Your Digital Marketing Coach with Neal Schaffer

400 Episodes, 7 Themes: The Digital Marketing Playbook for the Future

• Neal Schaffer • Episode 400

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This 400th episode of this podcast revolves around insights into 7 pivotal digital marketing themes that have emerged from the top 25 episodes of my recent 100 over the last 2 years.

You will learn how to integrate essential aspects like artificial intelligence, content creation, branding, and influencer partnerships to thrive in an ever-evolving digital landscape.

• Embracing AI for enhanced marketing efficiency
• Importance of authentic content in social media 
• Developing strategic influencer partnerships for brand credibility
• Psychological principles shaping effective branding 
• Maximizing customer experience through marketing automation 
• Fostering business growth through leadership and collaboration
• Ensuring visibility and discoverability in the digital age 

Feel free to reach out to me at neal@nealschaffer.com to provide feedback or suggest themes for future episodes!

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Speaker 1:

AI, content creation, influencer partnerships, brand love and more. In this special episode, number 400 of the your Digital Marketing Coach podcast. Together, we're celebrating a milestone by distilling insights from my top 25 episodes over my last 100, which is over the last two years into seven core digital marketing themes that I want to give you my own personal updates on and make sure you're focused on for the future, because these can really supercharge your business. So if you're ready to level up your marketing game, get set for this special episode of the your Digital Marketing Coach podcast.

Speaker 2:

Digital social media content influencer, marketing, blogging, podcasting, vlogging, podcast, 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 Schafer.

Speaker 1:

Hey everybody, welcome to episode number 400. We did it of the your Digital Marketing Coach podcast. I am your digital marketing coach, neil Schafer, and today is extra special. Not only are we celebrating 400 episodes, but I want to highlight the best insights from my top 25 episodes over the last 100. As I am publishing approximately 50 episodes per year, episode number 300 was published way back on January 10, 2023, just a little less than two months after the emergence of ChatGPT and we were just getting out of the coronavirus pandemic man.

Speaker 1:

A lot has changed and I remember when I published that 300th episode, one of my VAs said Neil, this is a huge milestone, number 300. And I didn't really do anything special. So I said 100 episodes. Later, I'm going to do something a little special. And here we are today. So these top 25 episodes I mean maybe some of you have listened to all of them, maybe you've only listened to some of them, but they've sparked conversations, inspired action and hopefully transformed the way you think about digital marketing. So, from the cutting edge world of AI to the art of authentic content or I should say platform authentic content for those that have read digital threads, influencer partnerships and beyond, I'm going to break down what I believe are the seven most important themes shaping our industry today, and these are themes that are proven to be important because you, with your downloads, actually voted indirectly to make them my top 25 episodes over the last 100. So grab your notepad and let's get started.

Speaker 1:

Theme number one Well, obviously, batting first, it has to be AI and, in general, marketing technology, so let's kick things off with that Now. This theme is built on episodes where I pull back the curtain on the tech that's driving our digital strategies, from episode number 302, where I talked about my 42 tools marketing technology stack for 2023, and that is still relevant for 2025, but I gave you a comprehensive look at my own technology stack, reminding you to audit your tech annually. We then go to episode number 320, the 10 AI tools for marketing that I am using today, showing how AI tools, from content creation to SEO, are game changers, and I'm still using some of those tools today. I'm going to get to my update in a moment. Going to get to my update in a moment.

Speaker 1:

Episode number 352, 11 takeaways about AI and podcasting from PodFest. And episode number 364, it's time to make the AI shift, which hopefully challenge you to move beyond buzzwords and fully embrace AI. And on top of that, episode number 366, 21 ways I use ChatGPT demonstrated how integrating AI into your workflow can boost productivity while still keeping that human touch when done right. The key takeaway from all this is well, the future is AI, but the future is now. Ai is not here to replace us. It is here to empower us. It is here to amplify us.

Speaker 1:

Take a hard look at your tech stack, take a look at your operations, at your content creation process, at your marketing processes, and ask yourself am I leveraging AI to work smarter, faster and more creatively? I will challenge you to become an AI-first business in 2025. That is the direction I am going, and it's funny because I just came back from Japan. Hopefully you follow me on social media. You saw my report about Tech Gala, which was the Japan's largest startup event in Nagoya, japan, and I was asked by one of my friends, who also is a client of mine, about this video. That I did, and the video is actually the video of episode number 320, the 10 AI tools for marketing that I'm using today, and back then I was into using really specific tools for specific purposes, but now I am really focusing on chat GPT. I am making custom GPTs and chat GPT central to everything I do. If you want to use cloud or if you want to use part cloud, part chat GPT, go for it, but I am really honing in on that and there are some external tools that I use together with it, like otterai is a tool that I use for transcripts from live streams and podcasts that allows me to easily repurpose that content using my own voice and my own information. I still use SocialBee as my main social media scheduler, but for those of you that know, I'm actually not using and this is another episode which unfortunately wasn't a top 25 episode about ditching your social media scheduler but I tend to use it less and less and use really publishing directly in, natively in platforms or using their native scheduling features, and you'll have to listen to that episode if you want to get the full details. But really I'm trying to become more efficient and part of becoming more efficient is less is more is using fewer tools and trying to get the most bang for my buck for the current tools that I am using and the number one tool that I use on a daily basis, that I use for the longest time in terms of like minutes or hours, is definitely ChatGPT. So if you're not spending, if you're not on ChatGPT every day, or Claude, or Google Gemini, pick your poison you really need to ask yourself why. Because if you're in digital marketing in 2025, I think all of your counterparts are already there. So it's time to make the AI shift. Listen again to episode number 364. And, in fact, listen to episode number 320, the top 10 AI tools for marketing that I'm using today and you'll see how a lot of these can now be replicated in ChatGPT, because it has become more fully functional.

Speaker 1:

All right, so theme number two and it's interesting that these two are combined together into one theme, but I think it makes a lot of sense, and I'll tell you why. Theme number two that we should all be focusing on is content marketing and social media. Why are they together? It's funny because I'm going to be teaching a class in Ho Chi Minh City, vietnam. It's actually being sponsored by a Belgian university that has a collaborative program in Vietnam, and the name of the module is basically content marketing and social media. The content part is put together with the social part, and I'm going to be speaking next month in Napa Valley for a multifamily housing industry event for lack of a better word and although the event is called Social Media Summit, they also say this is a summit for social media and content marketing, because you need to have content in social media. Now, social media is about way more than content, but in terms of the way that this theme is looking, we're really focusing on the content, including the content for social media.

Speaker 1:

So this theme is really about harnessing authenticity and creativity in your content, and this is the problem, because AI beckons us to create AI generated content, but that often will lack the authenticity and often the creativity, in all honesty, that you can create on your own, although the creativity part is more valuable with AI, or I should say, you can't duplicate the authenticity with AI, but you might be able to get some ideation or some creativity with AI than without it. But, that being said, there were five episodes here, five of the top 10 of the last two years of episodes, number 300 to 399 actually came from this theme. In fact, five of the six episodes that I'll be talking about are part of those top 10. So clearly, this is a theme that you agreed was important. Going back to the AI and marketing technology theme. Two of the top 10 came from that theme.

Speaker 1:

So by far your interest, as indicated by your, as I said, harnessing authenticity and creativity in your content. And the first episode is actually an episode that I created to help flesh out content for a chapter that I have on what I call platform authentic social content in digital thread. So this is episode number 306, exponentially improve your social media through authentically social content. And really what I am asking for here is a return to social media's original purpose real engaging interactions. But it's also about creating content that the algorithms want, that keep people on the platform, that help you become friends with the algorithm. So that's really what that is about.

Speaker 1:

And talking about the other episodes about content, episode number 353 was about from selfies to sales, and this actually is another episode that I developed. This is an interview with Katrin McCauley that is all about UGC and that I use that as a way to flesh out content from my chapter on UGC in digital threads. But also episode number 388, 10 things marketers can learn from authors, and really both of these episodes whether it's user generated content or, you know, talking about the way that authors are marketing themselves reveal how authenticity and even literary techniques can revolutionize your content strategy. The other episodes that are really popular really talk about different ways of creating content for SEO, for social media, for the web, right. So episode number 311, this was with the godfather of content marketing, joe Polizzi five unconventional content marketing approaches and hopefully, if you listened to that episode and if you haven't, you should open your eyes to new ways of thinking about content.

Speaker 1:

Episode number 327, mastering Content Creation with Melanie Diesel, explore the art of storytelling and creative frameworks, and she is the author of the Content Fuel Framework. Definitely, you know, recommended reading, joe Polizzi, obviously the author of many books on content marketing. And then I welcome another author, I should say pair of authors Martin Hunkback and Lindsay Cambridge, and we talked about building a content fortress, of really using content to attract the right customers while filtering out the noise. So, on many levels in content marketing and social media, hopefully I had your back covered and really, in today's digital age, content isn't just about frequency. Hopefully you understand this. It is about authenticity, strategic storytelling and, I believe, most importantly, creating genuine connections with your audience. This is only going to continue to be important going forward.

Speaker 1:

Ai does help us craft better content when we use it in the right way. So another way that I would lean on ChatGPT is see where you can use it in your content creation processes, and really the idea here is amplify your knowledge, amplify your IP, amplify your content creation processes, and really the idea here is amplify your knowledge, amplify your IP, amplify your content. Through ChatGPT and by creating better content and freeing up your time, you can engage more creatively and more deeply with people and social media users that matter to your company and that, I think, is really what the AI gold rush, or I should say the benefits that we reap from AI, should be all about that freeing up time so that we can use that time to engage with others and develop more relationships of value in social media. All right, theme number three Well, this podcast, before it was called your Digital Marketing Coach, was called Maximize your Social Influence, because I published a book called the Age of Influence.

Speaker 1:

That was my fifth actually my fourth book I'm losing count. That was published in March of 2020 and it was all about influencer marketing. So, theme number three influencer and partnership marketing. So this is where building relationships and strategic alliances take center stage, and I believe this is really important for any business, whether you're a B2B or a B2C. So three top performing episodes here that you should focus on. If you want to go deeper on this, episode number 313. So we have some really good coverage here of the three main topics of influencer and partnership marketing. So episode number 313, how to develop a B2B influencer marketing program, with Tim Williams, the founder and former CEO of the definitive, really definitive B2B influencer marketing company called Analytica, out of London in the UK. He showed that influencer marketing isn't just for B2C In fact, it just might be more important, but at least it is a very, very powerful tool for B2B brands as well.

Speaker 1:

Then we shifted to affiliate marketing, which you can also call creator partnerships. Episode number 361, unlocking the power of creator partnerships, with David Yovano, who is the CEO of Impact, who are one of the leading companies in affiliate marketing today, and he highlighted how working with the right creators can actually amplify your brand's authenticity. This is through influencer-generated content right, which not only gets engagement, builds word of mouth, but when affiliate marketing is mixed together with it, you get the best of both worlds and it's really a win-win-win. Together with it, you get the best of both worlds and it's really a win-win-win. Then we switch to pure B2C. Episode number 377, the new rules of TikTok influencer marketing. And this is with my friend, david Moffitt from Kumo Space, where he broke down innovative, performance-based approaches that are reshaping the influencer landscape, especially on platforms like TikTok. Really really fascinating interview if you haven't heard that one. So the key takeaway here is, when you choose your influencer partners wisely, you're not just buying reach, you're building long-term, authentic relationships that can significantly boost your brand's credibility and engagement.

Speaker 1:

Today, influencer marketing as we know it is mainstream. Leveraging UGC and this really goes into theme number two or having a brand ambassador program, isn't as mainstream as it could be, and that is where I would be focusing my efforts around this theme in 2025. Pick up a copy of Digital Threads, because I have dedicated chapters for UGC and brand ambassadorships and another one for external influencers. But these are all sort of interconnected. The threads weave through them and I think really being successful in social media, in addition to the platform authentic content, really comes down to how you master these concepts in your marketing. So theme number four is going to be a little bit broader. I think, going forward, these themes are a little bit broader. They cover a lot of different things, but four is about branding and marketing strategy. In fact, defining it even further.

Speaker 1:

We really dive into branding, messaging and behavioral science. So here we blend creatively with psychology to build brands that resonate. These brands aren't just corporate brands, they're personal brands as well. So episode number 323, using behavioral science and marketing, with Nancy Harhut, the author of the book of the same name, taught us how psychological principles can inform smarter marketing strategies. A fantastic episode. If you haven't listened to it.

Speaker 1:

Episode number 330, finding your marketing purpose with Ikigai, a Japanese concept which hopefully inspired you to align your work with your personal mission finding joy and purpose in what you do. I actually recorded that right after coming back from my final meeting with my developmental editor for Digital Threads in Berlin, germany, and I found the book at the Berlin airport. It was a bestseller, so I picked it up. It's actually an old book about Ikigai, but it really struck a deep chord with me and it is really the reason why I create content. Right, I hope it's useful for you, but I'm not going for the number of downloads, the number of likes, the number of contents, the number of website visits. It really is my ikigai to serve right through this content and I hope it is serving you and I hope if it sounds interesting what I'm talking about that you will go listen to that episode as well, because the concept is really a fantastic concept that is not just for business but actually for your entire personal life as well.

Speaker 1:

Then episode number 32, 15 Elements of a Successful Personal Brand and this is out of a module that I teach at UCLA Extension, which is also sort of a preview of this upcoming book that I'm working on about personal branding, and I really in that episode, broke down the components of a standout personal brand. So that is, over the last 100 episodes, my most definitive episode on personal branding. If that is of interest to you, definitely check that out. We then had episode number 347, the Secret to Brand Love with Dr Aaron Ahuvia, professor over at University of Michigan, also the author of the definitive book on brand love, and he explored how emotional bonds can turn customers into lifelong advocates Really fascinating conversation. Then episode number 387, a little bit more recently, we had the power of clear communication in digital marketing with author and professor Ben Gutmann.

Speaker 1:

In digital marketing with author and professor Ben Gutmann, which reinforced that clarity and simplicity in messaging are essential for connecting with your audience. The key takeaway here is that a powerful brand is built on clear, authentic messaging and an understanding of human behavior. Your brand should speak with purpose, resonate emotionally and ultimately build trust, and you do this through everything you do online through your content, through your branding, through if you have messaging in DMs, whatever it is right it really should permeate everything you do as part of your DNA. Now, compared to the other things we talk about, this theme of branding and messaging marketing strategy, behavioral science really is an evergreen topic that I think the more we study, the better we get at it. If there's anything new here for me and the theme that I want you to focus on, it really is the personal branding, and if you are a small business owner and entrepreneur, it's your personal branding on social media that's actually going to help your business. Is digital marketing, yeah, and that's a really important concept that I'm working on fleshing out for my next book. You're going to have to stay tuned, but I'm really excited to cover that, but that is really a core concept that I don't think is talked about enough that I want you to focus on in 2025 and beyond.

Speaker 1:

All right, theme number five. This was a clear-cut winner Marketing automation and sales, and really specifically marketing automation. So this is the fifth theme and it's all about making your processes work for you. Two episodes really stood out here. In fact, I only think I did two episodes on marketing automation over the last 100, which is a hint that maybe I should do more. But episode number 338, how to increase sales through creative marketing automation and this is a chapter that I recorded to help me flesh out content for my chapter on marketing automation, or the different things you can automate in digital threads. Definitely, if you haven't read digital threads, obviously you should be picking up a copy, but even if you have, I think you'll enjoy that episode.

Speaker 1:

Episode number 359 was with my friend, amanda Northcutt, and it was called Marketing Automation Simplified how to Level Up your Digital Business, and she illustrated how automation can free you up to focus on growth while still delivering exceptional customer experiences. There's a little bit of a parallel between leveraging AI more and doing more marketing automation, because marketing automation is not AI, it's not even machine learning, really, it's more dumbed down than that. But the idea is that if we do it well enough, it can replace us to a certain extent marketing automation I think to a bigger extent and free up our time, increase our efficiency so that we can do more strategic and higher value-added things. So obviously, the marketing automation is not going away. Even the cheapest of email marketing software tools are adding various types of marketing automation. The key here is are you leveraging everything that you can do with it? And that's my question for you. So one of the key takeaway here is embracing automation as a vital component of your digital marketing strategy. This goes above and beyond just collecting an email list right. It's not about losing the human touch. It's about freeing up your time to focus on strategy, creativity and building relationships. And when marketing automation is done right, the person receiving the message literally does not know that it was automated. And I am sure you and me have both received messages coming from sophisticated marketing automation funnels that we would have never guessed were developed through marketing automation. All right.

Speaker 1:

Theme number six this is a. I think the last two themes are going to be very general, but business growth and leadership. So growth is a blend of strategy, collaboration and smart leadership, and there were two, and this goes sort of above and beyond just digital marketing. I like to mix up the interview sometimes to have a broader topic as well, and obviously because these episodes were popular, they resonated with you. Episode number 371, unlocking Business Potential with Ecosystem-Led Growth with Bob Moore from Crossbeam showed us the power of collaborative data and partnerships. Think of sharing Facebook pixels between partner companies to expand your reach but what Bob talked about was way more than that. So if that is of interest, definitely give that a listen.

Speaker 1:

And then episode number 373, master delegation and outsourcing for marketing and business growth, with one of my fave peeps, who's also a author, dave Kirpin, better known for likable books that he's written and likable social. Emphasize that as you scale, and especially if you're a solopreneur like myself, mastering delegation and outsourcing is critical to sustaining growth. It is why I have a chapter on outsourcing in digital threads. It is that important. So the key takeaway here is business growth isn't just about new tools or tactics. It's about smart leadership, effective delegation and building an ecosystem that empowers everyone whether they work inside your company, they work at a partner company or they are a contractor to contribute to your success. And then we have and this is something where I think we can lean in more in 2025, right, lean in more to outsourcing, to delegation, to ecosystems, to partnerships, and there's a lot of different ways we can do that. Maybe I'll have to cover that in future episodes. If you don't know how to do that, please contact me, neilneilschafercom. I'll give you some advice.

Speaker 1:

But even when I use AI, I am finding that a combination of AI and outsourcing is giving me the results I want. So I'll give you an example. I was trying out a tool and I probably mentioned this tool in one of those top AI tool episodes called Opus Pro, and Opus Pro for those that haven't heard of it, I assume a lot of you have you can feed an hour or 30 minute interview, you know YouTube interview or Zoom interview, and it will, just, you know, pump out like 30 different 30 to 60 second videos that you can use as short form videos and social media. It sounds great and it offers a lot of automated video editing features, which makes it a breeze. But the problem is the output isn't always that good in terms of the clips that it selects and also it allows you to do some things like add captions pretty easily and center the person speaking and add some B-roll, but there's some other things that it doesn't allow you to do so.

Speaker 1:

I have basically used otterai to create transcription scripts or actually transcripts. Why am I trying to overcomplicate the concept and then feed those in the chat GPT, create a custom GPT to try to use chat GPT to try to find the most interesting, engaging, educational moments that I can repurpose, then with timestamps and then leveraging a guy that I use on Fiverr very effectively, with high quality and inexpensively be able to create those videos. Is it more expensive than using OpenScript? Absolutely Is the quality a lot better, absolutely expensive than using Opus Clip? Absolutely, is the quality a lot better, absolutely. So that is a way where I use AI to help me find really quickly those areas that I then review and then approve, and then I have someone manually create the video or edit the video, which is going to be better and give me more diverse editing options than just an AI tool like Opus Pro can provide me. So hopefully that gives you some insight into ways you can leverage AI to get you 90% of the way there. It doesn't have to get you 100% of the way there and then use outsourcing to get you the remaining 10% of the way there. All right.

Speaker 1:

Theme number seven visibility and discoverability. No matter how great your content or brand is, you need to be found. This theme becomes really important with the emergence of generative search AI. Now, this is something that I mentioned in episode number 392. I talk at length of this the key to becoming more discoverable in 2025, which laid out what I believe are forward-thinking strategies to ensure you remain visible as the digital landscape evolves. And then episode number 383, my friend, dennis Yu, provided practical tips on optimizing your digital presence in a similar vein, but he really focused on boosting your online visibility with Google knowledge panels and social media signals, with Google knowledge panels and social media signals. Now I recorded episode number 392 because I've seen over time that traffic from ChatGPT is going up and if I look at my traffic for the last 90 days, I'm currently getting more traffic from Bing than Google, and this is clearly a sign that, with the Google helpful content update, for some reason, google is just ranking my site lower manually is really the only conclusion I can come up with.

Speaker 1:

We then have, if I'm going to go through and I'm not going to like, put direct and not set in, but if I keep going down we have duck duck go as number three, interestingly enough, convert kit, which is my email service provider, so I do tend to send emails with links that generates traffic there. And then there's ChatGPT, number five, right, getting more traffic than any social media site, and it's also getting way more leads, and I consider a lead anyone who downloads a lead magnet. I mean, I'm getting 11 times more leads from ChatGPT than I do from DuckDuckGo, which has maybe 20% 25% more traffic. Yahoo, interestingly enough, it will be right below ChatGPT and I'm not getting any of these from them. The leads I get from ChatGPT are equivalent to the number that I'm getting from Pinterest, which will be the next source, right below Yahoo. So that's why it's becoming really important to understand that going forward, in order to be discoverable, we really need to understand the way, and in fact, I see that there's another entry for ChatGPT, which is maybe number 11. So I didn't combine these numbers, but two of my top 12 or 13 are ChatG TPT related, so that should give you an idea.

Speaker 1:

So you know, the key takeaway here is it's not enough to create amazing content. You must also ensure that your audience can find you. It's about investing in SEO, refining your online presence and keeping up with platform updates to stay discoverable and, I think, most importantly in 2025, understanding that large language models are looking for your mentions everywhere. Right? So we really have come back into the era of digital PR, and it's funny because right now and I mentioned this on episode number 392 as well, but I'll give you an update so I only interview 25 people a year for this podcast, but until well, I should say from January 1st to February 12th, I have already had 39 people in five weeks well, six weeks reach out to want to be interviewed on my podcast. That is literally like one a day, and it actually doesn't include Podmatch people pitching me there, and that is the main platform right now where I am focusing my podcast efforts. So, yeah, podcasting is hot, and I think it's hot because people are realizing that with a podcast interview comes a YouTube live stream, comes a LinkedIn live stream, comes Facebook live. The content gets archived. It is then obviously picked up by LLMs. It goes into Apple Podcasts, there's short-form videos created, there's a LinkedIn newsletter created. Now there's a backlink on podcastneilschafercom.

Speaker 1:

In terms of digital PR podcasting, especially because so many podcasts like my own at least 50% of my episodes are based on interviews, you can see how that can help in your digital discoverability. Hint, hint. So there you have it. These are the seven most important digital marketing themes, distilled from my top 25 episodes of my last 100 episodes, from episode number 300 all the way to 399.

Speaker 1:

So today I think, and hopefully you agree, that we journeyed through this transformative world of AI and technology, hopefully uncovering the power of authentic content and influencer partnerships and exploring how strong branding, automation, leadership and visibility are the cornerstones of success in our digital first world. Visibility are the cornerstones of success in our digital first world. Episode number 400 to me is a testament to our shared journey of learning, experimenting and growing together. I hope you're leaving with actionable insights, not just from this episode, but from every episode, that you can apply right away to elevate your business. If you enjoyed this episode, I would love to hear from you If you would like me to hear, or I should from you. If you would like me to hear, or I should say if you'd like me to record more episodes on certain of these seven themes, I'd like to hear from you as well.

Speaker 1:

Obviously, my email address is neil at neilschafercom the real neil, please any al, not any il, and you can find me anywhere on social with neil schafer and, in fact, you can go to my website, neilschafercom. But, hey, please subscribe, leave a review, share your thoughts on which theme has impacted you the most. As always, I love hearing from you. Tag me on social, drop me a message on my website. However you want to reach out to me. So until next time, here is to 100 more episodes when hopefully, when I get to episode number 500, it'll be the year 2027. Wow, what will AI look like then? I can't wait. I hope you can't wait, but until then, it's not about looking inside the crystal ball and becoming a fortune teller and trying to figure out what the future is going to look like. It's really about keeping it real, authentic and always forward thinking. Until next time, this is Neil Schaefer, your digital marketing coach. Thank you for listening and let's continue together to push the boundaries of what's possible in digital marketing.

Speaker 2:

You've been listening to your digital marketing coach. Questions, comments, requests, links go to podcastneilschafercom. Get the show notes to this and 200 plus podcast episodes at neilschafercom 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.