifting!), but the initial results have been positive so far: less sales stress, more consistent workflow, increased job security for staff and more satisfied clients. I’m so glad this episode gave us the courage to make the change, it’s definitely been worth it!

While it may seem like a trivial change to some, it has required a lot of flexibility of our staff due to the volume of changes to our day-to-day operations – which have been really tiring for us all! At the end of the podcast Ramey talks about “building up the team,” and although I think it was a side point, I believe this tip has also helped us navigate the change by emotionally investing in our people (to offset the emotional cost of change).

Not only do we go out of our way to praise, encourage and motivate our staff more so than ever, we take note of the advice in another MarketingSherpa article to avoid behaviors that kill creativity and motivation (too many meetings, mass emails with too many CC’d, etc.).

Thanks again MarketingSherpa, looking forward to yet another year of inspiring content!

Mattress store confronts professional services vendor, ends unsatisfactory relationship

Jonathan Prichard, Founder & CEO, Mattress Insider:

The content from MarketingSherpa in 2022 that had the most significant impact on me was Podcast Episode 25 – Marketing Strategy: Data tells stories at Nationwide, fast mistakes, and the triage method.

Specifically, Tiffany Grinstead discussed the concept of making mistakes and learning from them as fast as you can. I've owned my company for many years, and as a leader, it's easy to keep pushing forward when something isn't working. It often takes more time and energy (and even more money) to admit to mistakes and pivot quickly, but Tiffany's experience at Nationwide reminded me how important it is to fail fast and pivot faster.

I took what she said to heart, and it motivated me to look closely at a relationship I had with a professional services vendor I contracted with a few months earlier. I wasn't entirely happy with the relationship or results it was delivering, and Tiffany's reminder made me sit down and really think about the large amount of money I had already invested, what it would take to fix the problem, and what would ultimately be best for my company. In the end, the decision was clear, and I terminated the relationship.

Had it not been for the podcast conversation, it may have taken more weeks or months of being dissatisfied until I made a change. Sometimes entrepreneurs – even those who've built one or more successful companies and have years of experience under their belts – need reminders.

Job-matching website confronts freelancers, gets improved production from them

Milo Cruz, CMO, Freelance Writing Jobs:

One lesson that stands out to me about this podcast episode – Advertising and Brands: Details matter, know when to quit, …be nice (podcast episode #27) – is never to hold back from telling people about the quality of their performance. We realized that honest feedback is essential to help our interns and employees grow in their careers and deliver exceptional client service.

The podcast episode guided me on how I handled the two freelance writers we hired a couple of months ago for our marketing team. One of them could produce detail-oriented and high-quality marketing content, but the problem was always with the deadline. He was a buzzer-beater, and I lost track of how often he jeopardized our clients' business because of this behavior. The other writer was consistent with submitting her work way before the deadline, but the quality could have been better.

I applied the lessons from the podcast and talked to these freelancers to point out room for improvement. Of course, I also acknowledged their positive traits and did my best to help them overcome their shortcomings.

Lo and behold! The next thing I knew, they were rocking and excelling in their tasks. Even though one of them is no longer with us, he once reached out to me to share how life-changing it was when I helped him conquer his issue with completing tasks on time.

Explainer video company gets the confidence to trust instincts (in addition to data), breaks out of the pack to create unique content

Andre Oentoro, Founder, Breadnbeyond:

As a company that provides a creative service, we rely heavily on content marketing to reach out to more potential clients. And when I looked for resources for my daily dose of content marketing insights, I stumbled upon this podcast episode – Content and Communications: Tenacity, keep it simple, authenticity works.

I was fascinated by the breakdown of “trust your instincts.”

My team and I have been brainstorming ideas and making decisions based on our audience's research, data, and statistics – because we thought that was what they expect from a brand like ours. The data on the target audience is the same everywhere, so we ended up producing quite similar content from our competitors.

The podcast episode helps me understand that data versus intuition is a false choice. We actually need both to complement each other.

We started to use our gut feeling while creating content. We know our service and audience so well, and now we get the confidence to also rely on our tried-and-trusted instinct – in addition to looking clearly at the data.

Now, our content campaigns seem more personal, unique, and diverse. This helps us hone our brand tone and distinguish us from our competitors.

Photo app tries new email test, gets more responses

Natalia Brzezinska, Marketing and Outreach Manager, PhotoAiD:

The “Authenticity vs. Professionalism” article was a huge inspiration for me. I carry out many email campaigns, including contacting journalists or editors, and it’s very tough to catch their interest. Thus, A/B testing is my thing, and ever since I remember, I have tested different types of headlines or CTAs – but I’ve never thought about changing the tone of my emails, I just tried to make my text as easy to read as possible.

Now, I don’t have the opportunity to wear a hat on the profile picture for half of my emails (although that might be an interesting idea, too), but the Business vs. Cowboy test inspired me to create two different types of emails for my email campaign – formal and informal.

While the open rate was similar, the number of responses surprised me. Recipients that got the formal email were more eager to reply to me and asked for more details, so ever since the discovery, I try to make my emails sound more professional than before, which is great for my results.

Before we say goodbye to 2022 – a thank you to the unsung heroes in marketing

You might see my name on the byline for much of our content this year, and Flint McGlaughlin in the FastClasses teaching you marketing concepts. But none of this content would be possible without a few folks who deserve a boatload of credit as well.

So I wanted to say a quick thank you to Steve Beger (for taking the lead on all things tech), Cliff Rainer (for producing the FastClass videos), Jane Rainer (for transcribing the podcast episodes) and Gary Spurgeon (for editing the podcast episodes).

And after reading the final submission in this article (below), I would be remiss to not thank Flint as well. As that writer says, good leadership can be an unsung hero behind the scenes as well. The How I Made It In Marketing podcast, mentioned at the opening of this article, would not exist without Flint’s encouragement.

I also asked other marketers for info on the unsung heroes in their organization. Here are a few of my favorite responses…

Polly takes it upon herself to block out quiet time for every team member.

Dawn Ringel, SVP, Public Relations, Incenter Marketing:

When our boutique national marcomm agency (which serves external clients and the 11 companies in the Incenter family) was founded two years ago, Polly Clapp, Senior Vice President, Marketing Operations, developed our much-needed operational infrastructure…and so much more.

She is the traffic cop who ensures that every advertising, public relations, digital marketing, social media, and video campaign is on track and on time.

Is there too much bustle behind the scenes? Polly takes it upon herself to block out quiet time for every team member. With the privilege of working virtually, do we need a fun field trip? Polly initiates it and comes with surprise company swag. Are there unexpected gaps – like shipping “no shows?” Polly quietly finds another solution.

Being both an internal and external agency is challenging; it’s important to provide 100% service to everyone, whether they’re literally your team members, or you feel like part of their extended team. Polly handles the choreography with grace, humor, sensitivity, and calm. It’s a pleasure to call her out for all of this.

A web developer dedicated exclusively to making my wishes come true

Angela Zade, Account Manager, SEO Dogs:

I've been in search engine optimization for many years. Entering the field with a traditional marketing background, my weakness has always been that fuzzy line between SEO and web development.

For the first time in my decade-long career, I have a web developer – Ben White – dedicated exclusively to making my wishes come true.

While I am responsible for the strategy and vision, Ben executes my strategies effortlessly. He is the means through which my unorthodox ideas find a home online thanks to his hard work and dedication.

Oftentimes, web developers scoff at the idea of partnering with an SEO. They'd rather stay in their lanes and prefer me to stay in mine. With Ben, he's willing to cross that divide and make great things happen.

A simple example might be the failing core web vitals scores across clients' sites. When challenged with the task to improve them, Ben took the time to investigate how, and actually impart the types of changes that delivered noteworthy improvements in page speed scores.

His versatility and commitment to excellence is worthy of being recognized.

Leadership is not exactly overlooked – but GOOD leadership...that's something to be thankful for.

Lochy Cupit, Content Writer, First Aid Pro:

Perhaps it seems odd to name the head of a department in a discussion of unsung people who do the work behind the scenes. But the question here is HOW someone goes about leading a marketing team and how they're putting their team to work.

The Marketing Department at First Aid Pro is a rich mix of technical marketing personnel and focused content writers, with a few people with a foot in each camp. We have everything from highly technical IT specialists through to ex-publishing professionals with little or no technical expertise.

In the current climate, it's increasingly the case that marketers and content creators are being called to become a jack-of-all-trades. We're called upon to understand the technical complexities of SEO and ranking for keywords, the everyday practicalities of using and creating content with an ever-evolving set of software tools and be able to turn the written word with such subtlety that users won't be able to click off the page. Job and Person specs for marketing personnel call for fluency with all types of social media (from creating Tik-Tok clips to running Facebook marketing), along with excellent people skills and flawless attention to detail.

And, of course, the industry is swiftly evolving – every year, social media engines rise and fall, and Google constantly adapts and grows smarter. So every year, our jobs evolve.

The reality is that real teams have a massive range of backgrounds, skills and areas of expertise. One marketer may be an expert with WordPress and site optimization but understand little of crafting an engaging message for the user. Another may be a master of the written word, but the details of the Google helpful content update and its impact on site content are beyond their technical understanding.

In the season of thanksgiving, we're grateful for Head of Marketing Arpan Singh, a manager who understands both how the industry is changing and evolving, and where their team is at. And works to bridge the gap. Who uses his team as a team – capitalizing on the skills he has available, and helping different specialists work together effectively. And who also understands where change is needed to keep up.

Our manager is a passionate student of the evolving face of Marketing and SEO. He's subscribed to all the podcasts, follows all the channels, and knows how the science (or art, rather) of marketing and SEO is evolving. And he's committed to using his team to best effect. Whether it's training days for marketing staff (to understand the big picture of how marketing and content are evolving), careful division of tasks (to use both technical and creative skills to best effect), or getting alongside staff where they're at, we're grateful for leadership that blends big picture strategy with practical teamwork.

We're also grateful for leadership that leads strategically, not just falling into management habit. Who says things like "If semantic SEO is about quality, not just volume, how do I help that happen? How do I give my content team the space and the resources to create outstanding content, rather than just paying by the word and hoping for the best?" That can look at the website and marketing resources we have currently, sees where things need to change and how to move towards that. But also who has the practical skills to say "right... this is what we're each doing TODAY!", to get started.

Leadership is not exactly overlooked in the world of business and marketing – there are plenty of managers out there. But GOOD leadership, that understands the goal, but also knows how to use and work with their team to get there...that's something to be thankful for.

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