The Remarkable, Amazing, Must-Read Story of Marketing Made Simple TV!!

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marketing made simple tvWhat is Marketing Made Simple TV and where the heck did it come from?

This is the true story of Marketing Made Simple TV. It’s kind of long, but it’s one heck of a good yarn. Hope you enjoy it. (And I share some key take-aways for you too. Look for Lesson for You labels.)

Marketing Made Simple TV is the popular and widely syndicated TV on the Web show created and hosted by the award-winning marketing expert, Jeff Ogden.

Marketing Made Simple TV has featured many of the most popular business experts out there today, including:

  • Beth Comstock, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of GE
  • Daniel Pink, New York Times and Wall St. Journal best-selling author
  • Guy Kawasaki, founder of Alltop and Apple Fellow
  • Ted Rubin, the most-followed CMO on Twitter
  • Paul Dunay, popular blogger and CMO of Maxymizer
  • Jeffrey Hayzlett, Celebrity CMO, Cowboy and Bloomberg TV guest host
  • Nancy Duarte of Duarte Design
Nancy Duarte

Nancy Duarte

Jeffrey Hayzlett

Jeffrey Hayzlett

 

Because of the massive syndication of the show, it reaches a global audience of over 2.5 million people!  It also features a Call to Action on every show and it offers a unique TV feel for viewers.

  1. Camera changes (camera goes from speaker to speaker)
  2. B-Roll content (information over the shoulder of the speaker)
  3. Off-screen “green room” (an off-screen area where you can put speakers)

That means Marketing Made Simple TV has more in common with Face the Nation than a typical Google Hangouts or Skype recording. To the person watching the show, they see a TV show.

Where the heck did Marketing Made Simple TV come from?

Marketing Made Simple TV is the direct decedent of earlier show, Mad Marketing TV, sponsored by Act-On Software.

In 2011, Jeff Ogden was invited to do a webinar on lead nurturing, sponsored by Act-On Software. The VP of Marketing at the time was David Appelbaum. (David is now the Senior VP of Marketing at MokaFive.)  After the webinar, David rang up Jeff and said “Jeff, you did a super job on that webinar. In fact, I’m so thrilled with you, I’d like to invite you to do Phase 2 with us.”  I was flattered by the offer, so I asked David what the heck Phase 2 was. “I want to create an online marketing show, and I’d like you to host it for us.”

Imagine yourself in my situation. You’ve done a lot of things like being featured on webinars, but you’ve never hosted a TV show interviewing well-known top marketing experts. What do you say to this offer?

Most people would have said “Thanks David, but I have no idea how to host a TV show.”  I didn’t do that, and said “Yes, David! I’d love to host your show” Mad Marketing TV was born. (Your lesson: Don’t be afraid to take a chance on something new.)

Act-On and I worked closely together.  Act-On ordered equipment - HD webcam and studio mike.  They also hired a firm to do all the branding for Mad Marketing TV - logo, custom YouTube channel, etc.  I booked all the guests and recorded the shows. Act-On edited and posted the shows to both YouTube and the Mad Marketing TV channel.  Over time, the show was moved to the Act-On blog. The show contained no Calls to Action and it was only posted in a couple of places, so it was a PR vehicle rather than a source of leads.

How Mad Marketing TV grew into Marketing Made Simple TV

David left Act-On in early 2012 and he was replaced by Atri Chatterjee as Act-On’s new Chief Marketing Officer.  Atri restructured the marketing department and he decided to move to a monthly show, rather than a weekly show.  Because we had been doing a weekly show, we had many episodes “in the can” and ready to publish, so there was no need to host new shows - they had at least a 7 month backlog. The cupboard was filled. That really fun gig was over.

I spoke with a dear friend, Jim Burns, CEO of Avitage, who said a fateful thing to me.  ”You created the show, Jeff. You booked the guests. You recorded the shows. Why do you need Act-On Software?” Jim wss right of course, and I decided then and there to create a new show. (Lesson for you. When life deals you lemons, make lemonade.)

One of the first priorities was to make big improvement in the earlier show.

  • We wanted bigger show guests.
  • We wanted a syndicated show.
  • We wanted to make the show much more fun and engaging.

A new show site was created, as well as a custom YouTube channel and logo, so we were ready to go. But who would be our very first show guest on Marketing Made Simple TV?  I invited Mitch Joel of TwistImage and to my great surprise, Mitch said “Yes.” We recorded a show with Mitch and published it in May of 2012. (Mitch has agreed to return to the show, as he has a new book out, Cntl-Alt-Delete, and our show quality has improved greatly.)

Over time, the show grew bigger and bigger. SocialMediaToday picked it up. So did Business2Community. And this blog grew and grew in popularity, even being named the Best B2B blog of 2012 by Buyerzone. Then CMO.com picked up the show, as did SocialMediaClub.org. And I compiled numbers on the show. Wow! A show like Dr. Jonah Berger of The Wharton School on Why Some Things Go Viral was shared on social media over 2,300 times!

But I was not satisfied. To get sponsors on the show, I needed Calls to Action.  I began searching for a way to create Calls to Action in the show. I finally found my answer in a tool called Viewbix. And our show platform, Watchitoo, was plagued with quality problems, which are finally fixed. (See the show with Brian Kardon on Lattice Engines with a Get Harnessing Big Data offer.)

CTA

 

I also wanted the shows to become much more entertaining.  So I looked for fun and engaging guests, and some of the best, like Celebrity CMO and Cowboy Jeffrey Hayzlett, were a hoot on the show.

Slowly and surely, the show grew - week by week and person to person. Authors got wind of the show and started sending me free books in hopes of appearing on the show. And social media support grew and grew as well. I compiled the numbers on the show - it keeps growing and growing.

A New Emphasis on Sponsors - and sales ready leads!

All this work means nothing if the show cannot pay its bills.

In 2012, we dipped our toes in the sponsorship water by inking sponsors. Eloqua sponsored the show for a few months. And InsideView sponsored a single show. But we had a BIG problem. Sponsors were not getting enough sales leads.

We tried Facebook advertising and Google Adwords - we got results as traffic grew, but they were simply okay. Was there a better way?

Then I was contacted by Todd Davison of DemandFrontier. Todd was one of the founders of Bulldog Solutions and he has years of experience working with lead generation firms - companies who share content via email, newsletters, etc. to drive qualified marketing leads. Todd told me this would make a nice compliment to the show.

I felt I had just received manna from heaven - here was my answer to the leads issue for prospective sponsors! (Your Lesson: Keep Looking for Ways to Improve)

Finally, we’re ready to book new show sponsors!

At last the show offers more value than it ever did.  We can now deliver guaranteed sales leads. We have the remarkable branding and PR value of a very popular syndicated show that has major social support.

To see the bright future of Marketing Made Simple TV and why sponsors want to join us, watch this Slideshare:

Marketing Made Simple TV Sponsorship Value from Marketing Made Simple TV
We have to hand out some thank-yous here:
  • To David Appelbaum - for believing in Jeff Ogden
  • To Jim Burns - for kicking Jeff Ogden’s butt when he needed it
  • To Craig Yaris - for believing and supporting the show for so long.
  • To Kathy Ogden - for being my wife through all of this.

What do you think? Have you ever had negative content you wished to bury? We love comments and those who share on social media.

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Jeff Ogden, the Fearless Competitor, is an award-winning marketing expert and President of the sales lead generation company Find New Customers. He’s also the creator of the very popular TV on the Web show, Marketing Made Simple TV.

To schedule a time with the award-winning marketing expert, click here.

You can also sign up for free bi-weekly market tips here