In November of 2019, National Positions CEO Bernard May was featured on the USA Radio show hosted by Charley Jones to discuss how businesses can get their marketing “holiday-ready.” The discussion spanned subjects ranging from websites to chatbots and even a free playbook that any brand can use this holiday season. Check out the full interview or skip down for the subject you like the most!
National Positions CEO, Bernad May – USA Radio Interview
How It All Started…
USA Radio Network: 34 minutes past the hour, ladies and gentlemen I’m Charlie Jones, this is the USA Radio Network – So good to have your company. Join me in welcoming to our on-air circle, The gentleman that is CEO of National Positions – His name is Bernard May, Bernard welcome to the broadcast.
Bernard May: Thanks so much for having me it’s a pleasure to be here.
USA Radio Network: Just to jump right to it, time was, the opening of a store or service just required hanging up a shingle with your name on it on your storefront – but today that’s done digitally – and serious success in business is now understood to require digital marketing. And that’s what you do tell me how do. Tell me, how did you get started?
Bernard May: I actually was always in the high-tech industry and I was doing marketing for a number of software companies like Symantec and US Search here in Los Angeles. And I saw a need for driving traffic to people’s websites.
So, we were one of the founders…one of the original people who did optimization for websites out there. I started this business out of my garage and built it into what it is today, a couple of hundred employees and offices around the world.
Digital Marketing Growth
USA Radio Network: Wow so just like Michael Dell and Bill Gates. Did you have any idea it was going to blossom and bloom into the size of business and status that it [National Positions] is now?
Bernard May: Not at all, I really didn’t expect digital marketing to be as big as it is, and as you said originally, It’s become so important to everybody.
Once upon a time, everybody used to use the Yellow Pages and all sorts of offline marketing strategies and today it’s so important to be online, everyone’s picking up their mobile devices and speaking into them or typing in their search.
Where To Begin Online
USA Radio Network: Understood, now, when someone needs a relevant online presents for their business, what is the first thing you tell them?
Bernard May: The first thing to do is to have a great website. According to Google, 60% of all sales that happen on the web today – are happening on a mobile website.
So, if your mobile site is not well optimized you’re missing out on a huge opportunity. The number one thing I always mention to people is to have a great mobile environment – in fact load speed is so important on your mobile website as well.
If your website doesn’t load fast, then you miss out on a huge amount of traffic, because no one has the patience anymore to wait for a website to load.
Search Engines, SEO, and Content
USA Radio Network: What about a client who needs his product or service to look good on a search engine? Are there a series of best practices for search engine success? It’s all about how you look on the search engine, what do you advise your client’s to do?
Bernard May: So the next thing is to really understand what people are searching for when it comes to your product – and that starts with keywords. It moves into search engine optimization in general or SEO – and there are a number of different areas that a website owner should consider…
The first thing is content.
Do you have the right content? Is it the right context? Is it meeting the needs of the person doing the search?
Say, for instance, that you’re selling a particular product, like a camera online. Are you describing the product in the right way? Do you have a brand name listed? Do you have information that’s helpful? Today when people think of content they think of text, but really what they should be thinking of are images, videos, and is the content set up also for voice search…which is growing by leaps and bounds as well.
The next area is having a technically sound website – making sure that the website has all of the keywords, titles, meta tags, which are areas that sit “behind the scenes,” and the crawlers that come to the site, actually read all that information and understand the context of the page…
Lastly, just the way that the website is actually set up – in that it needs to be easy to navigate and easy to find information and understand that information.
Visual Search
USA Radio Network: I’m curious about “visual searches.” So often when I needed a part for an appliance or some automobile, I didn’t know what the part was called -I had to go look until I found a part that looked like it. What do you advise for people who have to arrange for visual searches for their business?
Bernard May: Visual search is actually one of the areas (that we feel In 2020) is going to be one of the big search areas that’s going to grow. Very important to help the search engines along the way as well – to add what is known as an ALT tag (or tags) with the visual search, so that Google actually knows what it is.
So you’re providing a description of what the product is, and other keywords that would be appropriate and helpful for people who are looking for that particular product. Obviously a very high definition photo is important as well – so that if someone is trying to match up (like you were doing), you would be able to quickly and easily find that image online.
A Visual World
USA Radio Network: It must take a tremendous amount of photography to get a website like this up.
Bernard May: That’s right…I think the web is becoming so much more visual today. And also knowing that people are mostly on their smartphone or mobile device – need make sure that the site becomes a lot more visual and has a lot more photos and videos on it. Because people aren’t…they just don’t have the patience to read things anymore – and they want to see it, they want to interact with it, they want to hear people and actually view the videos instead of reading.
USA Radio Network: So TLDR doesn’t just apply to just newspapers anymore does it?
Bernard May: That’s correct.
Social Media Survival
USA Radio Network: How about surviving social media? How do you get your clients to engage with social media and not get burned?
Bernard May: Well, today’s social media has become a pay-to-play type of environment. But social media is growing by leaps and bounds and social is so important. What’s amazing about social is the incredible targeting power to really get your name out there. For instance, if you want to show your ads to, parents, who live in Denver, who like dogs, and make online purchases, You could easily target that (audience) with social media.
The most important thing is to have a really great [creative] assets. You were talking about videos and images before, and those are incredibly important so you actually capture people’s attention. Because, when people are on Facebook and Instagram (for instance), they’re there because they want to find out more about their friends and family members, and their network of individuals that they’re interacting with – they’re not there to buy a product or service.
So it’s really important to have a video, or an animated gif, some other information that would be really contextually interesting to the individual that is on Instagram or Facebook. The other thing that’s so interesting today for us as marketers – is that you can now buy off of social media…
In fact, Instagram recently brought out this capability that you can actually purchase products now on Instagram – you can do the same thing on Facebook and Pinterest. So there a lot of great opportunities for business owners to be able to sell their products directly on social media today.
Reviews and Testimonials
USA Radio Network: So if you can buy services or products on social media, chances are you’re going to get testimonials if a customer likes the services or products. Is there a safe way to solicit customer testimonials that you’re client will appreciate?
Bernard May: You bring up such an important point In that people make decisions today based on product reviews, and especially on Amazon and many other sites like the social media sites. In fact, reviews can be as valuable as getting a recommendation from a friend or family member. One of the problems is that people are more apt to leave a negative review than they are to leave a positive review.
So, one of the recommendations we make is to always ask for reviews from all your customers, And you can do this by using an email system like marketing automation, or some sort of automated email program, or simply by adding product inserts into your packaging and asking customers for reviews.
Best Practices & Ecommerce
USA Radio Network: Is there a strategy or practice that you routinely have to advise a client not to adopt?
Bernard May: Well, that’s a good question. The key there is to be genuine, not to fake it, have good information, be helpful, and to provide value…
…One area that is so obvious is that if you are selling a product, make sure that you’ve gone out and check the pricing around the web. Many times people are selling branded products that are available elsewhere, and one of the biggest killers to a sale is that have a product that’s not price competitive. And that’s especially important on Amazon that’s driven by price and also how quickly the product can be delivered…
Make sure that if you are selling a product (and you have a warehouse) that you do deliver it on time and that you do you have the product in stock – especially when selling on Amazon. There’s nothing that can get you thrown off a platform like Amazon quicker than not delivering as prescribed.
USA Radio Network: So it’s got to be the right object, it’s got to be the right price, It’s got to be sent at the right time and arrive at the right time to make a successful transaction – basically complete.
Bernard May: Correct
Live Chat & Chatbots
USA Radio Network: Wow. And I’m curious – those live chat messages that I see on certain warehouse websites, how often are those real living people? Aren’t they mostly just clever bots of one kind or another?
Bernard May: That is actually becoming more and more the case that chatbots are taking over from humans – but the way that the chatbots learn are from humans. So when a question comes in and the chatbot cannot handle it, it is typically then it is delivered over to human though live chat.
Live Chat is actually extremely effective and does increase the conversion rate. I’ve seen [conversion] numbers up to 40%, where people feel that the site is trustworthy if there is live chat there. But you’re right, It is becoming more and more handled by a computer. Sometimes the computer can actually answer repetitive questions over and over, do that in a very efficient way.
I think when the automated telephone system started, people were not very happy working with the telephone tree. Today we’ve so accept the fact that we have automated telephone systems – that we don’t question it – and I think that kind of trend happening online with live chat Is something that we’re going to take for granted in the years to come.
“Outsourcing” Communication
USA Radio Network: Question…when the chatbot hands it off to a live person – In the United States is it a “business plus” to have native English speakers or can you farm that out to Indonesia or Malaysia and do that successfully?
Bernard May: Well, I am a strong believer that it is better to do all of those types of communications within the United States. A lot of companies have tried to outsource that type of work overseas and I think there’s been a big big backlash and it’s been less effective over time. So I don’t recommend trying to outsource – its so much more effective to have a team here in the U.S.
Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
USA Radio Network: Okay one final question about process. Is pay-per-click (PPC)really that big a deal – can a business really survive on that?
Bernard: Pay-per-click is like renting. It’s something you pay every single time someone actually uses the ad platform. It’s obviously what has made Google one of the biggest companies in the world and paid search is continually growing. Recently I was at Google marketing live in San Francisco, where the top agencies in the world all attended. And Google is coming out with more and more great features and capabilities to reach different audiences through shopping ads, through their text ads, though YouTube…
And I think it is something that when people are looking for products and services, they rarely look in one place. They will check pricing on Amazon, they watch videos on YouTube, they look at ads through their mobile phones – so to really capture market share you need to consider what we call an omni-channel or “many channel” approach. Which of course includes: paid search, social media, Amazon, Google, Bing, and of course influencer marketing. So, I think that’s really important, that you don’t consider just one advertising platform.
And you can think of that in old offline types of business – It’s the same as saying would you use magazine advertising vs TV or radio? Of course, all of those platforms…speaking the radio right now…you know, all of those channels are key to a business’s growth…and I think that paid search is one of those key areas that will never going away.
Free Holiday Retail Marketing Playbook!
USA Radio Network: Yes Sir. One more thing here, I understand you offer to our listeners, a free Retail guide to prepare their websites for the holidays – kind of the equivalent of putting up a string of lights I suppose. How can they take advantage of that offer?
Bernard May: Yes, I really encourage listeners that are interested to visit www.NationalPositions.com/playbook to get a free holiday marketing playbook. It’s full of additional great tactics that can help you this holiday season – and also if you’re looking for some help or a custom marketing strategy, we’re offering a free one-hour consultation with one of our marketing strategists – for any listener of the show.
How to Learn More…
USA Radio Network: Outstanding sir! Bernard May you’re just a cornucopia of information. So it’s www.NationalPositions.com – if they want more information what would they do?
Bernard May: Yeah, so literally just go to our website (www.NationalPositions.com). If you’re interested in contacting me, I’m on LinkedIn as BernardMayNP (for National Positions) and I would love to answer any questions that anyone has. Literally, going to our website or calling the number on our website would be a great way to reach us.
USA Radio Network: Very well, Bernard May – this is gone by entirely too quickly. What an interesting world you live in and what a fascinating industry to be involved in! Thank you sir for your time and your expertise, we appreciate your appearance on the USA Radio Network.
Bernard May: Thanks so much for having me! It was a pleasure being here.
Thanks For Listening!
Bernard May is CEO and Founder of National Positions, headquartered in Westlake Village, CA. you can connect with Benard on LinkedIn and send any questions you may have.
If you would like to receive your free copy of our Holiday Marketing Playbook you can visit www.nationalpositions.com/playbook today. Additionally, if you would like to take advantage of our free one-hour consultation to discuss your custom marketing strategy (SEO, PPC, Social, and beyond) you can call (818) 740-4774 or contact us here.
You can also access this interview by visiting our YouTube link here!