1216: Thrive Agency: Transform Your Website Into A Client-Generating Machine Through Video Content Strategy with Digital Marketer and TEDx Speaker Jimi Gibson

Robert Plank 0:04 Hey, welcome back to the podcast. We're here with Jimi Gibson, who is an accomplished Digital Marketer, author and TEDx speaker, and he is here to tell us about how perhaps our website could be transformed into a relentless client, growing machine. His website is Thrive agency.com and he is the vice president of brand communication there. So we are going to find out about all of these buzz words, keywords that maybe we've heard but have not taken as seriously as we want to for example, nurturing client relationships, reiterating, refreshing our website, growing our organization, and everything that goes along with that. So we're going to have a fun conversation. Get some ahas. We'll laugh, we'll cry, who knows what. So Jimi, how the heck are you today?

Jimi Gibson 0:51 I'm great. I'm doing great. Thanks for having me, Robert, excited to have some fun, like you said,

Robert Plank 0:56 and I'm excited as well. And so what did I leave out there? We read your bio. Some hype jump for the audience. But from the straight from the source, what are you all about? What has you currently fired up?

Jimi Gibson 1:09 Well, you know, obviously the holidays are coming up, so I'm thinking about food. So we'll have to distract everyone from the food. But yeah, I was reading a statistic the other day, 85% of web traffic is going to be video content. I'm like, wow, how many businesses are not using video. So I just wrote an article for our blog, and just trying to be an evangelist for video and getting people up to speed and helping them understand what it can mean, as far as connecting with an audience and expressing who you're, who you are, and what you do. And yeah, I would say that's something top of mind for me.

Robert Plank 1:46 Well, you say you wrote a blog, why didn't you make a video about it?

Jimi Gibson 1:51 Well, there's videos embedded in all of it. We've got, I've got a you can actually choose at the beginning of the blog whether you want to read the blog or watch the video. So hey, still gotta have the words on the page for that SEO. Uh, gold, right?

Robert Plank 2:06 Oh, yeah, 100% and, you know, you bring up an interesting point is that it doesn't have to be just a video, right? We have show notes. We have YouTube description, and with chat. GBG, there's no excuse, because, like, maybe, like, 10 years ago, you get to one of these blog posts where there's like, it's like 30 plus pages is a table of contents. I remember thinking like, there's no way I could replicate that. But now with chat GBT, you make the video, you get it transcribed, you get the words made, or vice versa, right? You can have the blog post and create the bite sized tiktoks. And so as far as things changing in all these kind of scary and unscary ways, right? That's there's all this mobiles, all this videos, all this AI, where should the focus be? Where do you think people can maybe get tapped better into video? Or where are people just messing up when maybe they don't even realize,

Jimi Gibson 2:56 Robert, I think you bring up a good point. You know, having some sort of core content, and then being able to slice and dice and distribute that. And so it's often called Web and hub, and spoke like a bicycle hub, and then everything branches out from there. And so yeah, you got to decide, where is your where's the meatiest part of the content, and then again, like, if we're doing a blog, you can convert that into a script. You can make that a video. You can have shorts for YouTube. You can distribute that. You can have links to it in a newsletter that you might be putting out. You don't have to create a bunch of new stuff. You just need to redistribute parts and pieces of that core piece of content. And then I think the other thing is, people think they have to have a lot of fancy equipment. You know, most people are carrying around about $1,000 media device in their pocket. The phone can do 4k there's all sorts of wireless microphones that you can use. It's it's an amazing tool. There's movies that are shot. There are TV series that are shot just on the phone. So shouldn't be really any excuse. And actually, the less produced and the more authentic and real it is, actually is more engaging to an audience. And so you know, if you're a service based business and you want a Client Testimonial, go visit the client. Get together, get a cheap selfie stick, interview them right there in their office. If you're maybe a field technician for another service company, take some video while you're out in the field, explain why it's important to hire a professional instead of trying to DIY it yourself, share that video in a variety of places, turn that into written content. So yeah, I think it's just mainly about having a plan, and then maybe you create a seasonal calendar associated with your particular business. And. And you should be able to check off every month of the year and have some sort of core content for that month, and include video in that content, and then just get out there and practice. And I can tell you, the first videos you produce are going to be horrible, and you got to be okay with it being horrible. And the more you do it, the better you get. And you know, sometimes I think we were talking before we went live, about production quality, and it's really about the content and the emotion and the feeling behind it. If you mess up, just say, Oh, I messed that up, and just keep going. So doesn't have to be perfect. Perfect is the memory of being out there and connecting with your crowd

Robert Plank 5:37 100% authenticity, right? Sometimes people pay lip service to the idea, but then they let the perfectionism hold themselves back. And I think I wonder if we all know someone who loves loading up on toys, right? People are like, you know, like they like the guns or the motorbikes or the electronics or the computers, and then when it comes to the, like, the video equipment, especially, like, I've known a few guys like, who, like, I knew a guy who he'd buy, like, a $3,000 camera and use it like four times, and then get bored and buy some other toy. And it's like, you know that that's not really the barrier holding you back. And then, even, as you're saying, when the video looks too slick, I know, at least me as a marketer, I'm just like, Oh, how did they film that? How'd they get the angle? I'm more focused on the lighting and the slickness of it versus just the content. So you're saying we need to be more just real and raw and get the video out there. Embrace the cringe. The first few will be painful, but that's okay. You might even mess up in the video, but that's okay. We might mess up on this podcast here, right? And we're just having a real regular moment. And the same way you're on the phone with someone, you might say, Oh, let me redo that sentence. And so, so you're saying that we should be embracing video, creating the content, making the content calendar. And just what really, like, I don't know, gets you just, like, angry about about when people, like, go about this, like, do people not take the plan seriously? Do they create the calendar in the wrong way? Like, where are the stumbling points?

Jimi Gibson 7:12 Yeah, I'd like to transition a little bit to sort of the core thinking behind how to use the video. And so you ask, what gets me angry? Social media gets me angry for a variety of reasons. Because I think there's a lot we talked about authenticity and being real, and I think there's a lot of posing on social media. And we're, we're all at the point I think where we've had it up to here with that's not your jet airplane, that's not your mansion, those types of things. And we also beholden to the algorithms and the decisions of those platforms. And when you turn that ownership over to those entities, you could have the rule the rug pulled out from under you. So I always like to steer people back to their website. The website is the hub of where all leads and all sales happen. Now, obviously you can have checkout processes outside of the platform, but you have total control over that website. You can have people, you can put whatever you want on that website, and it can really control the conversation about your brand. You know, let's face it, these platforms are motivated to have you place ads on those platforms, and they're going to filter the the folks who are able to see your content as to whether you pay or you don't pay, the the years of organic reach are pretty much over for social platforms. Um, and it's more of a pay to play model, and so we always steer people back to the website. And the other part of that is people believe once a website is launched, it's done, it's actually the beginning. It's a living, breathing thing, and you can do a number of things that will help your conversions on that website. So if you look at a website that's basically a three legged stool. You have traffic to the website. You have the average order value, or the average service value of what you offer, since we're talking about businesses here, and then you have a conversion rate. And so most people skip over the conversion rate. They just want to pump more traffic and more traffic and more traffic to that website. You know, if you look at any of these platforms that we've been talking about, whether it be LinkedIn or Instagram or Tiktok, is obviously very popular YouTube. They actually discourage links back to the website because they want to keep everybody on the platform, because that ends up the more traffic, the more. Longer people hang out on the platform, they can increase their ad revenue. And so once you understand that it's a game, then you can start to play the game and understand, how do you get people to understand how to go to your website without a link? How do you direct that conversation? Because a website is a non linear machine, we call it a money making machine, and how do you guide that conversation? And so I have like 10 tips that I can give the audience, that they can analyze their website in about an hour, and if they will implement one or more of those, they will see some changes in the conversion rate of their website. And so even if you have a little bit of traffic traffic, if you're able to increase your conversion rate, that can be huge. If you have a lot of traffic, and you make an incremental change in conversions, that can be amazing differences. You know, we always say that you pay for traffic to get to your website, but if it's not converting, you're just paying for noise, because if people aren't converting, then they're not doing what they need to do, whether that be filling out a form, subscribing to your newsletter, getting in some sort of drip campaign or funnel, or making a purchase, or calling in for An estimate or a service call or something like that. So I would say, as we talk about video, video is an awesome way. You've heard the saying, you know, a picture is worth 1000 words. Well, how many words is a video worth? Right? There's so much that you can see. And so what gets me? I wouldn't say angry, but it's throwing away. Potential is to be able to incorporate website and a conversation on a website, because people don't want to read anymore. They want to be entertained. Why do you think that stat that I gave you, 85% of all traffic on the internet will be video related? Because it works and that's what people are consuming. So the quicker you can get on board. It's not too late. I would say, jump in and just start. Just start doing it. And I'd be happy to share some tips with the audience if they want to analyze their website and get some squeeze some more dollars out of that website.

Robert Plank 12:15 Yeah, let's get to that. And I just want to, like kind of recap in my own head what you just mentioned, because you're laying out some harsh truths that I know took me years to figure out. Even just the AHA, of the social networks don't like the direct link back to your site. They punish you for that. They'd rather you engage the content on there. I mean, that some people haven't even figured that out yet, right? Or this idea of, well, don't like live on your website. Don't live on the social platforms, because you can't control that. I mean, these are some. It's it's really logical and makes a lot of sense now that you've laid it out the way that it needs to be presented. And also this whole thing, of, like, people not updating the website. It's like, time flies by so quick. And you could almost, like, look at any web page and kind of like, tell, almost like, what year it was made? Like, Oh, this looks like a 2018 or like a 2024 you can almost tell. And so updating the website it can, I imagine it can be kind of painful, or feel like, oh, what's the point? We already spent all these 1000s of dollars to get it designed. Now we have to update it. And so I can see how running it through these 10 tips makes that process less painful, right? Because you can just kind of go through the motions at first and say, like, hey, how do I score? And then what needs to be updated? Because, like you said a few minutes ago, that the website's non linear from a visitor point of view, and if you're looking at your own website, it can just be like an exercise in frustration saying, Well, I don't even know where to begin, right? I don't even know if I should focus on the front page or the lead magnet. And I'm just, I'm more confused than when I started thinking about this. And so looking at these 10 tips can really help. And so what's a good way to sneak up on on this kind of 10 tips list. Is it good to like list them? Focus on one. What do you think?

Jimi Gibson 14:04 I'll probably go through maybe the top four or five. We'll see how much time we have. And I actually have a blog post that will have companion video with it coming out in the next week or so. So you can go to thrive agency, hit the blog post, and it's really an article about why your website is not converting, and you can pick up these 10 tips free at the end of the article. And you know, get with your team. If you're a solopreneur, you can go through them yourself. It can be a great exercise with all the different departments, various stakeholders within the organization. And you know, the cool thing is, if you do set a stopwatch to it, it's not going to drag on for hours and hours and hours. You got to get to the point quickly. You got to make some decisions. You got to be unemotional about it, and always say, if we can avoid the hippo factor, which is the highest paid person's opinion, that's. Always good. So if we can just level the playing field and look at it from an unemotional standpoint, because, you know, a website's kind of like your baby. Nobody wants to hear that their baby's ugly or their baby's not doing what it needs to do. So that's just a little bit of a warning off the front. But yeah, we can jump in. Is that cool with you? Robert, cool with me. Let's jump in, all right? So I would say the first thing, and we've all heard this, and above the fold is an old newspaper term, right? So if you, for those of you who actually read a newspaper, the newspaper is folded. So above the fold is really the highest real estate value of a website on that home page and just spend like eight minutes look at the website unemotionally. Does it have a compelling headline, and is it focused on you the business, or is it focused on your target audience and what their pain points are and what they need? I would say that's probably the biggest trip up is businesses want to talk about themselves. They don't want to talk about the customer's pain or their customers needs. So the headline needs to address your visitors needs and what their pain points are. There should be a supporting headline that explains your value proposition, like, why should somebody care? And it's not because you're great, it's because they have a problem they want to solve, or they will have a transformation they want to experience, or they have a need that they are investigating, which is why they're coming to your site and then using high quality visuals, or I would suggest a video in that top section, so if I just spent under 10 seconds, I would know what your company is all about and what, why should I continue? You know, the really the home page's purpose is to get you off of the home page and get you into the website and get you to that content quicker. So that would be the first thing that I would look at, and I've given a couple of tips on ways that you can filter through what your website looks like now and then, paired with that, would be number two, specifically, what is your call to action? What are you asking them to do? If you have a short form at the top of your website, it should not say, submit. Submit is a negative term. Be specific, you know, put it in language. Get started now. Download Free Guide, schedule an appointment, something that invites them to the next step, and then be careful that you're not asking for too much. They've just met you. They don't know who you are, don't, don't go for the big ask. Go for a small ask. So you can start that relationship. So I would say those two are probably where we see the most opportunity for improvement. Yeah, any thoughts about that?

Robert Plank 17:49 Yeah, a couple. I mean, one is that I like your rationality here about the video is the way to get information delivered in 10 seconds, right? Because, like, it's even, like, you mentioned that we were talking before the record button started. And another thing that happened in our pre conversation was the idea of of just like, video for video sake, or a fanciness, just because I can do it and and we and when video started, we all saw a lot of that, right? A lot of like, the the fancy like intro graphics and splash pages, but you're saying, use video for what it should be used for, which is just to get the picture. Or a picture means 1000 words. And how much does video mean? So pack in so much that where, when someone watches that video, they know immediately what your company is all about, what your website can do for them. And then you also said that whole idea of the submit button, I think I saw like a LinkedIn post right before this. Were you talking about that? And that's a pet peeve of mine as well. People just like leaving things at the the default setting, just because that's just the, I don't know it's like the laziness factor or something. And I think something that really helped me out once was someone said, like, if you set up a profile on like, social media account, customize it right. Add your LinkedIn banner. You set up a Meetup account, fill in all the fields. Like, fill in what is there for you don't just leave things. Don't leave your fav icon the default, like, set it something custom, and if you can put it to a use that way, you can make it clear, okay, I'm clicking the button to claim my free report, to book the meeting. Don't just say submit. And, yeah, you're right. There's the subconscious factor, right? Like, I'm submitting to you. I don't want that. I want you to do something for me, and so it's, it's little tweaks, right? It's little things that we can do to improve our website and just to make it a smoother transaction. And I imagine that say we look at our competitors websites, there's a lot of things that like we don't notice, that someone like you would notice, like 50 different little things that maybe are. Are subconscious, but that maybe we just, you know, we wouldn't know to look for those things. And so in our last few minutes, along those lines of not knowing what, we don't know if that's, I don't even know that's grammatically correct. But what am I not asking you here? What should I be asking you about the website, SEO, conversion, whatever. What in this conversation should I be asking you?

Jimi Gibson 20:26 Well, I would say, What's the best way not to scare off a visitor to your website, and what's the best way to connect them to a trust factor? And so the next two quick tips, I think, will cover both of those. You've got to look at the readability of your website on the content layout. The days of walls of text are over. You need to have snackable content. So headlines, sub heads, bullet points, maybe check marks, things like that, easy to read fonts, you know, a color palette that has a visual language to it. So every action button should be the same color. You don't want frustration clicks where something looks like a button but it's not a button. So I would say, spend some time on that visual approach and that UX. And then the next one is look for opportunities for social proof. Nobody believes what you say about yourself. They believe what other people say about you. And so if you have user generated content that you could put up there, make sure your site has an SSL certificate. Make sure there's no broken links. If you have certifications, if you have some sort of industry recognition, put that up there. And, you know, we consider that a warm handshake, a trust factor. And so I would say readability and the content layout, and then opportunities for social proof would be the things that often people ignore,

Robert Plank 21:59 okay, readability and social proof. And so it seems like we have a little bit of a checklist here, right? A little bit of homework assignment, which is okay, because it seems like at least for me, I never just jump into anything I think I do, but I'm like, Well, hey, first I need to kind of realize that this is an urgent enough problem for me to at least pay some attention to someone like Jimi, who's dispensing this advice. And then I say, well, then I have to, like, set aside time to even think about doing it, and then I have to actually do it or hand it off to someone. And if I hand it off to someone, I have to then check their work. So there's, it's like a multi step process here of taking action, right? We don't just jump into it. And so here we are on a podcast, and kind of that first phase of it, right? Someone is saying, Okay, well, I've got a little bit of a taste, little bit of a tease. I know that my website needs fixing up. Maybe this has been something that's kind of nagging at me and my organization for like, the last couple of years, right? It's been a while since we really did a big overhaul, and we need to take this seriously. And so people are here listening on this podcast to get an inkling of an idea. But then the next step is to then go to thrive agency.com, and get a little better educated and take a little bit more action. And so what's the next logical step here? If someone says you've woken me up to a handful of things that need initial changing here, Jimi, but I know that if it's left to me, I might not do it right. I might procrastinate other distractions, holiday food, etc. So then how can you and your team, your company, help make this happen?

Jimi Gibson 23:33 Yeah, so I would also remember the pie formula, so the prioritization, the importance of that change, and the ease and making that change as we look through all of those opportunities. And then, yeah, I mean, could schedule a call with one of our marketing consultants and just have a chat. There's plenty of ways to initiate that on the website and just come with any of that research that you've done, and then we'll actually take that and do an analysis of 215 data points that will analyze the site and your marketing approach, and then bring a report back to you and say, hey, here are the things that you're doing great. Here are some opportunities. And then, what are your business goals? What are you trying to achieve? We don't want to just take somebody's money, right? If we can't help you. We'll redirect you somewhere else. But we want to know where are you now, and where do you want to be? What are your goals? And then we want to be able to match that up and get you on a path for growth, for whatever that business goal is.

Robert Plank 24:34 So very strategic. Get on that path for growth. And the PI formula, I love that there's the how much of a priority is it? What's the what did you what's important? Yeah, how important is it? Then the ease, like the carrot and the stick and so, so to get those 215 data points figured out, to figure out, well, hey, here's what you did. Great. Here's what you're missing out on, and even like, here's how to steer the ship. So that way we're not just fixing the website up for the heck of it. We have an actual goal we want to get to. We want to make improve our conversion rate. We want to have a better headline, better lead magnet, all these different things to help get your your business making sense of this, you have to have someone who's an expert, which is Jimi and his team at Thrive agency.com and so is that the logical place to go? Thrive agency.com front page.

Jimi Gibson 25:31 That is the perfect place to land, and you can read about us. And yeah, if anybody wants to email me directly, I'm Jimi J I M I at Thrive agency.com and be happy to point you in the right direction.

Robert Plank 25:44 Jimi J I M I at Thrive agency.com and what's great about when you go to thrive agency.com is JimiJimi and his team practice what they preach. Right? All of the call to action buttons or orange is clear what it is. Save you their frustration clicks. They make good use of the above the fold, of the social proof of the readability. Just looking at that web page alone, you'll have all these ahas about, Hey, Jimi said to do this and that with my website, and we hope that you'll be so impressed with what they do, as far as their messaging being aligned to their actions, that you say, You know what having that phone call is is something that's doable for me, right? Just have the conversation. See where the herd is, see what the possibilities are, as far as what can be done. And the key to solving any huge, scary problem is to break it down into smaller pieces. That way you can just kind of incrementally get there, and then before you know it, you're over halfway there, and you're so close to the website of your dreams that converts better, that gets you clients that maybe isn't something that you cringe about anymore, because, like, we've seen that too, right, where someone hands you their business card and they say, Oh, that's my website, but don't go there. It's like, No, you should be proud of the website that you have. And Jimi and his team at Thrive agency.com can fix up that website, can redesign it, can refocus those goals, and so as people are going to T, H, R, I, V, E, A, G, E, N, C, Y.com, thrive agency.com, it's time at the end here, Jimi to kind of try to stump you a little bit and put you on the Spot. Gary, I know this is where I asked my guests about a fun quote or lesson that has served them in life or in business that they can pass on to us. So Does anything come to mind as far as a fun quote or lesson? Yeah.

Jimi Gibson 27:38 So there's a photographer that I've been following for a while. He's written a book recently called I'm possible, but if you kind of squish it together, it's impossible. And to say he's a photographer is an understatement. He's a philanthropist, he's a world changer. And so the quote from Jeremy cohort, C, O, W, A, R, T, is the only thing standing between you and where you are and where you want to be is the story you tell yourself about why it's not possible. And so I just love that, because it reminds us, it reminds us, actually, that the barriers we face are often self imposed. They're kind of between our two ears, right? And once you choose to believe that anything is possible, you know it's it changes your perspective on who we are, what we do, how we see ourselves, and the potential impact that we can have outside of ourselves. So anyway, that's a short book review for the book I'm possible by Jeremy court, and then I think about that all the time, like, what? What obstacles Am I already making up in my head before I even start doing something? Um,

Robert Plank 28:49 so yeah, and we all do that, and that's advice that we need to wake us up, that you might tell you this story that limits your relief, but you also have the power to go the other way to tell yourself a better story, that I can improve my website. I can convert better I can attract my adult client. And it might take this phone call with the team at Thrive agency to wake you up, to get you some of those better beliefs, but the first step is knowing that you have a problem and that you want to fix it. So it's time now to go to thrive agency.com click the button to get that call scheduled, and you'll have a wonderful fun chat with Jimi and his team talking about possibilities and thank you, Jimi, speaking of possibilities for being here and telling us what we can and should do to fix up our websites. I really appreciate it.

Jimi Gibson 29:37 Yeah, awesome. It was fun chat. Thanks for having me. Robert.

Robert Plank 29:42 Good This is Robert Plank from the marketer of the day podcast, which you can find at marketer of the day.com for more episodes and dfy podcast.com, forward, slash, free if you want to know more about running your own podcast or running a better or more fun or easy. Or less time intensive podcast, go to dfy podcast.com/free, to find out more, right this instant you. Transcribed by https://otter.ai