Oneupweb’s monthly podcast series features accomplished Michigan business leaders who’ve succeeded against the odds. These guests have what it takes to be relentless and they provide inspiration to other Michigan business owners and professionals!

I certainly felt an impact of inspiration after listening to Ari’s episode! Chernuska rye bread, Spanish chocolate dipped figs, cheeses from around the globe… and there’s still more on Ari’s plate. Okay…so, Ari didn’t go into detail of his scrumptious products, he instead spoke on a much deeper level, providing some really insightful business strategies.

First off…Ari screams relentlessness—expanding his original one small sandwich deli into eight thriving successful food businesses! So, how in the world did he get the determination and energy to grow his company? Wait…I mean how does he still have all that motivation to keep expanding the Zingerman’s community? Well, it’s all a part of his business vision, and Ari sticks to his goals very seriously.

I was so moved when he spoke about how some things need to be written in stone to prevent grey areas and stressful decision making. I mean, the man’s a genius—stick to your initial plans and don’t be tempted or boggled down by countless variables. And I was truly fascinated to hear Ari explain how he already has constructed his business visions for 2020!

Ari’s both intelligent and realistic! And I’ve got to quote him…”It was hard the day I started. It’s hard today. It’s always going to be hard.” So true! And this is what I loved about his episode—he’s majorly successful, but he’s still down-to-earth and has a real charisma.

Perhaps one of the best pieces of advice he gives is to implement your personal passions into your business plans. For example, he explains how he enjoys traveling, so he made sure to incorporate more business trips into his Zingerman’s vision. When you think about it…he’s absolutely brilliant! Just think of how satisfying work can be when you enhance it with what makes you happy!

Listening to Ari’s episode is a must! Check it out on iTunes, where you can also listen to past Be Relentless™ episodes.

The idea behind our new monthly podcast series is to profile the ups and downs, do’s and don’ts and mesmeric lives of Michigan’s most exemplary business professionals—those who have relentlessly pursued and found success against the odds. I’d say Doug has done just that.

I could go into how he worked during his early high school years, saving all his money so that he could attend Interlochen Center for the Arts. Or how he gave up a good job as a college professor to pursue his real dream of some day becoming an author. But I think what makes Doug Stanton’s story so compelling is the experiences he has had while in the midst of writing his books. He nearly drowned in Cape Horn Waters and spent time with soldiers in Afghanistan. It’s clear that he’s relentless when it comes to getting a story, and I think that’s what makes his books so compelling.

The interview he gave with Oneupweb CEO and Founder, Lisa Wehr, and Oneupweb Director of Operations, Tim Kauffold, was no different. I got a sneak peek yesterday, and was glued to my chair as he relates an acting lesson he once had with Harrison Ford and talks about the current National Writers Series. So what are you waiting for? Go to iTunes, download the podcast, and discover Doug Stanton’s story for yourself.

And don’t forget to stay tuned for next month’s episode, featuring….wait for it….a business owner who can tell you just about anything you want to know about political participation in Cuba, and therefore, makes jam for a living. Have a guess who it is? Submit it via the comments option below.

Blame it on Google Analytics, Omniture or even WebTrends for that matter. The perceived ease in which we track online marketing data has created unrealistic expectations in the minds of online marketers. Don’t get me wrong, many online marketing activities have a measurable spend and corresponding sales value. You spend $0.55 for a click on your Google PPC ad that results in a sale of $12.00. At its very basic level your ROI is $12.00/$0.55=2,181%. That sale can be attributed to that particular ad and keyword.

When the only game in town was PPC on Google and Yahoo, attribution was pretty cut and dry. We became programmed to the certainty that sales/spend=measure of success. It was so easy to assume that we could apply the same model to other online marketing. This is where the digital marketing analysis picture begins to get cloudy. If you’re running PPC along with an ongoing SEO effort, you may argue that attribution is precise. Well, what about ad impressions (not clicks)? Maybe the searcher you’re tracking post-click viewed multiple SERPs, saw many variations of PPC ads along with your organic listings and finally clicked on the 10th variation. Since you can’t attribute that sale to impressions, how do you really know what induced the sale?

Add social digital marketing and attribution becomes almost impossible. Social digital marketing is essentially 21st century “word of mouth.” Oneupweb does a wonderful job of tracking interactions across all digital channels. Heck—PodTractor, Oneupweb’s podcast tracking system, was ground-breaking in 2006 and to this day, remains unmatched in its functionality. Our Twitter and Facebook reporting documents interactions in these two venues like no other analytics available. But how do you track/document the conversation between two friends who “saw it on Facebook” or “looked it up on Google” that resulted in direct navigation to your website for a purchase? You can’t.

Every dollar a CMO spends online can generate word of mouth marketing and is an investment in building brand equity. This concept is very often lost in the buzz of attribution. We’ve become slaves to micro-managing ROI at the keyword level, never giving credit to that SEO project or Twitter effort in adding to brand equity and building market share.

I encourage you to take a step back and look at your marketing budget as a vehicle to drive word of mouth, increase brand equity and improve total sales. Take off the blinders. Stop concentrating on ROI by keyword and know that whatever advertising and marketing you’re doing online can’t be totally compartmentalized. Get back to the simple ROI calculation: $25,000,000 in sales/ $1,000,000 in online spend = kick ass results, no matter where that money was spent.

Yes, me too. But it’s not always a bad thing! It just means it’s exploding with entertainment value.

And “edge of your seat entertaining” is exactly how I would describe February’s episode of Oneupweb’s newest monthly podcast, “Be Relentless: Business Success Against the Odds.” This episode features Dr. Jerry Linenger, an American astronaut who (among numerous accomplishments) survived the most severe fire ever onboard a spacecraft while aboard the Russian Space Station Mir and was the first American to conduct a spacewalk from a foreign space station while in a non-American engineered space suit. (His story is riveting, to say the very least.)

Okay—let’s take a minute to dissect this. The simple fact that Linenger has been to outer space (a place I’ll never venture to in my lifetime) and back is fascinating. But then combine that with his heroic stories and sightings of UFOs and what do you get? Simply unbelievable. I mean really, have you truly considered how difficult extinguishing a fire in outer space would be? No gravity. No naturally produced oxygen. And the water, well, floats! (I’m begining to wonder if Linenger has some superhuman powers we weren’t made aware of.)

And although it will be a hard one to top, Dr. Linenger’s story is just the beginning. Each month, Oneupweb will feature a different relentless Michigander in a new episode of “Be Relentless: Business Success Against the Odds.”

This podcast series aims to shine a light on the success stories homegrown here in Michigan. It serves as a way to recognize these particular people for their leadership, perseverance and above all, their relentless character. We’re really hoping that this series will get Michiganders fired up the same way it did us. We live in a great state that produces great people, leaders and professionals—and we thought it was time to pay tribute to them.

Stay tuned for next month’s episode featuring New York Times bestselling author Doug Stanton (we hear he’s even played hoops with George Clooney). In true Oneupweb fashion, it’s going to be relentless, riveting and rip-roaring fun!

Once all the rage within the digital world, podcasting has now become commonplace. It’s a means of communication that many have used and still use on a regular basis. However, with the recent popularity influx of social media sites, it appears that podcasting has fallen off the radar to some degree. As every marketer knows, it’s important to stay up-to-date on the newest opportunities popping up everyday in the marketing world. But it’s also important to not forget about the opportunities that worked before, still continue to work, and are getting better. Like podcasting!

Podcasts, both audio and video, are still a great way for businesses to reach out to their current audience as well as help attract new ones. Whether recorded on a regular basis or reserved for special occasions, podcasts provide businesses with yet another means of informing the masses about new developments with their brand. And though it may seem that podcasting has been shunted aside recently by Twitter, Facebook, and those of their ilk, the podcast listening audience is still growing everyday.

A Combined Effort

I’m in no way trying to take away from the benefits of social media. It’s a great tool that every business should be a part of. But in my effort to restore podcasting to the forefront of marketing minds, I’d like to make sure everyone’s aware of how powerful the two channels can be when used together. You’re already reaching more and more people everyday through Facebook and Twitter updates—why not diversify those updates by posting a podcast or two?

In the end, your digital marketing strategy should include as many advantageous avenues as possible. Whatever works best to reach your audience and provide them with a worthwhile brand experience. Just don’t forget what podcasting can add to the mix.

*Editor’s Note: For more great articles about social media, check out our social media blog.

Podcasting falls on deaf ears
Podcasting: It’s not just for geeks anymore
What Podcasting Revolution?

The line in the sand has been drawn. You either believe that podcasting is the next big thing, or just another over-hyped fad that will fade away and join the 8-track as an obscure Trivial Pursuit answer.

Given this seemingly “either or” outcome, many companies have shied away from dedicating advertising dollars to this new potential revenue stream.

As a subscriber and regular listener of numerous podcasts, all I can say to these companies is “You’re missing out.” Rarely do you get a chance to connect with such a targeted, attentive audience. Even if the audience is not as large as other advertising mediums, you are speaking directly to potential clients.

In addition to its pinpoint targeting, podcasting also provides the opportunity to create a level of customer loyalty unobtainable through other marketing channels.

Although the estimates vary, the number of Internet users downloading podcasts seems to be falling in the range of 7-12 percent. For ease of use, I’ll use 10 percent as my baseline.

Using a little math and the helpful statistics found at Internet World Stats, which say there are 229,138,706 internet users in North America, we’ll estimate that 22,913,870 people in North America are downloading podcasts.

Drawing on this number, and making an assumption that 1/2 of a percent of podcast listeners are interested in your topic – if you were to produce a weekly podcast you are looking at 5,957,588 opportunities to speak directly to your target market every year.

Make that a daily podcast, and you are talking about 29,902,509 opportunities every year.

Given this potential reach, maybe the question advertisers should be asking is not, “Is podcasting the next big thing”, but “What other advertising medium offers this type of targeted volume?”

I knew which ads worked, which didn’t. I could test to see if it was the creative, the promotional offer or the medium that failed. As a marketer I could finally see what I was doing.

Intuition is useful, but it’s a lot easier to find your way with a map.

Hey, who turned off the lights! Podcasting takes me back to those dark days of yore. Will the slang evolve into “eardrums” instead of “eyeballs”? What kind of an impression does an impression make?

How many eardrums experienced that 10-second sponsorship identification line at the end of the 42nd episode? The producer tells me that 1,400 fingers subscribed to it. He fails to mention that the ears got bored and tuned-out when he got dull somewhere around episode 36.

Why am I paying for fingers, when it’s hearts and minds I’m hoping for?

What’s the best indication that I’m not the only one stressed about podcasting ROI? I offer you the launch of a pay-per-call model by Ingenio, distributed through PodBridge.

PodBridge attempts to track its audience by asking them to install software to make the tracking possible. I think of it like those shows where the celebrities invite the Insider to come video tape their house — they do it as long as everything’s clean and cool.

And so I’m wondering if everyone’s so eager to install, do you really need the pay-per-call option? I suspect installation evasion prevails.

Is the pay-per-call method a way of calming my reservations as a marketer? I’m uncomfortable already trying a new-to-me medium. I’m also suspicious of some self-proclaimed experts as producer/ hosts. Who are the audiences of these pundits?

Pay-per-call is sort of like a risk-free guarantee, pay only if it works. Seems reasonable. Might even be fair. If I don’t get any calls, no metric to say, “successful!”, so no money out of pocket. And still no data. I still don’t know if anyone heard the messages.

What if someone does hear my message, but uses a search engine to find me later? How will I know that the podcast is a good place for my branding? The producer, who doesn’t get diddly for my branding successes that pay off on other media, may go broke and disappear. I lose a valuable conduit to my audience.

Seems like we’ve got a ways to go before podcasting tracking is resolved.