About this Episode: In this episode of The Backstory on Marketing, Sharon Goldmacher expresses her insights regarding the future of digital marketing. She gives valuable information about The Metaverse, challenges marketers and public relations professionals face today, and the concept of combining traditional marketing with digital marketing.

About Sharon Goldmacher: Sharon Goldmacher is a seasoned digital marketing and public relations expert with 35 of years of experience in solving marketing challenges for a range of clients in industries from real estate, technology, CIDs, professional services, food and beverage, entertainment, sports and more.

Founded in 1992, c21 has garnered 80+ awards from AMA, PRSA, IABC and more, and has been recognized with a variety of business-related awards including DeKalb Chamber’s Stargazer award for “Small Business Start-Up of the Year”, Atlanta Ad Club’s Young Advertising Professional Award, “Best Place to Work” by the Atlanta Business Chronicle.

Sharon was tapped to join the University of South Florida’s Z School faculty as an instructor for its digital marketing certificate program and speaks to a variety of organizations on marketing and PR solutions.

As part of Sharon’s DNA, and she serves on several boards, including as co-chair for CREW Atlanta’s Communications Committee, the Atlanta Convention & Visitors Bureau Executive Board, the past presidents’ council of the American Marketing Association – Atlanta Chapter.

She is a graduate of Leadership Buckhead and will graduate from CREW Leadership in 2022. As the executive director of the Atlanta Local Organizing Committee, Sharon oversaw the planning and execution of the 2013 NCAA® Men’s Final Four® in Atlanta.

Sharon graduated cum laude from Newcomb College/Tulane University and worked at the NBC affiliate, WDSU-TV.

For fun, you can find Sharon on the golf course, cycling or walking her dogs around the ATL, in addition to discovering new eateries!

Links:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharongoldmacher/

https://www.c21pr.com/

https://marketingmachine.prorelevant.com/

Sign up for ProRelevant Emails:

https://mailchi.mp/prorelevant/newsletter 

Link to YouTube Video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uG9OnN_hLKs

Hi, I'm Guy Powell and welcome to the next episode

of the Backstory on Marketing. If you haven't already done so

please visit pro relevant.com. And sign up for all of these

episodes and podcasts. I am the author of the newly released

book, the post-COVID marketing machine, prepare your team to

win. And you can find out more information on this at marketing

machine.prorelevant.com. Today we're speaking with Sharon

Goldmacher. Sharon is a seasoned Digital Marketer and Public

Relations expert with 3 years of experience in solving marketing

challenges for a range of clients in a range of

industries, including real estate technologies, CIDs

professional services. You name it, she's done it. And her

company, C21 has many, many accolades. And I'm not going to

list them all. But there's a whole paragraph full of those.

So really, she's definitely at the top of her game. And that

also is not only in business, but in golf. So that's one of

her favorite things to do is be out on the golf course or

cycling or walking her dogs here in Atlanta. So welcome, Sharon.

Hi, Guy. Thank you for having me on the

show. I'm very excited to be here.

You're very welcome. It's so good to have you. So

tell us how you got started in marketing. What's your backstory

on marketing?

My backstory is, is probably not unlike many,

but I went to college at Tulane University. But I'm a Sophie

Newcomb grad from Tulane University. And I didn't really

know what I wanted to be when I grew up. So I studied

communications and political science, I thought I was going

to be a hotshot attorney. And I decided I didn't want to go to

school anymore. After double majoring, and I almost got a

minor. I was a dancer in college, jazz and modern and

ballet. So I was exhausted. So I had worked for a W DSU, which

was the NBC affiliate in New Orleans. And then I thought I

might be a reporter. But I didn't want to move to some

small town USA to build my reel. And so I ended up moving to

Atlanta, I did some on air pitching work for the PBS

station here. And in doing that, I met someone who said you'd be

great and PR, and I'm like, awesome. What is that. So I had

to do a little informational interviewing and research. And I

met some great people along the way, and ended up getting my

first job, which was really a marketing and public relations

role at a very small agency. And I loved it. So I was hooked at

that point.

Interesting. You know, it's funny, because I was

engineering. And now I'm in marketing, how we got there from

where we started in college. It's pretty amazing. So now

you're the founder and president of see 21, which is a marketing

and PR agency. Tell us a little bit about that.

Our official name is communications 21. Our

tag is communications for the 21st century, we are actually

celebrating our 30th anniversary this year. So I worked for two

other agencies, I loved what I did. Not great with authority.

So I struck out on my own after about six years. And so when I

was 28, I started communications 21. But that is a mouthful. So

we've essentially we go by C 21. Just because it's easier for

people to say and to find us so. But we started out as a

marketing, PR and design firm. And around 2000 I guess we were

one of the first agencies in Atlanta to launch email

marketing in house. So we've been doing it for 22 years. And

as a result, we just kept adding more digital services because we

saw that that really was going to be the wave of the future.

And now we do video as well. So all the digital, you know,

services, you definitely have more expertise in certain areas

than we do but we provide at least our clients with a

holistic approach to marketing and if they want to do

traditional, we can do it. But we really do push the digital

because that's where everybody lives right now.

Yeah, absolutely. And, and there's no question

that as the complexity or the the different offerings and the

complexity around them in terms of all the different types of

digital certainly leads to a lot of challenges for agencies and

their clients. So what do you see today is the biggest

challenges that agencies and their clients are facing?

Education is always key. So making sure that

we're cutting edge and staying in front of it's always tough to

get a question from a client when you're like, huh, I haven't

heard that. So you want to make sure that you're definitely in

front of what's happening. I think most of our clients

understand the importance of digital marketing, but they

really don't know the wares in house. And they, they kind of

feel like it's all magic behind the curtain...like Wizard of Oz.

So some of it is explaining, but to a point where they can

understand but they don't necessarily really want to

execute or get involved. So we focus on metrics because I

think, being able to measure what we can do, and I, I use

that as a bit of a tagline, like, if we can't measure it, we

probably are not going to recommend it as a tactic.

Because most everything in the digital world is so measurable.

And if you're if you're not measuring, then I then I think

you're doing your client a little bit of a disservice. But

I will say and I think I may have said this to previously

that there's a lot of shiny new toys out there. And the

metaverse is one of them. And I feel like people are jumping on

the bandwagon, and they don't necessarily know what the impact

is or how to make the most of it. And so, again, going back to

education, going back to your basic foundational principles is

if your audience is going to be in the metaverse, then yeah, we

should absolutely consider what that strategy would be to get in

there and to connect, but if your audience is never gonna be

in the metaverse, then it's probably not something that you

need to spend your dollars on.

Yeah, and there's been some interesting case

studies with the the metaverse and, and I will admit, I'm just

learning about it now and also trying to be a little bit more

informed than our clients so that at least if they asked me a

question, I can say, I know how to spell metaverse. And so

there's there's definitely a lot going on. And so any interesting

case studies that you've seen, or any interesting examples that

really made a lot of sense for marketers.

In terms of just information out there, I

mean, I think, you know, I find it fascinating from because we

do a lot of real estate. And so, in terms of Metaverse, things

that I'm reading about the real estate industry is was one of

the first to really dive in, I would say fashion, you know,

Gucci and Versace and some of the luxury brands who have the

kind of money that can, you know, go all out and just play.

But real estate got in there so they could kind of stake their

claims on space in the metaverse. But I will say I've

read some stories where there's a, I don't know if you've heard

about decentraland. But there is a space that they are

subdividing and selling leases for and plots for. And people

are paying real money. And they said you know that it's a finite

amount of space? And I'm like, it's it's digital, how is it

finite, you can just build more space. That didn't make a ton of

sense to me. But you know, I think as time goes on, we're

gonna see more and more applications and things that may

not make sense right now. A year from now, we'll have better

applications and make a lot more sense. I have similar questions

around NFTs and there seems to be a target market right now for

NFTs and I'm just going to say it but tends to be men who want

to see a replay of a basketball shot over and over and over and

over and over again. And having worked to support the NCAA Men's

final four tournament I understand the passion around

sports and specifically college basketball and college football,

but this is not really how women's brains work. I'm just

gonna sit.

Well so we're gonna leave the the gender specific

stuff aside here.

I'm a female founder with all female team so

I tend to be a little bit female but just instantly Yeah,

Exactly. And I agree with you. I haven't yet figured

out how NFT's can make money, but I'm sure that there will be

something and all of a sudden, something will take off. You

know, and it's interesting, there was a lot of hype about NF

T's and then it kind of went away. And then now it might be

starting to come back. But it's also kind of how QR codes work

there. When QR codes came out, man, there was so much desire

for them, and then it didn't never really got anywhere. And

then all of a sudden, I think it was really apple. And I guess

Google did it too, as they combined and integrated the QR

code reader right into the camera, right? All of a sudden,

and then with COVID, all of a sudden, QR codes are back. And

so maybe something like that has to happen with NF T's and then

the metaverse.

Right. So that was a huge impact on on QR

codes and contactless payments and, and all that. So I agree.

Sometimes it's environment driven.

Yeah, yeah. So help educate us. What would you call

the difference between the term Metaverse augmented reality and

virtual reality? And then, you know, how you see that being

possibly applied by different by different industries? And what

have you?

Yeah, I, again, I'm not an expert. And

this is not something we do every day. But we have through a

group, I know a gentleman who's building virtual reality

experience boxes. So you walk in with your headset, and you can

have any kind of experience, it could be going on safari, it

could be being on the moon, it could be something medical that

you're learning about. And so you get education, you can

virtually touch and feel something and interact with it

as if it's real. And that's virtual reality. Augmented

reality may be, we had, for example, used a kind of a pop up

video service, I guess, is the best way to describe it, that

you would scan any kind of flat graphic that was programmed in

the back end, and you would have a video pop up right over that

flat graphic. So if I had a brochure and I just took my

phone and scanned it, all of a sudden, there'd be a video right

on my phone, and you'd still see kind of behind the video the the

graphic or brochure. And that was just augmenting what you

would already see. So that's augmented reality. The Metaverse

to me is just a whole world where you interact virtually,

and you are going into rooms or games, or you're at a concert

with somebody across the world. And you just text your friend

and say, Hey, I'm in this room, come watch Earth, Wind and Fire

with me, obviously, showing my age, super old. But my favorite

band, and you know, that kind of virtual living. I can see, I can

understand, like, I have friends all over, I would love to see

them more often. And that kind of I could see could be cool.

But I like human interaction. I like you know, this zoom stuff

is fine. But I like in person. So

yeah, yeah. And I think that's a good

differentiation. One of our clients is Museum of the Bible,

and they had an exhibit where they had a projector over a

book. And then as you turn the pages in the book, the projector

would then change and recognize what page you are on. And then

it would present a like a video and then you know, other stuff

with it. And, and it was pretty fascinating. And it was an

interesting case as to how you could maybe use that. I don't

know if that would be augmented reality or virtual reality. I

guess it's probably more augmented. But, uh, cases like

that, I think are definitely coming up. And and you mentioned

education as well. I think education, there's no question

that when you can kind of almost feel like you're in there that

in that environment, that you can really learn and see

different things that you otherwise wouldn't see, just by

reading a book.

There was actually a new story this I

think it was this past weekend or or week. It might have been

just this a couple of days ago, but it was talking about the

progression of virtual reality and that medical students, even

high schoolers who have a kind of STEM track are seeing a

virtual A skeleton that they can with headsets can see where the

liver is, or see how things function and the compression of

time that may happen in terms of, you know, someone going

through school and their residency and all this because

they get to do things virtually, and not wait for a patient or

cadaver will, will turn out, you know, more medical professionals

in a faster amount of time, which I think is incredibly

beneficial. However, I do still think the human connection and

bedside manner and those are things you can't necessarily get

virtually. So there has to be some combination, I think for

for true success.

Yeah, interesting. And I like your example of

medical for the metaverse to be able to actually see and feel

and touch and, and I think you're right, you wouldn't learn

the details of that. And I would imagine, too, if you're going to

be a specialist, and you're going to be you know, an ear,

nose and throat or whatever, that you could then learn the

details of that a whole lot faster than if then otherwise.

And so that might actually compress areas where there are

shortages of doctors, and certainly, you know, in the

third world that might be you know, an interesting way for

them to increase the number of available doctors very quickly.

Yeah, this reporter actually was working on

it, they were including tactile, so not just seeing but being

able to feel, and he wasn't wearing a glove or anything

special, but the way that they've designed the virtual

reality, he was like, I'm having trouble explaining it, but I can

feel, you know, a hard surface or stone or whatever. And that's

the crazy thing about how your brain works, I guess. So it can

Yeah, you can really interpret things differently. So, yeah,

well, I

will admit, you know, when the Apple phone, and

I don't remember which version of it came out with the haptic

you know, where you you hit something, and you actually feel

it vibrate. You know, I thought that was a really good way to

enhance the product. And, and now, you know, for as a

marketer, of course, is, you know, how do we turn that into

something that can either grow the brand or improve the

experience you have with the brand and, and I think there's

going to be a ton of different opportunities for marketers to

take advantage of.

Yeah, and I think it'll be interesting to

for experiential marketers, for people who do large scale

events, or, you know, testing of products for brands and, and

will it change it and enhance it, because I'm sure they're all

moving towards having some kind of virtual reality experience as

part of the in person experience. So no longer just

cornhole. It might be a cornhole on the moon. So it'll, it'll be

interesting to see the impact. And then, you know, quite

frankly, the cost, I mean, as as a business owner, yourself,

finding the right partners, but then being able to price

something that a client doesn't go, Oh, what, it's gonna cost me

how much so,

yeah, yeah,

it'll be interesting to see how things

change. But,

well, one thing too. We were just at a family reunion

and looking at younger kids and the level of technology and the

time they spend with technology and being in Minecraft or Roblox

which, as I understand it, are going to kind of be the

foundation for the metaverse. They, they are going to be so

far ahead of us. It's going to be like, you know, my parents in

the internet. My mom would never use the internet and it took me

forever to get her to even try it. I was unsuccessful. And I

hate to say it, I fear I might be the same way when it comes to

the metaverse.

I have a I'm proud to say that. So I grew up

kind of all over the country. I was I'm a Californian, but moved

up and down the east coast as a kid growing up. And I spent

about eight years just outside of Boston, and some of my best

friends still live up there. Most of them live up there. And

when COVID hit, we would typically get together once a

year, you know, maybe twice a year. And we started having a

weekly zoom call pretty much March of 20. And we have every

Tuesday night we have a call. And one of the women on the

call, who's very she's an entrepreneur, very progressive.

She's like why can't we just have flip phones? v if she could

not touch technology, she would be so happy. So, you know, I

bring up things like the metaverse to her and she's just

No, not gonna have it not. So yes, I agree that we may also,

because I kind of feel like we are different than our parents.

My dad actually was an engineer and very adaptable to

technology. And my mom's pretty good, too. So I'm lucky there.

But I do feel like, you know, I felt a little bit like there

won't be that big of a gap, like, how much more can they do?

And now they can do a lot. So I'm not a gamer. So I have team

members who are gamers, gamers, and I am jealous, because

they're going to, you know, they're going to be like, Yeah,

this is this and this and this. And I'm like, oh, what? Oh,

yeah. Remember Pong?

I know. And asteroids, those are my games.

Yeah, we're definitely going to be behind the curve on that. And

actually, that's an interesting challenge, I think for marketers

is how do you get if you have a product or a service that's

ideal for, you know, the older generations? You know, for the

maybe not necessarily the boomers, but maybe even

millennials, as opposed to the Gen Z's and the Gen Y's, you

know, how do you, you have to wait for the uptake of the new

technology before you're going to be successful with, you know,

getting that getting that meta versal kind of service

implemented and really taken up by that by that segment.

I agree. And I also wonder, the impact for PR

from a publicity and media relations perspective. So as

reporters get younger, will the interaction be virtual like

that? So gone are the days where you would meet someone for

lunch? Obviously, most of its digital, they're inundated with

1000s of pitches and calls. And so how will that change? How

will they get information from, you know, just like you're

pitching a product, you do similar things in PR. And so

kind of what will change? And it'll be interesting to see, I

don't know if I'm going to be around that long. But you know,

things continue to adapt, and, and it's adapt or die, I guess,

in terms of being?

Yeah, well, and I think too, and I've seen it as

well, even with my book is you don't even write a press release

anymore. 10 years ago, and I don't know, maybe that's too far

back, I don't know. But you'd write a press release, and you'd

put it up on PR web or whatever it was. And that would then get

distributed, that you don't even need to do that really anymore.

It's totally different. And I can see that changing here over

the next couple of years as, as the younger generation gets into

being on the reporter side and the editor side, and they just

want to be communicated with differently. Agreed. So you

mentioned metrics early on. And of course metrics and analytics

are where I where I kind of, you know, my interest gets piqued.

So tell us some of the metrics and analytics that you've found

to be the most successful or the most beneficial to really help

your clients to get that edge that they really needed?

Well, they never look at anything. So it's

just providing them just providing them with analytics.

They're like, wow, really. That is, um, you know, I'll say, real

estate folks, lawyers, professional service people,

even architects. They, they do not look at measurable results.

It's just not in their language. So for someone to provide that

it's like, I've invented sliced bread. It's crazy. We, again,

because we try to take as much of a holistic approach as we can

to our clients. We will typically even if we're not

managing websites, which for most of our clients, we do but

in the cases where we don't we gain access to analytics, we

make sure they have analytics on their site. Now with you know,

for Dotto, things will change in terms of how things are being

looked at but, you know, site traffic is still important tying

it to if we're doing an SEO program or some kind of online

advertising or social ad program, tying Certain clicks or

certain web form, you know, finishing an email marketing is

still really number one in terms of driving site traffic. So

trying to stitch the threads together, so we'll tend to look

at our efforts or discrete efforts that happen, and then

what the results are. So is it driving traffic was there a peak

day was there, you know, and ideally, are their sales tied to

it, so not only we drive traffic, but did people fill out

their request a quote, form or, you know, complete a sale and,

and, you know, really with, with online ads, you really can see a

massive difference. So if you're spending a little bit more

money, or you're spending a lot of money, there is a limit to

attraction. But if you're spending nothing, your your

results tend to flatline a little bit, unless you have some

really big news, or you have, you know, a great video or

something goes viral. But you know, incrementally spending

smartly, to drive traffic. We think that that's important. We

give them the whole picture on website, on social email, and

then anything else that may have occurred. And then the end of

our analytics is always a, this is where we fared well, this is

where we're going to continue to work. This is what we think we

should pause. So I think that clients are always happy to get

just a quick synopsis, and a chart of growth, like are you

growing? Or are you not growing? And if they only looked at two

slides, without all this stuff in the middle, I think they

would be at least have an idea of what's working and what's not

working. And I think every client wants to know, you know,

from a KPI perspective, and an ROI, I guess, perspective how

their return on investment is, if they're getting one, and

hopefully, the smart marketing people will say you should stop

spending your money here, because you're getting nowhere.

But we think you should still, like funnel that money

elsewhere, because you are getting results here. So

yeah, yeah, absolutely. One of the one of

the challenges that we've run into is, you know, for for

larger businesses, they have the money to invest in metrics. And

so they can either buy data or get survey data or by third

party data. And then of course, their own internal systems, give

them you know, the sales and other other things. The

challenges, though, for smaller businesses, and one of the

things and I kind of heard that as well as, you just have to

start measuring something and measuring it regularly. And

you'll start to see some things that that take place, you might

see a peak in web visits, or a web engagement or form fills or

something like that. And then once you start to see that, then

you can say, well, that's when we ran this little campaign, or

that's when we went to the trade show, or that's when we did

something and start to tie those things to real value. So I you

know, I think what you're doing makes total sense. And, and I

think the the biggest thing is to just start and I try and get

that message across in my book is just start measuring,

measuring something and then, you know, see what you get, and

then refine it and refine it, but you have to start and be

diligent about it.

Right? It's just like, when people used to

come to us back in the day for printed newsletters. I'm like,

you can't do two, you have to do them every month. Because you're

just I mean, it's with anything really in marketing, right? It's

frequency. And so analytics are the same. And it's really

interesting. I think over 30 years. We'll get clients who

were like, you know, yeah, yeah, analytics analytics by month

three, they're like, ah, are we getting our analytics report?

And like, Yep, we're working on it. Yeah, they really do start

to pay attention. The smart ones I would say that really have the

time, maybe are a little more sales focused. You know, they're

making an investment. And so like anything, they want to see

what that return is, and yeah, they really will start to pay

attention. And they're kind of amazed, like I said, And to your

point. If they haven't started just starting it. They're kind

of like, wow, you can see that. You can drill down and see that

and I'm like, oh, there's so much more we're not showing

because we don't think you're gonna look at it. But if you

want to see it, we'll we'll pull it for you.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And just get

started. That is such a for metrics that is just just so

important. So changing the subject a little bit. So what do

you see as otherwise big trends in PR, and in marketing. We

talked a little bit about the metaverse, and whatever, but any

other big trends that you're seeing.

You know, we're doing a couple of projects

right now that require community engagement. And at least in

Georgia, for projects that we have here, and really

everywhere, the diversity of the population is really driving

some different initiatives. We are working, for example, on a

video. And if you've taken a Delta flight recently, and

you've seen their promotion, you know, they're in flight video

before you can take off. There's English and Spanish subtitles.

And I think as the population continues to be more diverse,

and languages will become more important. That will have an

impact on on how websites are developed on materials that are

provided on outreach that happens. And honestly, I think

I'm hopeful that as kids come up in school, that there is more of

an emphasis on learning more than English as a language. I

mean, you look across the world, and Italians probably know, on

average three to five languages, or, you know, people in Spain,

and so the world is getting smaller and smaller and smaller.

And I think trends that will continue to occur is people have

to be thinking about diversity, equity and inclusion all the

time. Now, it's not, you know, people don't look like us

anymore. It's important to to be diverse and get outside of your

own bubble. Some of these projects are heavily community

engagement focused. And so there has to be someone who might be

able to interpret into Korean, Vietnamese, Spanish or other

languages on site. So that, that the community can really engage.

So for one of our clients that, you know, when we started, you

were talking about CIDs. And people may not know what that

is. They are community improvement districts, they are

designated areas where property owners pay additional tax. And

that tax goes into a bucket that's used for infrastructure

updates, security, landscaping, beautification cleanup, and it's

meant to it's a little bit of the broken windows theory, that

if things look great, you're going to attract more

investment, more businesses, more residents, etc. And all

that means is more taxes come into that county. And so it's

it's win win. But the diversity of the C IDs is vastly changing.

And so one of the ones that we work with is probably one of the

most diverse districts where I think Hispanic and African

American are by far the, you know, majority of the

population. And so making sure that we are communicating in a,

in a way that they can understand without being forced

to read English and understand what could be, you know, complex

is, is key, and I think that will continue to be a trend that

we see going forward. So, you know, making sure that

that people are keeping that in mind, from a marketing

perspective, I think will be really important.

Yeah, I agree with you, the I'm on the board of the

AMA, the American Marketing Association here in Atlanta, and

I'm a former president and you are a former president. Exactly.

So, over the, over the last two years, we have set it really as

an objective to make sure that we are as diverse and inclusive

and inclusionary as as we can be, because it is so important

and to your use, use the words you know, they don't necessarily

look like us. And, or look like me, and and that every piece of

research that I've seen is so true. And you know, so being

able to make that inclusion in all of our events is is you

know, long term even in the short term is going to help the

organization out and I think help out marketers that follow

that and companies that follow that. So yeah, I'm really glad

that you brought that up. Yeah, I

mean, just hearing someone else's opinion

that, again, may not look like us is, is really, really

important. I'm going through a leadership program right now

through crew, which is commercial real estate for

women. And it is a very diverse mix of women in the in the

class. And so there was the topic, we had a topic about DNI

essentially. And there were a lot of some prep trepidations, I

would say, from other members of the class saying, you know, I

don't know what I can ask what I can't ask, you know, I don't

want to mess up. And, you know, I think, and I'm Jewish, and so

I get asked questions like that, you know, like, really? Yes. You

know, the goal is to be a friend first, like, get to know the

person and not treat them as if they're on display. You know, if

that makes sense, like, Ooh, you're the, you're my first

black friend. So I'm going to ask all my questions. That's not

how it works, not how it works. So making sure that you are

diverse is great, but at the same time, it's the equity and

the inclusion part that I think are important as well, so that

people are on a level playing field, and they are given the

same opportunities, and that those inclusionary conversations

are happening, and not necessarily. You're the token.

So I'm going to ask you, because you're clearly representative of

your entire population. Yeah. Yeah. Not a good thing.

That that is not a good thing. I like your point,

though. The the friend and the relationship is you have to

establish first and and that has to be kind of at the top of the

list. And, and that then will lead to the other. You know, the

other the other bullets that that need to be followed on

that. Yeah, good point. Any other big trends that you see?

Oh, gosh, um, well, what are you seeing? I'm

gonna turn it around you. Way more people on these podcasts?

What are you seeing?

Yeah, well, definitely. You know, it's good

that we talked about the metaverse, because that's

certainly it. And definitely the EI. So that was good. What I've

found, which is, I think surprises everybody is that

there has been a huge shift over to digital and online. So

whatever that is, whether it's, you know, paid digital paid

social paid search, or online video, that trend has definitely

moved and as being very successful there. And money is

being taken out of traditional media. And what's happened now

with a lot of our clients is that the traditional media has

now become very effective. Because the prices have come

down, the targeting is better, or maybe not better, but the

targeting is there. And the reach is there. And so we

actually see that there's almost like a rebalancing going on

where everything was kind of moving over to online, and now

there's a little piece that's moving back again. And so that's

definitely one of the trends that that that we've seen.

Yeah, that's, it's really interesting. We,

video, video video. It is. It is really, you know, the no one

reads anymore. It's really sad. I mean, especially because I'm a

storyteller, and a writer, and no one reads and it's really

kind of crazy. The statistics that you see on how much video

is consumed, versus, you know, someone reading a book or even a

blog post. It's important to have obviously, from a technical

perspective, having the your keywords searchable, very

important, but I think video will continue to change the

game, both on the internet, social media, tick tock has had

a massive impact. And so what is consumable? I think, to your

point earlier about different age ranges, you know, people can

spend three to six hours on Tik Tok just scrolling through

videos, and but the retention level is what I don't know. So

are they are they retaining? are they actually going through and

shopping and spending money and you know, doing those things,

but video is no longer something you can avoid. You have to have

it as part certainly as part of your social media. Just because

algorithmically, it's rewarded. So you're kind of left in the

dust. I was just on a call about a nonprofit. They're focused on

raising funds for Ukraine for sending medical supplies,

incubators, you know, kind of large, expensive items. And

someone said, you know, I have some audio PSAs can you use

those on social? And I said, No. I can't. I need the video. So no

one's gonna sit and listen to a post. It's just no, that's not

gonna happen. So I'm not NPR, you know, I, and it's not a

podcast, she was like, it's a 32nd. PSA. I know, I made the

video. So which we'll get, which is good. But yeah, it's just a

it's definitely here to stay. And I was that digital Summit.

Were you at the Digital summit a couple of weeks ago?

No, no, yes, I was, I was, yes, there was,

there was a woman on there talking about,

you know, making videos that are engaging and driving physics,

and she made some really great points, but she also, like, I

kind of grew up liking my privacy. And I'm not the type of

person that films myself putting my makeup on before I give a

speech, you know, and, and people like that, like, people

like to watch that. And a little bit worse thing, but that's me.

So you know, there for the people that can embrace that

kind of thing, and are comfortable with that kind of

thing. They're, they're doing really well, but I, you know,

there's certain things that personally, I might recommend it

for a client, but personally, I would have problems with

so yeah, yeah. Well, you are so right about video.

And, and these short snippets, and I can't believe how how well

Tiktok does. A friend of mine, he's does leadership videos on

Tiktok. So they're about anywhere from, you know, 5060

seconds up to maybe, you know, minute and a half. And, you

know, most of his are in the 1000 views range. And then,

about two weeks ago, we had one that shot up to 500,000

Oh my god.

It absolutely amazing. And so now, you know,

because of that, you get spin off on all the other ones. And

then it's kind of this virtuous cycle. And, but to your point,

though, you have to almost, and I call it surround sound

marketing, you have to be almost everywhere. Unfortunately, you

do have to have audios, because people do listen to audios and

things like that, when they're driving or whatever. And then

obviously, the videos and even these podcasts are a big

opportunity. And then the tech talks. And and then, you know,

you talked about search as well, I made a mistake. With my

podcasts i i started on YouTube. And then I don't know why we we

felt was going to be better over in Vimeo. And then all of a

sudden you realize, wait a minute, we're not getting the

search. And the search engine on YouTube is so important that we

are now moving everything back over to YouTube because you get

all that value of of the of the search.

You could be on both. Yeah, yeah. There's no

harm in being on both. So yeah, but the search volume on YouTube

is set only second to Google. Yeah. Yeah. It's really kind of

amazing. And crazy. So yeah, yeah.

Yeah. So before we close anything else you want to

bring up or anything we haven't spoken about that you'd like to

talk about?

Well, I just I don't think I so do things I

think I would change in terms of me and my, you know, success

over 30 years is I'm not a morning person. And I truly

believe that the early bird catches the worm. Like if only I

was a morning person, a billionaire. But I also am a

very I'm a detail person and less of a visionary. But I will

say I'm kind of the Slow and steady wins the race type

entrepreneur. I'm a risk averse entrepreneur. And I when people

say two things to me, I always kind of cringe like where do you

see yourself in five years? I'm like, Oh my God. I have no idea.

Well, absolutely, yeah.

Clients who have asked or five year plans,

I'm like, why bother? It's, it's gonna be different six months

from now, you know. So I feel a little vindicated that we live

in a time that things changed so much that I can say, we're not

doing a five year plan. But um, so I wish I had been a little

bit more of a visionary I guess. But I'm, I am proud to say that

I've been around for 30 years. So that's ever forecast. Like,

I'll do this for a few years, see all goes. It goes by fast

like I get I don't have children I have for babies, but they grow

up fast. And I have loved but some days are really slow. But

for the most part, the 30 years have

gone like that. So yeah, it is amazing. It is

absolutely amazing. I've been doing this for 17. And it's

easy. I know, I know. I'm just I'm just a youngster in this.

Well, thank you so much, Sharon, really appreciate it. And thank

you so much for the time and very interesting discussion.

Where would you like people to go for them to reach you or your

company and maybe give you a website

can go right to our website, which is C 21. P

r.com. And you can find me on LinkedIn, Sharon gold mocker

easy to find, and you can can connect with us on social on all

the socials. And yeah, we have some videos on our website as

well. You can see some of our video work. And that would be

great. I would love to connect with your audience. It would be

awesome.

Fantastic. So C 21 p r.com. And then of course,

Sharon gold mocker on LinkedIn. So with that again, thank you so

much, Sharon. And then for the audience. Please stay tuned for

other videos in this series of the backstory on marketing,

please visit marketing machine dot pro relevant.com. And you

can download any of these videos and also podcasts. And don't

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chance, please rate them with five stars. Thank you so much.

And thank you, Sharon.

Thank you guy. Have a good afternoon.