In July, I had the honor to interview Douglas Karr in the second EngageBay interview as part of an ongoing series. Karr, an expert in marketing tech or martech, started martech resource Martech Zone. He also acts as the CEO of DK New Media, his own digital marketing consulting firm. Karr has worked with the likes of SmartFOCUS, Webtrends, Salesforce, GoDaddy, and Dell Technologies, aiding them in improving their product and digital marketing strategies.
If you’ve read the books The Better Business Book: 100 People, 100 Stories, 100 Business Lessons to Live By or Corporate Blogging for Dummies, he co-wrote the first one and completely authored the other.
I was fortunate enough to speak to Douglas for nearly 60 minutes. We talked a lot about martech, of course, as well as startups bettering their online presence. While I strongly encourage you to watch the whole interview, here are a couple of key takeaways.
For Startups with a Limited Marketing Budget, Focus on Benefits, Not Features
Lots of startups cannot necessarily afford extensive means of self-promotion or marketing. Still, they want to attract visitors, bring in new leads, and convert customers. None of that happens for free, so where does that leave these companies?
Douglas recommends having a website first and foremost, whether you’re a startup fresh out of the gate or a Fortune 500 company. He also advocates for focusing more on the benefits of your products or services over the features.
Karr says to think of content creation from a library standpoint. This means planning out a longer-term content strategy that not only builds trust and authority but shares valuable, helpful research with potential customers. Even if you only do one article a month and thus 12 in a year, you’d have a series of fantastic resources you can share with your audience and your leads.
Don’t stop there, either. Douglas also says that adding graphics and videos to this content makes it even more valuable.
Try Using Social Media Groups for Promoting Your Content
When you write killer content, you probably link your blog posts to your social media channels, right? Karr doesn’t necessarily go against that, but he does suggest going deeper. For instance, what kinds of groups are you a member of? On platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn especially, you can join niche groups specific to an industry.
Douglas says he starts by asking the experts in the group for advice or answers to questions pertaining to the article. Then, he might update it to make it even better. Not only does this improve the quality of your article, but the people in these niche groups are often pretty eager to share the content you’ve written. Douglas says it can “spread like wildfire.” Give it a try!
Martech Will Have More Integrations, Karr Says
Martech has already made the move to embracing integrations, something Douglas says he thinks will continue. He himself relies on a slew of integrations already, among them WordPress, Shopify, and even our services here at EngageBay.
Douglas says that some companies have what he calls a “walled garden,” where they don’t open themselves to integrations and the like. He mentions these kinds of companies scare him because they lack an API and they don’t have connectors either. Douglas mentions the lack of flexibility leaves those who work with these companies stuck since they can’t add chatbots or other useful features in the future.
Integrations, as you surely know, play a big role in the software you choose. From marketing to CRM and sales software, you must ensure the software can grow and change as your company does.
There you go. Speaking to Douglas was quite a pleasure, and he provided countless amazing insights that marketers, salespeople, and businesspeople can use to leverage their companies. For more from Douglas, I recommend you check out the full interview I did with him on EngageBay.
Watch the full interview here.
Checkout Our Interviews with Top Influencers:
- Our Takeaways from Our Interview with Ryan Biddulph
- Our Takeaways from Our Interview with Neal Schaffer
- Our Takeaways from Our Interview with Deirdre Breakenridge
- Our Takeaways from Our Interview with Laurie McCabe
- Our Takeaways from Our Interview with Ted Rubin
- Our Takeaways from Our Interview with Ryan Robinson
- Our Takeaways from Our Interview with Shane Barker
