Master Modern Marketing: Featuring Kevin Burgin, radio host and festival organizer

In today’s episode, we review the marketing audit of Kevin's business and we have a live coaching call with him to discuss what his biggest marketing opportunities are, and you get to be a fly on the wall.

Kevin Burgin is the host of CJOB Radio’s show, The Main Ingredient. He is also responsible for the Winnipeg Beer Festival and Manitoba Pizza Week.

Kevin’s entrepreneurialism, enthusiasm, and drive, is making a big impact on the local food and beverage scene.

If you enjoyed the Master Modern Marketing podcast, please subscribe, rate and review the show.

You can also keep in contact with the show sponsor, Farmers Marketing, at www.FarmersMarketing.ca, or www.facebook.com/farmersmktng.

See below for some of Kevin's main takeaways and action items from our call. 

Main takeaways from the audit and coaching call:

1) Improve technical issues, such as:
- adding Google Analytics and the Facebook Pixel 
- Reduce image size by using a tool like TinyPNG.com
- Determine if moving his sites to a new host will improve speed or not. 

2) Ongoing Marketing: 
- Work with vendors to produce guest blog posts throughout the year. 
- Tighten the analytics components to better capture the true value of the festivals. This will help attract more vendors but more importantly, demonstrate to all parties the sheer value these events create. 

New Tools:
1) Linktr.ee/ to add multiple links to an Instagram bio. See live example here: www.instagram.com/farmersmktng. Look at our bio. 

2) Headliner.app to make enticing video thumbnails for audio files since you can share strickly audio files on social media. See the video thumbnail for this post as an example. 

3) Use Funnelytics to map our your digital marketing campaigns. Its mapping tool is free and total transformational for marketers. See this real-world example of Funnelytics at work below. 

Summarizing the audit:
Kevin's content, social media, and engagement with his audience and vendors are stellar. As mentioned in the podcast, his business is in an enviable position. The hard things like content and engagement are already in place and the technical changes are easy to knock out.

Well done, Kevin!  

To be a guest on the Master Modern Marketing podcast, and get a FREE marketing audit and LIVE coaching call, please apply HERE!

Read the full transcript:

Kevin  0:00 

I've already checked it out. I'm on the page right now. That's three things I'm stealing from you immediately.

Lionel Johnston  0:06 

I folks, this is Lionel Johnson with a master Modern Marketing podcast and that was Kevin Bergen. from Kevin Bergen. com Kevin is a host of CJOB Radio's show The Main Ingredient. He is also responsible for the Winnipeg Beer Festival and Manitoba pizza week Kevin's entrepreneurialism enthusiasm and drive are making a big impact on the local food and beverage scene here in Winnipeg. In today's episode, we review a marketing audit of his business. And we also have a live coaching call to discuss what his biggest marketing opportunities are. And you as the listener today get to be a fly on the wall. As you heard in a short clip, he found a number of great ideas implement in his business immediately. So, I encourage you to stick with us right to the end. As I'm confident if you do, you will find the exact same thing for your business. So, let's cue the intro and dive right in.

Announcer  0:53 

We really love marketing, telling stories and sharing ideas with others to help them achieve their goals. If you enjoy growing businesses through digital marketing or would link to learn how to take your knowledge and skills to the next level. You're in the right place. Welcome to the master Modern Marketing Podcast. Michael Johnson.

Lionel Johnston  1:15 

Hey, Kevin. Welcome to the master Modern Marketing Podcast. How are you doing today?

Kevin  1:19 

I'm pretty good. How are you? Thanks for having me.

Lionel Johnston  1:22 

Yeah. Hey, my pleasure. I appreciate you coming on the show here when this podcast was in development. And just in its infancy, you are one of the first people that I thought of that would be an excellent guest to be able to have on the podcast. And I know we've talked about this in the past a number of times. But just to give you a quick overview. Generally, the process with the master Modern Marketing podcast is that will meet with small business owners like yourself, and really dive into their business and try and find some opportunities that we can help these people to help their own business. So, we're going to dive into some things on your own business and see what's great, and what are some opportunities for improvement. And then at the end of the podcast, will basically do a summary and pick one or two priorities and send you on your way. So, you can tackle those things on your own or have someone help you out with that is that sounds like a good process for you today. Kevin,

Kevin  2:18 

that sounds great. I appreciate you taking the time.

Lionel Johnston  2:21 

All right. My pleasure. So, we are I should mention, we are in the circle of trust here. And all of us have worked or it's on our businesses. So, it's not to point out anything that someone's doing bad to make them look bad or make fun of them. Again, it's really a learning opportunity for all of us to be able to get better businesses, and then share this with our listeners. And they can apply the same principles to their businesses. So how about Kevin, why don't we just jump right in here. And if I could have you actually introduce yourself, if I could have you say your name other than just Kevin and the company and companies that you represent. And if you have an interesting adding anecdote that you'd like to share with us, please feel free.

Kevin  2:58 

My name is Kevin Bergen. And one of the organizers of the Winnipeg Beer Festival and the organizer of Manitoba pizza week, I also have a food show on which is all about food is called the main ingredient. And a lot of those events probably came about because of my hosting the show, there's a lot of different small businesses out there that I felt were a lot of mom and pop shops that didn't really have the opportunity to market themselves properly. So, these events give smaller businesses and smaller breweries the opportunity to do that, you know,

Lionel Johnston  3:35 

that that's great. And you're definitely filling a need in the market. And I've been to too many of your events and festivals over the last couple of years. And, you know, I really am very impressed with the business model that you have created, you know, a couple things I find that is quite interesting one is you have your radio show, which, you know, helps, really helps you build your personal and helps in terms of your network and being able to connect with people and gives you a platform to be able to meet, you know, reach the masses, and then through the festivals, you know, you're also producing value for the business owners as you're mentioning, but also for consumers. So, it's, it's interesting how many people that you're able to provide value for a place to connect in a place for these businesses to grow. So, so definitely, kudos to you for being able to see an opportunity. And more importantly, I'm really impressed with you just taking action and getting things done, you know, and actually, some of the boat Sorry, go ahead. Go ahead.

Kevin  4:36 

No, no, it's all You go ahead.

Lionel Johnston  4:38 

Oh, I know, I was just going to mention one of the challenges that business owners can get in when we're living in the world of the internet is there's so much information and often, we get stuck, where we want things to be perfect. And then we'll take action. And, you know, there's a lot of great things in your business. But really a lot of respect to you, Kevin, for, for taking action and figuring out things as you've been building your business and helping people out. So, I just wanted to start here, just to be able to say that, that it's been, you know, have a lot of respect for you. And it's been impressive watching from afar, you building what you're building over there?

Kevin  5:12 

No, no, you know, what we've known each other, obviously, for we've known each other for a while, you know, personally, but kind of professionally in the last couple of years, and what you said about things not being perfect, or they don't have to be perfect is exactly that sometimes I found I was probably the kind of person that wanted everything to be perfect before I actually launch anything instead of just, you know, doing your research, starting a business or creating an opportunity and tweaking and learning as you go, because, again, there is a lot of information out there, but there are a lot of people such as yourself, that can help you help guide you through it, once you have things going to kind of tweak the machine and make it as perfect as it can be as you're running your business.

Lionel Johnston  5:54 

Yeah, that's a great point Kevin and actually have on one of my pages on the farmers website, then, you know, unless you speak with a fancy marketing agency is likely that you don't need one a, you know, and what I found from a lot of business owners and people like yourself is, yeah, it's just that little bit of tweaking or pointing something out that should change or could get better and then you can set them you know, on their way and they can take action. So

Kevin  6:19 

as I say, you and I go back and forth even from text messages and messenger on little pieces of software that make your life easier all the time. Like you have a like this deep bag of tricks that you always flog everything that you find him you know, he may want to try that you're trying to do this you know you may want to use that so that all that stuff really helps

Lionel Johnston  6:40 

for sure for sure. So, let Kevin let's dive right into the first section here which is the audit review and how about just before we do that in the spirit of you know, your beer festival. I ended up getting a couple local beers. So, I've got some barn hammer for trader in front of me and great you know, the one great city brewing monkey trailer Pale Ale and what we're going to have here while we enjoy our time together in podcast is a Trans-Canada Brewing the Blue-Beary Beer I've had at one time before it was it was pretty awesome. So, I'm going to be enjoying that while we talked the other night. You're saying you've got a local beer on your end as well as that right?

Kevin  7:17 

Yeah, I got my boys from Torque got the woody Belgian. But now that you've rambled on and said, how many beers you haven't your place. I'm kind of mad that we didn't do this in person now.

Lionel Johnston  7:25 

Wow, we should have but plans change sometimes. Right? So...

Alright. Well, how about I'm going to open this beer here and get it going. This may not be typical on the podcast. But we're all ready to go and how we do a quick Cheers. And we'll jump into the audit review. Ready? 321.

Kevin  7:41 

Cheers.

Lionel Johnston  7:42 

Cheers. All right. And someone will be figuring out trying to figure out how we got the cheers noise when we're in different places. But you know, in our bag of tricks. Okay, so Kevin, let's dive right into this audit review. And actually, in the podcast notes, I'll be able to paste us some of the information from the audit. So, you know, future podcast, guests can get a bit of an idea of what the types of things are, that we're looking at. And I won't get into tons of detail. And I know you've had a few moments to review this as well. But, you know, since you have a number of different websites, I focus specifically on the one has a beer festival website for, for, for the purposes of this podcast, at least. Okay. But really, I looked at, first of all, the speed of the website and then the technical aspects, you know, which those are very closely related, and then the content and then your social media aspect as well. I didn't get into just to, you know, what I made it to too long, but I didn't dive into you know, really deep into SEO and backlinks and those sorts of things that are a little more technical than that, what we need to talk about today, but generally, that's, that's what I was looking at here. And, you know, what, have basically an A or C or, or an F grade. And between the two different areas, you know, if you look at speed, and technical and content and social are two different categories. Really, the as you see here, the biggest area to improve is on this the speed and technical side, and you've got lots of great imagery and some videos on your website. And those sometimes, depending on how things are uploaded. Can you know, slow down a website, I've also found that your host really makes one of the biggest differences in how fast your website can get. I know with farmers website, we got it up and running and but still hit a wall until we switched, you know, our host, and we were able to get a bump and speed there. But if we look at some different results here, Kevin. So, you have you know, like a see with your speed score and mobile a 19 out of 100 and desktops a little bit better. Is there anything there that surprises you at all? Or is that similar to either what you were expecting? Or you already knew that?

Kevin  9:52 

Yeah, I knew I definitely wasn't it wasn't premium, because I know there are things that can be changed in the back end that I want to change. I just haven't had time to change it. I'm surprised about a couple of the apps I know the page sizes are kind of big because some of the pictures need to be slim down the rather large and you and I talked about that before using good tools when I'm uploading pictures, not putting in ones that are rather large. So, I have another time to clean that up. So, it's surprising but not shocking, I would

Lionel Johnston  10:22 

say Yeah, right. Yeah, I'm glad you brought up the image size. That was one thing when I first got into working on websites, you know, I didn't realize that you can upload a six-megabyte picture, you know, but using something like tiny p amp G, you know, really shrink that quite a bit and praising. Yeah, and Kevin, I know, you know a lot about this, but also, when you're doing site speed scores, you know, just taking one moment in time really isn't fair to a business or a website, because if there's a number of factors that can impact a website score, right, you know, total traffic, you know, and that that area and a whole bunch of things, right, you really going to

Kevin  10:59 

win. I know, in general, this one is probably you know, of course, it may be different on different days. But in general, I know that the things that it's failing or giving me different grades on are pretty accurate. Yeah, I know that you don't mean Yeah,

Lionel Johnston  11:11 

perfect. Well, and I'd say one thing that's important as you look at your business as well, especially with the, you know, the pizza fest and beer Fest, that those that at least at this point are more seasonal, where you have one big event. So, it's a little bit different than being in the e-commerce world where every millisecond really is making a big difference, right. So, you do have a bit of an advantage there where it's somewhat a captive audience, that people will find you anyway. But still, there's a lot of competition on the website. And for sure, speed matters, you know, and again, I know, I'm not telling anything that you don't know, in terms of the other improvements, you know, I want to ask you about, we're really the big things that we're most striking with some of the different tags and codes that I didn't find at least, and maybe they're there on there. But it didn't appear that you had Google Analytics on the at least this one site, and I know you aren't running Google AdWords. So that code wouldn't be there, of course, and then the big one is that, you know, the Facebook pixel as well. So, are those tools that you've looked at, at adding or, you know, have you made a conscious effort just not to have them on your, your website?

Kevin  12:19 

No, those are tools that I again, want to add. But time is an issue for with, with, with multiple events and multiple things, it's either, you know, I pay someone to do it, or I buckle down and add them myself. And, you know, for sure to improve the performance of the site and get more people to the site,

Lionel Johnston  12:36 

for sure. Now, you do an excellent job on the social side. And content side, I'll get to that just next Are you do run any Facebook ads, or Instagram ads currently,

Kevin  12:47 

right? When the events are coming, I do for sure, I don't do an all year round. And, the beer festival is going to be in year three. So, year three is, it's a lot easier, it's not the first time out of the gate. So, you kind of has a capital audience that gets larger and larger every year you do it. So probably a month or two before the event is when we really start ramping up with Facebook ads, and different kind of advertising and stuff like that.

Lionel Johnston  13:14 

Okay, well, great. And, you know, obviously, want to look at all of those areas. But the ones that really would stand out the most for me would definitely be getting that Google Analytics code on there. And then that the Facebook pixel, because once they're there, then you don't need to think about them anymore, right. And, but then you're able to go back and utilize them to help with your business. And I'll actually come back to the Google Analytics code when we talk about the vendors you work with. And in a few moments, anyway, those are some of the main improvements on the technical side. And then again, moving on to the content and social media side, you know, you have mostly always there and really been doing a super job is quite impressed with just the sheer volume of content that you're able to come up with. And the quality of the imagery, even then, you know, how some of the social posts are written the other, they're very, you know, cleverly written, and, you know, and getting a lot of attention. So, congratulations on, that definitely is a great thing that you're doing for your business.

Kevin  14:15 

Thanks. I appreciate that. That part of it as well, because of the job I do that part of it isn't a lot of work to me, you know what I mean? It just that's kind of the nature of the business. So, um, yeah, I appreciate that. It's, it's good to know them doing something properly.

Lionel Johnston  14:29 

Yeah, you know, I think that, you know, the content is great, but also what it was even more impressive, you know, looking at it, from my perspective, is the consistency, you know, and that's common, where someone can have a whole flurry of activity, but then, you know, it dwindles over time, but you're, you know, constantly engaging with people and trying to connect with businesses and connect with those consumers. So, so great, great work on that, actually.

Kevin  14:52 

And that industry is not really hard, right? People like beer, exactly like to socialize, I like beer, and I like to socialize. So, it's a, it's a no brainer

Lionel Johnston  14:59 

for. So, when one note I made, Kevin is that you're really in what I would consider an enviable position when I look at the audit. And what I mean, there is, if you had a website that was super-fast, and you had your Facebook pixel, you had your Google Analytics, all the things that we've pointed out that we could, you know, quickly fix if you had all of those things, but you weren't doing the content and the engagement and the networking with people online, you know, you wouldn't be in the position that you are right now. And it's much easier to be able to add some code to your website and change host to a faster host than it is to come up with hundreds and hundreds of really, you know, high quality and engaging photos and great videos and connections with people. So, that's, I mean, by your enviable position, that these are all really simple fixes, and just keep doing more of what you're doing. That's great. And fix a couple simple things and you'll be in at, you know, I feel a much better position, you know, moving forward, that makes sense.

Kevin  16:00 

Oh, hundred percent, for sure. Yep. No, that isn't. That is great news.

Lionel Johnston  16:03 

Super Well, I want to move on to our next section, we can move off from the audit review here and really look at some of the challenges, you know, for a small business owner, you know, I've been at these events as a participant, and I've seen the number of vendors there, and, you know, the people cooking food and serving a beer and, you know, checking people in and selling tickets, there's a lot of moving parts, or I have to imagine it's got to be, you know, quite a challenge to be able to keep all of these people organize and meet your timelines, is that the case or, or, you know, is it a pretty streamline processes problem free

Kevin  16:44 

it? Well, obviously, there's, there's never an event or festival that goes problem free, but because of the place where it takes place like it takes place at for Gibraltar, which is it's geared towards catering already like they do hundreds of weddings a year. So, when it comes to getting licenses, or an or a kitchen or certain things, it's, it's all turkeys, you know, I mean, so that eliminates a huge portion of organization right there. Plus, all of the beer vendors are used to doing festivals already, like all these guys go to flatlands Beer Festival and other festivals during the year. So, they all know the routine, you don't have to sit there and micromanage them. And they all usually have their own booths with their own logos and everything. So literally, all you have to do is tell them when you know what time to show up, you know, and where their spot is, what time are closing, and, you know, you just kind of giddy-up. So, okay, as far as festivals go, it's probably the easiest festival to run them. The main reason we did this festivals because I found that, of course, during my show, when I'm interviewing guys, all of them are doing their seven, you know, separate marketing doing their own separate thing, you know, I'm saying so this vessel was just an opportunity for them to use their separate marketing strategies, put them all together and get all the strength and power as a group and have a festival where they're not going to lose money. They can make a few bucks, but they can pour as many peers are wanting, they weren't going to lose any money. You know, we can all raise money for charity while we're at it. So, it just seemed like a like a win-win. Right?

Lionel Johnston  18:18 

Ya I know, that song sounds great. Well, thanks for sharing some background on that. And actually, I'm glad you mentioned the one part about the marketing and that was one thing I was curious about, you know, for, for these businesses that they're, you know, really in the early stages, you know, it's a couple people with a passion to brew beer or, you know, where the launch a pizza-related business, you know, what's, you know, how savvy would most of them be in terms of, of actual Modern Marketing, you know, do some, they really have a dialled in, or some it's completely foreign to them outside of these types of events. 

Kevin  18:54 

Well, if we're talking to beer guys, a lot of the beer guys, I'd say its half and half. Some are super dialled in John from Torque. He owned a marketing company for 20 years before he opened up a brewery. So, he, he knows what he's doing. Like, you know, he's, he's very, he knows a lot about marketing. Plus, he's open to learning new things about marketing, you know what I mean? Like, he's, he's just going to be a student of the game the whole time when it comes to industry. Like, if we're, if we're talking about pizza, you know, a lot of the pizza companies for the pizza Fest, that it's old mom and pop shops, you know, they've, they've, they've been making their pizza the pizza has, has gained a following or sold itself for the last 1520 years. But now, as you know, it's a new world we're in. So, either they don't know how to do it, they don't want to do it, even though they have a great product, or they don't know who to turn to, to actually get things done. So again, when it comes to festivals, that particular festival kind of gives everybody a market to collectively market as one, you know what I mean? So, all the while the people that don't really aren't, don't know a lot about marketing can kind of learn from others, or just kind of ride the wave for that weekend and find opportunities to, you know, find opportunities and learn from other people who are doing it properly.

Lionel Johnston  20:12 

or interesting. Yeah, I wouldn't have expected the difference between the beer folks and the pizza folks in terms of their marketing know-how, and says, That's quite interesting.

Kevin  20:21 

Yeah, the beer, the beer guys, usually younger guys, right? It's about I'm not going to say young, but it's usually younger guys who are, you know, you got to be quite ambitious to open up a brewery, no matter where you are. It's not, you know, $10,000 investment. These guys are getting investors and investing millions of dollars to open these places. Whereas a lot of the lot of the pizza places I've been around for years, and it may have been open, you know, on a shoestring budget, because they had it, you know, it's not like, it's really expensive to make pizza, at least that, you know, way back in the day. And this was a different kind of mentality in a different crowd that are running two different businesses, even though beer and pizza go hand in hand, right? Of

Lionel Johnston  21:00 

course, very interesting, you know, regardless of how savvy they are, with marketing, either way, when you're creating a market for them to be able to meet with customers and, and share their story and share their food and beverages. Definitely a lot of value for the vendors, you know, to be gained there. Right,

Kevin  21:18 

right. And that's the best part especially for me, too, because a lot of times I'm dealing with the actual vendor themselves, not the customers. So, the beer festival kind of gives you a chance to talk to the people and the and the breweries. Of course, that's the number one thing to actually see their customers and hear what they have to say. And the customers really like that, you know, like back in the day with the big macro breweries, right, you would drink their beer you'd never get to see meet the brewer You know, that's unheard of. You never Of course, if you ever stepped foot in the brewery, it's not going to happen. No. Meanwhile you in Winnipeg can go to a taproom, you can hear their story of the different kinds of beers they come up with, you can even suggest something and go and see something back in a week later, they could be making this something that you thought was a great idea, maybe should try this. Or you know what I mean. And these guys are super open to everything. It's kind of, it's kind of fun. Plus, the guy, it could be your neighbour that owns this place. They're super down to earth. And there's no formality there. You know, because you're talking to some guy and you're having a couple beers, and everybody kind of loosens up your loose-lipped and you kind of just hang out so it's a great opportunity for Brewer to meet customer and just kind of get involved in the community right they're smaller and usually a lot of them are in places where there are reachable their touchable you can you can you can learn how to make beer and plus they're very good with each other. A lot of ones that have come up didn't have their own brewery, so you play select torque and embracing Hall all these guys are letting other brewers brew their beer in their facility like does that you know what I mean? Like, it's not like Burger King is going to go and make burgers and McDonald's because they're one of their places broke down, right? These guys have no problem with that, you know, they give advice to home brewers who are brewing beer in their home on you know, the guys will bring it in, they'll taste the beer and go yet, you know, what you should have done this kind of give them advice is just kind of a way of information sharing that I don't find in other kinds of businesses. It's way less cutthroat.

Lionel Johnston  23:17 

Yeah. Oh, I wasn't aware that. And that, that's great to hear about. And really, it's fostering the development of a community right for these foods.

Kevin  23:25 

So that's great. I'm fully right. Yes, billion dollar a year business, there's tons of business go around,

Lionel Johnston  23:31 

they have very interesting and I know from my experience being at a number of these events, like the vibe there has been really great. And I could see, you know, now that you're talking about the collaboration between the vendors, I, you know, looking back, I could see that, yeah, everyone was really friendly, and eager to help out and good to see

Kevin  23:48 

it's nice for people to say that actually follow through.

Lionel Johnston  23:51 

So, Kevin, let's move into the next section here. What I wanted to take a couple minutes to talk about now is just some ideas, looking at both opportunities to use, say, promotion with consumers and, you know, opportunities with vendors and have, you know, your business is way better than then I know them of course, I don't pretend to have, you know, all the answer. But I wanted to bring up a couple ideas and, and questions and, and see where they go. The first one I want to talk about was really on the content side. And, you know, I know we've talked a lot about, you know, the content that you produce, and I produce some of my own content, not to the same level that you do, but I know it takes a lot of work and a lot of coordination to be able to get, you know, people in the right place and the gear and so on. So, one thing I've, I've trained other, you know, small business owners on when they're creating content, as I've suggested, that they, you know, document things more so than trying to come up with an idea of what can they teach someone or what can they show, but one of my, my thoughts I had in terms of helping develop more content is looking at guest blog posts, you know, through the, the pizza and the beer industry, have you looked at that where, you know, you have, say, the annual event, but you're able to work with all of those vendors where they're producing unique content specifically for your website, you know, and then you're able to have, say, a theme every month or have a featured vendor of the month, but they're the ones that are producing the content not in a salesy way, but they're promoting your there, they're doing a video highlighting how to make a certain pizza, or how a certain type of beers produced, have you looked at, you know, having that type of content on an ongoing basis?

Kevin  25:31 

No, I haven't. But that actually is a really good idea, depending on who, you know, depending on the vendor, so that if we're talking to the beer festival, yes, that would that is something I would definitely consider, because a lot of their social media content is like, spot on, and it's usable. And, you know, you wouldn't have to teach them how to do how to create the content, whereas there's probably a handful of the pizza festival customers that are savvy enough to in order to do that. Does that make sense? Like, as I understand the whole point, it's kind of like, yeah, you're, you're marketing your event without really having to get your hands dirty? Like they're creating the content, you're both you're broke, you're both kind of winning? Where I think with the pizza festival, it would be it be more of the same. Okay, does that make sense?

Lionel Johnston  26:22 

Yeah, I would imagine you would probably find, it sounds like this is exactly what you're describing, people would be at a different level of sophistication. So, there could be somewhere they produce everything. And, and you don't have to touch it, you just upload it to your site. And there are maybe others that need hand-holding, or they want you to come out and take some photos or, or maybe something needs video needs to be produced. And then everywhere in between there,

Kevin  26:44 

right. And, and, and if I was creating something like that, I wouldn't want to slight the people who aren't, who aren't a savvy as the person that is, because in the person that is, is getting all this, you know, all this promotion and content. Meanwhile, the person who isn't is left in the dust, and I just wouldn't want to leave that person who ended up in the dust. So yeah, I will use that idea. Because it's, I think it's awesome. But then I'd have to keep in mind that whoever needs a hand, I have to make sure that that they're covered to

Lionel Johnston  27:08 

Yeah, one way I've seen this work, Kevin, in the past actually is an organization like yours would actually publish an editorial calendar to say, all of the vendors and say, Hey, we want to focus, you know, February is, you know, we're focusing on, you know, gluten-free or, and, you know, summertime, we want to talk about, you know, beer, this made with certain types of fruit, those sorts of things, and basically able to share that out. And then and then that, you know, people see what things fit their business really well. And then it's more now hand to hand to try and get the gaps filled in the calendar. 

Kevin  27:43 

Oh, I like that. I like that I do

Lionel Johnston  27:45 

well, and for people that are listening right now that maybe don't know the background of why we do this a big benefit why you'd want to have other people produce content for you. One is, it's obviously easier for you, your job is to produce the market and to the eyes and ears, right. And that's creating value for these people. But more importantly, Google and Facebook highly reward companies that are producing unique and consistent content. So that's one of the big reasons you know, to have that, and all of those companies, you know, produce that content, you're going to get links between your website so, so that would help out them and that would help you as well. Right. Okay. Kevin sauce. So, let's talk a little bit about the promotion to consumers here. And I wanted to ask you, you know, what are some promotions that you've run in the past that you've found have resonated with the consumer so far, you know, if it was an early bird offer or contest anything like that, you know,

Kevin  28:39 

it's Winnipeg, so usually, if you're giving away free things, people love it, right, like the contest for, for free pizza, or for the beer festival we have? Well, for the charity part of it, too. We give out gift certificates to them too, to the tasting rooms for the beer guys, we had a thing where you could win a beer for and along with the beer fridge came a keg from every participating Brewer for the summer. So, if you're not if you're a guy that likes the entertain, you had a beer fridge that came as a cake fridge, and you didn't even have to, if there were 12 vendors at the beer festival, well, you got 12 kegs delivered when whatever cake ran out. And, you know, for you to entertain your friends. So, a free beer fridge and 12 kegs that went along with it. You know, I think it's a no brainer, very hard sell. Ya know.

So that raised a lot of money for charity with the pizza fest it was just giving out free pizza, right. So, a different pizza from different pizza vendors every day for like, two to three weeks before the festival even started, right. So that those ones really go over really well. Because like I said if sometimes it's nice to just be able to taste the actual product. And usually, you know, no one's just going to order one pizza. I don't know, anybody just orders one pizza. So, it's kind of a no brainer for the pizza vendor also prefer the person if they're going to order one. Sure, you get something free. If you're going to order to will, I get two for the price of one it was a lot less and the actually get the taste of the good product and the beer at the pizza vendors making some money too, right?

Lionel Johnston  30:24 

Yeah, for sure. So, for some of them, or some or most or all of the promotions and contest would people be entering the contest through your website, or they are entering it directly with the vendors.

Kevin  30:38 

They enter through my website.

Lionel Johnston  30:41 

Okay. All right. So, then you're Yeah, you're the portal there where they come in and Enter. And then you're capturing their emails and, and building relationships over time then,

Kevin  30:50 

right. So, you build the relationships over time. It's not 12 different small databases. It's one large database. And then when the pizza festival is over, you can market to everybody, you know, that one large database that you already have a captive audience for everybody who collectively participated. So you give them the pizza vendors as the year you know, as the year goes on, until the next event, the opportunity to market to all the people that were interested in the pizza festival, whether they having a special for, you know, gluten-free pizza that week, or they're giving out free pizza, or they, you know, whenever they have an event coming up, it's their first anniversary, 10th anniversary, whatever they want to market, we market collectively, they just send it to the they send it to the Winnipeg pizza festival group. And we do the marketing for them, you know, so its kind of helps us build the event, build that large database and help the people who really don't know how to market at all. They may be great at social media and maybe they don't know how to do email marketing, what are they going to do is say, you know, what, their what they want to market, they can either email it to us and we'll send it out or, or if they need help creating it will just take them the information on what they're doing. Create something, show them they say yes, we send it out. Oh, I see.

Lionel Johnston  32:07 

Okay, I'm actually going to come back to that in a moment when we talked about working directly with vendors. But no, that's great. Two different topics that I wanted to cover or two different items under this one topic here around promotions that I wanted to share is, you know, one of the things I've run with a number of clients recently, or some viral contests, and I know you've had a chance to enter them, and we won't take too much time talking about them. But basically, for those listening to that may not be aware of a viral contest, that's where someone can enter a contest. But they actually get rewarded for taking a number of different actions, you know, where they can share it on Facebook, or they can come back every day and win more entries. And for the clients have run this with we fed they've generated anywhere from about 250 leads so that every lead is a new email all the way up to almost 10,000 emails from the contest. So that's pretty cool. A way to be able to capture that engagement, build your brand awareness and get those email addresses. And then yeah, and then another similar opportunity, Kevin, our lead quizzes, and I'm not sure if you've done any of these in the past with any of your businesses, but basically, they're, they're really fun and engaging simple quizzes. And people love quizzes, especially on Facebook, you know, that's, that's one of the highest, you know, click rates and completions, you know, out of all the content on Facebook or quizzes, you know, anyway, so with these lead quizzes, basic and ask all these simple questions. So if you think about in the pizza and beer space, you know, you could ask about what type of food someone likes or and, you know, say they're answering questions, they get to a point where they answer that they're, they're vegan, you know, then you're able to have some sort of, say, pizza profile at the end. And then it could actually say, Hey, here's a couple vendors that would fit you ideally, right? Or here are some recipes to other make these types of pizzas at home, or, you know, on your side, you know, do you like fruity beer, stronger, stronger beer, you know, they're answering all these fun questions. And then they're able to find out what their profile is at the end. And then ultimately be directed to some recipes and vendors. But ultimately, you're, again, improving your brand awareness, capturing emails and getting a lot of engagement as well,

Kevin  34:21 

right. But then, but the customer is getting a lot of value out of that to instead of doing their own research or are actually going to be your vendors or pizza places individually and trying to find out something that works for them. Your, your information is captured every kind of thing to point them in the right direction from the start. Exactly, exactly. Yeah, it's great. I think it's awesome. Right

Lionel Johnston  34:42 

now, we spoke a little while ago about different tools. And I know we have lots of we've had lots of discussions talking about different tools in that again, the challenge is, we can have that I believe it's called the shiny ball syndrome, right? Or like, Oh, look at that tool. Look at that tool. And then you have a real mess because you're trying to, you know, coordinate all these different tools. So, we want to be careful that we don't try too many. But there are a couple Actually, I've come across recently that I again, know, you know, thought of you right away here. And the first one that I have is LinkTree. Have you ever heard of LinkTree before?

Kevin  35:13 

It's called what? Linktr.ee? 

Lionel Johnston  35:14 

Yeah, links tree. So, if you actually check out on Instagram, and believe you're still on your computer there. But if say you go to farmers marketing on Instagram, one of the challenges on Instagram, and it's a great platform and growing like gangbusters, and you've done a really, really good job on Instagram. It's great seeing the content you have there. But the one challenge is, you've only been able to have one item in your bio, 

Kevin  35:41 

right,

Lionel Johnston  35:42 

right. So what link tree is, is it's a website that you basically go to as, sort of like a bitly link or, you know, link shortener. But basically, you go to this website, and you're able to put in their other links. So, for farmers marketing, for example, what I haven't in there, as you there are, there are four different links, so someone can click on that link. And it opens up, you know, one, or two, or three or four or more different options. So, for, again, for farmers marketing, someone could click on getting a live audit, or they could subscribe to the podcast, or go to our website. So why I was thinking of you, of course, is, you know, you have a lot of different things that you would want to promote in your business, right. So, it could be, you know, checking out another social profile, or could be for a contest, but it can also be buying tickets. So, you can have that all just in that one link. 

Kevin  36:31 

Oh, so you have the one link on your page. And I just click your link and it shows me four different links, get free marketing on and live where the coaching call, subscribe to the master, that gives you four different options, instead of just having gone to the one that the link is actually pointing to. I like that. I'm using that.

Lionel Johnston  36:47 

Yeah, especially because you have so many different aspects of your business. Yeah, so I thought that would be a good tip for you. So, I'm glad you like that You sound like you, you enjoy that one.

Kevin  36:56 

Oh, I'm stealing that right away.

Lionel Johnston  36:57 

right on to others that I came across us just recently. One is Headliner.app. And the other one is Wavve.co with two V's and dot CEO. And I'll put this actually in the show notes. And that these two are similar. Kevin one actually is paid, and one is free. I just recently found out but especially with the show that you have, you know, The Main Ingredient, and, you know, all of the other, you know, videos that you have going on. One of the great things with this tool is you actually can't upload an audio file to Facebook or Instagram and, and Instagram, you're limited to only 62nd videos. So, what you can actually do is take a static image, or you can use a video, of course, but you can take a static image, and you're basically turning it into a video. So, you can upload your static image, you upload your mp3 files, your audio file, it actually transcribes it for you. It also adds the little lines going up and down. So, it's showing that there's some audio being spoken. And then you export it. And you can upload this your 62nd video or less on Instagram, and Facebook and LinkedIn. But it really, I think, adds a lot more impact than just a static image saying, Hey, you know, this new podcast is out, you know, come listen to Episode Six, that sort of thing.

Kevin  38:15 

All right. Well, I get it. Yeah,

Lionel Johnston  38:16 

hundred percent. Yeah. And then. So, the last tool that I know we've talked about is funnel lyrics. And one of the big challenges that I had when I was really in the early days, and marketing and getting into marketing automation was being able to visualize the campaign and being able to see where's the traffic coming from, where's the goal where we try to send people to. And so that's that visual mapping software. And actually, you can get that for free as well. There is a paid version where you get the analytics, but you can do tons of work just on their free tool. So that's something you could check out for you for your businesses if you'd like as well. 

Kevin  38:51 

already checked it on. I'm on the page right now. Um, that's three things I'm stealing from you immediately.

Lionel Johnston  38:57 

Alright, well, there we go. So, if nothing and Elsa at least you got some cool tools that will directly relate to the type of business that you run. So, so I wanted to share your bag

Kevin  39:07 

of tricks is deep. That's why I like talking. You always have all these little tools. And yes, you can get caught up in having too many, but usually, nine times out of 10 the stuff that means you go through us are almost immediately usable. 

Lionel Johnston  39:19 

You're right. And really the things that we talk about our Hey, I'm doing something. And I think you actually mentioned this a few moments ago, but you know, Kevin, I'm doing something right now, how can I do it more efficiently. It's not like, Hey, I can do a video thumbnail for a podcast will I'm going to launch a podcast now like that it doesn't work that way, right? It's just Hey, producing a podcast or doing videos, it takes a lot of time, where can we shave time? Where can we pump with this content faster and more professionally, and you know, it feels all those tools help out with that. So, let's just move into again, the next topic and then we can summarize things and see what the top priority should be, I did want to take some time to talk about the relationship that you have with the vendors and the promotion to them. And you know, I really see I'm sure you do this quite a bit but I rarely see when I first saw your business model that there's a huge opportunity for you to really be that funnel of, of leads and customers for the business for these businesses, right and they have their own marketing going but really what you're doing is you're again building that marketplace and real estate where they're able to sell their products correct. 

Kevin  40:33 

Right. And it's funny that you said that because that the pizza festival actually came about from that that wasn't my idea thinking I'm going to have a Manitoba p2p You know, there's a lot of specialty weeks burger we can all kind of stuff. And I wasn't my idea to say, hey, let's, I'm going to have a pizza week that came from interviewing restaurants that sold pizza. And week after week, I would hear someone going, someone should have a pizza week so much and have a pizza week till two or three people would email me saying, why don't you organize a pizza week, that's how that came about. So, it's just kind of the relationship with different with different customers that kind of lead in that direction, right?

Lionel Johnston  41:08 

I totally agree. So I want to give you an example. Now, these companies are at a much larger scale. But if you look at Google, you know, Facebook, YouTube, you know, LinkedIn, those are all huge websites, of course, but they aren't the ones that are producing and owning the content, they're there do you know, other people are doing that right there really creating that platform, and that, you know, building a following of eyes and ears that those other companies can sell to, and that's really what you're doing as well. So that's why as I mentioned, when I first saw your business model is really impressed with that, and being able to see the value you can offer to people when we look at lead generation, you know, specifically for the vendors and the pizza and beer fest are you right now generating identifiable leads for those individual or collective vendors, like, how does a flow have a potential customer goes through, you know, your website, or the vendors website?

Kevin  42:05 

Well, usually goes through our website. So, a lot of times, different vendors will have a marketing idea that they actually want to post they want to market to the distribution list that the event created. So, we'll do it that way. It makes it easier, but it makes it easier because the vendor doesn't technically have to do any work, all they have to do is create the promotion and the event will promote their promotion. But in turn, we get a larger distribution list that we can market to. And the pizza, any pizza vendor that participates in the event can market to 12 months a year if they want to. Right,

Lionel Johnston  42:38 

I see. Okay. And would each vendor typically have their own standard offer,

Kevin  42:45 

right? When we're not going to tell them we know what they want to offer? Like, right, they can make up their own offer, we're just going to promote their offer or whatever event they have coming up. Okay.

Lionel Johnston  42:57 

All right. Thanks for sharing that. And where I'm getting at, or what I'm trying to get at Kevin is, you know, is there a way to be able to clearly show the pipeline rate and the funnel of people coming in and how many leads are being generated? And then how many are being distributed to the vendors? And then are we also able to capture, you know, the financial aspect of how much was generated from those leads? And I realized that would probably be the most difficult part and that this question as part of the reason why I am suggesting final lyrics, because you're able to see the flow of people, you know, through the entire process. And if I could give one example, you know, to demonstrate what I'm trying to get at is a friend of mine, actually, I know, he runs a really successful digital marketing agency, a local agency here, and they have on their website, and the last in the last quarter, they've generated something like 85,000 leads, and over $5 million in additional revenue, or 50, I don't think tech numbers, but I thought it's pretty neat that they're able to say this, how many leads we created in this is the value of them, I was just wondering, on a smaller scale, is there is there an opportunity for you to do that with these fests and does that help you then, you know, promote that to the vendors to attract more in the future,

Kevin  44:16 

for sure. Hundred percent, that's probably an area that I need to work on a lot more, because there are a lot of a lot of opportunities there that can be done better? 100%

 

Lionel Johnston  44:29 

Well, that's great. Well, how about Kevin, let's just start wrapping things up here. And I just wanted to ask you one question. And then we can talk about it for a couple moments as necessary here. But you know, from the different discussion that we had, we touched on some, you know, technical improvements, your website and how well you're doing in the content and social side. And we talked a little bit about, you know, the, you know, direct engagement with consumers and vendors, are there any things that we've talked about here so far, that really stood out to you the most that you know what, when you when we discuss it, you're like, man, I really they need to tackle that right away. 

Kevin  45:03 

Yeah, tweaking the websites, like as far as the things that you and I have talked about before, as far as, you know,

the background portion of it. So, we're talking the speed of a lowering of the page that the mobile portion got an F, so anything that's red and got an F are things some of them, I knew. Hey, I can't believe I got an F, or I knew that was going to get an F. So, make sure I correct those things right away technically, because, again, the hard portion of the work is done the networking and content creating is stuff that you just can't create overnight, that takes time and effort. And it's huge. So, if it's just tweaking the technical portion of it, something I can literally do in a day or two, you know, that portion of it has run out to me that, you know, it's an easy tweak. So, make sure you get your infrastructure running properly, and then the rest you can continue to work on

Lionel Johnston  46:02 

these items. I know that, yeah, all very easy fixes, especially, I know, you're very tech savvy. So, it'll be very easy for you to knock those things out. And, you know, and I hope you found a lot of value, you know, to our discussion, and I know, you know, for my own business, you know, I often asked other people to build a look at things as much as I may think, I, I know things having those additional eyes are different eyes on your business can really uncover a lot of things. And I remember working with someone one time and, you know, my team had worked on this project for many, many hours, and, you know, 100 different times you looked at it, and then, you know, my leader looked at it immediately and said, well, there's no logo on it. And, you know, we'd looked at this thing for hours. And none of us said, had caught that, you know, but it definitely is valuable to build to get those outside opinions on the businesses that we're running. So, hope you agree with that as well. 

Kevin  46:57 

Okay,

Lionel Johnston  46:58 

right on. Well, thanks a lot to Kevin. And for everyone that's listening right now, for all the other small and medium-sized businesses out there like Kevin Bergen, if you'd like to have a similar discussion like Kevin and I have just had, where you have a marketing audit and a live coaching call you all in an effort to be able to take your business to the next level, please check out our website at farmer's marketing.ca where you can start your application and submit your information. And we'll have a couple of discussions and see if you're a good fit for the podcast. And the podcast is a good fit for you. And Kevin, thanks again for you know, being able to put your businesses under the microscope but I am sure that potentially created a little bit of unease. But to be clear, I really am very impressed with everything that you're operating and running on your side. You've really built a pretty neat business for yourself. And it's great to see how all of these different components are tying together and it sounds like there are even bigger and better things, you know, in the future for you and these events moving forward. Hey, hope so, thanks, man. Thanks for joining the master and Modern Marketing Podcast. Kevin, and for everyone else, listening. Until next time, onward and upward,

Announcer  48:10 

the master Modern Marketing podcast with your host Lionel Johnston, lovers of marketing and growing small businesses you enjoyed today's podcast, please rate and review. We'll catch you next time on the master Modern Marketing Podcast.