What’s your Focus? | Content Machine Ep 89

Kevin
Thanks for joining us for the Content Machine podcast. Today, we are having the second half of our episode with William Donnell, who shares his journey in business. You’ve found this, started to explore and grow into this niche of UI and UX research, but you went further than that. It wasn’t just you didn’t get to there and you’re like, Okay, this is what we do now. You kept developing and narrowing that. Talk about the thought process of deciding… Well, let’s jump here first. Okay. What did you end up narrowing into? And then can you talk about why you decided to continue to pursue that narrowing?

William
Our target audience and what we do has gotten super, super specific. Now, we work with early-stage cybersecurity companies. We do research on their product for them. We watch how their customers and potential customers use their product. We design the interface and then test it to make sure that it’s easy to use, that it’s powerful, that it has the features that their customers actually want and are willing to pay for. The way we got there, though, goes back to Marcy again. Because one foot of that startup was in San Francisco, all things start up there in San Francisco, right? But the other foot, because of the policy of it, was in DC. The venture capitalists were from DC, and another huge hub for DC is cybersecurity. And so cybersecurity was a fairly new field, I would say. This was 12 years ago, 13, something like that years ago, I guess. And so because of a venture capitalist, we got introduced to a cybersecurity company. We knew nothing about security, knew nothing about any of that. We started working with this company. Our niche at that point was working with startups, product design for startups. That’s a niche, right?

Kevin
Absolutely. For the listener, you really define niche in two ways. It’s usually vertical, which is industry-based, or horizontal, which is… I’m sorry, did I mess that up

William
No, you got it right.

Kevin
Horizontal, which is service-based. You had already found your horizontal niche of doing user experience, but now you’ve started to move into a vertical niche as well

William
Yeah, that’s right

Kevin
But because you had that series of connections that continue to push you further down that rabbit hole.

William
Right. So I found that a really cool thing happens when you do good work is that people will refer you to other people. And so the people in… If you’re in cybersecurity, or if you’re someone who funds cybersecurity companies, then there’s a good chance that you’re probably going to have other portfolio companies that you think could use our services, or You’re someone who is at a cybersecurity company, and you’ve got a buddy that’s starting this one over here, or they say, Hey, who did y’all’s app? And so then they’ll refer them to someone else. So it’s funny. The startup world and also cybersecurity are not niches that we went out and went looking for. They were both niches that found us. Honestly, I’ve never thought about this before, but if you roll it back, even website design was never a field that I went looking for. It was a field that ended up finding me.

Kevin
Yeah, that’s awesome.

William
Yeah. And again, back to the short answer, providence of God

Kevin
Yeah, absolutely. Now, as you’ve developed this niche and have gotten real deep in it, you’ve As far as I’m aware, you’ve started turning other stuff down and you’re really going after this one thing. How has that changed the business?

William
Yeah, it’s been wild, honestly, and scary. I read a bunch of articles and listened to a lot of people that are way smarter than me on this topic of nicheing down. One of the things you hear consistently is that if you niche down, then you’ve got a much better chance. It’s going to be easier to sell to that target audience. It can be more profitable. You can charge more for your expertise in a specific niche. Then if you have a large enough market, then you can be profitable at that. But it’s also scary. It’s tough to have someone approach you for a thing. You’re like, Hey, we could do that. But if we say yes to this thing that’s not what we’re trying to accomplish, then essentially we’re saying no to something else that might come along in a week, in a month, that is exactly what we want to do and will help us accomplish our long term goals that we have. It’s really scary doing that.

Kevin
You’re not only just having to turn business away, I mean, I guess that would affect all the aspects of the business. How has the team changed? Because I feel like you probably had a certain set of skill sets that you needed prior to the transition towards this. Is that skillset and those people different than it was 10 years ago

William
Yes and no. I think that us narrowing down to product design, I mean, the main person that’s done the design side of things has been Shane, who when we first started working together, he was designing ads and print pieces. And the same thing for me. I’m the other person that has been here that whole time, and I’ve got an Ag degree. I think some of it is really just figuring out, Oh, here’s this new thing. Here’s this new market you know nothing about. If you’re going to go after it, then you just try to become a sponge and learn as much as you can about that industry. Or you were talking before about the vertical and the horizontal. You learn as much as you can about this vertical of cybersecurity, and then you learn as much as you can about this horizontal of product design. The principles of designing a product for a fintech startup, a financial banking app, let’s say, those principles still apply to cybersecurity. Now, there’s some inside knowledge that you need to have about security to be able to do that well. But a lot of those principles, design principles, user experience principles, those apply to whatever field you’re in. I think it’s really been more of a case of our team needing to adapt and just adapting to the new market, whether it is a new product type or it’s a new industry that’s there. Now, we have had some changes in our team. We have shifted our focus away from doing design and development of apps. We still do a little bit of that, but we’ve definitely dialed that down some and shifted more onto the design and research side of things. We have definitely… There’s been some changes in the team, but I feel like it’s been more of an issue of the team adapting rather than us having to adapt the team, if that makes sense.

Kevin
Yeah. You’ve niched down considerably. Do you niche down any further? Is there another step or are you at the place? What do you think the next phase looks like?

William
I’ve never really known what is out there. I think this is the niche that we’re going to stay in, but I don’t really know.

Kevin
Now, you’re solely focused on these customers, which you said earlier that there’s 300 companies.

William
Yeah, that’s the thing that’s crazy. I guess that’s another thing to mention about niching down is that I’d mentioned before, you have to have a large enough target audience. If you niche down to only people who are named Kevin that wear black shirts that are in this room, that might not be enough to feed your family.

Kevin
Unless I got a lot of money, which I don’t. But maybe cut that out. I’m just kidding.

William
Who are you talking to? Oh, hey. That was my Ryan Reynolds moment. Oh, yeah. Yeah, not very effective. But you still have to have a large enough audience that’s there. It’s a little tricky figuring that out. I did say before we got started recording that there’s maybe 200 or 300 companies in the world that are our target audience. That seems crazy. Now, there’s new ones that are coming on, and there’s ones that are getting too big for us. There’s fresh people. It’s not a stagnant pond, but it’s like there’s this body of water, and there’s water that’s flowing out here of customers that are no longer our target audience and new ones that are coming in.

Kevin
Well, and then theoretically, with an audience that small and that specific, it should be pretty easy to target them, right?

William
Well, yes, that’s the idea. You’re talking about having the changes in our team. One of the biggest changes has been in my shift and my responsibilities and what I’ve had to do. Because in the past, it really has just been where we’ve gotten referrals that have come in. And with us nicheing down this small, I’ve had to take a much more active role in sales.

Kevin
Yeah, because not anybody can just refer things to you now, right? Right.

William
Yeah, exactly.

Kevin
Because if to stay in that niche, and how many people in that niche are going to refer to someone else? Is competitive in that way within that niche

William
The cool thing is, and I’m learning more about this, but it’s a big group of people that are in cybersecurity, but it’s not a big group of people that are in cybersecurity. There’s a lot of people know one another. There’s a company called Silance that’s now huge. A lot of people that were at Silance, one of those folks started a new startup called Hidden Layer. Because he knew several people that used to be at Silance, and maybe those people had gone and worked at other organizations. He was like, Hey, remember when we did some awesome stuff at Silance? I want you and you and you come and do this new thing with me. If you know those folks, then as they go and work at new organizations, then they’re like, Oh, I remember we worked with Sodium Halogen. They were great. Yeah, there’s a good bit of that.

Kevin
If you were to start over again, would you niche soon?

William
How far back.

Kevin
That’s fair. Going back 15 years ago, 20 years ago, would you have niched sooner, or do you think it happened so naturally that that’s the way to do it?

William
Do I have the knowledge I have now? Or do I just have that piece of insight?

Kevin
I don’t know.

William
I don’t know. Yeah, that’s the thing about hypotheticals. Gosh, I don’t know.

Kevin
Is your life easier now that you’re niche, or was it easier then when you were taking out profitability, but maybe the day-to-day work, the sales, the day-to-day

William
Yeah, it’s a great question. Is it easier? I don’t know that it is. I think in some ways it’s easier, in some ways it’s not right. So it’s just trading off pros and cons, probably. But I enjoy what I’m doing. I will say this, once we started doing product design, I’ve always enjoyed my job. When we were doing music full-time, I love that. I’ve never really had a job that I didn’t enjoy. I’ve never had a real job, so there’s that. But as soon as we found product design, it’s like, Oh, man, this is the thing. I really, really love this. I get to create a thing that people use. I get to watch them use it. I get to ask them questions about what’s great, what’s not great, how can we make it better, and then make changes to that product, and then ship that out to those people, and find out if it’s actually making I say making their lives better, but even if it’s like, Hey, I’ve got vulnerability threats. I’m going to use some jargon here. I’ve got vulnerability threats that are coming into my organization, and I need to know what pieces of software on all of the computers on my network. That’s one of our clients that we worked with. For that person, the product that we helped design is absolutely making their life easier, because before they had just a wild guess of finger in the wind, this is how many of devices on my network are secure like they’re supposed to. We’ve got a view. Literally, you can see it’s like a Venn diagram. You can see exactly how many people are in each of those quadrants that have that. That’s really cool. I enjoy that.

Kevin
Well, William, if people want to learn more about you and Sodium Halogen, what should they do to do that?

William
Then go to the website, and they’ll find some information and see some examples of work that we’ve done there. Then we talked about shifts responsibility. So I’ve become way more active in the biggest social media network, the only one I’m on, LinkedIn, which is maybe the lamest one. But for business, that’s where it takes place.

Kevin
Well, I mean, and you’re doing stuff like this because I’m sure hundreds of cyber security professionals watch this show. Yes.

William
They talk about Kev all the time. Yeah.

Kevin
Good call back to something that happened before the show. So, William, thank you so much for making the time to come and join us. Thank you for your friendship. I look forward to seeing where Sodium Halogen goes from here.

William
Awesome. Thanks, Kevin.

Kevin
Thank you for joining us for the Content Machine podcast. Be sure to check out William on LinkedIn, where he’s sharing lots of interesting content about cyber security and user experience. Stay tuned for future episodes of the Content Machine podcast, where we talk about leadership, marketing, and culture building in the small business environment.

Internship Diary #7 – Putting Faces to Names and Personalities to Faces

I remember, as everybody does now, where I was the day the world changed. It was March 13, three years ago, and my job consisted of traveling around the country with a non-profit. Traveling became, literally overnight, taboo. It was the primary thing, in fact, that you should not do at all anymore. The only thing more off limits, I suppose, would have been sneezing directly in someone’s face, but that wasn’t in my job description anyway. I went home, as the whole world went home, and my job changed, as did everyone’s. 

There was a plastic card table on the screened-in brick porch behind my sister’s house, and she had good WiFi, so that became my office. It took exactly one cardboard Amazon box and two paperback novels to elevate my laptop from the surface of the table to an even height with my face for the Zoom conferences that became my daily occupation. I badly wanted to avoid the up the chin and nostrils Zoom camera view, for the sake of my ego and my audience’s sensibilities. 

This became the new normal quickly, and I believe that for the most part we are better for it. My dad, who for my entire life had gotten up before dawn to make the 45-minute commute to the power plant where he has worked for three decades, was suddenly home in the mornings. He sat at the kitchen table with coffee and his laptop and did his work as he always did. He lost nothing in productivity, nor did anyone else from his office. But I got to say good morning to him when I woke up and made my own coffee and began my own work. 

That new normal extends to today, as the American work landscape has changed dramatically and in all likelihood permanently. I’m afforded the luxury and convenience of accomplishing all my work with Adelsberger Marketing from the comfort of the desk in my dorm, or a table at a coffee shop, or as was the case last week, from a camp chair beside the tent I shared with friends in Chattanooga. 

You will hear no screed from me about the dangers of working from home, the terrors of letting people reclaim the little minutes between work that might otherwise be spent staring at the wall of a cubicle. Enough ink has already been spilled on that subject by people who probably reminded the teacher when homework was due in grade school. 

That said, I do think there is distinct value in knowing the people with whom we create. Not every job, or every company, or every internship involves this aspect. But any working creative will tell you that it is vitally important. While there is a time to sit and think and fuel, there is also a time to exercise the muscles that allow us to actually make something. Ricky Santos and Katie Howerton, who together form the design team for Adelsberger Marketing, agree on the importance of collaboration and having a second voice. They bounce ideas off of one another all the time. That requires some baseline relationship, some idea of who the person on the other side of the screen is that includes them in three-dimensional form, a flesh and blood human. 

For all of these reasons, it was particularly refreshing for me to join Alex Russell and Tamara Waller, video team extraordinaire, on a shoot for the Leaders Credit Union podcast recently. One of the primary benefits of working with creative people is that they tend to be fun. This is true of Alex and Tamara. Over the course of the shoot, from the setup to the filming to the takedown to loading the van in the parking lot, easy conversation flowed between them. They knew things, not only about the work itself but about how the other liked to work, about how the clients liked to work, and about how to put the atmosphere at ease by having fun with the whole thing. I asked them questions about their lives and their hobbies and the music they listened to and gently ribbed them for their taste in artists and songs. They did the same to me. Though I have no wish for a permanent office or a cubicle or a desktop computer, I will say this: it’s good to get out and know the people behind the work, to put a face behind the graphic or the video. The workplace has changed, but we still need each other. I don’t think that will change.

We love stickers.

Disclosure: This is a sponsored post. 
We love a good sticker. But really: 

There are a few reason we love stickers. Its a way for us to show our alignment with a product/thought/group/brand. It can be a great way to make ideas sticky or persistent. Putting the right sticker in the right place can help you remember an important thought or a motivational concept. 

So we produce lots of stickers, some of our favorites above: 
Our Theme stickers for our annual themes. 
A sticker sheet that we produced for our Pretzel Day celebration. 
Stickers from our successful campaign to help get AJ Massey elected Mayor. 
PURRFECT Cat milk joke stickers from a CO video a few years ago. 
Stickers for members of the OMSL. 

These custom stickers and more we have made for ourselves or clients have all one thing in common – they were printed by Sticker Mule. Sticker Mule is great and we use it a few times a year. We have always had a great experience with them and the hot sauce they send with it, is pretty tasty too! 

Splinterization of Media| Content Machine Ep. #8

This week, our culture’s last real media focused holiday happened, the Super Bowl. The big game represents a unique moment in the US every year. It’s the closest thing we have to a unified cultural moment most years. Every year, headlines in the newspaper talk about how expensive Super Bowl ads are. And this year was no different with most ads costing between $6 and $7 million. On top of that, companies are usually willing to invest millions more in putting together star studded commercials, investing millions more in production. Why? Well, one, prestige. The company feels cool about being in the Super Bowl. It’s a big ticket purchase and one they can brag about to their friends on the golf course. Production companies also view this as an opportunity to show off. So that’s one reason many of the ads are so over the top. Super Bowl ads are so expensive that it also helps showcase a brand’s relev. If you are buying a Super Bowl spot, it’s not because you are struggling as a company. It’s because you are thriving and relevant and investing money to stay relevant as part of the cultural conversation. But the biggest reason is eyeballs.

The Super Bowl is the biggest media event in any given year in our culture. In 2022, the Super Bowl had as many as four times as the viewers of the College National Championship Game. Most every single major TV viewership event in every year is NFL related. And if it’s not NFL, it’s live sports. Why sports? Because sports is the last live event that you want to watch on traditional TV and not catch the highlights of something later on YouTube or catch it streaming. The Super Bowl is also a cultural event in the United States. Not only do we watch the game, but we have a party about it, and some people just watch it for the commercials. But the Super Bowl is unique because of the diversification of media in our lives. Would you guess that the M Ash Show back in the day, the day, the Finale, had more viewers and a bigger percentage of viewers in the United States than the 2022 Super Bowl. Why is that? Because M Ash was basically watched by everyone. Because in 1983, there were a lot less options on what to watch. Instead of having major networks and no data on a phone, let alone having a cell phone at all, people were set up to choose a very limited number of media options.

And people who grew up with that era are still having a hard time of understanding today’s era. In that era, there were household names and actors in TV shows. But I think the last touch point a majority of our culture has, the working adults at least, can go back to is Kelly Clarkson winning American idol in 2002. Since then, because of the ubiquity of the internet, the options have grown to the point where no one can keep up with them. This has tremendous effects on our marketing, but also as a society. I think it has some ramifications that will continue to play out as increasing division in our society because we have less and less cultural common ground to work with. So what is a marketer to do besides convincing clients that this has already happened? You have to take multi channel marketing seriously. Realizing that the media attention is so splintered in our society that it requires businesses to be available in many different places at many different times. For example, radio used to grab everyone in their cars on their way across town, but now you have to compete with satellite radio, podcasts, and streaming services in people’s cars.

This splinterization is only going to continue, and the cost to produce quality content has dropped, and there’s no more gatekeepers to prevent you from making content, and so there will be more and more options for people to find. Now, you can make your way onto all these platforms, but how do you prioritize? Lots of customer research. Evaluating where your customers are putting their attention will give you an opportunity to find the channels where you’re most likely to find your customers. Now, you can be on all these platforms, but how do you prioritize? Lots of customer research. Evaluating where your customers are putting their attention will give you an opportunity to find the channels where you are most likely to find your customers and people like them. We ran a political campaign last year, and part of our planning was to hit as many mediums as we could to reach as many people as possible. But we did have to rely on the mailer as well. Why is the political mailer so popular? The humble mail is still one thing that gets to everyone. They might not watch TV. They may not be on Facebook. They may not even watch YouTube, but they do get mail.

And additionally, when voters register, they give their address and political campaigns can get those. So we should think about the bigger picture here. How can we reuse the media? The Super Bowl has created such a touch point that some companies use their Super Bowl ad as an event within itself. They tease the release of the commercial or like this year, fan duell with its Gronk Kick. They have a whole series of promotions that lead up to the event, including real time things happening in their apps. So we have to think, how can we use the media we create in multiple channels? Can we use it as a radio or podcast commercial when we record it for a video? Can we use it on YouTube and TV? Can we turn it into pictures? Can we use the spot on our website or in a brochure or on a mailer? How can we squeeze every last penny out of the creative we are making to maximize the value of production for our clients? If you’re using positioning as an expert branding, so you’re creating content that has value like a podcast, how can you take the time you are investing to create good content to be used on multiple platforms?

Thank you for checking out the Content Machine Podcast. If you found this episode helpful or know someone who would, please send it to them. We will be releasing these episodes weekly, so be sure to subscribe to get more helpful content on marketing and leadership. Thank you for listening.

Dangers of Digital Marketing: Artificial Intelligence

Earlier this year an image won first place at a fine art competition. 

The image, photographed with a large blue ribbon, quickly circulated around the internet. 

The problem?

The picture was generated by artificial intelligence.

Despite not actually being created by humans, this image won first place. This situation sparked much controversy over the role AI will play moving forward in our society. 

One of the biggest concerns for the field of digital marketing is the influence this new technology will have on the job market in the future. Already, AI is capable of graphic design, copywriting, videography, and ad placement. 

Beyond the concern for the job market, AI forces us to reevaluate what media is true and what media is fake. AI presents us with more opportunities for technology to be deceptive. With the introduction of things like deep fake, misinformation can be more easily spread and viewers must evaluate if what they are seeing is really true. 

However, as AI is active in digital media, now more than ever, true creativity is needed.
With the threat of AI encroaching on digital marketing, how can we combat threats to the job market? Staying aware of trends in the industry is crucial to combating AI and other threats to digital marketing. 

Staying up to date on digital marketing requires reading as much on the subject as possible and learning from experts in the field. We recommend T-Minus AI: Humanities Countdown to Artificial Intelligence and the New Pursuit of Global Power for an insightful read on AI. 

While AI may seem like only a threat to digital marketing, when used the right way it can actually be used for good. With institutes like the AI Institute (https://www.marketingaiinstitute.com/) and others researching this growing technology, the future of AI might not be as unknown as it seems. 

Want to learn more about digital marketing? Visit www.adelsbergermarketing.com/contact/ to schedule an appointment today.

LinkedIn: Making Connections in the Digital Age

LinkedIn: Making Connections in the Digital Age

 In this modern, digital age we have Facebook, Instagram, and apps for virtually everything, making connections and consuming content is easier than ever. But in a world overflowing with information, how do you form connections that are beneficial for both you and your business? How do you utilize platforms to your advantage without losing content to the algorithm?

 LinkedIn can be used for so much more than finding a job. LinkedIn provides opportunities for professionals to connect, learn from one another, and promote engagement.

 Here are three ways you can use LinkedIn to your advantage:

  1. Follow people who inspire you and engage with their content.

Whether it’s your boss posting business advice or a photographer creating compelling work, LinkedIn is a great way to not only connect with other professionals but also learn from them. After following accounts who inspire you, interacting with their content is a great way to build relationships and promote professional engagement on LinkedIn.

  1. Grow your personal brand on LinkedIn.

 Having a LinkedIn profile doesn’t mean your personal brand is always recognizable on the platform. Growing your brand is a process that requires both engagement and strategy. A practical way to grow your personal brand is to have a clear, organized landing page featuring your business logo. This will allow other professionals to easily recognize your brand and engage with your content.

  1. Use LinkedIn as a research tool.

 Considering a new hire for your business? Want advice from experts? LinkedIn is a great way to market digitally and gain valuable information to grow your business. LinkedIn allows you to keep your information and connections concise. Whether it’s a business professional you admire or a leadership strategy you’re curious about, LinkedIn allows you to learn more about people or research new topics without the distractions of other platforms such as Instagram and Facebook. 

 As the digital world grows, digital marketing has become more accessible while simultaneously becoming more complicated. Engaging across LinkedIn can equip you with the resources you need to grow your business and help your brand thrive.

 Want to learn more about digital marketing?

 Connect with Adelsberger Marketing on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/kadelsberger/ or visit our website at adelsbergermarketing.com to schedule an appointment today. 

Adelsberger Marketing Named Clutch Top 20 B2B Service Provider

Adelsberger Marketing was recently named to the Top 20 B2B Service Providers list in the state of Tennessee by Clutch, the leading B2B ratings and review platform. Recognized leaders are considered to be the very best in their specialized field. Adelsberger Marketing is recognized for its marketing, content creation, video production, and website development accomplishments.

While being recognized as a top firm in your field is always an honor, being recognized by Clutch.co is particularly important to Adelsberger Marketing. While many sites rank companies based on reviews and feedback, Clutch gathers reviews based on in-depth interviews conducted with actual clients. These aren’t just reviews that we’ve asked our favorite clients to give, but instead third-party managed interviews that give a true representation of our work product and our clients’ experiences.

We intend to stay on this list for many years to come by listening to feedback and continuing to learn from our clients’ experiences. If you want to check out some of our reviews and rankings, visit our Clutch.co profile here: https://clutch.co/profile/adelsberger-marketing

Click here to view the Clutch Press Release

Working with a Legacy Brand: Coca-Cola

Corinth Coke

There is something special about working with a legacy brand. A brand whose color and logo invoke a feeling in most everyone who sees it. A brand whose products have been consumed by almost every individual in the United States and in most every country in the world. Of course, we are talking about Coca-Cola. 

Coca-Cola in America is distributed by regional companies. In the Jackson, Tennessee and Northern Mississippi areas, that company is called Corinth Coca-Cola. We were excited to get a chance to submit a proposal for this project and honored to be selected to create this new home on the web for this great company. 

Corinth Coca-Cola has been in operation for over a hundred years and is owned by the same family that started it. That statement alone is filled with so much awesomeness that you could almost forget to talk about the wonder they were to work with. The family team behind Corinth Coca-Cola are committed to their company, their community, and their employees. They also were great customers (which any creative service company will tell you are things that are automatically connected.) 

One of the interesting aspects that surfaced during the brainstorm portion of this project was the unique audiences that Corinth Coke needs to speak with. Unlike most businesses we work with, there is an entire global culture built around Coke fandom. We needed to build in part of the website to service those fans. We also needed to feature their biggest community event in the Corinth Coke 10K and their museum.

It was an honor to work with such a classic brand and such a great family!