- We're here at B2B Forum,
and finally I get to
sit down with Andy.
I've been watching
you for a while,
because you are one of
my favorite marketers.
- Thanks, Jeff.
- I've been designing
web pages for,
I did the math, 23 years now.
I used to go to the
library in the early '90s
and get on and open up
the WorldWideWeb browser
and use WebCrawler.
So I've been around since frames
and before CSS and then
saw this transition
and when I see other people
who are doing visual agency
and doing web work well
I always get interested.
And then you do the
analytics so well.
So, thanks for joining the show.
- Honored to be here.
That makes you first generation,
that was the beginning right?
- Yeah, oh absolutely.
- I started doing multimedia
and interactive work
using Flash 3 in '97.
- Yeah, so Macromedia Flash.
- Macromedia Flash, but never
built websites until 2000,
which makes me I think that's
like second generation.
I have a few friends, I know
maybe five people like you
who were actually doing
it in the mid '90s.
And we live on a
different planet today.
Totally different.
- Absolutely.
My senior project in 2001 was
a mobile ticket buying website
with the Nokia and the
six signs of techs.
And people were like,
"what's a web service?
"Why would anybody buy
anything on their phone?
"And what is this .NET thing
that you use Beta 1 for?"
And it's like... (sighs)
- Yeah.
- And so now that you
get to see all this stuff
come to fruition, it's fun
to see what plane we're on.
- Yep, I love it.
I love what we do, I wouldn't
wanna do anything else.
- And so, your company,
you guys focus on
helping people with their online
digital experiences, right?
- Yep, it's a web design
and development company.
We're actually not even
a marketing company,
we're really not an agency.
We're here at a
marketing conference
and I love to speak
in conferences and
to teach marketing
and my blog and then I've
wrote a book about this stuff.
But if you looked at a
position statement for us,
it would be something
like we build cars
and we teach driver's ed.
So, the book, the
podcast, all the events,
everything we do is about
helping people get more
from what they have, get
more from their platform.
But yeah, we're really a web
design and development firm.
- And that's a bold move
because a lot of us firms
when we started, we were
software consulting firms
and all of a sudden they said
you can't be that anymore.
And it's like well what are we?
Well you're an agency.
I don't agent anything, I'm
not an agent of anything.
I build websites for people.
- Right, and it takes
discipline to not give in
to all the millions of things
that people also want you to do.
It's actually a
really tough thing
and a really important thing
for anybody in any career,
in any field, in any
company to say no,
that's not what we do,
to decide where
to draw that line.
So, for us it's a lot
of fun to be consulting
about marketing while
building the platform.
It turns out that's kind
of our perfect niche.
Although, I see people just
getting amazing results
doing so much more,
I'm happy in this
spot we're in now.
- And so about a month ago,
you were at Content
Marketing World
and you got the
main stage, right?
You were able to keynote.
How was that experience?
- It was good, it was a
relief when it was done.
It was a lot of prep work.
I mean, it's a big stage
and there's thousands of people
who go to that conference.
So, I was told in like
January or February
that I was gonna be doing
that or given the opportunity.
And so I spent most of this
year worried about that moment.
(laughs) It was like
a lot of stress.
So, very glad that
we made it past that.
And I did well enough
that I'm proud of it
or that I didn't disappoint Joe.
But it was fun,
it was really fun.
It was like, fear of failure,
fear of public failure
is a powerful motivator.
So, if you ever
wanna learn something
just commit to teaching it
in front of a group of people
in a month and you'll
spend the next month
cramming on that topic
and you're gonna learn
so much so fast.
I recommend teaching
as a fantastic driver
for anyone who wants to learn.
- I love that topic and
I wanna kinda spend there
as there's so many smaller
marketing organizations
that are in your town, right?
The AMAs, the BMAs and
then much smaller ones
like SMCs and some of
these spunky start-ups.
Those are great places for
marketers to get involved,
become part of the leadership,
but to also go out and speak.
I think more practitioners need
to become involved
in this field.
Is that what you see too?
- Yeah, I mean just off mic
before we started talking,
we were talking about
upgrading format
from text to photos,
visuals, video,
AR and VR being the
highest end of media.
But live is actually
always the alternate,
in person, face-to-face.
It's a great way to learn,
it's a great way to connect,
it's a great way to make
friends and build relationships.
Any of those, AMA,
BMA, ANA, SMC,
pick your alphabet
soup of events.
Volunteer if that
gets you in the door.
Do whatever you can to be
there and learn everything
you can while you're there.
Build all the relationships
and connections
and friendships you
can while you're there.
Really, anyone at
any level is going
to push themselves farther
faster by getting out
of their office, getting offline
and doing things in person.
- So, you're a
Midwest guy right?
- I am.
- You're in Chicago,
is that where you grew up?
- I was born in Milwaukee,
both my parents are from Iowa.
I grew up mostly in
the Chicago suburbs,
but went to college
at University of Iowa.
Definitely Midwest,
I've lived in the city
of Chicago since '99.
- Oh wow, so that
town has changed a lot
and you've seen the
growth and expansion,
but the rest of the Midwest
has kinda stayed the same.
Do you find that Chicago, it
gives you more inspiration
or it just makes you
feel more creative?
- Yeah, I mean Chicago benefits
from the Midwest brain drain
because it's the largest
city in the region.
A lot of people who want
challenges or opportunity
from all the little towns all
around in neighboring states
move to Chicago, so it's an
ideal thing for business.
Someone like me who draws
from that talent pool
for my team, I
have 38 employees,
a lot of them are from
small Midwestern towns.
So it's a been a
great thing for us.
Super diverse business
community, every
industry is there
and they literally call
it the Chicagoland Area.
In Chicagoland area,
the trend has flipped
where companies were
moving out to big corporate
castles in the suburbs, now
they're coming back downtown.
McDonalds just announced
that they're moving back
into the West Loop,
they're moving in the city.
- Wow.
- Motorola is now back in
the city from the suburbs,
what's left of Motorola.
The reverse commute is
now the busier commute.
There's just a ton of
cranes and high rises
and residential and new
office buildings going up
in the middle of the city.
- Awesome, well I
mean, I love the town.
The first big experience
I got to travel
for business was to Chicago
and I still remember
being scared as hell
getting off the plane
and getting in a cab and
by myself at 19 years old,
and it's definitely got a
strong spot in my heart.
- Well don't visit
without letting me know.
Yeah, we'll run around and
hang out and see the sights.
- Oh, absolutely, yeah.
So you talk a lot
about analytics in
your book which you're,
So you talk a lot
about analytics in
your book which you're,
it's coming out again
in the new edition,
discusses some of the
chemistry behind content.
What can people
expect from the book?
And what was the driving
factor behind it?
- Sure, well the tactic
of writing a book actually
is not that far away from
what a lotta people do.
It's just a matter
of forethought
and then being structured
in what you create.
So, let's say two
marketers, they're both
gonna produce 100 pieces of
content over the next two years.
If marketer A thinks
in advance about how
that fits into a bigger picture,
and thinks about
it as a curriculum
or thinks about it as a process,
or thinks about
it as an outline,
they are more likely to be
able to easily repurpose that
into a larger format and make
what we call big content.
That was pretty
much how it started
was just blogging into a book.
It's gone way past that 'cause
now it's the fourth edition
and I have to fill in
blanks and update things
and there's things in the book
that I've never written
about anywhere else.
But yeah, it's really all
about the science of marketing.
It's the illustrated handbook
for content marketing.
So there's lots of diagrams,
lots of step-by-step
instructions, lots
of checklists.
But the whole point is
that it's not as much
about opinion these
days, it's really
about the practical,
actionable things you do
that lead to an outcome
that's measurable.
I'm an analytics driven marketer
and I want, it's like a sport.
You take an action, you
wanna see that outcome.
It's not just a feel good
thing, it's a number,
it's a trend line,
it's an impact
that I can see in my results.
I can tell you I have 68%
more traffic than last year.
It's not a gut feeling.
I can look at my phone
and tell you that
because I have the
app on my phone,
like I know that number, yeah.
like I know that number, yeah.
- Yeah, and I think
that's one of the things,
that people mistreat analytics.
They're either way too focused
and they're in it all the
time, it's like on the hour.
Like, "How many live
visitors do I have?"
And then other ones
that are like, "Oh yeah,
"we installed it a while back,
but I never looked at it."
What are some of those
techniques that you think
people should, or those
rhythms people should get into?
What are some of
the basic things
they should absolutely
do, get into it?
- Yeah, well to
bust myself on this,
a minute ago I said, oh I had
more visitors than before,
that's just a number,
that's just a report.
And that's not an
insight per se.
The real way to use analytics,
and this is one of
my main messages,
what we all need to do is
to use it as a
decision support tool.
To use it to actually
guide an action.
So, should I try
this, yes or no?
Just now, I was on
a call an hour ago,
when we're looking
at a website that had
a grid of clickable things and
they were all little images.
And when you rolled over
them, you saw the text
that told you where
it would take you.
The rollover is
great if the person
has a mouse in their hand.
It doesn't work if the person
is on a phone or a tablet.
- I know.
- What percentage
of people can't use
that little interactive thing?
- You just see a picture.
- It was 32%.
The answer to that question,
what is the usability cost
for people who are
on mobile devices
for having information
displayed on rollovers?
The answer was 32%
of their visitors.
So, ask a question and
then go find the answer
to support or reject
the decision that
you're considering.
Or take an action and then
go measure the impact.
If you're not doing that,
you're not doing analysis.
You're just doing reporting.
Reporting is not analysis.
Analytics is called that
because it's meant to use,
it's a decision support
tool, if you're not using it
that way then you
really aren't getting...
I don't know what you're doing,
you're not doing marketing.
- You're getting higher speed
reports, but that's about it.
- Exactly, right, exactly.
- And I think a lot of BI
and a lot of big
data is that, right?
There was a report that
stemmed the project.
And then the data was brought in
and the developers or
whoever created it,
they always see the big picture.
And they're like, "Look, we've
got 18 dimensions of data,
"we can scrape
through the world."
And people are like, "Yeah,
but I want that report."
And it's unfortunate.
And like you said, when you say,
"I've got more
traffic this year,"
I know it's qualified
because of who you are
and what you're looking for
and you wouldn't be saying,
"I got 200 more visitors,
"but they were college kids
and I don't even care."
- Yeah, and if you ask
me and we go deeper,
and I showed you those visitors,
I could tell you what
kind of visitors they are,
what pages they're visiting,
what the bounce rate
is for those visitors,
how those visitors do or
don't support my other goals.
Because that number
that I gave you
is a little bit of a vanity
metric, there are reasons
why that is less of a business
impact than it might sound.
If we actually pulled it up
and looked at it together,
you'd be like, "Yeah, Andy,
great, except for that."
And I'd be like yeah, I
know, a lot of those visitors
aren't qualified, they're
here because of those
six things that rank
high for that phrase.
And those people are only
tangent kind of related
to my ultimate business
goal of driving leads,
I measure in direct
benefits, blah blah blah.
So yeah, we have to be honest
about the whole point here
and realize that not
every impact has an action
that directly affects revenue.
But there's tons of
indirect benefits
that are worth a lot and that
goes outside of analytics.
This conversation, neither
of us will measure dollars
off of this, but there's
a million things aren't
in your analytics that
are beautiful too.
- Yeah.
- Friendship, karma,
(laughs) networking.
- Yeah.
- Actually, my favorite things
in marketing, I'll admit,
I can't actually measure
because it's about
interpersonal relationships.
- Yeah, oh I know,
back in the day,
when we were running Geeks
with Blogs, Janet Jackson
was in the Super Bowl and
something Justin Timberlake did
caused a wardrobe malfunction.
One of our Australian
bloggers took a clip of it
and wrote a post within 10
minutes of it happening.
She's putting the picture
up and saying Janet Jackson
slips on TV, we were number two
when you searched Janet Jackson.
- Whoa.
- So, imagine this little
server that's made for geeks
and developers all of a sudden
gets millions of visitors
because we landed on
the wrong keyword.
Now, I could go and say,
yeah, look, we handled it.
I could brag about saying,
I'm a geek enough
to make that happen,
but that was not the
right kind of traffic.
- Yeah, you can't
connect that to even
an indirect benefit
probably in that case.
- Yeah, I know, it's
a go away, right?
Stop it.
- I found some
interesting research
on OkCupid's website
very randomly,
probably on social media
that showed what kinds
of interactions on dating
websites get responses or don't.
Does talking about religion
help, or music help,
or these different things,
and I ended up writing a post
about online networking,
like for digital PR
or blogger relations or
influencer marketing,
important relevant topics
about starting
conversations online.
It ranks for weird stuff
like how to talk to a girl.
Okay, that posted
like a 99% bounce rate
and a 0% conversion rate
from visitor to subscriber.
It wouldn't hurt at
all if I took it down.
It doesn't help to leave it
up, it doesn't really matter.
There are things in
all of our analytics.
There are visitors to
all of our websites
that really don't have
almost anything to do at all.
The chance of that
really supporting
your business objectives is
kind of ridiculously low.
And we have to acknowledge
that when we say things
like I've got more
traffic than before.
- Exactly, yeah.
But then there's also
those added benefits.
When I blogged about
the 2006 Lexus GS
because I had an '02 and
I go into the dealership
and they say,
"We're not gonna do
"this warranty work for ya."
And I say google Lexus
GS, you see Lexus.com?
It's underneath me.
Do you want that
say the experience?
And all of a sudden everything's
getting fixed for free.
So there are some fun
benefits, but at the same time.
- That's actually kind of
relevant and interesting
and people rarely
talk about that.
But there are examples where
if you have a page on your site
that is ranking for
one of these phrases,
how can you get value from it?
I've never written about this
and you never hear
people talk about it.
Everybody's got one
of these weird like--
- Yeah, random pages.
- Yeah, and it serves
you no benefit.
One way that you actually
can get value from that
is to reach out to someone
who would get benefit from it.
Use that page as a
networking opportunity.
Say yeah, I rank for
competitive analysis tools.
I don't do competitive
analysis tools,
but it's a roundup
I wrote years ago.
Would you be interested
in sponsoring my event?
I can make your listing
here more prominent.
Or would you like to collaborate
on a piece of content?
Or just so you know
you're probably seeing me
in your analytics and
I'm sending you tons
of referral traffic
because I'm outranking you
for your brand category.
- Yeah.
- There probably are weird
little ways to get some value
from those things if you
were to do a little outreach.
- And I think marketers
need to understand
how the internet works
because I don't believe
with the age of social and
everyone sharing everything
through social media, but
not on their webpages.
Not understanding inbound
and outbound links.
It's like, come on, just
throw a link up there, right?
- Right.
- They just don't get
it and I think you have
to truly understand how the web
works, why we call it a web.
And how those bots work,
how search engines work
because it is very
karmatic to say
I'm gonna start giving
links to friends
and they're gonna give
links back and that matters.
- Right, build
relationships not links.
I love something you just said
and I haven't heard
this in a long time.
Why is it called a web?
It's a good point, we're
supposed to be interconnected.
- Yeah.
- That's an awesome
theme to bring up
and I love that you said that.
- Well back you ran
it with a console,
you couldn't find
anything but links.
It was always like it was a web
because you'd start with
the Library of Congress
and you're like how do I?
I still remember the
first time I went
to an international webpage,
I felt like I actually
traveled overseas.
It's like this came from
London, how cool is that?
Where am I?
- Exactly.
- Oh my god, I just
went somewhere.
- Do you remember the joy,
the thrill the first time
you made a page or
uploaded or updated a page?
- Oh, yeah.
- I just changed the internet.
- Yeah, I would go tell people
about my first email address
it was
jjulian@hclib.hcl.lib.mo.us.
And they're like, "What's
an email address?"
I'm like, it's the
coolest thing ever, right?
And then chat lines,
I used to have
like 200 chat lines
on my webpage.
Just because you had to
actually go to a webpage
and hit refresh, you
submit it in a text box
it went to some sort of CGI
Bin app and then it would
show on there, that was as
dynamic as the webpage got.
And so you would just
hit refresh, refresh.
And then ICQ came out and
it resolved everything.
- You're like an
internet historian.
And I love this about Gen
X, it's like people our age
who were there and
who experienced it.
We remember a time
before cell phones
and before browsers and
email and all that stuff.
It's amazing, it's really
incredible what we've seen.
Sonia Simone talks
about this too.
She was part of an
online community
back when it was
all, like pre-BBS.
Something called The
Well or something.
I interviewed her recently.
She's the Chief Marketing
Officer for Copyblogger
and was like pioneer
in these early,
early chat rooms.
And some of which I
think are still alive.
And some of which I
think are still alive.
- When I was 19 years old,
I was a cigarette smoker,
it was cool at the time.
Now I'm 35, Dave Winer
was outside smoking
at a conference I had
paid myself to go to.
I smoked so many cigarettes
because it was the guy
who created SOAP and
RSS and I was like,
tell me more about
this blog thing.
And people just don't
see the origin story.
And Robert Scoble was
working the conference
because he still worked at
Fawcette before Microsoft,
before he became
this prolific blogger
he was a friend of Dave Winers,
he was working at a conference
and you get to see
that stuff originate
and be a part of
that original story.
But then, things like Snapchat,
they're originating now.
You can still be a
part of that story.
You can still be
the one that solves
the B2B on Snapchat lessons.
But you gotta dig in
and you gotta learn.
You gotta learn from the past.
- Yeah, and without hesitation.
We come to these conferences
and we meet people
and there's people who
want the information
and we try to teach and
share and we write things.
A lot of people are asking
for prescriptive advice on
how they can get a result
doing video marketing,
podcasting, Snapchat,
fill in the blank, but
what should be obvious
is that the people who
know these things best
are the ones who no one
taught, experimenters.
I think there are two
great skills in marketing.
One is resourcefulness,
people who
just roll their sleeves
up and just do stuff.
Just make it, just try
it, just figure it out.
You can get a list of
step-by-step instructions,
but you're waiting for someone
else to make that first.
The other great skill
of course is empathy.
These are the two main things,
resourcefulness and empathy,
which are the two people
that are at every start-up.
It's the hacker and the hustler.
Pick a start-up.
- Yeah, exactly.
- Apple, there's always
a hacker, there's
always a hustler.
These people always
have, the hacker always
is an expert at resourcefulness
and solving the big problem.
And the hustler, getting into
the minds and hearts of people
even before they
know what they want,
and helping understand what
best solves their problem
and how to connect that market
with that product or service.
- Well on that cue, and
the fact that they're gonna
start running this
thing up and down,
we'll wrap up, but
thank you for your time
and I hope we get
to do this more.
- This was great, anytime.
Sorry I missed the last one.
- We had a great conversation.
Yeah, no worries, man.
- This was great.
- Awesome, thanks.
