Your Digital Marketing Coach with Neal Schaffer

Revolutionizing Digital Marketing with Marketing Containers: A Strategic Approach to Success

• Neal Schaffer • Episode 328

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Ever feel like your digital marketing efforts are scattered all over the place? I'm here to share a groundbreaking concept called marketing containers that will revolutionize your approach to content marketing, enhancing your strategies and optimizing your resources. Encapsulating my professional experiences and insights, I'll reveal why these containers are the future of strategic marketing and how they connect with my fifth book and the SES framework I introduced to you in episode #326.

Let's shape your marketing campaigns and overall operations in a more organized, strategic way with marketing containers. I'll guide you on creating these containers and subcontainers, helping you prioritize your digital marketing activities and increase efficiency. I'll illustrate this with an example of content buckets - a unique way to create containers for each product and its associated keywords for SEO, PPC, content creation, and social media ads. And here's a fun challenge: come up with your own marketing container strategy and you might just get a shoutout in my upcoming book! Get ready to streamline, strategize, and supersize your marketing success!

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Speaker 1:

With so much to do in digital content, influencer, social media marketing, how do you know when to stop? How do you know where to stop? How do you know if what you are doing, you should be doing or you should stop doing it? I want to give you some advice from my upcoming book on the concept of marketing containers. I'm going to introduce this for the very first time on this next episode of the Digital Marketing Coach Podcast.

Speaker 2:

Digital social media content, influencer marketing, blogging, podcasting, vlogging, tick-tocking, linkedin, twitter, facebook, instagram, youtube, seo, sem, ppc, email marketing there's a lot to cover. Whether you're a marketing professional, entrepreneur or business owner, you need someone you can rely on for expert advice. Good thing you've got Neil on your side, because Neil Schaefer is your digital marketing coach, helping you grow your business with Digital First Marketing, one episode at a time. This is your Digital Marketing Coach and this is Neil Schaefer.

Speaker 1:

Hey everybody, this is Neil Schaefer, your Digital Marketing Coach, and welcome to episode number 328 of this podcast. If you are new here, this podcast has 50% guest interviews with experts, authors, people that I know you're going to learn from because I'm learning from as well as well as solo episodes sharing my experiences and work both as a fractional CMO and as the founder of the Digital Entrepreneur Mastermind Group, digital First. You can find out more about my services in joining this group, because we do currently have an opening at neilschaefercom slash CMO or slash membership. But, as I said in my last episode, number 326, where I introduced the SES framework, I want to dig a little bit deeper into some core concepts that I want to teach in my next upcoming book. In fact, as you listen to this episode, I am actually in Berlin, germany, meeting with my developmental editor to really well create my own containers for the book, and that's one of the reasons I'm recording this, because I know it's going to help me better contain everything in the book. Because, as you know, with digital there is so much you can do. Now, if you're a huge organization with huge resources, lots of budget, lots of people, you can throw this at everybody and just sit back and measure and optimize. But if you are a smaller business or have more limited resources, you really need to know where to strategize, and this is where I would like to introduce to you today this concept of containers. I would say we need containers in life in general, but I think we need them especially when it comes to marketing and especially when it comes to all things digital marketing. So let me explain where this concept came from and put yourself in my shoes.

Speaker 1:

As a fractional CMO, I work with organizations of a lot of different sizes, but I tend to work with companies that don't have a sophisticated marketing department. They're normally smaller companies, small business owners, startup business owners, entrepreneurs but they work with me because they want a sophisticated, modern, optimized marketing infrastructure. Yesterday and we know, you know, rome wasn't built in a day, and this is where my concept of containers comes in. Now, this concept actually comes from two anecdotes from my own professional history one before social media, one after social media, the one before and I might have mentioned it somewhere along the discourse of these few hundred podcast episodes, but when I worked for Wind River, which is an embedded software company that is now owned by Intel. Well, intel bought them out a few decades ago. Actually, one of my mentors was a vice president of business development at the headquarters in Alameda, california, named Kurt Shacker. I really don't know what happened to Kurt after that. I heard he went to Israel. Never heard from him afterwards. But anyway, at our big quarterly corporate event he went to the whiteboard and he said look everybody, and there were a few hundred people in the room and we were talking strategy for the next fiscal year. And he says from my perspective, it's almost equally important to decide what doesn't go into a strategy, then to decide what does go in. In other words, if we can decide what is not strategic, it makes it a lot easier for us to understand what is strategic and to manage that going forward. And I love, love, love that analogy and I've kept it to my heart even today. You know this meeting was probably 20 years ago but it's still deep in my memories and really in my DNA as a marketing professional. The other anecdote really isn't an anecdote.

Speaker 1:

I am writing my fifth book. My fourth book actually came out about 10 years ago, called Maximize your social, and in that book I introduced the concept that I'm sure you've heard others talk about since then. I don't know if I was the first, I never heard of it before. I wrote about it but the concept of content buckets I use this concept. I often use it in my teachings, but with clients as well. Let's put all of our content in the buckets, separated by categories, products, and then let's measure each of those buckets, manage them separately and then optimize according to buckets. So, as I create more content for my upcoming fifth book and as a follow-up to my previous solo episode, number 326, which, if you haven't listened to I I almost recommend you listen to that first.

Speaker 1:

But it was all about this SES framework and I think that this concept of containers actually goes hand-in-hand with that framework. So I want to better define these containers and better understand how useful they can be for your marketing. And yes, there will be homework at the end of this episode and it won't be a long episode either, because part of my writing this book is I really, really want to simplify and dumb down all of this overly complex digital marketing stuff, because it doesn't have to be that complex, all right. So the SES framework Is an example of creating one big container, this framework. Let's consider it a container and then we're pulling three smaller containers inside them the search, the email and social and that Everything we do in digital has to fit into one of those three things. In this way, we can decide what we need to do and if something is not included in those containers, we can determine if it is or it is not part of our strategic efforts. If it is, we need to create a container for it. So, for instance, the SES framework is pure digital, so it doesn't include traditional marketing.

Speaker 1:

For instance, physical events For B2B companies. Physical events are huge, right, great way to generate leads, especially before COVID, but I think they're on the return now. So there's an obvious overlap here, because when you promote these events, you are going to be using email and obviously you are doing the event to generate leads, which you're also going to be using email for as well, so the event becomes a lead magnet. You also have the S, which you want to make social media a huge part of what you do, and this includes influencer marketing in terms of your speakers who you invite to attend, et cetera, et cetera. So, physical events there's this obvious overlap with the E and the S. But if physical events generate 50% of your leads and 25% of your sales, then you might want to have an SESE framework, right? Or SESE set of containers where E becomes a fourth container because it's that strategic.

Speaker 1:

If it's not that strategic, then it's not going to have its own container and it's only going to be used as a way to generate more leads, for your email, to grow your list and more activity, more engagement with influencers right, and therefore it lacks the strategic initiative because it doesn't have its own container. So if you make a container for every important part of your strategy, then you want to make sure you contain both budget and activity within it. If someone wants to do something outside of it, you need to push back, because part of a strategy is also deciding what not to do. If there is no place for it in the container, then you shouldn't be doing it. If there's no budget for it, then obviously you shouldn't be doing it as well, because you need to be focusing on why you created that container in the first place. Now, containers can be very inclusive as well. If SES for social media and Instagram threads comes along, then yes, that's part of the S, so it can be inclusive if new things come along, as long as it's within those containers Like, where does crypto fit?

Speaker 1:

Where does web three fit? Where does NFT fit? And this is sort of the struggle that I had and that many had, with how to include that in your marketing. You're not creating a container for a new technology. We're not creating a container for AI, but obviously AI is gonna help us throughout our SES framework. It is not a strategy of in itself and a lot of people get obsessed with AI. In fact, someone mentioned when I published on my LinkedIn this SES Framework podcast episode. Someone said hey, neal, are you gonna create an AI prompt to create an SES framework for a company? And I said for me, first of all, I don't wanna become a prompt engineer and that would require me to create a separate product, a separate tool. But for me, it's less about the engine. I'll hire a mechanic to work on the engine. I am worried more about where I'm gonna go and how I'm gonna get there, if that makes sense. So I don't like to get lost in the weeds and AI is a great example where you could get lost in the weeds and it urge you not to. Okay, that was a little digression, but I think it's important and very timely because there's just so much talk about AI. I think it's cooled down a little bit, but we're seeing a new group of not early adopters but mass market begin to adopt it and have new questions about it. So it is starting to mature as quickly as it really emerged on the scene with chatGPT and GPT-3. All right.

Speaker 1:

So containers also allows to better prioritize our actions. Once we know the limits of what we are trying to achieve. It is a finite number of things we can do and we can get a better grip on our activities. Once again. I created this concept because there's so much you can do in digital. Let's decide what we're gonna do, put it in containers and then prioritize amongst the containers right. In the same way, we can create subcontainers for each container to further strategize.

Speaker 1:

In such a way, you can see how, for instance, a paid social container, which is part of the social container so a paid social subcontainer, might include subcontainers for each social network, ad camp, ad platform right. And then each campaign might become its own subcontainer that subcontainer but if you follow this instruction I know it sounds complex I think if you put it down on paper and you drew lines between containers and subcontainers. The whole idea is you are going to get a 360 degree look into all of your marketing activities and your group of containers and subcontainers and mine are going to look different. The only thing that might be the same is the SES containers and maybe some of the larger subcontainers within them. But if you're B2C, if you're B2B, if you focus more on organic influencer marketing and TikTok versus paid Facebook and Instagram ads, obviously the subcontainers are going to be different, but it's within the same S container, right?

Speaker 1:

So another way of using containers is the same way as using content buckets a container for each product and associated keywords for SEO, pay per click, content creation, social media ads, et cetera. Now I have a client that has maybe 20 different products. What are the money makers, what are the ones that we want to strategically push, and that's only great containers for those, so that we do not have any paid media or content creation around those other products that are not strategic right now, right? So once you've decided on the priority, the strategic importance of each product, you can prioritize on keywords and then all of the digital marketing activities to follow within these containers. So in such a way, you can funnel all of your digital and content and influence and social media marketing efforts into containers and subcontainers. It's almost like these, like Lego building blocks, right, but the Lego world is finite. Assuming that you just buy one Lego set, it's just within that box.

Speaker 1:

And that's what I want you to remember here, and you want to make sure that all of your activities are aligned with a container, and if not, you are wasting your time in budget, unless you make this strategic decision to create a new container for it, like the example, physical events. So in this case, you will have to figure out which containers whatever thing you knew that doesn't fit in it, what should it reside in and what subcontainers it might have if it needs them. So I know that this might sound complex, but the idea behind these containers is to make sense of all the things that are possible and to contain them within walls, within barriers, within silos, so you understand what is necessary and therefore you can both strategize and optimize and apply budget and resources container by container. So by placing walls around all these various activities in this analogy that I call container, you can better strategize, manage and ultimately measure the effectiveness of every dollar spent for each container, whether it be for an internal resource and agency expense or paid media spend. So let me ask you what are your strategic containers? Assuming you bought into my SES framework of search email social, what are your big subcontainers within each of those? Is it by product? Is it by strategic keyword based on customer personas? Well, that's your homework and you know what.

Speaker 1:

If you were to illustrate what your containers and subcontainers look like, I'd love to see them and maybe I'll feature them in my new book. You can send them to me, neil at neilshaffercom. You should know how to spell my name by now, but it's N-E-A-L. I am the real Neil at neilshaffer-s-c-h-a-f-e-rcom. I would love to get feedback and in fact, I really want to make you my podcast listener. That is investing 10, 15, 20. And when I do some interviews 30, 35, 40, 45, even an hour you know 60 minutes of your time into this relationship. I really want you to become part of this new book and I want to feature you. I want to feature your case studies, your success, but it starts with this homework that I'm giving you right now. So, if you're up for it, I will give you feedback for free and maybe, if I'm really compelled by what I see. We can get a Zoom call, I'll give you some free consulting and maybe that'll become part of my book.

Speaker 1:

So this is my very first attempt at explaining this concept. See, I need to now get everything out of my head on the paper and the developmental editor helps me create my own containers and define what containers that I should have in this book. For instance, I've already been shopping the book idea around a few publishers and one of the publishers says hey, you don't have a chapter in your table of contents about mobile marketing. To me, everything is mobile first. Digital first marketing is also mobile first marketing because that's how we use digital media today. So I don't need a dedicated chapter about it because it's included in everything that we do right as marketers. So therefore, that is one piece, one container that I decided not to include. It's not even a subcontainer because it's just an integral part of everything. So that concept of containers is giving me tremendous help to make my own writing effective and to keep me in my lane for each of these containers that I need to deliver to you so that you can better understand this approach that I have to digital first marketing. So I hope this makes sense and I would love your feedback, whether you feel it hits the mark or it doesn't. And, obviously, if you write the homework, please I would love to see it and if you need help writing it, I'd love to give you that help. So if you're up for it, let me know. Let's get on a call. Well, I'm gonna be in Berlin when you hear this, so you might have to wait a week or two, but we'd love to see your work.

Speaker 1:

Oh, everybody, that's it for this episode of your digital marketing coach podcast. As you can tell by my offer to help, my DNA is really helping. You know, I have one particular fractional CMO client. They lack some resources. I'm going around interviewing people with different technical and different capabilities that this company can add to their team, and when I talked to one person today who's a Shopify developer and I said this client, this agency, just left a lot of bad blood, can you believe what happened here? And I just wanna help them.

Speaker 1:

And the Shopify developer said you know what, neil, I'm the exact same. I just wanna help businesses, I just wanna help people. That is what drives me, that is my DNA, that is what fuels me, that gets me passionate when you can't see me waving my arms around as I'm doing right now in front of the microphone. That is my driving factor for why I do the podcast, and I would love to know if this is helped to you and if you feel that this concept of containers can help you. But you want a little bit of my help. Please reach out to me. Once again, neil at NeilShaffercom. Until the next episode, this is your digital marketing coach, neil Shaffer, signing off.

Speaker 2:

You've been listening to your digital marketing coach. Questions, comments, requests, links. Go to podcastneilshaffercom. Get the show notes to this and 200 plus podcast episodes at neilshaffercom to tap into the 400 plus blog posts that Neil has published to support your business. While you're there, check out Neil's digital first group coaching membership community If you or your business needs a little helping hand. See you next time on your digital marketing coach.