Niche Down to Stand Out: How To Start A Brand That Can Grow Big with Maxwell DesMarais | Ep.102

Summary

Built Online Episode 102 Summary: "Niche Down to Stand Out: How To Start A Brand That Can Grow Big with Maxwell DesMarais"

In Episode 102 of Built Online, host Cody McGuffey delves into the intricacies of building a scalable brand by niching down with special guest Maxwell DesMarais, founder of Vital Design. This enlightening conversation offers actionable insights for aspiring e-commerce entrepreneurs looking to carve out a distinct space in the saturated online marketplace.

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1. Introduction to Maxwell DesMarais and Vital Design

Maxwell DesMarais begins by introducing his company, Vital Design, a robust marketing agency with over 100 employees. The agency specializes in digital marketing, focusing on building websites and brands, and driving traffic, leads, and revenue through strategies like content marketing, email marketing, social media, and paid advertising.

Maxwell's Background:

“[...] I built my own website, outdoorbasecamp.com, which now attracts around 120,000 monthly organic visitors. I started by selling T-shirts, doing affiliate marketing, and selling posters, which also serves as my passion project to hone my marketing skills.”
(00:00)

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2. Building an Organic Audience: The Role of Keyword Research

Maxwell attributes the success of his passion project to diligent keyword research and content quality. By consistently producing valuable content tailored to specific search queries, he was able to grow his website's traffic organically.

“For me, it was like keyword research, so topic ideation and generation based on how people are searching online and then actually taking the time to produce the best piece of content that satisfies that query online.”
(03:26)

Key Pillars:

• Keyword Research: Understanding what potential customers are searching for.
• High-Quality Content: Creating comprehensive and valuable content to satisfy those queries.
• Consistency: Regularly publishing content and scaling with hired writers over time.

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3. The Importance of Niching Down

Cody presents a hypothetical scenario to Maxwell, portraying himself as Jack, an aspiring trail runner entrepreneur facing challenges with website traffic and conversions. Maxwell emphasizes the critical strategy of niching down to effectively target a specific subset of the market.

“Figure out who your target audience is and try to niche down as much as you possibly can with a reasonable market size.”
(07:24)

Maxwell advises:

• Specific Targeting: Instead of catering to all outdoorsy people, focus on a niche like trail running.
• Flexible Branding: Choose a domain that allows for future expansion without being overly restrictive.

Example Dialogue:

Cody suggests using a broader domain like outdoorjack.com with focused content on trail running to retain flexibility.
Maxwell concurs, stating, “That's exactly what I would do to avoid those exact problems and be ready to pivot and scale.”
(08:40)

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4. Developing a Content Marketing Strategy

Maxwell outlines a comprehensive approach to content marketing, emphasizing the need to understand where your target audience spends their time online and engaging with them authentically.

Steps to Develop a Content Strategy:

1. Engage in Online Communities: Join relevant Facebook groups, Reddit threads, and other social platforms to understand audience needs and build exposure.
2. Content Planning: Develop an organic content marketing strategy, planning topics for the next three months to a year based on keyword opportunities.
3. Content Creation: Aim to produce at least one high-quality article per week, ensuring each piece adds substantial value and resonates with your audience.

“Whatever medium of content that you feel most comfortable to produce, consider building out the topics that you want to discuss there.”
(11:43)

Tools Recommended:

• Keywords Everywhere
• SEMrush
• Google Keyword Planner

“These search engines are content opportunities for you to pursue.”
(12:40)

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5. Navigating the Future of SEO and AI

The conversation shifts to the evolving landscape of SEO amid the rise of AI tools like ChatGPT. Maxwell discusses how AI is transforming search behavior and content visibility.

Key Insights:

• AI Overviews: Google’s AI-generated summaries are becoming prevalent, potentially reducing organic clicks by 30-50%.
• Diversified Search Engines: Beyond Google, platforms like Amazon, YouTube, and TikTok are powerful search engines in their own right.
• Content Adaptation: To remain relevant, creators must align their content with natural language queries and focus on providing in-depth, conversational answers.

“There's a pretty solid correlation, meaning if you rank at the top of Google, you tend to be placed in those AI reviews at reasonably high rates.”
(27:59)

Maxwell’s Predictions:

“We're just going to see it depends upon the query that's typed into Google and if an AI overview prompt makes sense, we're going to see that happen a lot.”
(25:34)

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6. Common Marketing Mistakes to Avoid

Maxwell highlights prevalent mistakes entrepreneurs make in their marketing strategies, particularly in paid advertising:

1. Spreading Too Thin: Launching multiple advertising channels simultaneously can dilute efforts and resources.
2. Lack of Focus: Failing to prioritize based on audience demand and conversion capabilities.
3. Inadequate Testing Period: Not allowing enough time (90 days) to assess the effectiveness of a chosen channel.

“Trying to launch, you know, three or four advertising channels at once is very difficult.”
(28:25)

Pivoting Strategy: Maxwell recommends maintaining patience and allowing sufficient time to gather data before switching strategies.

“If you could start to drive traffic and conversions and get some type of ROI. Not a positive ROI, but, you know, maybe it’s, you know, a 0.3 ROI or something like that in the first 90 days.”
(30:20)

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7. Brand Differentiation: Standing Out in a Crowded Market

To ensure brand recognition and trust, Maxwell advises finding unique ways to differentiate your brand. He cites Outdoor Gear Lab as an exemplary brand that uses an analytical approach to gear reviews, establishing authority and trust through rigorous testing and data-driven content.

“They were like, I’m going to take an analytical approach. I’m going to get real testers on this, and I’m going to assign scores and values to each of the criteria of the gear and produce content around that.”
(35:00)

Strategies for Differentiation:

• Unique Content Approach: Whether it’s analytical reviews or storytelling, find a unique angle that resonates with your audience.
• Consistent Branding: Ensure your brand stands for something specific that appeals directly to your target niche.

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8. Rapid Fire Q&A Highlights

The episode concludes with a rapid-fire segment where Max shares personal insights and recommendations.

• Favorite Business Book: Three Signs of a Miserable Job by Patrick Lencioni.

  “It’s helpful for me in making sure, like, I'm doing something that I enjoy and whatever I'm doing, I'm able to, you know, be happy.”
  (40:47)

• One Thing He Wishes He Knew Before Starting Outdoor Basecamp:

  “Pick a more niche audience, but leave yourself room to expand.”
  (41:25)

• Hours Dedicated to His Business:

  “I used to do a lot more. I used to probably do 15 to 20 hours a week at the beginning... allocating 10 plus hours a week to it.”
  (42:29)

• Defining a Creator:

  “Good creators are able to do both...[adding] entertainment while adding value.”
  (43:52)

• Who Should Be a Business Owner:

  “Everyone should create something around their passion.”
  (44:27)

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9. Final Thoughts and Takeaways

Maxwell reinforces the importance of passion and persistence in building a successful brand. By niching down, creating high-quality content, leveraging the right tools, and differentiating your brand, entrepreneurs can effectively grow their online businesses.

Key Takeaways:

• Niche Down: Focus on a specific subset to build a dedicated audience while maintaining flexibility for future expansion.
• Quality Over Quantity: Prioritize producing valuable, high-quality content consistently.
• Adapt to AI and SEO Changes: Stay informed and adapt strategies to align with the evolving digital landscape.
• Differentiate Your Brand: Find unique angles to stand out and build trust with your audience.
• Stay Patient and Persistent: Allow sufficient time to test and refine your strategies before making significant pivots.

Maxwell’s practical advice and real-world examples provide a roadmap for aspiring e-commerce entrepreneurs to build and scale their brands effectively.

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For more insights and to connect with Maxwell DesMarais, visit Vital Design or follow Max on social media.

Transcript

[Max Damaris]

Build a brand that can be expanded at a future date, but maybe start your content and your branding and your messaging and who you're targeting directly towards a specific subset of that overarching brand. And I think that'll set you up for a great success with that niche audience, but also a great opportunity to expand or pivot.

[Cody McGuffey]

Welcome to Built online. I'm Cody McGuffey, and this podcast is all about one thing. Building the business of your dreams. Selling art, teaching classes, starting a blog, launching a brand. Whatever your passion is, we show you how to turn it into real income. I created Ever Be to help anyone with a dream start and scale a business.

[Max Damaris]

Ever Be, Ever be Ever be Ever be Ever be, Ever be.

[Cody McGuffey]

We now serve over 800,000 creators all across the globe. On this show, we bring on real entrepreneurs who've done it. They share their secrets, they share their failures. The exact steps that you can take to get started. What if you can get one golden nugget out of today's episode? And it's the breakthrough that takes you from just dreaming to actually living a life on your terms. Ever Be. We believe that every human is a creator, and every creator should own a business. Max, we're here, man. What's up?

[Max Damaris]

Hey, how you doing? Happy to be here.

[Cody McGuffey]

Super happy to have you here, man. Thank you for coming on. We're going to talk about all things digital marketing today, right?

[Max Damaris]

That's awesome. It's. That's what I love to talk about.

[Cody McGuffey]

Yeah, let's do it. Do you mind kind of just giving everybody that's listening to this kind of a little brief about who Max is and what Vital is and kind of what you do at Vital?

[Max Damaris]

Yeah, absolutely. So Vital Design is a marketing agency. About 100 plus people at our agency. We do all types of digital marketing for a wide variety of clients. We basically build websites and brands in our project side of our agency, and we take those websites and brands and bring them into the digital marketing half of our agency, where basically we're designed to drive traffic, drive leads, drive revenue, and drive positive return on investment through digital marketing strategies. So we do a ton of content marketing, email marketing, social marketing, and paid advertising on all types of channels. And historically, we've done this for all types of industries. And we've started to specialize in a few key areas and build teams out in specializations. Those key areas are higher education, e commerce, and also manufacturing. So it's been a really fun journey. And I myself am obsessed with digital marketing in general. And before I even started my Career in digital marketing at. When I was at college, I felt like I really needed to learn more, so I built my own website that's now my outdoor basecamp to around 120,000 monthly organic visitors. Started to sell, you know, T shirts and do affiliate marketing and sell posters and things like that. So.

[Cody McGuffey]

Yeah, and that's kind of on the side. I mean, I guess it's kind of on the side of what you do, I guess full time at Vital Design. Right. So it's kind of like your, I guess, your passion project, it sounds like on the side.

[Max Damaris]

Yeah, it's my passion project. It helps me practice some of the stuff that we leverage for our clients and helps me keep progressing as a marketer in general.

[Cody McGuffey]

And did you say 120,000?

[Max Damaris]

Yeah, I got to 120,000amonthly organic visitors on the site. Organic, which was pretty fun.

[Cody McGuffey]

That's amazing. How does one even do that? I'm just curious. I know we'll jump into like all the stuff, but like, how I know it's time. You've done. You've done it for a long time, but like, what are the main pillars that you're just like, oh, yeah, I figured this out. I figured this out and figured this out and it worked.

[Max Damaris]

Yeah, for me it was. It's like keyword research, so topic ideation and generation based on how people are searching online and then actually taking the time to produce the best piece of content that satisfies that query online. And just doing that repeatedly for years on the content that I'm writing myself. And over time, I started to hire writers out to help scale up the amount of content that I was producing. And it's just, you know, decent research, high quality writing, and then, you know, diligence to stay with it for long consistency.

[Cody McGuffey]

I love that. Yeah. And do it for 10 years. Yeah, it's. It's very quick success, right? Um, yeah, exactly. Myoutdoorbasecamp.com we'll link it to for anyone listening. But very cool, man. It's awesome. I want to jump into kind of what you do professionally and. And kind of really extract a lot of value from you, from your brain, per selfishly. But also I know that when I do that, all of our listeners are going to like, just soak it all up too, because I'm sure they have very similar questions. So me and you agreed before we hit record that we would kind of play a Persona game and to where I'll pretend like my name is Jack and I am an ambitious.

[Max Damaris]

Dad.

[Cody McGuffey]

I guess you could say, sure, I'll just be a dad, because I'm a dad and I play that role easily. And I want to, I want to start an online business and I figured out what I, what I'm passionate about and what I know a pretty good amount and what I can learn more about and, and that's outdoors and that's hiking, it's backpacking, it's, it's anything like outdoorsy. And I want to build a, build a business around this. This would be like a dream come true for me. How I'm going to do it, my products are going to be something like probably apparel, things that I can print on demand primarily something that does not going to require me like investing $20,000 of inventory. It's going to be like all through shirts and hats and backpacks and, and anything like that. Those are kind of like my products. But I have a problem. I have a site, it's live, but I don't have any traffic to the sites. And if I do get traffic to the site, they're not buying it. And I'm not a marketer. That's the point. I'm passionate, but I'm not a marketer by trade. What do I do? Max at Vital Design, like how should I even be thinking about this? I have some, I have some money in the bank. Like I'm serious about this business. I'm not starting this with like $50 in my bank account. Like I want this to be successful in the next 12 months plus. What should I do, Max?

[Max Damaris]

Yeah, it's a great question. And I certainly, if I was in this position I would start scrappy for sure. And then I would think about long term strategies and also short term strategies that can work together so that over the course of time I'm building something that's an asset that's going to continue to provide for me while also investing in some shorter term things that might get me some, you know, quick wins at the same time. So for me or for what I would advise, Jack here would be first, like figure out who your target audience is and try to niche down as as much as you possibly can with a reasonable market size. So maybe not all outdoorsy people, but it might be a specific subset of those people, whether it's backpackers or trail runners specifically or whatever it may be. I would probably niche down a little bit because it's getting to be a pretty saturated space all around and these niching out will help you identify who your true target audience is. All of their biggest problems and pain points in life and help you to speak directly to them. So before doing anything, I would probably figure out exactly who that audience is and niche down a little bit. I encountered the same issue myself starting my outdoor basecamp where I just trying to speak to too many people, and it made it really hard for me to find the ideal target audience.

[Cody McGuffey]

Is it possible because I'm a member. Jack. I. I'm Jack. And I'm. I'm super ambitious. Right, too. So it's like, I think that I can just take this whole category because I'm just kind of delusional, and that's how I think. Right. And you're telling me to niche down. I hear that. And so does that mean I need to. Actually, my. My website domain needs to be niche down, too. Like, it's like trailrender.com trailrenderjack.com or can it be trailrender.com and then specifically my product and my content is all towards, oh, I guess, sorry, outdoors.com and then trail Runner. That could be a specific. That could be my niche.

[Max Damaris]

Yeah, I think that's a great question. And I think. I think there's a great opportunity to build a brand that's niche but has the opportunity to expand. You absolutely can corner yourself in which you may want to avoid doing, but it also, like, if you're so set on, like, this is the. The right niche, the people I want to be in front of, like, get after it, go for it. But I agree with exactly what you said, which is build a. Build a brand that can be expanded at a future date. But maybe start your content and your branding and your messaging and who you're targeting directly towards a specific subset of that overarching brand. And I think that'll set you up for a great success with that niche audience, but also a great opportunity to expand or pivot if you need to. If something's not working.

[Cody McGuffey]

That's the key right there. It's like, almost like, I don't know what I don't know yet. So I made this mistake myself. That's why. So maybe an example of this would be, if you're gonna target trail runners, great. You could call it Trail runnerjack. Com if you want. But what if you have to pivot from Nike to have backpackers? Right now you're in a, you know, your conundrum. So what I would suggest in this case, and I'm. I'm curious what your opinion is, is go to out outdoorjack.com and then focus on Trail Runner as your main Content like you mentioned and your products can be that. That way if you find that you're just like, oh, wow, this, you don't have to necessarily rebrand the entire site. You have Outdoor Jack. You could just go to backpacks and stuff like this. Or is that the right mindset to have?

[Max Damaris]

That's exactly what I would do to avoid those exact problems and be ready to pivot and scale.

[Cody McGuffey]

Beautiful. Okay, so now we have this site and it's called, it's called outdoorjack.com we decided we're going to do focus on trail runners. What do I do now?

[Max Damaris]

Yeah. So first, get scrappy. Find out where all of your people spend your time online. So go to every single Facebook thread, Twitter thread, Blue sky thread, Reddit thread, insert every social media place where these people hang out. Join those groups, find them, understand the content that they're talking about, start participating in the conversations. Not like you're promoting anything, but just to understand those people better and start to build exposure. There's get scrappy, join everything, listen and be a part of those communities. Set some part of your day to do that every single day so that you're spending some time learning about the key problems and staying up to date on where those discussions are happening, what they're talking about. And that's also, that's going to help you in a whole bunch of ways. One, if you start engaging in those conversations, people will find you naturally. Two, you're going to learn about the things in real time that are bothering people or the challenges that people are happening, which creates opportunity for you to create content or ads or products that, that service those needs or answer those common questions. So get involved in the conversation, get in those communities and start talking to people. Secondarily, I would start to plan some type of organic content marketing strategy out. So I want to start layering all of the topics that I want to talk about over the next three months, six months, years, in the form of either depending upon how you like to do things, you know, video based content, social media content, or written content, I think you can have success in all these areas. It can be hard to do it all at once, but like whatever medium of content that you feel most comfortable to produce, consider, you know, building out the topics that you want to discuss there. I personally love to use, you know, keyword suggestion tools to find opportunities that I know people are searching for online. But this is a great use case for those online communities as well.

[Cody McGuffey]

So like searching online, you're talking about like Google, right? Just googling stuff and like there's. What's it, what's an example of a tool that you would recommend? I mean I know there's Semrush, there's Keywords Everywhere.

[Max Damaris]

Yeah, Keywords Everywhere is awesome. Semrush is great. If I were to be like a free cheap person, one of the best things you can possibly do is, you know, create a Google Ads account and use their keyword planner. You don't even have to spend money. You can get access to their free keyword planner and you can start typing in subjects and you're going to spit out, they'll spit out, you know, related keywords and their search volumes and the trends of those search volumes over time. So you can start to see, you know, all these potential keywords that people are typing in. These search engines are content opportunities for you to pursue. So I use Keywords Everywhere all the time. I use Keyword Planner all the time. You can use all of the. There's a whole bunch of tools in the marketplace, like Exploding Topics I think is what it's called. You can use Google Trends, all these types of tools online to just search for topics and see how people are searching.

[Cody McGuffey]

What do they do now with that? With that? Now they have this data in front of them. Are they making a list or are they, are they. Then, then what are they doing with that list? What are they doing with that?

[Max Damaris]

Yeah, so I would make a list and then I would prioritize that list. So I'd prioritize it based off of a few, few different things. I would look at competitiveness. So if I'm looking at this query online and I see that, you know, what's the query?

[Cody McGuffey]

Let's do an example. Yeah, what's the query?

[Max Damaris]

Yeah, we'll go with, for, for trail runners we go best, best trail. Running shoes. Running shoes. We'll get more niche. Like I'm gonna Google that and there's gonna be a ton of search volume. So it seems like an awesome opportunity. But as soon as you Google that you're gonna see that there high end brands with really high quality content up on that topic. Meaning this is very competitive. It's gonna be very hard for me to produce the content here that's going to, you know, do really well. This is where you have to take into account that competitiveness. So I look at the search volume, I look at the competitiveness and who's actually ranking for those things on Google or who's ranking for that on YouTube video or even now people are searching on, you know, TikTok and social channels for those same queries, you know who's producing that content. Can I produce better piece of content than that or is my brand going to be trusted more than this brand that exists there? If the answer is no, you might want to consider something that's less competitive, has less search volume behind it. So an example for taking the trail runners as an example, I might start to say, actually let me review a specific shoe that's brand new or is now getting popular, or let me compare two of the top shoes where there's much less content or volume. It's much less likely for, you know, outdoor Gear exchange or whatever website it is to cover that topic because it's more niche and that gives you an opportunity to do something that's more niche that you can produce a really high quality piece of content on. Adds a ton of value to the user because, you know, as a trail runner, you know, you might be comparing that Salomon shoe to that La Sportiva shoe, just, just like anyone else would be doing. And you can get in front of them right at the right time. So start to look at those topics, look at how much volume is there, how much competitiveness is there, and then what's your capability of creating this high quality piece of content that people are going to get tons of value out of?

[Cody McGuffey]

And how many times should they be doing this per. Per month? So is this, this making the list is probably once a year or maybe a couple times a year. This probably evolving. Like you're always adding stuff to the list, is that correct? Or is this like every month they should be making a brand new list?

[Max Damaris]

Yeah. So I would kind of take how we do it at our agency, which is something on the line of like planning quarters out. So three month sprints is, is something that's, I think is a, is a great timeline. So I'm going to choose the topics I'm going to cover over the next three months and then I'm going to agree that these are the ones I'm going to cover. And then I'm going to execute. And once I finish executing over that course, that three months, I'm going to enter my planning stage again. And this gives you enough time to be up to date with the market of new topics that might be happening. But also plans, plans enough out that, you know, you can really spend a good amount of time executing.

[Cody McGuffey]

Beautiful. How many articles getting live every month or week or day or what does that look like?

[Max Damaris]

Yeah, it's a great question. It's really For Jack. For Jack, Yeah, for Jack. I would start pushing out, you know, at least an article a week. I would probably try to go more than that. Depends how much time you have available. But the more you can do, the better. However, don't sacrifice quality for, for quantity. Whatever you can do to produce a high quality piece of content that you feel good about sending to your friends and sending to these groups that you're a community in. And you feel that if someone reads that, they're like, damn, that was Jack. This is super helpful. Make sure you get that quality there. Because we live in a competitive landscape now that it's just essential. Like if you're just pushing out quantity, that's not truly helping people, you're not going to see the results. And that goes for organic channels via blog posts. It goes for YouTube videos. Now it goes for social media posts. Like we are no longer in a space where you can just push stuff out and show up. You, you have to push good stuff out that's helpful to people and then.

[Cody McGuffey]

You'Ll show up and people know, people know. Like we're smart, humans are smart, you know, like we can tell the difference between this dude's just like just trying to like keyword stuff and get a, get a con, get an article live. And that wasn't that valuable. Whereas like, damn, Jack, that was really like, you really thought this through for me and I appreciate you for that. And it builds so many other things too. Like once you'll get rewarded for one, you'll get rewarded for with traffic. Google reward you and then also too like you were. Their branding is a part of that right there too. Like now they can trust you in the next article or they'll trust you with a purchase or an affiliate thing that you do. So that's beautiful. Okay, so one article, ideally one or more a week, it's high quality.

[Max Damaris]

Yeah, I would think so. I would, I would try to accelerate that faster. And maybe at the beginning, if I was Jack and I'm not sure the channels that I want to operate on, meaning do I want to produce a blog post, do I want to produce a social media post, do I want to produce a YouTube, you know, more professional looking YouTube video, I would maybe start to experiment with those things. So I might write the blog post, pair that with a really good short form video on the same topic and pair that with, you know, potentially a YouTube video if you feel comfortable doing that and start experimenting to see what do you do better, what do you get better engagement with and recognize that if you're new to this, like, you're going to get better at it over time. So you're gonna start writing better content, you're gonna start producing better videos. But like, the act of doing and publishing is gonna help you get better at it.

[Cody McGuffey]

Would you recommend doing when you do that video? Let's say that Jack is super, like I said, he's super ambitious and he's like, I'm gonna go do that. I'm gonna do exactly what Max told me. I'm gonna get that article live comparing those two shoes. And I'm also gonna make a video on this. And he's gonna make a YouTube video. He makes a YouTube video. And would you recommend embedding that YouTube video inside of the inside of the content? Or is that doesn't really matter or what are your thoughts there?

[Max Damaris]

Yeah, I totally would. Nowadays with Google search and the result pages, like, I would totally embed that content directly on the blog post. I think it can help a ton with in multiple ways. It can help you boost that video, it can help you boost that blog post, and it can help you change what actually shows up on the search engine result page in Google. So someone searching that query, you know, Solomon X. Trail Runner versus La Sportiva. Why Trail Runner? That video has a good chance of showing up at the top of the search engine result page on YouTube. But also your blog post might show up. So the medium at which that person searching that query is looking for now has multiple ways for you to show up in front of them. And, you know, embedding directly on the page adds tons of value.

[Cody McGuffey]

How about transcription? How important is transcribing that video? Should it have like a transcription section inside of that article as well? Or that doesn't really matter?

[Max Damaris]

Yeah, that's a, that's a good question. I think what we're starting to see is it depends upon the platform. So like YouTube now, super great at, you know, allowing users to just turn on the, the captions in their videos automatically. So like probably not directly transcribe on the video on a YouTube platform, but if you're doing short form social media, probably want to put it there and kind of self transcribe that in real time. That's probably what I would suggest right now.

[Cody McGuffey]

Beautiful. What about transcribing? Literally having a transcribe, like what, you know, how you can do the actual, like a full transcription, like a full transcribed thing inside of the site. Like, so let's say that I drop it into my YouTube video inside of this blog post. And also it has all the transcription below it as well. I guess I don't need that because I already have the blog article written.

[Max Damaris]

If you already have the blog post. Yeah, if you already have the blog post, I would not do that. However, if you're trying to speed up your content production and say you're only focusing on videos primarily and you want to just have another channel, which is what I would suggest, say you decide to only produce YouTube videos, what you're saying is the exact best way to, you know, maximize the usage of that YouTube video. Because then you can publish the blog post that's got the video on top and the transcription below. And now you have a secondary blog post medium that does that. And there's tons of AI tools now that, you know, you can literally just, instead of just transcribing it, actually transcribe this and then summarize it and turn it into a blog post. And suddenly you've got a pretty solid piece of content pending. You made a good video.

[Cody McGuffey]

Beautiful. Would you recommend doing that actually, if you're not necessarily a writer and you actually prefer to. To do the YouTube video and you're actually using AI?

[Max Damaris]

Yeah, I would totally do that. I would be cautious. So I would make sure that you don't publish blindly. I would review that and then, you know, take a look at the transcription and how the AI has turned that into a blog post. But it. I've been noticing that those tools have been very good at exactly that. Now I do it actually a ton for all of my video calls with clients. I get it transcribed using a tool called Otter and then it like pulls it into a nice summary with to dos. Next steps. Those tools are getting so good now. It'll be able to take your content and turn it a blog post pretty solidly. Just make sure that you review and edit it and spend some amount of time saying, this is actually some. Some good writing here.

[Cody McGuffey]

I love that. Yeah, I completely agree with that. AI. We haven't used them, but I've heard a lot of good things about them. Swell AI. I think it's swell AI. I've used them as well, actually. We use them currently. Yeah, they're getting really good for all this stuff.

[Max Damaris]

I. It's impressive.

[Cody McGuffey]

I have a question that probably a lot of people are wondering right now. With the rise of AI, of course, and ChatGPT and all these amazing tools out there, and there's a lot of stuff in SEO world, it's like, what is SEO? What's going to happen to SEO? Are people going to go to Google to search for things like, for example, that comparing those two shoes, historically they're going to Google, but now they're probably going turning towards a ChatGPT or Gemini or something like this to actually ask that same question. And it's also recommending certain things. Where is SEO going when it comes to, like, search engines?

[Max Damaris]

Yeah, it's a great question. I think, like SEO is no longer the traditional Google search engine. Very clearly now you have to be thinking about, obviously the search engine itself will say Google, but you have to also be thinking about the queries that are happening on the other platforms. Because Amazon is a huge search engine. TikTok's is a huge, huge search engine. YouTube is a huge search engine. All these additional platforms are search engines themselves. And so you need to be thinking about it in that way. But when we talk about Google specifically, it's very clearly becoming more competitive. Content is a bit of a commodity. It's very clearly becoming a bit more of a pay to play space. Meaning type in that query that we just said. You're going to see a few things. You're probably going to see a shopping ad at the top, you're probably going to see search ads below that. And right now you're probably also going to see an AI overview and then you're going to see blog content listed below that for that query of, you know, Solomon Trail Runner vs La Sportiva Trail Runner. And that's a scary thought, right? So, you know, if there's a thousand people searching for that thing this month, 10 of those people are hitting those shopping ads, 30% of people are hitting those search ads, and then another 20 are reading that AI overview. The clicks that you used to be able to get 24 months ago for that query on Google are now potentially 30 to 50% of what they were two years ago or even three years ago. And therefore you need to prioritize your content and how you're planning your strategies based off of that. And looking at the search engine result page, you might find that it's very difficult to drive organic traffic for certain queries because of how those search engine result pages are looking. And that may change how you want to prioritize the content you're producing. Maybe you want to focus on video because of that, maybe you want to just change your topic. Because what we're seeing for AI overviews, as an example, you ask a question, any how, what, why type question, you're going to see an AI review like 90 plus percent of the time. And you might show up in that AI review but you're not going to garner the same amount of brand awareness or clicks as you would through that traditional organic listing that you previously had. So it's a very difficult space right now.

[Cody McGuffey]

Do you see it going to. To more towards showing up in the AI overview or that the ChatGPT for example, if I were to type in that same question and sometimes they actually will show up, show an article, show a product even, or show some. You see the future kind of going towards that where ChatGPT would actually suggest an article based on what you just said or they'll refer to the article or they'll add it as a source. Do you see that future coming or is that not.

[Max Damaris]

Yeah, I mean it's, it's here like if you search these queries it's going to give you an overview, it's going to give you a rough answer and it's going to cite the source. I think we're going to see a continued usage of the AI reviews, but we're also probably going to see the monetization of those AI overviews because right now those AI overviews are eating up ad revenue for Google and therefore they're going to find more ways to incorporate advertising within those AI reviews or potentially reduce when they show. So we're already seeing that happen now. So a sales based query, for example, we'll say a specific trail running shoe, that AI review is going to disappear. It's going to be a shopping ad, it's going to be a Google search ad and then it's going to be like individual product pages after that. So I think we're just going to see it depends upon the query that's typed into Google and if an AI overview prompt makes sense, we're going to see that happen a lot and we're going to start to see ads being.

[Cody McGuffey]

Incorporated that for the organic side of things. Oh, go ahead.

[Max Damaris]

Sorry, go ahead.

[Cody McGuffey]

If in the organic side of things, how does one. So if I'm Jack and I want to show up in that AI overview more, how do I do that? Like what kind of content do I need to be posting and then where do I need to be posting this to do? I just need to keep on going. Just like just push them, push them, push them to my site and then just. I just hope and pray that AI overview will pick me up for certain topics or is there a way to gamify this thing?

[Max Damaris]

Yeah, I wish it was clear to me right now because if it was super clear to me right now, it would be winning them like crazy for our clients. But I will say there's a pretty solid like correlation, meaning if you rank at the top of Google, you tend to be placed in those AI reviews at reasonably high rates. And the other thing that we're noticing is if you think about the natural way that people are asking these questions, like we're starting to see those queries be longer in Google because they're getting these things that like making your content match the natural way that people are speaking and answering it in a natural way, almost as if you're speaking back to them with an answer, seems to be helping us get those snippets more so than the traditional SEO blog posts. By the traditional SAO blog post, I mean like perfect keyword H1 with intro paragraph and all of these like perfect H2s, like those not seeming to get in the AI reviews as much as like the natural language response to that question in the form of a blog post.

[Cody McGuffey]

So that's golden. What do, what are some mistakes? What are like the top three mistakes that you see that most people make when it comes to. I want to, I want to kind of bring it out back out from SEO, only just rather to like strategy, like content strategy or maybe even marketing strategy because that's what you do on a day to day basis. What are the most common mistakes that you see amongst people like me, like Jack? What, what kind of mistakes you're seeing?

[Max Damaris]

Yeah, so I'll start on the paid advertising front. I think it's like spreading yourself too thin. Trying to launch, you know, three or four advertising channels at once is very difficult. So I love to say, like, if your product has search volume behind it and there's demand there, maybe consider starting with the paid search channel so that you can know like I'm getting in front of the right person at the exact right time. And if I can convert those people into customers, I've got something. But if I can't figure out how to convert those people into customers that are searching specific queries, you're you, there's a good chance you're going to have trouble outside of, you know, that platform. So it's a good like starter test platform and like figuring out how to get that conversion to work on a single platform. If you don't have that search volume, if you don't have that demand, I would probably pick a specific social platform and a specific target audience and focus my efforts on one of those channels to try and achieve results before I start, like I Don't want to start with a Google search, TikTok ads and meta ads and YouTube ads all at once because it's really difficult and challenging to manage all those things and win doing it that way. So one thing I see is just like spreading yourself too thin on the.

[Cody McGuffey]

Paid advertising side when, you know, if you're, if you're, if you. So, like, let's say I have, I have five options of things I can do, and I'm going to take max advice and I'm going to say I'm going to pick one, one channel and I'm going to pick Facebook ads. How do I know if, when to, when to pivot, when to strategy? Like, how long should I give it? Is it a certain amount of results or clicks or. You know what I mean? Like, so many people are like, I think I'm doing that. But like, I've been going for two weeks, so, like, is that long enough? You know? And like, so when, when would you say, like, okay, you need to pick another channel and try to test another one?

[Max Damaris]

Yeah, that's a great question. It's. It's also like a hard question to answer too, because if you're doing something horribly wrong, it could be hard to recognize.

[Cody McGuffey]

May.

[Max Damaris]

Maybe that's the problem. So I think, I think it's a little difficult. But I would say something along the lines of don't be prepared to get a positive return on investment from your paid advertising channels within, like, even 90 days. I would start to say if you could start to drive traffic and conversions and get some type of ROI. Not a positive ROI, but, you know, maybe it's, you know, a 0.3 ROI or something like that in the first 90 days, that's showing some solid traction and opportunity to optimize that moving forward. If you're getting no purchases in those first 90 days, I'd start to get worried that we have a wrong, wrong product market fit, wrong audience, wrong targeting, something like that.

[Cody McGuffey]

Beautiful. Yeah. And it's great. I appreciate that. And I know it's a really hard question to answer, and that's why I asked it is because that's how Jack thinks. Right? He's like, he's not sure what is normal yet, so he's trying to figure out what is normal. And I think what I heard there, the main thing that I want Jack to take away is you said 90 days. Like, we're talking, like, we're talking months here. We're not talking like days of, oh, I tried this, I tried to post on tick Tock three times and like it just didn't work, you know, but, well, it's you, you post it three times, for God's sakes, right? This stuff, it should take probably three months to one year sometimes for certain strategies to even be determine if it's, if it's working or not. And you probably, if you're only posting three times a month on TikTok, for example, you haven't even gave it a good shot. That's not even trying actually. So you can't even say that it didn't work because it's just not enough volume.

[Max Damaris]

Oh, totally. I, yeah. And I think like channel dependent too. So like organic blog posts, for example, three months is like nothing in, in that timeline now it's, it's like six to eight months before you start to see something, start to rank and drive traffic. Whereas at least with paid advertising there's a bit of, like, you pay, you start to get numbers and data right away so that like time horizon can shorten down to those, you know, 90 days that we're talking about. And even now with a lot of organic social media, like, as you're producing pieces of content, you generally get pretty quick feedback about how this is resonating. If it starts to expose you organically to other people and you're getting large amounts of views, that's indicative that you're doing something right. And if not, you may want to, you know, figure out how to change your hooks, change your subjects, change how you're doing things to keep people's attention and get in front of the right people.

[Cody McGuffey]

I love that. What are some of the things that you've seen people do right? And you're just like that. You're winning, you're, you're. It's going to work. Maybe it hasn't worked yet, but it's going to work. Like, what are some things that Jack would be doing that you're just like, Jack, just keep going.

[Max Damaris]

Yeah, it's a great question. So I think like, brand differentiation is one for me now, and that's a hard thing to say, but just like you recognize that brand, it stands for something and it's very appealing to that ideal target audience and you're not just stuck in the mix of everyone else. So if I'm Jack the, the trail runner, I want people to recognize me, trust me and believe in what I have to say, and I need to stand out somehow in order to do that. So, like, finding some way to differentiate yourself among the competition would be great.

[Cody McGuffey]

What's an Example, like any other brand that you can think of, like that you're just like that. They do that really well. They're not necessarily better, but they're just so different that it's just, it makes you think of them right away. Anybody that you have top of your mind.

[Max Damaris]

Yeah, hold on, let me. I'm gonna say the name wrong, so I just want to get it right.

[Cody McGuffey]

Okay, cool.

[Max Damaris]

Yeah. For me, I think in the outdoor space, there's one organization that's done this super well, and it's not an individual person, but they built a brand and it's called Outdoor Gear Lab. So how they've differentiated themselves has been like an impressive way to test gear. So they have like actual testers and they've built this system where they're analytically determining what gear should be best for this scenario based off of specified criteria. And they were one of the first people to do this. There's a few companies that do this really well, and this is a way that they differentiated from the existing piece of content that existed, you know, a decade plus ago. They're like, I'm going to take an analytical approach. I'm going to get real testers on this, and I'm going to assign scores and values to each of the criteria of the gear and produce content around that. And that was a way that they differentiated because you're like, they're so impartial, they're factual, they're logical, and they differentiated themselves from the existing reviewers by taking this super analytical approach.

[Cody McGuffey]

And one way, this is golden. Yeah, thanks, Max. I was, I was literally just looking up as you're speaking. I'm like, that's exactly what they do. And it's called Outdoor Gear Lab. Almost like you're testing in a lab and like you're a bunch of. Basically, you're, you're, you're a scientist, essentially, is kind of giving you a feel deal. And so they probably recognize that their ICP is like the technical person who's like, I want the best performance, though, you know, or. And I care about these specific things. And then they have. If you guys listening to this, you should go to this website. You'll see exactly what Max said it is. Climbing ability. 30. Hiking. Hiking and comfort. 25% weight and packability. 20% support. 15. Construction quality, 10. 10. And then there's a whole bunch of other stuff too. And then they also give you the qualitative, you know, their opinions and things like this too. But it's really backed up with the data analytics part of Things and that's just a unique.

[Max Damaris]

They like brought it all together. It's in their name. Outdoor Gear Lab, the scientific approach. And then they're like, oh, our audience is, you know, this analytical approach. And they just built all their content, their structure around that. And you could do the same thing. Your differentiation might be a little bit different, but that's a great example of, of like really appealing to your ideal target audience and like hammering down on that.

[Cody McGuffey]

Yeah, this is golden. So if, if I'm Jack and I, and I'm Trail Runner. Trail Runner Jack, I don't even sell shoes, but I can do a breakdown of these shoes still, even though I don't sell them. And then I sell because I sell apparel and I sell something else, some sort of shirts that Trail Runner Jack would, would, would buy for himself or his wife would buy for him or maybe buy for my wife or something like this. Like, it's, it's a way to get the con, get the content out, get the traffic in and push them kind of to our products. And that's our unique differentiator, I would say.

[Max Damaris]

Yeah, totally. And we'll take like Trail Runner Jack as the example. Like, so there's the content approach, which is like the, the factual stuff, and then there's the story approach, which is like a different approach that people often take, that people are really good storytellers and they've got a unique story to tell. It's a great opportunity for video based content and social media. So I'm thinking about, actually I'm out here in, in Salt Lake City, Utah right now. I'm a big trail runner myself. I do a lot of, you know, trail running and going up mountains in particular. I'm obsessed with like vertical gain. I love getting more vertical gain. And there's this local guy who lives like 40 minutes south of me. He's. I now follow him. And his social media is awesome because he's talking about his story of like, my goal is to, you know, run 1 million feet of vertical this year. And it's just awesome to follow. Like, he's telling a story about his journey to run a million feet of vert every single year and places that it takes him. And he's building a story into his own personal brand. And it makes you want to keep following him. And if you can find that story, it gives you great opportunity to like, not just create a story about, you know, yourself or what you're doing or potentially other people, but you can combine, you know, content like gear reviews and things like that with a story that you're producing, and then you've got a really great recipe for adding value and creating entertainment.

[Cody McGuffey]

Yeah, I love that. It's. It's really clear. It's funny when you start talking about this stuff, because it's really clear that there's a. Definitely a lane for trail runner Jack here. Um, Trail. Trail runner Jack would simply just be. He's already passionate about the subject because he. We. We already discussed that. Um, he probably already knows people that are trail runners. That's why he's probably so it's like he could even, like, he could wanna have a YouTube video. Cool. He could do that. He could have a podcast, like, where he interviews somebody like Max who's obsessed with vert. And he can say, like, Max, like, why are you so obsessed with vert? What's your vert at today? Like, how much have you. How much vert have you gone this year? And, like, he can do this probably with a whole bunch of other people. Max is gonna know a whole bunch of other people too. It's pretty easy to just talk to somebody and just like, ask them more about stuff. It's. And it's so niched that it's like you're going to be different just by default because you're only talking about trail running all the time. And who's a. Who's more obsessed about trail running that's doing exactly what you're doing. Nobody is, you know.

[Max Damaris]

Totally.

[Cody McGuffey]

Yeah.

[Max Damaris]

And. And pick your poison on. On, like, where you want to go. Like, as a trail runner, for example. Like, it could be vertical gain. It could be. I'm training for my first marathon, my first ultra marathon. My. I, I want to, you know, get to the highest point in all 50 states. There's just so many stories that you can tell there. You pick something that's of interest to you. The other great thing is, like, maybe you do something you're truly passionate about. Hopefully you do. And you're actually having fun doing this. And I think that's an important element to this of, like, make sure you pick something that is going to interest you so that you can actually stick with this for a good hunk of time.

[Cody McGuffey]

It's much easier to go long term. Yeah, exactly. It's much easier to think about, like, okay, well, if this, if this doesn't work in 12 months, or, I'm sorry, in 30 days, like, I'm still going to do this. It's still really fun for me. Yeah. And doesn't mean you have to, like, Know you have doesn't mean. I also think that you don't need to be obsessed with something completely. Completely. Like, sometimes your obsession can grow over time, but you just have to be curious about it and. But it doesn't have to be at 100 level. It could be like 60. Like, I'm passionate about this.

[Max Damaris]

Yeah, totally. And I think also there's some. Some genuineness in. In something like that you're not amazing at. I think there's a general trend of, like, I want to follow the person that's more like me than the elite person. And I think that general trend is helpful to people getting a start right now, which is like, this person's just like me. They're having the same challenges. They're never going to be the professional or elite athlete or whatever it may be, but, you know, they experience the same challenges I do. They have fun like I do. And, you know, I can resonate with that pretty well.

[Cody McGuffey]

So true. So true. I think it's a good time to transition over to rapid fire. You ready?

[Max Damaris]

Yeah. Let's do it.

[Cody McGuffey]

What's your favorite business book?

[Max Damaris]

Favorite business book. This is probably off for me, but it's three signs of a miserable job, and this might be helpful to a lot of people. As a manager, it's been hugely helpful for me to, like, figure out how do I keep my employees happy and around and producing high quality work. But it's also helpful for me in making sure, like, I'm doing something that I enjoy and whatever I'm doing, I'm able to, you know, be happy.

[Cody McGuffey]

Cool.

[Max Damaris]

Yeah. Patrick Lencioni. I love his, his books. They're very unique in that he tells a story while he's.

[Cody McGuffey]

He's like, I know. They're very, very unique in that way. I love, I love reading his books. I haven't read this one, but it's great.

[Max Damaris]

Yeah. So I guess I'll go with that one.

[Cody McGuffey]

Beautiful. Okay, that's on my list. Now. What's one thing that you wish you knew before getting into business? And let's talk about. Mostly about the business of. Of your. My outdoor base camp. What's one thing that you wish you knew before starting that?

[Max Damaris]

Yeah, I think it's the first conversation we had, which is like, pick a more niche audience, but leave yourself room to expand. So I had talked to you about, like, the mistake that I made is I started the website as hikingandfishing.com. it's like super broad at the same time as it's super narrow. It was like not great. So I did a lot of talking about hiking and fly fishing in particular. And I wish I picked something that was able to create like a better, more memorable brand, but also left me room to niche down to start and expand as, as things went along. I just did not pick the niche audience at the beginning and that was a mistake.

[Cody McGuffey]

Great. How many hours do you think that you work on that business per week?

[Max Damaris]

I used to do a lot more. I used to probably do 15 to 20 hours a week at the beginning when I was building it to like a hundred and twenty zero zero zero visitors per month. And I think if you really want to take something seriously, you probably want to make sure you're allocating 10 plus hours a week to it. But like if you're working full time and you're allocating 10 plus hours or something, that's a good hunk of time. You can do a lot in that.

[Cody McGuffey]

If you're efficient and totally possible. When you have a full time job too. Like, I mean you can, you can, you could find 10 hours and we all watch, we've watched Netflix for 10 hours, for God's sakes, in a week. So you've, you've done things that you could carve out that time if you're really, really committed to it and changing your life in that way. So how would you define a creator? Who is a creator to you?

[Max Damaris]

That's a interesting question. So obviously the simple answer is a creator is someone that, who that creates content on any type of media. If I were to say what defines a good creator? I think for me it's someone who does what I had mentioned earlier, which is at the same time that they're telling a story and creating entertainment, they're adding value. So good creators are able to do both of those things either like separately or simultaneously. They're creating entertainment while adding value. And if you can master that, particularly with short form video content, you're going to be likely a very good creator.

[Cody McGuffey]

Do you think that a creator has to produce content to be a greater.

[Max Damaris]

That's an interesting question as well.

[Cody McGuffey]

For example, are you a creator even though you're not necessarily producing content on a daily basis? You're writing content for outdoor. My outdoor basecamp.

[Max Damaris]

Yeah, I think that's a great point. I think if you're creating strategies and other people are executing, executing upon those things, you are a creator. Yeah.

[Cody McGuffey]

Awesome. Who do you think should be a business owner?

[Max Damaris]

Everyone.

[Cody McGuffey]

You're the first one that answered that with that, with that answer. Why?

[Max Damaris]

I think it can it challenges you, it teaches you a lot. Whether you fail or succeed, it's rewarding. If you fail, you fail and you learn something. If you succeed, then it's pretty impressive and self rewarding. So I really think everyone should give some type of entrepreneurial, they should add some type of entrepreneurial thing into their life and become some type of business owner. And for me, business is a broad thing like that could be, you know, real estate investments, it could be content creation, it could be a website, it could be a lot of different things. So I think pretty much everyone should create some, something around their passion.

[Cody McGuffey]

That's such a great answer. You are the first one that I've asked that dozens of times and usually the answer that I get, which is not a bad answer either, it's just, it's different is usually the answer that I get is oh, not everybody should be a business owner because it's so hard and it's so like they, and then they kind of follow it up with like it's so hard. It's not for everybody, it's going to be like painful. Not everybody's built for this. Which is all probably so true. But I tend to align with what you said is like everyone should be a business owner though. Like will everybody like be have the same level of success? No. Will everyone care the same amount? No. I mean, but everyone should because you learn so much about yourself, you learn so much about different parts of the world. You, you learn so much of you, you get to teach your kids like from a different type of lens, different type of perspective on how to create something from nothing and it's self reliance and all this other stuff too. So I agree with you that everyone should be a business owner. Do they have to be full time business owner? Not necessarily. I didn't say that, but I just said that they should own a business, whether that's real estate investments or you're, you're a blog or a site that generates even $50 a month, you're still learning so much more about yourself.

[Max Damaris]

Yeah, no, I, I totally agree. I think if you. Depends upon the connotation of that or like the meaning behind that question. If you're saying, you know, should you be a business owner to be your primary source of income, I think that's a different question. But I think if you're a human being that wants to live a happy life, I think you should very strongly consider starting some type of business because I think one of the most important things in life is having passions. And if you can create a passion in your business or help enhance an existing passion that you had previously. You're going to create a lot of happiness in your own life just by doing that.

[Cody McGuffey]

Totally agree with you, Max. Where can people find you? Where can people learn more from you, follow you along? Vital Design. How can they get in touch all the good stuff?

[Max Damaris]

Yeah, Vital Design, super easy. It's vitaldesign.com if you search Vital Design on Google, it'll pop right up. You also find them on all the social channels. You start to see me on some of the social channels, start to produce some short form video for Vital and then you can find me pretty easily Max Damaris on all the socials or my outdoor basecamp.

[Cody McGuffey]

Beautiful man. Thank you so much for coming on, Max. I really appreciate you.

[Max Damaris]

Yeah, I appreciate you. This is super fun.

[Cody McGuffey]

Totally talk to you soon.

[Max Damaris]

Talk soon.