Welcome to the #piratebroadcast™: 

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Connect with Monique
https://dragon-digital-marketing.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/moniqueidemudia/

Connect with Russ
https://russjohns.com/
https://thepiratesyndicate.com/
https://nextstepnext.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nextstepnext/

Audio digitally transcribed by Descript

Introduction: [00:00:00] Welcome to the #PirateBroadcast™, where we interview #interestingpeople doing #interestingthings. Where you can expand your connections, your community, #kindnessiscool and #smilesarefree. Let’s get this party started.

Russ Johns: [00:00:10] And it's amazing day for a #PirateBroadcast. And if you're joining us, or you're checking this out at another time, all the #gratitude in the world. Thank you so much. And today we have Monique in the house. We're going to be talking about marketing, talking about podcasts, and we're going to be talking about a little bit of everything, probably. So welcome aboard.

Monique Idemudia: [00:00:32] How are you doing? Thanks so much. Thanks for having me back on here.

Russ Johns: [00:00:35] You bet. You bet. Once a pirate, always a pirate, hold on two seconds. Looks like we're having trouble. LinkedIn is a little bit finicky at times, so it's really one of those things that we have to see what is the problem? I'm just curious what the challenge is on LinkedIn, but no, I don't want to delete it. Anyway, so if you're on LinkedIn and you can't see this. I'm sorry.

Monique Idemudia: [00:01:05] Switch over to YouTube.

Russ Johns: [00:01:08] Switch over to YouTube. YouTube has always been reliable for me. Is that your case?

Monique Idemudia: [00:01:13] Yes. Yeah. I haven't even signed up for LinkedIn live myself yet. I have to admit, so yeah. I typically use YouTube and it's working well.

Russ Johns: [00:01:23] Okay. Yeah, because one of the things that I've noticed, in fact, I've had some live events that have been... you schedule the event, you build the stream, you connect the stream and then all of a sudden it's doesn't stream. And so you have to drop a YouTube link in any way.

Monique Idemudia: [00:01:42] Oh, wow, yeah.

Russ Johns: [00:01:44] It's disappointing.

Monique Idemudia: [00:01:46] It is.

Russ Johns: [00:01:47] So LinkedIn, if you're listening, let's see if we can't get it fixed. Anyway, let me Let me get rid of this notification, so it's not in my face. So marketing, second half of the year is almost over. We were talking about, and a lot of people are starting to, get back into the groove of thinking about moving back to the office or doing something.  There's been a lot of changes to take place. And one of the things we were talking about before the show started was we've been busy. There's been a lot of things taking place in the marketing world and a lot of people have been actually staying booked and we've got a lot of things going on. So tell us what you've been focused on and what have you been doing?

Monique Idemudia: [00:02:30] Yes. Recently, a lot of people have started getting into video finally. So I see a lot of people that have finally overcome their camera shyness or imposter syndrome, whatever it might have been for them. And they start to produce video content and yeah, that's what I also do. And that's what I help people with. That's good news. I'm happy to see that.

Russ Johns: [00:02:54] You've seen my videos. My Dubb videos where I email you and just like the introduction to get on the show, I am teaching a masterclass right now. I'm doing a mastermind for that.  Five weeks of fun. And you can join in. We're going to be talking about all of the upgrades that have taken place in the last year on Dubb. Ruben and the team are just super supportive of the community and getting feedback. And I've been there since they started. And I think it's an awesome tool and it includes video. You can actually shoot video in I message natively. And it's the only tool I've found, Monique, that you can actually embed a video message into a comment in LinkedIn.

Monique Idemudia: [00:03:41] Oh, wow. That is cool.

Russ Johns: [00:03:42] So there's a super secret process that we have to go through in order to do that. So I'm going to be teaching a lot of that stuff in an upcoming mastermind. So if anybody's interested, you want to know, let's take a look at it. Marcia Reece is in the house. Thank you so much. And Monique is going to be giving away something, a pirate treasure, some pirate treasure today to one of the pirates that is going to join us. And all you have to do is type in hashtag #piratenation into the comments and we'll get a drawing going and share it with you. So thank you for doing that Monique.

Monique Idemudia: [00:04:21] You're welcome. It's my pleasure. I always love helping people out with them their marketing.

Russ Johns: [00:04:25] Yeah. So talk about, you mentioned you have a podcast as well. So let's talk about your podcast. Tell us all about it. How can we find it? Where can we share it? Where can we follow, subscribe and all that kind of stuff.

Monique Idemudia: [00:04:37] It is called the Dragon Digital Marketing Podcast. And you can find it everywhere you can listen to podcasts. We're in almost every directory out there. So wherever you get your podcasts. Apple podcasts, Spotify, Google podcast. You can find it there. It's a small business marketing podcast. It's not for marketers. So it's for small business owners, average people like you and I, put everything in simple terms. It's an educational podcast and it's going to teach you very actionable tips of what you can implement in your business and what you can apply, so you see better results, get more engagement, get more leads, and ultimately grow your business with digital marketing. So that's what it's all about. I have some awesome guests on there and each episode is dedicated to a specific topic. For example, video marketing or behavioral marketing or social media marketing, email marketing, copywriting, whatever it may be. And then it's like a mini masterclass focus on that one topic. And there's a lot of takeaways on there for sure. And there's always a free gift in every episode as well. So you snap up and grab.

Russ Johns: [00:05:52] Are you doing that as a video podcast and then converting it over to audio?

Monique Idemudia: [00:05:58] Exactly. Yes. And the video is on YouTube.

Russ Johns: [00:06:01] I love that. So what have you discovered along your journey in creating video? I'm curious what your results are and what your impact has been because I know there's been a little bit back and forth. Video for me is the most powerful tool in the world and I love videos, so I want to get your feedback and your experience.

Monique Idemudia: [00:06:21] I have the same experience, basically. Video's the most powerful tool. People like to watch videos. They engage with them more. My videos get more engagement everywhere, basically. It's so versatile. You can use them everywhere. You can post them on social media. You can repurpose them. You can create little video snippets and little goodies and tips that you give out, post them in your story, whatever you want. Really, I see early results are in video and it also helps me to drive traffic to other pieces of content or more comprehensive pieces of content. If I put a teaser in a video, just like a minute or even less than a minute and I just put the highlights in there, create like a little trailer. And yeah, that way. Entice people to go over to the main piece of content, which covers more and especially on social, just to engage people. It works really well.

Russ Johns: [00:07:16] So I know you participate in LinkedIn. Is there another platform that you enjoy using video on?

Monique Idemudia: [00:07:23] LinkedIn is my favorite one aside from YouTube, I would say, yes.

Russ Johns: [00:07:28] Okay. Are you going to be a YouTuber? Are you going to grow into a YouTuber?

Monique Idemudia: [00:07:31] Maybe in the future, never say never. I really enjoy producing videos and making video content. So who knows?

Russ Johns: [00:07:39] I recently got on board as an Amazon influencer. And so I'm working through that and it's a little different, it's a little different animal than what I'm used to  just shooting this conversation. And so getting all the pieces of the parts set up, and it's just another outlet that you can actually shoot video and go live. And there's actually an audience there. I actually went live the first time and actually got followers. It's holy cow, this is great. So if you'd like to know more, let me know and I'll share the the link because I don't have it up here right now. Sorry, bad for me. But there's so many opportunities. I just love this thing to be able to share information, provide value to the community. And so what are some tips that you would give as an example on your podcast?

Monique Idemudia: [00:08:33] Yeah. Actually real time marketing and real-time selling is growing into this huge trend. Again the numbers in Asia are already exploding like in China and QVC is coming back and everybody can participate. When they just streamline or make videos and sell on there and you can show your products and how you use them and everything, and people can just see it in action. That's what people ultimately want. What tips do I have? Just go for it. Obviously you set your goals first, get clear about what you want to get out of it and how you want to approach it and then just go for it and you'll get better and better over time. You don't even have to worry about what to say so much because people will engage with you in real time and the comments, and then you can answer their questions and just do what they want to see basically while you're live and showcasing your product, explaining your services, whatever it may be.  I also have a podcast episode about real-time marketing. Smile, be positive, be engaging provide a lot of value that we sell all the time. So yeah, those were the tips that I have.

Russ Johns: [00:09:44] I love that. Kellan, welcome aboard, Russ, well done. Thank you so much, Marcia Reece. Kellan, if you're not aware, Monique is going to be giving away some private treasure at the end of the show, if you would like to type in hashtag #piratenation hashtag #piratenation. In fact, I could bring that up. I can bring that up here, Monique for us. Let me bring that up in the banners. Let's see. How fun is that just the magic of online streaming and Kellan's an individual that is very inspirational, very motivational, and great to have you here, Kellan appreciate you. And the reality is that video is a powerful tool. And I always go down the list, words, images, audio, and video. If you can cover all of those, just like with this show. Tracie, our wonderful producer goes out and the videos here, we do the transcription, she does the transcription. Thank you Tracie for doing the transcription. I love you. And then it goes out on multiple platforms, at least 20 platforms. You can broadcast this show, just write it the same day. So being in all of those areas and sharing this information just organically grows and is showing up every single day. So what's another tip that we can share with the pirates today.

Monique Idemudia: [00:11:16] Yeah, definitely leverage video, leverage audio as well. Podcasting is still growing. It's still a trend. People like to multitask. We're just so busy nowadays. And we want to, be able to tune into things and listen to things as a sideline while we're cooking while we're driving, while we're cleaning our house, whatever it may be. You can do that and you can repurpose your video content to do that. So you don't even have to produce more content necessarily if you want to tap into audio as well. If you're not ready to create your own podcast, yet you can be a guest on other people's podcasts or just create audio snippets or audio grams on your own. And put that audio content out there. Shared it on social. share it with your email subscribers, put it on your website, whatever you want to do with it. So there's lots of possibilities to always have something to post every single day so you can stay front of mind.

Russ Johns: [00:12:16] Do you use headliner for your audio grams? Do you like headliner?

Monique Idemudia: [00:12:20] I use descript for my audio grams.

Russ Johns: [00:12:22] Okay. So you use descript? We use descript for transcriptions as well.

Monique Idemudia: [00:12:29] Oh yeah, I use it for that as well. It's a great tool. I really like it.  That's one of the tools that has really changed my life. I can say when I discovered that, because it is such a time-saver, it's just such a no-brainer.

Russ Johns: [00:12:41] Yes. So tell us how you're using it. So for those that may not know what descript is it's an amazing tool for editing video and audio. And so tell us how you're using it.

Monique Idemudia: [00:12:55] Exactly. So I put my file into descript, whether it's a video file or an audio file and descript will create a transcript of that content for me, and it is pretty accurate. And then I can go ahead and edit the transcript and by editing the transcript, I edit the video or the audio file. So if I highlight a sentence and then press delete. Exactly that portion of the video or the audio where I say that sentence gets deleted. So I don't have to, worry about, when you use Garage Band or Audacity where you have to like wait until the mement comes and look at that audio wave and edit it from there. And it's really tedious and annoying. It takes so much time. It is so easy and quick to create little video snippets, little teasers highlights from there because you can see the texts in front of you and you're essentially working with the text while you're editing a video or audio file. And then it has a bunch of other features. You can easily have people collaborate with you and to share a link, it's safe in the cloud, which is their cloud. And it's included when you sign up for an account. It creates audiograms for you. You can even directly upload to YouTube from there. I believe andyour podcast too. So they have integrations. If your host is Buzzsprout, I know for a fact that you can directly uploaded to your podcast as well, and you can do a lot of amazing things with it. You can get the word document from the transcript and just, yeah very handy tool of your content creator.

Russ Johns: [00:14:29] It's very handy tool and it seems like they're always upgrading it, updating it. It's amazing what they're doing with it.

Monique Idemudia: [00:14:37] It is. Every time I log on, basically I see, oh, there's a new version available and it asks me to restart it.

Russ Johns: [00:14:45] Yeah. And it's really cool because it has this feature where you can actually delete filler words. And in this show, trust me, there's lots of filler words that I speak all the time, there's, you know...

Monique Idemudia: [00:14:59] Exactly. Your ums and uhs and  it automatically detects them and you can have them ignored or deleted in your files. That's one of the most powerful features it has, actually.

Russ Johns: [00:15:11] I love it. I love it. Cathi Spooner is in the house. Cathi, welcome from YouTube. And I don't know what's going on with LinkedIn, so I apologize for the fact that haven't been able to connect. It's usually okay, so I have to go in and reconnect and troubleshoot that after the show, but yeah, we're here. We're having fun. We're having a blast. Marcia says. sizzling content on a hot day. Thanks. We beat a record, Marcia in Arizona, yesterday, 117 degrees.

Monique Idemudia: [00:15:44] Wow.

Russ Johns: [00:15:45] Yeah, I took a picture. I got in the car the other day and the temperature gauge or the little indicator on the dash, 125.

Monique Idemudia: [00:15:55] Oh, wow. Yeah. That is really hot.

Russ Johns: [00:15:59] That's pretty warm, but it's good. So Cathi, type in hashtag pirate nation and Monique's going to be giving some pirate treasure away later on. One of the things that I love about this technology is it allows more business owners to actually produce content. That's amazing content and build communities, just like the pirate community. This thing has been going on for, I think you're probably 440 episode, 445. And so we're on all podcasting platforms. I have another podcast that I do every Tuesday with WinJect studio. WinJect studios is out there,  it's a community of podcasters. So if you'd like to learn more about being in a community of podcasters and accelerating your podcast, that's one of the things that I talk about on Tuesdays. I should probably share it more out on LinkedIn too. And then I'm doing a track a day, Monique creating music. Every afternoon or every evening and putting a track a day up on a podcast as well for music and and then I got Amazon live. I'm staying busy on podcasting and broadcasting and live streaming.

Monique Idemudia: [00:17:15] That's good. Yeah. And that's a good thing. You always want to be a familiar face and a familiar voice for people. So you get that recognition and they associate you with things and then they reach out to you and that's how you get business. You're building authority.

Russ Johns: [00:17:31] So Cathi says, temps are off the chain here in Southern Nevada. It's going to be warm summer. So video, audio podcasting, live streaming, doing nuggets of knowledge in a short video segment, drawing that into other platforms, your website, other platforms, where would you want to drive people to? An offer, a landing page. What do you recommend?

Monique Idemudia: [00:18:00] Yes exactly. At the end of the day, you want to own the audience and you want to get an opt-in so you can contact people later and provide even more value to them when you have them in your database, so to speak. So you really own that audience. Your website or a landing page would be where you want to ultimately lead people to, and you can have video content on that. You can have videos on your landing pages. You can create video sales letters instead of just plain text sales letters and just show your freebie, your lead magnet, and like a little animated video as well. People are lazy. So the more easy, consumable, you make something the better.

Russ Johns: [00:18:39] I call it remove the friction. Super easy. Wendy says, good morning pirates. Welcome to the posse, Monique. Russ's great where we rarely have to swab the deck. Happy Friday. I hope basles going well. Hope you're doing fantastic, Wendy. Hope you're feeling better. Type in hashtag #piratenation. We can get some gifts, get some giveaways and pirate treasure today. So it's amazing to me, how powerful marketing is and how easy it is to build communities. So do you have a community that you're building around this and your subject and in your marketing area?

Monique Idemudia: [00:19:21] Yes, absolutely, I do. And I provide them with valuable digital marketing tips in all areas. So everything digital from copyrighting to trends, the future of digital marketing, how to get started with AI and ML and implementing that into your automations, your personalization. Two web design tips. So really everything. And I share that and it's pure value and yeah, it's really a great community and people reply. I don't use a no reply email for my emails, for example. So people can actually reply to me like you would to a regular person. So it doesn't feel commercial or corporate at all. And it's really nice to see.

Russ Johns: [00:20:08] What platform do you like?

Monique Idemudia: [00:20:10] I use active campaign to manage it and to manage all of the personalization and the content that everybody gets. And yeah, that's how I handle my subscribers.

Russ Johns: [00:20:22] I'm working on including all of my communication and and then I connect it to Gmail. So it's super set. And I can still broadcast emails. I can't do a hundred thousand emails in a broadcast, but at this point in time, that's okay. I use also Drip. I don't know if you do.

Monique Idemudia: [00:20:41] Oh yeah. I've heard of it.

Russ Johns: [00:20:42] Yeah. And it's just, all of these tools are fantastic. They're to the point where... pick a tool. It's just okay, do I use any screwdriver or do I use a power drill? It's just you have to pick a tool and start using it and build it out for yourself. It's really important that you just start, you continue to grow your business and just put it out there. Cause it's so easy now to get started. You can start a business from nothing, an idea, and people don't realize back in the day, back in my day and before the internet was a little different to start a business, but now you can start a business. You can start Amazon, you can sell on Amazon. You have lots of opportunities out there. It's so amazing. And I just love the idea that we can actually pick something up and learn a skill and continue to grow with it every single day. So what about written words? Have you ever used, what is it, conversion AI? Dot.ai?

Monique Idemudia: [00:21:44] I haven't used that yet, but also Blog I have a Blog as well. It's called the Dragon Digital Marketing Blog and written word is still important. It's still not dead. It helps you with your SEO. You want to have a well-rounded online presence and never put all of your eggs in one basket anyways. So yeah, it still works. It still works. Make sure you structure and format and organize your content really well because people are not going to read a full blog post anymore word for word they're just skimming through it. So you want to make that easily consumable as well. Have subheadings have subsections have clear questions on there that you answer. You can even assign an ID to each subsection, each subheading. So it directly jumps down to that section and scrolls down for the user when they click a link and then it still works and you can still make your text content work.

Russ Johns: [00:22:37] It's pretty cool. Cathi says, I used  to send video email to people who sign up for my freebie and trainings. Yeah.  I'm a Dubb fan, so I'm just gonna... I'm a huge fan. So I'm an advocate. I'm a fan boy. But anything that works for you is good. Whatever you're going to use is what you should be using.

Monique Idemudia: [00:23:01] Absolutely. The most important thing is that you just get started and you take the first step. A tool is just a tool. It depends on how you use it and how you leverage it. The most important thing is that you do something and you don't do nothing. You can always upgrade later or switch over to another tool later when you feel like you've outgrown your old tool.

Russ Johns: [00:23:23] Yeah. Cathi Spooner says, that's me. Speed reader with blogs. I'm just skimming.  Marcia asks, what are your best three marketing ideas for today?

Monique Idemudia: [00:23:37] I would say, get started with video, be consistent. Don't give up too quickly and consistently put content out there. And then the third thing would be actually nurture people, provide value. Don't resell, promotional all the time. Don't be salesy all the time, but really focus on producing great content. That is worth following and worth engaging with and word sharing. So you can grow your influence. You're seen as a thought leader you can build a community and that's ultimately what it all comes down to. That's how you build your brand. That's how make your marketing powerful and grow your business. It's just those essential things that you want to be helpful.

Russ Johns: [00:24:22] I love it. I love it. And what's the three least effective tips you see these days.

Monique Idemudia: [00:24:28] Bombarding people, spamming people, sending out intrusive messages, cold pitching, always making everything about yourself and not about how you can help other people or provide value to other people. And just being annoying salesy, having no content at all, or really bad content, stolen content that you've copied from others, things like that. 

Russ Johns: [00:24:54] It's amazing that we still see it.

Monique Idemudia: [00:24:56] Yeah. People will always do it.

Russ Johns: [00:24:59] So I appreciate you being here, Monique. Are you ready to give a prize away before we wrap up?

Monique Idemudia: [00:25:05] Yes. So I have a couple of things. It's like a bundle. It's like a whole treasure. An actual treasure.

Russ Johns: [00:25:11] So the way this works is, what I'll do is I'll bring this up and  if there's anybody else the could type in #piratenation hashtag pirate nation, do it now, and we'll get you on the pirate treasure. And then I'll bring it up and then we'll just do the drawing. And then I'll introduce you to them after the show. Make the connection, follow up. All right, let's do this. We lost a few people since we don't have LinkedIn today, but hey, we're still here. We're going to be drawing. Which one is it? They're both winners. That's all I got to say.

Monique Idemudia: [00:25:46] Yeah. We can make them both winners. Yeah.

Russ Johns: [00:25:48] Yeah. We can make them both winners. I'll introduce you, Marcia. Thank you so much. She's awesome. I will see you tomorrow at the founders' guild, Marcia. I love this. I love this Monique. This has been fun.

Monique Idemudia: [00:26:07] Yes, it was fun. Yeah.

Russ Johns: [00:26:10] So very cool. Anyway, so wrapping up let's recap, marketing, get good video out there. Make sure that you have an opportunity to create great content that you can like and share. Just get started, #makeitmatter, make it happen. And just keep at it. You'll fail to fail if you fail to quit.

Monique Idemudia: [00:26:35] Absolutely. Yes, that's right.

Russ Johns: [00:26:38] Practicing improve.

Monique Idemudia: [00:26:41] Exactly.

Russ Johns: [00:26:41] Thank you for coming back and returning the #PirateBroadcast™ and joining us and sharing some marketing tips today and hopefully everybody who joined in can appreciate this and put it out there. And Cathi says, great discussion. I'll have to chat with you, make the introductions to both of you. Marcia, my son and his family coming over. I'm stoked. Absolutely fantastic. Good for you. That's awesome. Fantastic. And we'll see you next time. So thank you so much everyone for joining us. Thank you so much for being here, being part of the community, continue to share, like this is information that's worth sharing.  Maybe share it with somebody that needs to know. As always, #kindnessiscool, #smilesarefree, so you #enjoytheday. Take care, Monique.

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