How To Become A Certified Digital Marketer - Mark de Grasse - Digital Marketer

SPEAKER_01 0:04

This is the Beyond the Story podcast, a show that goes way beyond the story. Mark, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. So excited. Hey man, I'm glad we finally got this thing done. We tried to do this uh with my mobile uh podcast studio in a hotel room uh with hotel Wi-Fi as a less than pleasurable experience. So glad we were able to get this thing rescheduled and get something on the calendar. And uh we were chatting here before the interview. My story with Digital Marketer started some gosh, six years ago, seven years ago, back in 2015 when I emceed TNC, because I tweeted Dice, hey, you need a guy with a bow tie to rock your stage for traffic and conversions. And he's like, actually, I do. And I was on the phone the next morning and he hired me that that same day and went on to do the show for the next summer, I think it was three or four years. And uh that the the digital marketer ripple effect still continues today. I mean, I don't wear bow ties anymore and I'm no longer an MC, but um I do a lot of talks in the world of podcasting. People are like, wait a second, you were the guy from TNC calling for a podcast or whatever it might be. And you know, case in point here with getting you on the show and uh you and I are chatting later on on the digital marketer podcast. So it's great to great to connect with you and and still be in you know within the company of of digital marketer, great humans over there.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

Oh, definitely. Well, and it's so funny you mentioned Ryan Dice and in your story with him because that's usually how it goes. Like that's kind of how I ended up as president of digital marketer. It was more than just one email, though. It was uh it was a little process, but it ended up kind of being like, Hey, you want to run digital marketer? I'm like, sure, sounds great. Love it. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, because I've always been the education side is is huge, and it's uh it's something I've always been passionate about. And yeah, I mean, digital marketers, uh, like where it starts for most people.

SPEAKER_01 2:02

I didn't even know who they were, dude. I had no idea. I didn't I just I used to just respond to every event out there. You need a guy with a bow tie to rock your stage to the MC, like every so I saw an ad for TNC, and then Twitter said, Hey, you may want to follow this guy named Ryan Dice. I had no idea who Ryan was. Still, even when I hung up the phone and I called a buddy and I'm like, hey man, I just hung up the phone with some Ryan Dice dude. He goes, What do you mean, some Ryan Dice dude? First of all, second of all, nobody gets on that stage. Like, how did you pull that off? And I was like, Well, must be the bow tie.

SPEAKER_00 2:31

No, it's well, it's just what you did, which is the direct contact. Because a lot of people I work with now and and that I put on the TNC stage are people who tried, you know, it sounds way more complicated than that, but it's like, no, it's like you basically our process for vetting people who are new educators, new faculty is you know, come on the podcast. That's actually step one, then write some articles and then do some videos. And then if you're in town, let me know and we'll shoot some more stuff, and then you get meet everybody, and then you come on, you know, one of the smaller stages, and then Ryan sees you, or or anybody from digital marketers sees you and says, Hey, you want to be on stage? So it's it's it's all about doing stuff though. Yeah, it's you know, more than even what you've done in the past, right?

SPEAKER_01 3:14

Oh, absolutely. I mean, I I I think I applied last year, and I know it was the year before, uh yeah, it was last year because the year before last I went with Hype Digital, which was their first year um sponsoring the VP. Yeah, exactly. So they were like, hold on a second, dude. You did we don't know anybody. You did this show for like four years. Can you just come with us and make introductions? I was like, is this real life? So again, another digital marketer uh ripple effect here. So uh it's just fun to see that uh things are still going. It's fun to go back in. It's a big reunion with all of your marketing friends, uh, too, in addition to a bunch of new stuff. So let's let's talk about how you got in the mix with with digital marketer and and uh a little bit of your backstory and in your experience, what really brought you into present day as president of digital marketer.

SPEAKER_00 3:57

Sure. So I've always been in content. Um, I've been in a bunch of different roles, had companies, and uh it's always been content-oriented though. No matter what position I had, it was always okay, what can I generate? How do we share it? How do we optimize it? What videos can we get? What photos can we get? What graphics can we get? Um, so I kind of went through a process of uh being part of a tech startup right out of college, um, starting a gym in a magazine and a content platform called MyMed Methods, which was basically how to use unconventional types of fitness equipment that we imported from China and then sold online, which sounds like a total normal thing to do, but this was the mid-2000s. So it was like, whoa, that's amazing, you know, content platforms won. And then uh e-commerce was still pretty new. So uh wanted to get into that. So that's that's how I got kind of into e-commerce and like official content creation because we ended up generating, I don't know, like 1500 articles and 5,000 workouts and all, you know, 10,000 pieces of content went into the actual production of the magazine. And then uh yeah, a bunch of other things happened. So I sold that magazine to a company called Onit, uh, one of Joe Roman's companies. Yeah, uh, became their content executive, uh, started the Onit Academy, built their content platform, uh, left after a year, uh, started an agency, which I was trying to teach small business owners how to do marketing. I said, Hey, if we're gonna fix the content on the internet, we have to base the content off of people who actually do the stuff instead of marketers writing everything. So that was kind of my objective was how do we make small business owners and professionals create content and then I would show them how to share it? That totally failed. Now, like the company was actually successful, it just didn't do what I wanted to do, which was uh kind of make small business owners independent and able to create content themselves. That only worked about five percent of the time. And the the other 300 companies that I worked with did not want anything other than to hire me to do their content forever, which I didn't want to do. I wanted to teach, you know. So uh eventually I hooked up with uh Richard Linder, one of the owners of Digital Marketer. Uh his daughter was in my son's class, and then we started talking, and then I built out his personal platform. And then uh I said, Hey, I do content strategy. So if you want, I could actually do all of scalables, the parent company's content strategy. So I actually worked with Digital Marketer and the team for I think like a year and a half, actually doing strategy and and working with the executives. And then when they decided to kind of reform Digital Marketer to kind of reinvent that platform, uh, then they said, Hey, what do you think about you know being president of Digital Marketer? And I was like, sure, that sounds great. One client's easier than 70 clients, so this will be a piece of cake. It was not, it hasn't been a piece of cake, but it's been this awesome adventure of learning and evolving and changing, and you know, and then with how digital marketing works in general, is that's just how it is, it constantly changes and constantly updates, and and so it's uh it's an awesome fit, and it's it's amazing to be part of it now that um you know the whole marketing world's changing again, so yeah, you get to be on the forefront of education for it, right?

SPEAKER_01 7:07

Well, I mean, digital marketer always has. I always I always uh tell the story of when I uh the the years that I was doing TNC, I never had my thing. Everybody had a thing, like they had their marketing thing. I was a social media guy like that helped people with their social media strategy, and I was not, but and then on the you know, MC side, I had the personal branding thing down pat no problem, but I never had my thing, and I'll never forget. We were in the green room one time, and and Ryan said when you can figure out how to build a bridge in between uh the the problem and the value that you provide, you you're you're able once you can build that bridge, you've got a business. And I never stopped thinking about that ever, ever, ever. And by the end of 2016, which I think was my uh last year, maybe 2017, we did content and commerce with uh BM in Orlando. I was like, I'm gonna figure this out. And I had to come into a non-negotiable with myself to say, you know what, I'm not gonna do this work any longer on the social media side. I don't enjoy it. And one day somebody called and said, Hey, can you help me start a podcast? And I was like, actually, I can. And I was a uh Digital Marketer Labs member at the time. And I went in there and I went through the digital marketer labs course. And after that, I was just like, right. And um, I literally sat down and it all flowed out. I was like, this is this is exactly what my next move was. So again, another great, you know, story from Digital Marketer and in my personal journey, but at the same time, you guys have always been big on education, education, and then also, you know, marketing. I mean, we're able to provide solutions in education for marketers from whether it be a certification or a course or whatever it may be. So it's good to see you guys are still uh rocking and rolling. I know there's been a lot of different exits people have gotten off of uh through this journey, but that's business, right?

SPEAKER_00 8:52

Yeah, you know, it's um it's a hectic time, you know. A lot of people don't really think about it, but the last 20 years in every business has been crazy. Like just so many events have happened and and giant like technological changes and then societal changes, like the stuff that you could say 10 years ago might be completely inappropriate to say today, you know, and that hasn't that's never been in the history of you know humanity, that's not usually the case. It's usually this gradual growth and cycles and stuff like that, and we're just like, nope, hyper speed, and then now everything changes that fast. So now it but you know, with digital marketers specifically, like you you're talking about the the full built bridge, but the you know, speech writing usually gives is about the half-built bridges, where it's like, okay, you're not getting to the solution, you're getting halfway and then you're falling off, and then you start something new, and then you get halfway and you fall off, and then you start something new, and then and you all you have is these half-built bridges to nowhere, instead of just being like, I'm going all in for you. It's podcasts, I'm going all in on podcasts. I'm gonna kick ass. Oh, can I cast on here? I don't know. Yeah, sure. Okay, cool.

SPEAKER_01 10:00

My second guess, my second favorite F word is Friday. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

Just so functional. You know, we're all about communication. I'm like, ah, that's the most effective direct way to communicate a lot of time, is just uh right F bomb. Well said everything's not I'm a comedian as well.

SPEAKER_01 10:17

Like Cameo's a comedian. Okay, I I I completely embrace the power of the F bomb. Plus, oh yeah, I've known Gary V a long, long time. So I was trained, I was trained by the best.

SPEAKER_00 10:28

Oh, yeah. Well it's so funny because you always see those articles, like less intelligent people cuss, and that's like super highly intelligent people cuss. And it was like, uh, F it. Like, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 10:41

I don't know. So um you guys uh you got a lot going on right now uh over at Digital Marketer with um uh with the continuum education stuff that you're doing. Let's talk a little bit. Oh, yeah, yeah, you guys are working on 2023. Lots of familiar faces and friends and damn near family um in the mix with you guys doing that. We were chatting before the interview here, but uh what you know, what's that look like and what are you guys working on here as we as we usher in uh 2023?

SPEAKER_00 11:06

So that that's a a big factor for us because a lot of times, you know, we've created these certifications over the last uh six, seven years. And you know, the certification process is supposed to be kind of like a high-level strategic view of a specific topic topic. So content marketing, social media marketing, analytics, copywriting, like all these different elements of digital marketing uh are supposed to be, you know, kind of addressed with the certs. The problem is that things change really, really quick. And so what we're doing is redeveloping all the certs to be that higher level view because our frameworks, our customer value journey, customer avatar canvas, the T-shape marketer, like all these this IP that we have is timeless, but the methodologies that you have to apply to achieve them is anything but so what we're doing is uh basically coming out with new updated certifications, then CEU units, so continuing education units to maintain your certification using more tactical courses. So, you know, for the content cert, like I mentioned, we do have a podcast pillar section where it's like, okay, here's why podcast podcasting works. Here's what you could do with it, here's generally how you would achieve it. And then the tactical course would be like, hey, here's how to create your first podcast, or here's how to expand your audience, or here's how to launch a podcast. So all the different elements of podcasting we can now accommodate through continuing education credits that will help make people maintain their certifications, and then everybody's happy. We can just keep on updating and you keep on learning, and then we're all speaking the same language. And that's really what certifications is about is getting through that, like the process of let me explain my system, and then let me say the terms that we're gonna use, and let me do this, let me do that. Digital marketer has standardized everything so that you don't have to think about all these elements of marketing, you just have to think about the one thing we're talking about right now, and you understand it much better and faster because we've already taught you all the other junk. Now you can just get into yes, customer value journey, engagement stage, using social media, do this, and they're like, Okay, so you can skip all where it fits in the greater strategy and just get to doing stuff. So it's what you get is the strategy, which is what's missing from most marketing, and then the doing, which is what everybody obsesses over way too much instead of strategy. Right.

SPEAKER_01 13:25

Imperfect action. Exactly. Get started, make sure you do you're on the right track, right? You're on the right object. Yeah, well, oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 13:33

Well, and and you're not wasting time and and brain power thinking about things that you don't need to think about, your own system. You know, so many people, so many marketers are like, I have to invent my thing from scratch. It's like, no, you don't. There's only so many ways to do marketing, like just use our framework, apply it however you want, and customize it however you want, and then you get done a lot faster using proven systems. And the input that we've actually used is from 120,000 marketers and giant companies. So you're getting the best of it, and now you could waste less time to make more money faster, easier with less mistakes.

SPEAKER_01 14:10

Absolutely. Like Dice has been coined as saying several, several times, this stuff uh works. I'll never forget him saying that. And it does, it 100% does when properly executed. That's for sure. Exactly. So in the world of marketing and content and uh and everything that you guys you know work with to help educate uh you know marketers and and certify them and as as things continue to change, uh, where does uh AI come into play with all this? Because it seems like ChatGPT showed up overnight, Google just announced their platform, bang coming out soon. I mean, where does all of this come into play when it comes to marketing and content and strategies? Obviously, we can't just push a button and sit back and go, well, the robots got it. We're good. You know, specifically to my copywriting friends listening here, I know that you you you're not gonna be out of a job yet. Um, but you know, what how does that all come into play with the world of marketing in general um when it applies to artificial intelligence?

SPEAKER_00 15:08

I'm so glad you asked because over the last two days we had our uh modern marketing mastermind, our M3 group, which is kind of our top-level community within digital marketer. And Ryan Dice gave a speech about you know what AI is gonna do to marketing. Essentially, what he said, it really breaks down into your standard marketer. If it was like level one, is like your standard marketer. Now you have good marketers who could do about 10 times more than your standard marketer. And so what's gonna happen is that your standard marketer who could do some stuff but isn't really very productive, will now be able to 10x their workload, like right now using AI. So it's it's like a multiplication factor for production. Now, that same marketer it doesn't have the strategy, they don't have the experience, maybe they don't have the strategic insight, they don't have the industry insight to be like a mega marketer, and instead they're gonna be this base level. Now, AI is gonna allow everybody to 10x. So, what's gonna happen to the people who are already 10x is they're gonna 10x that. So, you're what you're gonna see is like these extreme marketers who are able to achieve just incredible things in incredibly fast amounts of time, and it's gonna look amazing, and they're gonna do it with way less people, way less time than they needed to before. And then everybody else is gonna have to pick up AI to get to that 10x, but now that that 10x is now gonna be the standard, and so it's not that AI is gonna replace marketers, it's going to it's gonna be a requirement. If you don't know how to use AI to you know increase your production times, increase your results, track everything better, you know, uh optimize better, analyze better, all the other elements of marketing, then you're gonna fall so far behind that you'll just have a bunch of people leaving the industry, is what's gonna happen. Or you'll have lower level people that haven't developed their skills and they're still like, I can do a blog post a day. That's not gonna cut it anymore. Like you not only are clients gonna expect it, but every all your colleagues are gonna expect it. You're gonna have to be just incredible. So, for me personally, because I've done this stuff for 20 plus years, I could do stuff in 10 minutes that would have taken me six hours a week to accomplish. I could get that same amount of work done in 10 minutes. So you got to think, like, well, what does that mean for everybody else? It means like, well, I don't have to outsource writing, I don't have to outsource design, I don't have to outsource code, I don't have to outsource it, just goes through this list of services that you're just not gonna need anymore because you have access to these tools. And so, you know, the projection, and I I forget I actually saw the quote, but it's that 395 million jobs are gonna be lost over the last five or the over the next five years to AI, which I think is kind of conservative. Now, on the face of it, you think like, holy crap, like everybody's gonna be out of a job. It's like, no, no, the jobs that are gonna be taken are these boring, lonely, unappealing, passive jobs that a bunch of people have had because we didn't have better tools. So, all those things are gonna go away, but it's not gonna be missed because these people hate their jobs anyway. So don't worry about it. Just get good at strategy, strategy and human connection. So that's really what marketers are because people think of marketing that they oh, let me build the funnel, let me write all the copying, let me design these ads, let me do all these marketing things. That's not marketing at all. Marketing is marketing professionals managing the human relationship with the company or the the client that you have in order to get them to the place they want to go. Now, you think, like, oh, well, just build the funnel and blah blah. But if you've been a marketer with an agency, you know that it never works like that. You get input from the owner and then his wife, and then the kids get involved, and then the niece took a you know website class and she has input, and then uh, and then all these people get involved, and you're like, No, I know what I'm doing, I've done this a million times. Like, everybody shut up. I got this, you know. But that's the that's the relationship you're managing. So you can't say that. You have to say, That's a good insight, Sally. Yeah, and you pretend, and then you try to get them to the spot you know they need to go because you're a professional marketer. And so it's that connection that that will never be replaced by AI, and neither will the insight that an individual marketer can have into positioning a product to identifying the target market, to finding out how to connect to that target market. All those elements have a lot of relational and emotional uh implications for the marketer and the person they're working with. You can't, you just can't get away from that. Now, cheap stuff, you know, yeah, is gonna go away. Like you won't be able to get $50 for an article anymore, an SEO piece, because uh I know tools where I can write a 3,000-word article that's undetectable by AI as being AI. Like that's what's happening. And so, and then the video editing side and the graphics side, like uh it's it's totally different. But the the good news is that strategy still needs lots of strategy, still need lots of coordination, still need lots of relationship management, and that's what marketers do. So, marketers are gonna be fine, it's just you know, it's gonna be different for me. It's incredible because I'm like, oh my god, all this stuff I've ever wanted to do, I can do now so fast. Like I could do it live for you. I could be like, hey, let's build a campaign, and it's totally awesome, and everybody's impressed, and it took me five seconds, and now we can move on to the next thing. So it's gonna be like the deletion of a bunch of tasks that nobody wants to do, anyways. I love that.

SPEAKER_01 20:40

That's a great sum up there. It really, really is. So if a if a marketer, marketing team, head of marketing team, business owner, entrepreneur is listening to this right now, and they're like, listen, I need to polish up my marketing game overall. Digital marketer sounds like the right solution. What are some things people can do to get in the mix with you guys?

SPEAKER_00 20:58

So we have our base certification and digital marketing mastery, and that's where you'll learn about the customer value journey, which is an eight-stage process that strategically uh walks a somebody who doesn't know you at all to finding you, buying your product, ascending through your product ladder, and then eventually becoming a promoter themselves to be a marketing channel for your business. So it's an eight-stage process, it applies to every business, and you could use it for almost any product. So after you learn that aspect, then you could build whatever skills you need to apply to it. And that includes content marketing, social media marketing, email marketing, search marketing, copywriting, all the other things. And then we have lessons for that too. But what you need is the strategy, strategy component and the relational side. Now we don't cover the relational relational side uh much unless you're one of our certified partners. Uh, but the you know, getting just that strategy will get you on the right path. And then and then we're coming out with an AI boot camp in like a week. So you could get online and we'll actually talk about tools that you could apply for marketing tasks that you do already to make those tasks faster right now and give you an understanding of okay, here's what AI is and here's what you could do with it. So just come to us, we'll tell you what to do.

SPEAKER_01 22:10

That's it. Go to digital marketer.com. You'll find that link in the show notes. That's the description of this podcast episode in case you were wondering what in the world a show note is. So be sure to check them out. I wholeheartedly endorse everything that they've always done and they're continue to do to serve the world of marketing and marketers specifically as well. I am a little impartial to my opinion. Yes, I understand all that. Uh, but aside from all of that, they are the real deal. And like Dice has said many times before, this stuff works. Uh Mark, it's been great to uh finally have a conversation with you here with no technical uh hotel Wi-Fi issues. So I'm glad we had the opportunity uh to connect. I sure do uh appreciate your time. Look forward to furthering our relationship as well. Too. I know we we'll be chatting later on the digital marketer podcast, really looking forward to all that. Uh any any final thoughts for our listeners?

SPEAKER_00 22:55

Uh yeah, you know what just get to work. Uh I think just start using AI now. Stop sticking your head in the sand and pretending it's going to go away because it's not. It's uh, you know, I'm actually putting out an article today called, you know, why AI is the biggest thing to happen to marketing since the internet. So just to give some perspective, like start, get to work.

SPEAKER_01 23:16

But great final thoughts. Just get started, people. Thanks again for your time, Mark. I'll see you soon, literally. Thank you very much. Until next time, friends. Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of the Beyond the Story podcast. Be sure to appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you're subscribed to the show. This way you'll get updates as new episodes become available. If you feel so inclined, please leave us a review. Be sure to appreciate it. Signing off from the podcast, LaunchLab.com studios. We'll talk to you next time.