Mastering SEO Expectations | Jesse McFarland

Ann Kraus: Hello and welcome to Simpli.fi TV, the web series and podcast for agencies, brands, marketers, and media buyers. I'm Ann Kraus. My guest today is Jesse McFarland, the founder of SpearPoint Marketing. Jesse has worked in marketing on both the agency and client side in legal, SaaS, media, e-commerce, and startups. He created SpearPoint Marketing to offer a digital marketing strategy that includes SEO, local search, reputation management, and content marketing that will generate a positive ROI. He's also the host of a marketing podcast called Brands and Brews. Welcome to Simpli.fi TV, Jesse. Jesse McFarland: Hey, thanks for having me, Ann. Ann Kraus: Absolutely. So excited to have a conversation with you. You've mentioned that one of your specialties is SEO, so how do you recommend that agencies approach the discussion of SEO and its relevance really to their clients? Jesse McFarland: Yeah, the way I look at it is SEO should be explained that it's a long-term investment for your business. It's a long-term investment in any type of investment like that. It takes a while to get results. And so if you want to have a sustainable business in a marketing agency like an SEO agency and not have a problem like most agencies do with churn and keeping a customer business, then explain those expectations upfront that, "Hey, this is a long-term investment. This is not something that you are going to get a massive amount of customers within the first month," which a lot of agencies do that, and it's a easier way to get a sale, but it's impossible to deliver those type results, and that's why you usually have a churn problem. So expectations, delivering customer expectations upfront is kind of a key on having a stable SEO business, and that's definitely the way I've been able to build my brand. And one of the ways, one of the advantages too is I kind of approach it on a demand generation type of standpoint when I'm try to grow my business, I don't do a lot of cold calling where it's much easier to cold call to a list of prospects and say, "Hey, we can get you X amount of customers in X amount of days." I'm more about educational, more about thought leadership, and customers or prospects actually come to me and they already understand that, "Okay, Jesse talks a lot about SEO and his long-term investment." They already understand that, and they're already kind of filtered out. The type of customers I want to work with have already been filtered out because they've been following me for some sort of time. Ann Kraus: Okay, all right. So as you're discussing SEO and you're working with marketing agencies that work with smaller clients, for instance, how do you recommend agencies talk about how long the campaign takes to get started? Because I know that many clients just don't have the patience to get things started, so how do you explain that longevity? Jesse McFarland: Yeah. So getting a campaign started, it is always tricky because when a customer is engaged, they're mostly engaged right after they pay you that first bill, and so you want to get as much of the onboarding information as you can. So having an onboarding process ready to go with your customers and where you're not something you have to figure out as you go, you want to have all that information right there in their hands, and then you want to stay on top of them until they provide you all that information. So the quicker you can do that upfront after they become a customer, the quicker you're able to get that campaign started and the much more likely you're going to have a successful campaign. So having those type of expectations and that process upfront is crucial. My onboarding usually takes, it usually takes 10 to 15 days, but just to be sure, I'll have a 30-day just window of like, "This is what we're going to focus on from onboarding. We're going to get all these tasks done, completed in this first month, and then after 30 days, that's when we're going to start to do most of the bulk of the SEO stuff, the stuff that you'll actually see the changes on your website, the new links from external sites. That's when you'll start to see that stuff after 30 days." So I just give myself a 30-day window, even though I know that for most cases I can get all that information in 10, 15 days, I dislike having that cushion Ann Kraus: And that 30 days also to actually get those words working and to actually see the results is critical for everybody's going to think right away, "Why am I not seeing more business? I'm not making any more money. Jesse, you broke it. You did something wrong." So that's the part that I think is hardest for agencies and clients to understand sometimes is just it's a long tail. This is a long process. Jesse McFarland: Yeah, and it really depends. So if it's a small customer or a local business, for example, then I can actually say that, "Hey, we're not going to expect seeing any type of results within the first three months, so that will give me enough time to at least show that, or at least set some expectations to them that, "Hey, this is going to be investment. I can't be bugging Jesse and SpearPoint marketing about why I don't rank number one or why I'm not getting new customers in the door." There's some sort of patience level. And I'm very confident that for most small business customers, I can get performance and show in our data that we're making progress within three months. So I just kind of set that bar really far upfront, and again, it kind of all goes to the way how I get my customers too is I talk a lot about that on LinkedIn, I talk a lot about that in the blogging. Any SEO podcasts, I do like this one, I explain that a lot. So a lot of my customers that come to me already, they already understand that message, and that's key for me for building my business. Ann Kraus: Okay, I get it. So this is all part of everything that you do on LinkedIn and everything that you're doing, you're building your own branding while you're working to get the branding for the client. Okay. I see you, I see what you're talking about. So in your experience then with B2B, for instance, how would you describe the difference between B2B marketing and B2C marketing? Jesse McFarland: There's two completely different things there going on, on who you're selling to. So selling to other businesses, whether it's a software or a consulting or a marketing business like I have here, it's definitely a different type of messaging. So you got to make sure you really understand who your ideal customer is and who their profile is, what kind of companies they work for. This is for B2B obviously. Where B2C is like your customers are like, "Okay, whatever." If you're selling a product or you're selling a service, that if it's healthcare for example, they know that, "Okay, maybe it's physical therapy. I'm selling to people that have injury problems or need some sort of rehabilitation." So it's all about dissecting who your customers is. One thing with B2C too is often B2C, unless it's like an e-commerce type of business, there's a lot of localization. So when it comes to SEO, you can do local SEO, whereas if you're a restaurant, you're trying to get business within a certain region. So I live in Denver, Colorado. We want to say, "Hey, we're at a great pizza restaurant in Denver, Colorado, in this neighborhood you can really localize." In B2B, it's really usually not localized. It's usually more national. So when it comes to SEO, that's a massive difference between trying to get a brand presence nationally versus in a small region in a city like you would for B2C. Ann Kraus: So other than your own podcast, Brands and Brews, is there a podcast or a book that was instrumental in your success? Jesse McFarland: That's a really good question. I think what, I actually was ready for this question. So I have this Post-Acquisition Marketing. This is not an SEO book. This is from Shiv. I'll have to give you his last name. I can't pronounce it right now, darn it. But this is a really great book, especially in the B2B space. So if you're into B2B marketing or even B2B SEO or whatever, this book is a great book, it's just a great read. It really adapts to SaaS companies and what they're looking for to grow your business. So even though if you just focus on SEO, it's just great knowledge to see like, "Okay, what are they actually looking for? Are they looking for how just SEO traffic?" That's one piece of the puzzle, but how can you explain that to a marketing leader to make sure it's valuable? So this is my favorite book and one I recommend reading. Ann Kraus: Awesome. Thank you. I'm sure that that's part of that education that you're out there sharing, right? Jesse McFarland: Right. Of course. Ann Kraus: What is the best way for viewers to learn more about you? Jesse McFarland: Definitely on LinkedIn. So I can give you my websites, but I think it's easier to find Jesse McFarland on LinkedIn. I post stuff regularly at least two to three times a week. I get some really solid engagement there, so I think LinkedIn's the best way to do it. Please engage with me. Even DM me. If you've listened to this podcast and you want to talk about marketing, I'm always open for it. Ann Kraus: Awesome, great. Thank you, Jesse, this has been a great conversation. I appreciate you being my guest on Simpli.fi TV. Jesse McFarland: Thanks, Ann. Thanks for having me. Ann Kraus: And thank you all for watching Simpli.fi TV. It is sponsored by Simpli.fi, helping you to maximize relevance and multiply results with our industry leading media buying and workflow solutions. For more information, visit Simpli.fi. Thanks for joining us today. I'm Ann Kraus, and I look forward to seeing you next time.