Today's episode dives deep into the realm of digital entrepreneurship and offers invaluable digital marketing advice for all digital entrepreneurs out there. I share insights from a conversation with a friend and consultant who published a book on entrepreneurship in Japan and is now looking to roll out a new course. This episode unpacks the fundamental steps to effectively leverage digital marketing, including the importance of having a solid product, creating and repurposing content, building an email list, and utilizing SEO and social media strategies. Tune in to learn how to build a core platform, develop a warm audience, and explore the potential of podcasting and video content to elevate your digital presence.
Whether you're a seasoned entrepreneur or just starting your journey, this episode is packed with actionable advice you won't want to miss!
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Speaker 1: you're a digital entrepreneur.
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You have a digital product or service.
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You, more than anyone, can leverage digital marketing for
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the fullest benefit.
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However, how do you do that?
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What are the right steps you need to take in order to be most
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successful?
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Well, this episode is all about digital entrepreneurship and
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digital marketing.
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So stay tuned for this next episode of the your Digital
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Marketing Coach podcast.
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Speaker 2: Digital social media content, influencer marketing,
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blogging, podcasting, vlogging, tiktoking, linkedin, twitter,
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facebook, instagram, youtube, seo, sem, ppc, email marketing
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there's a lot to cover.
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Whether you're a marketing professional, entrepreneur or
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business owner, you need someone you can rely on for expert
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advice.
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Good thing you've got Neil on your side, because Neil Schafer
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is your digital marketing coach, Helping you grow your business
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with digital first marketing, one episode at a time.
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This is your Digital Marketing Coach and this is Neal Schaefer.
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Speaker 1: Hey everybody, welcome to episode number 376 of
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the your Digital Marketing Coach podcast.
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This is your Digital Marketing Coach, neal Schaefer, recording
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today from my home office in Irvine, california.
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By the time you hear this hopefully you hear it in time I
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am on my way to VidSummit, which is in Irving, texas, just
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outside of Dallas, so if you hear this in time and you plan
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to be there, please let me know.
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I would love to meet with you in person and, as always, I look
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forward to recording an episode on all that I learned there, as
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it is the most influential conference in YouTube video
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marketing, which also includes short form video for TikTok and
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Instagram Reels, so stay tuned for updates on that.
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As always, I like to begin every episode with the latest
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news, just to keep you abreast of what I am focusing on and
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what I think you should be focusing on as well.
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So, first of all, we know that the American federal court
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system has recently hinted at the fact that Google may be
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considered a monopoly.
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And if Google is considered a monopoly, well, there's going to
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be some changes in search engines and how search engines
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work.
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I think with ChatGPT and the emergence of generative AI,
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we're already starting to see some changes, but obviously the
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industry is still trying to analyze what this means.
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You know, my take on this is, regardless of if it's, you know,
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organic traditional search engines like Google or it's
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newer, generative AI search engines like OpenAI or Cloud,
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the basic tenets of how search engines work really doesn't
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change, and I talk about this in digital threads.
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But if you were a search engine , how would you rank content?
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And it really comes down to the same old brand mentions,
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backlinking, quality of content, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera
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.
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So to me, I don't think there's any need to change your SEO
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strategies.
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But instead of just being solely focused on Google, it's
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time to start looking at generative AI and maybe other
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search engines and keep an eye on traffic that you get from the
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perplexityais, the bings, the chat, gpts, what have you.
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I have definitely seen traffic from those sites creep up
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recently, which is a good sign.
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We also have the state of SEO.
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So Search Engine Journal, one of my favorite media outlets,
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just came out with a new report on the state of SEO 2025.
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I'm not going to get into details on this, but if you're
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interested in this news and everything I talk about, make
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sure you go to neilschafercom slash newsletter so that you can
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subscribe and get this information, sometimes before I
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even talk about it on this podcast.
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And then Google has actually come out with a new tool called
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Content Ideas.
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This is gonna pop up in your Google search console, but it's
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actually going to flag SEO opportunities that you might be
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missing.
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Now I do not have access to this yet, but I am very much
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looking forward to have access to this yet, but I am very much
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looking forward to getting access to this when it comes.
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More recently, instagram has also introduced some new text
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features.
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You can sort of layer images on top of each other.
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I mentioned earlier being able to publish 20 instead of 10
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carousel images to a carousel post.
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So seeing a lot of innovation going on at Instagram.
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And another one TikTok.
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I only have 500 followers on TikTok and from my understanding
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you needed to have 1000 followers in order to do a
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TikTok live.
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But it looks like even with 500 followers I can do a TikTok
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live.
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So I haven't gone through the process yet, but if you do not
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have the 1000 followers on TikTok yet you want to do a live
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, see if the live button appears and click through and see if
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it's possible to actually do a live stream there On personal
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news.
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Well, since the last time I recorded this podcast, I have
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launched.
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In fact, in about 20 minutes from now, I'm having my first
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launch team meeting for my maximizing LinkedIn for business
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growth arc team, or advanced readers copy.
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I am actually hoping to publish this ebook, which is already
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done on the major outlets, approximately September 15th, so
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be on the lookout for that If you wanted to have been on my
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arc team.
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Unfortunately, the deadline is already over.
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That is why I highly recommend the keep up to date and all the
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fringe benefits because I'm giving out free consulting and
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free books.
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Make sure you sign up at neilschafercom slash newsletter
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so that you can get all the deets when I launch efforts like
00:05:34
this.
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Digital Threads is also coming along.
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My throat is a little bit hoarse because I've literally
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spent every day of this week recording the audio book for
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that and, as a podcaster, I thought it would be easy, but it
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wasn't when you have to record more than eight hours of content
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.
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But I'm happy to say that is now in the editor's hands and I
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am hoping to.
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You know, for those of you that did not have a chance to join
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the Kickstarter.
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I do hope to have this up for pre-order around September 15th
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as well, and then it'll be available, you know, to buy
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approximately October 1st.
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So there's still a few publishing things.
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I've yet to get a correct hardcover book, which should be
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arriving, I believe, today.
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Actually, just to make sure that's right, the ebook's right,
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as I did the audio book, as you can imagine, I did notice that
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there were a few little things that I'd like to proofread, so
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I'm probably going to go through another round of edits there.
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But all is good and it is on its way and I've already gotten
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some great feedback from a lot of people that have already been
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reading it.
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So can't wait to release that to you.
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Make sure you once again neilschafercom slash newsletter
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to stay up to date.
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Now today's episode, as all of my episodes, right, half of my
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episodes are solo episodes are solo.
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Half of them are interviews with thought leaders and people
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that I look up to and that I want to know more about and
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learn from.
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Today's solo episode is actually going to be a
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conversation that I had with a friend of mine, and this friend
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of mine is a consultant and he really wants to mentor the next
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generation of business people in entrepreneurship.
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So while he is a consultant at agency, he also, on his own,
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wrote a book about entrepreneurship.
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Now he is Japanese, lives here in Orange County, california,
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and he ended up publishing this book in Japanese with a major
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publisher.
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I mean, the publisher is it's almost like a Wall Street
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Journal or a Newsweek, like they run a very, very famous
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business magazine in Japan and he hooked up with them.
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I still haven't heard the story of how he did that, but
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nevertheless he published this book last fall.
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He also speaks great English and he wants to roll out a course.
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So he reached out to me, we had a coffee and I shared this with
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you and I actually wanna have more of these case studies on
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this podcast and if you're interested in getting coached,
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like I coached my friend, feel free to reach out to me,
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neilschafercom, and maybe we'll feature you on this podcast as
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well, feature that interview.
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But basically he has a course.
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He has no platform and he's like promoting this course right
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Now.
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He has yet to record the videos , but he already has an outline
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of what he wants to record and for him it's sort of trivial to
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be able to start doing that.
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So this is something I often talk about in my digital first
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group coaching community, neilschafercom slash membership.
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Everybody wants to leverage and you're listening to this podcast
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because you also want to leverage digital marketing.
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Right, I get that as your strategic engine of growth, as
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you should.
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But what about your product?
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And I find that there are a lot of entrepreneurs who really get
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lost in digital marketing and they forget about their product.
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Right, you need to have a product to promote right Now
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hopefully all of you listening do.
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But if you don't, I would say that you first need to have a
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product, because whatever you do in digital marketing is going
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to build, at first, brand awareness.
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But if you don't have a brand and people don't know what you
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stand for, what you have to offer, you know it's going to be
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very, very ineffective.
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So we begin with a product and you develop the product.
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Obviously, but if you already have a product, even if you
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haven't fully developed it, the idea now is how do we develop
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our digital marketing strategy out of that current product or
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service, or what that is going to look like in the near future
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and it could be in beta, right, you can even start without it
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being recorded, or what I like to say is you can develop your
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product as you develop your digital marketing.
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So where do you start when you have no platform?
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Well, you start.
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I think the old way would be, oh, let's just throw money at
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Google ads.
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But, as you know, the most expensive type of advertising is
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advertising to a cold audience.
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You always want to try to build a warm audience, even if you
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are doing advertising, so it all starts with in digital threads.
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When you have a chance to read it, you're going to learn a lot
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about this, the SES framework, and that begins with the first S
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, which is search.
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You have a book.
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Well, this is my advice to my friend you have a book, you have
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a course outline, you have content.
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It's now time to start using an SEO tool.
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I use Ubersuggest, but there are other tools out there.
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Ubersuggest is the most cost effective.
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Suggest, but there are other tools out there.
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Uber suggest is the most cost-effective.
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I think it's.
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It's good enough to get the job done.
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It lacks some of the bells and whistles of the previous tool I
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use, which is SEMrush, and if you have access to SEMrush, or
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or HRFs or Moz, even better.
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If not, invest in Uber, suggest and start to do some keyword
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research around what are things that people search for related
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to entrepreneurship?
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And from there you begin to build your library of content
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and, since you already have a book, you can now begin to
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repurpose that content to actually publish several blog
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posts, probably because you've already researched, you know
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you're the expert and therefore you should have content around
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that.
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As you publish that content, right, we want to make sure that
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when people start coming to our website and you know, in
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parallel we should begin to build a social media presence,
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beginning with our friends and colleagues.
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And if you've been in business for a few decades, then you
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already have like a small community, a small audience that
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you can build upon.
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But, more importantly, you know you're going to be sharing this
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content in social media and people are going to be going
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back to your website and you want to have a way to capture
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the email addresses of those people that come to your website
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that don't sign up for your course or don't sign up to get
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updates on your course, yet they're leaving your website.
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So you go through all this effort of creating content, of
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attracting people to it and, for the 99.9% of people that don't
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convert either a hard convert, meaning they buy your course, or
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a soft convert meaning they sign up for updates.
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You want to have a lead magnet, right, and that's why I mean
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we're we're basically going through the structure of my
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digital threads book, but the lead magnet is that strategic
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piece that says hey, you know, download my top 10 tips for for
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young entrepreneurs.
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Hey, download my top 10 tips for young entrepreneurs and
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you'll get 50% off my course when it launches Boom.
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That's a beautiful way of thinking about it.
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I've seen other lead magnets and in fact, it's really
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interesting because I am now on Amy Porterfield's email list.
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Amy Porterfield is super famous .
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For anybody listening to this podcast, you're probably
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familiar with her and she has some courses around course
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building.
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But when I recently signed up for Lead Magnet, I then got a
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very, very well-crafted email I mean, she is a great copywriter
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and works with great copywriters which led me to her latest
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course, which really isn't a course.
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It is more of a four-week cohort, which I believe are four
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one hour zoom calls, which details the basics you need to
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build your course, and she's offering that for $47.
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And I think that is not a free lead magnet, but to me it's
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almost a paid lead magnet.
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It's like oh my gosh to be able to engage with Amy Porterfield
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for $47,.
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It got me thinking about what I need to do for my own courses in
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the future and to offer things of that sort, because you get
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people in the door with that and actually by doing a low cost
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lead magnet of sorts, you can actually start to flesh out the
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content.
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You can actually.
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I know people that have created courses from these cohort video
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sessions.
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They basically repurpose them in the course.
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You get to reconfirm your course content.
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You have like a live audience that you can work it off, and
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people that are paying $47 are getting tons of value from that.
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So that is another way to experiment.
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I just wanted to throw that out there because that is very top
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of mind and I will say when I was at Content Entrepreneur Expo
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, there was a course creator who began with a $39 course of how
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to use Trello for business, which ended up making her six
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figures.
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So it's not about the $2 course.
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And I just throw this out there because, just like anybody can
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write a book, anybody can have a course and the course could be
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free, right?
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Or what I plan to do if I ever launch a course is to offer the
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first module for free.
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So my friend could do this as well if he didn't want to do the
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ebook or cheat sheet or checklist.
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In fact, this is even better because it is part of your
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future service offering.
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So, but you need a lead magnet, right, and then you need to
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have a welcome email, have a sequence of emails and you need
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to keep in touch with that list.
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So those are the beginning things.
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Now what's really interesting is when I talked about podcasting
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with my friend, he was really intrigued by it, because with
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podcasting, especially if you do a live stream like I do, I
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don't do these for my solo episodes, maybe I should.
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They're more like studio sessions, they're more sort of
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off the cuff.
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But you know, with a live stream, you hit all the
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discoverable places where you can have content because you hit
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YouTube, you can hit the socials, but YouTube is really
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where the content is archived and has a long shelf life.
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You have a podcast and you can turn that into a blog post,
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right, so you're really hitting, you know, three different
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locations in one place I think is the best way to put that, and
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so he was really intrigued by that because you know, because I
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use StreamYard, it's $20 a month.
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This stuff doesn't have to cost a lot of money Podcast hosts,
00:15:00
buzzsprout like $12 a month, right, and you could do it
00:15:05
either solo or you could be interviewing other entrepreneurs
00:15:07
, other mentors, and it's a great network building tool.
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I guess is the way to look at it.
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So that's one thing that you can be doing that I would highly
00:15:18
recommend, depending on your industry or your niche, but that
00:15:21
can be really, really effective , especially if you can bring
00:15:23
other thought leaders into the conversation, which will give
00:15:26
you social proof and credibility , and maybe they will share the
00:15:29
episode with their clients and their networking customers as
00:15:33
well.
00:15:33
And this relates even deeper to social media, because in social
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media I talk about platform, authentic content, a concept you
00:15:42
will learn about when you read digital threads.
00:15:43
The best way to engage in social media is video, and if
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you have short form video, boom, tiktok, instagram Reels,
00:15:50
youtube Shorts, and it's super easy.
00:15:52
And maybe, if you follow me on social media, you've seen me do
00:15:54
it of repurposing podcast interviews into that short form
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Instagram Reels, youtube Shorts, and it's super easy.
00:15:56
And maybe, if you follow me on social media, you've seen me do
00:16:00
it of repurposing podcast interviews into that short form
00:16:01
video, alex Hermosi.
00:16:02
There's some pretty famous people who do this as well, so
00:16:03
it is tried and tested and there is a growing audience of people
00:16:06
who dig watching those.
00:16:07
So, in a nutshell and I don't have enough time to go into the
00:16:11
complete strategy but I told my friend, hey, get started with
00:16:15
this.
00:16:16
You don't even have to have your digital product or service
00:16:18
ready yet, but this is your homework, right?
00:16:20
Get started with this.
00:16:22
Come back three months from now , after you launched, and let's
00:16:26
go to the next stage.
00:16:27
And that would be my advice for you Do not get lost in all the
00:16:30
possibilities.
00:16:31
You need a core platform, you need to build a core audience,
00:16:35
which means you need content, you need email addresses, and
00:16:39
those are the two things, because the content will feed
00:16:41
the search engines and will feed social media.
00:16:43
But, equally important, you need to be building the email
00:16:46
addresses and, depending on that lead magnet, you are going to
00:16:50
be strategically building out, hopefully, an email list of
00:16:53
people that have huge, very, very high search intent or very,
00:16:57
very high purchase intent for what you have to offer Now.
00:16:59
In addition, we could use some paid social right to accelerate
00:17:04
the building of that email list.
00:17:06
If we have a really, really attractive lead magnet and
00:17:09
here's the thing, though, the more website traffic you have
00:17:13
and the larger following you have on social media, you can
00:17:15
begin to retarget these people, which and then you can begin to
00:17:19
build lookalike audiences.
00:17:20
So that's where you begin to see that you don't want to
00:17:23
immediately do paid ads.
00:17:24
You want to first build that audience.
00:17:26
It's only going to help you be more effective down the road, so
00:17:30
I want to keep this episode short and sweet.
00:17:32
More effective down the road.
00:17:33
So I want to keep this episode short and sweet, but I hope all
00:17:38
that makes sense.
00:17:38
If you would like to share your digital marketing challenges on
00:17:40
my podcast and you're okay with me recording it feel free to
00:17:42
reach out.
00:17:42
Like I said, it is a type of episode that I'd like to do more
00:17:44
of, because I think some of you can see some of your issues or
00:17:49
challenges in some of the things that I talk about, and I know
00:17:52
that this podcast is somewhat eclectic inside digital
00:17:56
marketing, but there's a lot of digital bases to cover, there's
00:17:59
a lot of threads right to understand, and that's why it is
00:18:02
intentionally that way, so sometimes you might not think an
00:18:06
episode is relevant to you, but I try to make every episode
00:18:10
relevant to everyone, regardless of the topic that I'm talking
00:18:14
about.
00:18:14
Hoping that makes sense.
00:18:15
All right, everybody.
00:18:16
Well, that is it for another episode of the your Digital
00:18:19
Marketing Coach podcast.
00:18:21
Next week I have a great podcast with none other than Drew
00:18:25
Moffitt.
00:18:25
Drew is the CMO over at Kumo Space, which is a really cool
00:18:34
sort of it is a replacement for a Zoom way of having meetings
00:18:38
with clients and with colleagues , and we're going to talk about
00:18:41
the new rules for influencer marketing.
00:18:43
Drew found extreme success, even though it's sort of a B2B
00:18:47
tool.
00:18:47
This tool found extreme success on TikTok by building advocates
00:18:53
and fans that would then influence the purchasing of this
00:18:56
tool by organizations.
00:18:57
So really, really great episode .
00:19:00
Make sure, if you haven't already, you hit that subscribe
00:19:03
button.
00:19:03
If you feel like you want to review this podcast reviews are
00:19:07
always welcome Make sure you send me a screenshot to
00:19:09
neilneilschafercom so I can thank you and that's it.
00:19:12
This is your digital marketing coach, neil Schafer, signing off
00:19:15
.
00:19:17
Speaker 2: You've been listening to your digital marketing coach
00:19:19
.
00:19:19
Questions, comments, requests, links go to
00:19:24
podcastneilschafercom.
00:19:26
Get the show notes to this and 200 plus podcast episodes at
00:19:31
neilschafercom to tap into the 400 plus blog posts that Neil
00:19:36
has published to support your business.
00:19:38
While you're there, check out Neil's digital first group
00:19:41
coaching membership community if you or your business needs a
00:19:45
little helping hand.
00:19:46
See you next time on your Digital Marketing Coach On your
00:19:53
digital marketing coach.
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