At the beginning of the year, I set out to create content that would help showcase what I call my “marketing gospel.” Throughout the year on the CEO Chat Podcast, I did just that. Every other week for the entire year, I would focus on a digital marketing topic in accordance with the You Are a Media Company (YAMC) philosophy.
When I decided to merge Blue 16 Media and CBNation.co together, my goal was to “take my own medicine” or employ and execute on the marketing strategy that I thought was true–that we are all in the media business. How media is defined can vary from person to person and organization to organization. But at all of our fingertips, we have powerful tools that allow us to create content and connect with people, transmit messages and influence others, at the drop of a hat.
This is partially why I decided to call the company Blue 16 MEDIA. However, I hadn't employed it to the degree that I thought I should largely because I was overextended with other projects and bootstrapping the business.
The Reinvention of Journalism
That changed a little when I had to decide what to do with this community of blogs called CEO Blog Nation. While the traffic was relatively high (40k views/month), I had to figure out how I could grow this journalistic endeavor while I saw so many fail largely because of a lack of a solid business model. People craved the news, yet it seemed like the journalism industry was quickly dying.
Simultaneously, I saw billionaires like Warren Buffett buying newspapers and Jeff Bezos purchasing the Washington Post. I started to see that maybe something was there. I saw the convergence of business and entrepreneurship. Businesses were not just advertising in newspapers or on podcasts or on TV, they were building their own–media companies. As I heard others like Gary Vaynerchuk explain this philosophy, it further reinforced this idea. I saw local editors providing services and developing products in addition to traditional advertsing to help build and support their media companies.
The Pivot: Powered by Blue 16 Media
Blue 16 Media continued to grow, but I didn't have the energy to grow both at the same time as two separate entities. It was too much. So, I pivoted. Rather than choosing one or the other, I saw that I could do both.
CEO Blog Nation became CBNation.co powered by Blue 16 Media and became the media company for Blue 16 Media. It's why everything we create is powered by Blue 16 Media. It was the thing that I preached to clients. Leverage digital marketing platforms and tools to connect, interact and engage with your target market and generate leads, sales
The goal was to align my passion for journalism and what I felt was going to be the future of marketing and how entrepreneurs and business owners could promote their products and services.
During the course of 20+ podcast episodes, I broke down marketing from web design to SEO to social media and so much more including Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and podcasting. While I did cover a lot of topics over the year, I really wanted to create this to not overwhelm business owners. The focus was not to do everything but to pick 1 or 2 essential “ingredients” to your marketing strategy so that when you “built your media company” you would do it in alignment with your goals and your ideal client.
I was hoping to no longer hear things from business owners and leaders like “I joined or signed up for [INSERT SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM OR SHINY OBJECT SO AND SO] because I heard that it's where everyone is.” This course wasn't a knock against any platforms out there or any new ones that will emerge. It was merely a call to a strategic focus coupled with strategic actions to crush goals.
With an influx of “shiny objects,” it became more and more important to do the latest and greatest thing rather than focus on what actually moved the needle.
I too had fallen victim of trying to be everywhere and be all things to all people. While I have been able to pull back from doing and being all things, I wanted other entrepreneurs and business owners to do the same. So, I decided to focus on publishing my “playbook.”
The You Are A Media Company Course – (RECIP^3E)
While being omnipresent is still important, echoing the words of the book Essentialism–Less is Better. The reality is that the philosophy of the Pareto Principle or Price's Law reigns true. There are a few essential things that move the needle. There are the few essential things or “ingredients” that you should be using to promote your product or service and reach your goal. The question that the course answers is how to choose which marketing tools or platforms you want to use to reach your unique goal and connect with your target market. The course takes you through how to come up with the strategy or recipe (RECIP^3E) to accomplish this.
The
This course is great for:
- Entrepreneurs and business owners who are looking to generate more sales and opportunities.
- Solopreneurs and brands looking to increase their visibility.
- Organizations that are looking to increase their visibility unsure of which digital tools to leverage.
- Leaders and innovators looking to distinguish their products or services.
- Marketing professionals that are looking to focus their marketing efforts and searching for a strategic way to reach their goals.
Here’s what the course looks like:
- Day 1: Overview
- Day 2: My Story
- Day 3: Prework: Before You Get Started
- Day 4: REcipe / Your Marketing Plan
- Day 5: Crust / Your Foundation (e.g. website or blog)
- Day 6: Ingredients / Your marketing tools (e.g. SEO, social media, networking groups, flyers, etc)
- Day 7: Pick &
Pepare / Select the 1 or 2 ingredients that are central to your strategy (e.g. podcast, LinkedIn) - Day 8: Put it in the Oven (but check it) / Execute
- Day 9: Enjoy the final product / Keep working to perfect it but enjoy the process
- Day 10: Putting it all together
Looking forward to seeing you in the course. To enroll in the course visit: http://youareamedia.company
-Gresh
