It was a dark and stormy Thursday. The small office, normally peaceful, was a flurry of anxious murmurs and frantic typing. Tony the intern had brought donuts, but who could eat at a time like this? There had been a disappearance. On tonight's episode of Palm Springs from the Purge, we dig deep to discover what dastardly fate has befallen the online presence of a well-established business. Was it saboteurs? Spies? Walls of fire? Join us as we inspect the crime scene, talk with eyewitnesses, consult with experts, and dredge the lake before making a bone-chilling discovery. A word of forewarning - this episode is not for the faint of heart!

While Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman won’t be joining us, Little Bird Marketing CEO, Priscilla McKinney, rises to the challenge of being the official SEO MythBuster. People have pulled Priscilla aside on numerous occasions to ask her to confirm or deny SEO rumors and gossip. Enough people were asking. It was time for her to get talking. As always, she pulls back the curtain and starts from square one, eliminating jargon and outlining what all the acronyms actually mean.  The reason people have so many legitimate questions is that in this incredibly noisy market of tons of websites, it’s a struggle to be seen. How do we get your website to rank high and be optimized for search engines? It all starts with Google thumbs, and with knowing that Google wants to deliver a “wow” experience to their users.  Google Thumbs See, we left behind jargon and then created some ourselves. But this is an important acknowledgement that how anyone (your 13 yo son, or your 83 yo mom and even your most ideal client buyer) is using their thumbs on Google to find answers to life’s more pressing questions (and where to get the best pizza…)  How Google Works Knowing how Google and other search engines really look at your content is absolutely vital to your SEO strategy. This comes down to the trifecta: Experience, Authority, and Trustworthiness. Expertise is Google crawling your website and taking a look at everything that you have to say. You want to talk about your key topic clusters “six ways to Sunday,” as Priscilla says. Authority deals with hyperlinks — other websites linking to your website and your own website linking to itself. Trustworthiness also deals with links, but it’s about the links that you share, also called outbound links. Google checks to see if the websites you are linking to are reputable and high-quality.  Time to get myth-busting? MYTH: Google only ranks new content. TRUTH: There is a difference between new content and the “freshness” of content.  MYTH: Longer content has more value. TRUTH: More does not always equal more. MYTH: Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising helps ranking. TRUTH: False. PPC and SEO and SEM are different and we break them down.  MYTH: SEO takes at least 90 days to have an effect. TRUTH: Changes take time for the search engine bots to process, but there is no magic to day 90 of your work. We break down what happens quickly and what can take a long time.  SEO strategy is not one-size-fits-all, and there are a lot of nuances to the ever-changing, alive and kicking algorithm. Need a little help? We’re happy to be of service: https://littlebirdmarketing.com/work/ Shoutout to this episode’s sponsors: Fieldwork and The Insights Association 2023 Conference. We're looking forward to being in glorious Hilton Head, South Carolina, April 24th through the 26th for the Insights Association Annual Conference. Known for providing exclusive research and objective brand presented content. The agenda for this year's IA Annual has been expanded to deeply examine four important disciplines: qualitative research, experience management, data analytics and quantitative, and behavioral research. Within each, we'll explore immerging trends, quality advancements, DEI progress and tangible business impact. More information on the agenda, which includes presenters from TD Bank, Mondelez, Masonite, Delta Faucet Company, Fidelity Investments, AARP and many other leading brands can be found at insightsassociation.org Use promo code ACBird to get 15% off your registration. We hope to see you there.

Hi, I’m Priscilla McKinney, CEO and Momma Bird here at Little Bird Marketing and I’m a St. Patrick’s Day birthday! Everyone wants to party on my birthday and have fun. I am a fun person - very outgoing and funny (if you agree, please call one of my kids and let them know). But people often think I am a people person. I’m really not. I’m a “my kind of people” person. What I mean by that is I like people who are overtly helpful, bring energy into the room, give without thinking of getting and don’t take themselves too seriously. I love this industry and have met so many colleagues who have become friends - like really good friends. I had a lot of friends before I got into this industry, but I made room for more. Do you see how much fun I’m having and want to be a part of it? Good news! In this episode I scrap the rules, call my bestie, Sarah Kotva and gossip about people in the industry. It’s all good and you’ll have a great time. So grab a glass of wine with us and let us introduce you to people you HAVE TO KNOW in market research. Then, go forth and connect with them online. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and you’ll be in on all the jokes! Let’s do this! Cheat sheet: Sarah Kotva https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahkotva/ Patrick Olszowski https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrickolszowski/ Ivka Markovic https://www.linkedin.com/in/ivka-markovic/ Aryn O’Donnell https://www.linkedin.com/in/arynodonnell/ Adam Dietrich https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-dietrich/ James Endersby https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesendersby/ Adam Jolley https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamjolley/ Alex Hunt https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-hunt-540ba910/ Vivek Bhaskaran https://www.linkedin.com/in/vivekbhaskaran/ Cynthia Harris https://www.linkedin.com/in/cdharris/ Michaela Gascon https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelagascon/ Lisa Wilding-Brown https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisawildingbrown/ Bob Quesreshi https://www.linkedin.com/in/bobqureshi/ Ryan Barry https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-barry-8354036/ Dominic Carter https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominiccarterjapan/ Ted Pulsifer https://www.linkedin.com/in/tedpulsifer/ Dexter Chew https://www.linkedin.com/in/dexterchewtoronto/ Pravin Shekar https://www.linkedin.com/in/pravinshekaroutliermarketer/ Tony Cheevers https://www.linkedin.com/in/tonycheevers/ Jamin Brazil https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaminbrazil/ Kristin Luck https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristinluck/ Sandy Casey https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandy-casey-a3aa702/ Leigh Caldwell https://www.linkedin.com/in/leighcaldwell/

It’s time to talk about the D-word.  Disruption. Angel Bellon, Senior Director of Insights and Cultural Intelligence at Paramount, joins Little Bird Marketing’s CEO, Priscilla McKinney, and divulges a deluge of facts, hacks, and insights around disruption and trend forecasting. It’s a drenching downpour of mindset-shifting expertise that will change YOUR game. The truth is that business cannot go on as usual. The ever-changing digital landscape and especially *cough cough* Gen Z are disrupting the role of marketing altogether. It’s the role of generations to disrupt, but we’re now living in constant disruption with generational disruption on top of a fast pace of technological disruption and it’s a lot to make sense of at once. It’s even harder for brands to move forward in a meaningful way.  To operationalize disruption, we first need to get clear on the definition. While innovation and disruption are often used interchangeably, they are not the same. Innovation is something new. Disruption is a shift in the industry or with an audience, by redefining how a category typically is perceived.  On the flip side, “a trend is a shift in consumer behavior and values,” says Angel. They discuss why trend forecasting much start with not only understanding your consumer but also being willing to look at your “anti-consumer.” You must ask difficult questions like:  Who is not buying my brand? Who does not value our category?  Who are we repelling with our marketing messages or strategies?  To tackle this holistic endeavor, Angel created a trend toolkit workshop at Paramount, and he generously reveals a significant portion of its content, providing us with valuable perspectives and strategies.  After this episode, you’ll feel like you're drunk from a firehouse, but you’ll at least realize you’re not alone.  Angel Bellon is a Senior Director of Insights and Cultural Intelligence at Paramount. A hybrid strategist and cultural anthropologist with over 15 years of experience, Angel fuses consumer insight with cultural foresight to forecast consumer behavior. At Paramount, Angel oversees thought leadership studies to push organizational thinking both internally and externally with Paramount’s advertising partners as well as inject culture-forward inspiration into the branded content creative process. Previously, Angel founded the Cultural Anthropology department at VaynerMedia, which included designing the agency’s insights methodology and overseeing the department’s output across all agency accounts and agency deliverables such as digital and social campaigns, audio/voice and brand strategy. Angel has presented at Advertising Week, Social Media Week, WPP Stream and the United Nations. Angel holds a Master’s in Media Studies from The New School and is a frequent guest lecturer at The University of Southern California (USC). *All opinions in this episode are of Angel Bellon, not Paramount.” Shoutout to this episode’s sponsor: The Insights Association 2023 Conference.  We're looking forward to being in glorious Hilton Head, South Carolina, April 24th through the 26th for the Insights Association Annual Conference. Known for providing exclusive research and objective brand-presented content. The agenda for this year's IA Annual has been expanded to deeply examine four important disciplines: qualitative research, experience management, data analytics and quantitative, and behavioral research. Within each, we'll explore immerging trends, quality advancements, DEI progress and tangible business impact. More information on the agenda, which includes presenters from TD Bank, Mondelez, Masonite, Delta Faucet Company, Fidelity Investments, AARP and many other leading brands can be found at insightsassociation.org Use promo code ACBird to get 15% off your registration. We hope to see you there.

Reality is reality and finances are finances. There’s a cost and a loss for not finding the right company or the right candidate at the right time. While there is a pendulum swing between when it is a company’s market or a candidate’s market, the pendulum's rate is accelerating— faster than it ever has oscillated before and if you’re not careful it can give you whiplash! Bob Ferro, Founder of the executive recruiting firm Trusted Talent, joins Priscilla McKinney, Little Bird Marketing’s CEO, to discuss the current job market from a company and candidate perspective, as well as the pros and cons of delaying hiring. From Bob’s perch, he’s seeing a huge slowing down in hiring. In fact, he describes it as a pause. However, it’s vital to understand that “if you don't hire a salesperson for a quarter, you've lost two quarters' worth of revenue - minimum.” They also discuss retaining talent. As Bob says, “My number one asset isn't my product and my market and my customers, it's my talent. It's the people that make this company work. We're going to see successful companies shift from recruiting to retention, from the churn of using people as commodities to focusing on them as an asset that they can retain and that those people will have the heart to continue to contribute.” If you are on the hunt for a few tips for candidates searching for jobs in this highly competitive market, you’re in luck!  Manage your expectations about the timeline of hiring Accept that finding a job is a full-time job Rise to the brand-marketing challenge of having a stellar resume and carry that over to LinkedIn Get out there and network Upscale yourself and uplevel your skills - don’t sit around waiting for the call back As an industry-leading sales professional, Bob Ferro’s experience includes both technology and market research. Bob has worked with a variety of industry giants like Apple, Greenfield Online, SSI, Western Wats, Dapresy, Passenger, and Fulcrum. Bob founded Trusted Talent, an executive recruiting firm that specializes in helping Market Research firms find the right talent for the right jobs, and insights professionals find new opportunities.  Shoutout to this episode’s sponsors: Fieldwork and The Insights Association 2023 Conference.  We're looking forward to being in glorious Hilton Head, South Carolina, April 24th through the 26th for the Insights Association Annual Conference. Known for providing exclusive research and objective brand-presented content. The agenda for this year's IA Annual has been expanded to deeply examine four important disciplines: qualitative research, experience management, data analytics and quantitative, and behavioral research. Within each, we'll explore immerging trends, quality advancements, DEI progress and tangible business impact. More information on the agenda, which includes presenters from TD Bank, Mondelez, Masonite, Delta Faucet Company, Fidelity Investments, AARP and many other leading brands can be found at insightsassociation.org Use promo code ACBird to get 15% off your registration. We hope to see you there.

Uncomfortable, squirmy and guilty? Those are the common side effects when thinking about fundraising. But, fundraising isn’t a dirty word. Like any other business or entity right now, non-profits are facing a dilemma:  How do you break through the noise? How do you keep up your own resilience around messaging when it feels like it’s falling on deaf ears? We’re in an attention economy and translating your mission and message into bite-sized pieces is more important than ever. That being said, non-profits’ marketing and fundraising marketing efforts are held to a different standard. No one might complain about getting thirty emails from Lululemon about holiday sales, but getting a half-dozen messages from a non-profit about end-of-year fundraising goals can make people huff and puff and blow your email right until the dreaded trash can. Executive coach and fundraising consultant, Mallory Erickson, joins CEO and Little Bird Momma, Priscilla McKinney, on the podcast to discuss strategy work at the intersection of fundraising and marketing. Mallory Erickson is aimed at supporting non-profit leaders to change the way they lead and fundraise fundamentally. Through her signature framework, the Power Partners Formula™️, Mallory provides unique tools to help nonprofits fundraise more from foundations, corporate partners, and individuals. She has trained over 40,000 fundraisers using her unique win-win framework, which combines best practices from executive coaching, science-backed behavior design, and fundraising strategy. She is also the host of the What the Fundraising podcast.  In their conversation, Mallory and Priscilla unpack how to help people frame the idea of relevance and urgency, and how to clarify your message authentically through storytelling. Mallory also brings up human behavioral design and her studies under Dr. BJ Fogg. According to Mallory, “Fundraising, at its best, is us aligning our core identity and deep desires with the identity and mission and desires of the organization. It's a human coming together with a nonprofit and saying, ‘We both want to see this change being possible and we have different skills and assets to do that. I have some money. You have the skills to create change in the community. How do we come together and do that?’”  If there’s a culture of philanthropy with your donors, then there needs to be a culture of fundraising inside of your organization. “And the very first step of that is that fundraising is not a bad word.” Positively brimming with actionable insight and fodder for a solid mindset shift, this episode is not one you want to miss!

So you want to be the top dog, or rather the top bird? How do you do that? It starts with breaking down the journey from Point A to Point B. Join Little Bird Marketing CEO, Priscilla McKinney as she guides you through organizing your marketing, proactive planning and mindset shifting needed to put your goals together T Since organized marketers are 674% more likely to report success and proactive planners are 3x more likely to report success, the proof is in the pudding. Success means planning your marketing strategy in advance. Yet you can’t start planning without understanding your current marketing efforts. This is where clarity comes in. What is your “Point A”? Welcome to the Order of the Phoenix. While Little Bird Marketing won’t be offering anyone a train ticket to Hogwarts, Priscilla shares tons of free resources, including the Order of the Phoenix Marketing Assessment Quiz to evaluate your brand’s marketing strategy and the best way to push your efforts forward. Everyone loves a good quiz! Once you get clear about where you are currently, she offers clear steps needed to move to what you define as “Point B”.  Using the super helpful (and really crib-able) Little Bird Marketing proprietary SOAR™ System she explains how it can be done systematically. In fact, with the SOAR™ System, our team creates a sustainable lead generation system in just 90 days. Our approach is designed to confidently achieve both short-term and long-term revenue goals, without sacrificing your other priorities. Learn more about the “done for you” and “do it yourself” approaches to the SOAR™ System.  So are you a Parakeet, Parrot, Peacock, or Phoenix? Take the Marketing Assessment quiz to get the pulse on your marketing strategy. Whiz on over and take the quiz: https://littlebirdmarketing.com/marketing-assessment/ Shoutout to our episode sponsor: Fieldwork! Searching for a research partner to handle the details of your next qualitative project? When we say Fieldwork can handle it all, we mean it. From world-class facilities to low incidents recruitment, their team of experts handles the details so you can stay focused on the research. Say goodbye to traditional focus group rooms and recruitment tactics. As market research has grown from the standard focus group to incorporate other innovative methodologies and technologies, Fieldwork has expanded along with it with facilities nationwide and sophisticated global recruitment services. Their detail-oriented staff partners with you to achieve great insights. Focus on the research Fieldwork will do the rest.

At PFTP we’re always pulling back the curtain to reveal the wizards behind the wizardry. To that end, I’m always looking for industry leaders who are willing to share their expertise openly. They are willing to say, “it’s just us behind the curtain and this is how we make the magic.” Today we’re going to talk about all things at the crossroads of shopper insights, marketing and behavioral science. Anne Stephenson has been a guest on PFTP before and when I heard their team at Explorer Research had a new framework for their work I just had to ask her to tell us more! Anne and I are both endlessly curious. You’ll love this guest. Welcome back, Anne Stephenson! Anne Stephenson, Founding Partner of Explorer Research, is a behavioral science shopping insights expert helping clients develop and launch effective retail strategies grounded in shopper behavior. With over 30 years of marketing and research experience with packaged goods, retail, pharmaceutical and more, she captures and translates shopper behavior to help brands create winning campaigns and experience great business impact.  None of us shop the same as we did 3 years ago. The customer journey has changed. Shopping is no longer a linear experience. Many questions need to be asked and answered with fresh perspective:  What are the category motivations when people are actually shopping?  What are the internal and highly personalized motivations for shopping?  What is driving individual shopping trips?  How are personal values interacting with external shopper influences? Now, more than ever before, we need to look at shoppers from a holistic, total person standpoint. Being able to see the shopper as a person from multiple perspectives is important for brands. This kind of thinking needs a framework - a framework that can deliver compelling insights about how to activate your shopper.  Let’s discuss with Anne on the Ponderings from the Perch Podcast. And in case you’d like to snag yourself an amazing blazer, here’s the link to Smythe that Priscilla promised! https://shopsmythe.com Thanks for the hot shopping tip, Anne!  Shoutout to our sponsors Ag Access and Year of Joy! Uncovering insights in the agricultural industry can seem like looking for a needle in a haystack. Luckily, Ag Access is a team of needle-finding experts! From recruitment and survey design to planning and execution of custom full-service market research projects, you can count on Ag Access to deliver expertise and meaningful outcomes. Our 400,000+ member community covers the breadth of the agriculture chain, including technology, ag sales, crop growers, livestock producers, feed supply and more. With a full-time engagement center, research logistics team, and 400,000 member-strong insights community, Ag Access is an irreplaceable bridge between researchers and professionals in the agriculture industry. Visit ag-access.com to learn more.  Are you looking for more joy in your life? Do you wanna improve your well-being? Increase your sense of belonging? Create more impact? Or simply have more fun? If you said yes to any of those questions, then check out the Year of Joy online community. If you are ready to find your tribe that helps you live your purpose. If you're ready for more fun, sign up for the Year of Joy at theartandscienceofjoy.com/year-of-joy The doors open to more joy on the 17th of January, so sign up now and be ready to receive that gift of joy. Learn more about the Year of Joy at the theartandscienceofjoy.com/year-of-joy or follow the Art and Science of Joy on Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. Whatever you do, choose joy today.

We've looked at it from all market research from all the different sides on the Ponderings from the Perch Podcast. Why is private equity interested? Why are people looking more to research technology to solve problems? How are people developing their teams in order to deal with technology?  Join Little Bird Momma and CEO, Priscilla McKinney, as she chats with CEO and Founder of Hatch Tank, and VP of Qualitative Research at Numerator, Shamsu Bhaidani about the value of human support when it comes to market research technology. With the push for better, cheaper and faster — and the word that we all have gotten sick of hearing: agile — teams were being asked to get more done with less. So what do they do? They turn to technology. Shamsu shared his observations, “​​What I see is that a lot of people get into using these platforms, do not necessarily use them to full capacity because they know what they know. They don't have time to explore more and take advantage of the different features and the different capabilities, and I just feel that the technology is underused.” Specifically, Shamsu pointed out a shift in the last two years from clients wanting DIY to clients seeking DIT (Do It Together) technology. That is a collaboration. That is partnership. “That's where the human element comes in because everybody's good at what they do. You're good at doing your research. We're good at doing our technology,” as Shamsu says. Human support eliminates a lot of stress around market research technology. It also boosts efficiency. It’s even better when the so-called human support is able to speak to you at a peer level rather than a provider level. Talk about a game-changer! Let’s reiterate: That’s a collaboration. That’s a partnership. That’s the power of real human support. Ah, it’s always fun when two friends get together and talk shop! Catch the full conversation on the podcast with Priscilla and Shamsu! Shoutout to our sponsor: CFR! Businesses don't need research for the sake of research. They need research that leads to a meaningful impact for their customers, their products, and their bottom line. Communications for research is the trusted insights champion to lead you to that impact. They take their ownership of the research process so you can focus on your business and your customers, whether you need quantitative or data analysis for primary research, their expert logistics team has the experience to understand your objectives. They design and execute processes to achieve research outcomes that lead to better decisions. Visit cfinc.net to learn more.

Do not get on the train to “I suck.” When fear rears its head, especially in regards to public speaking, it’s too easy to get lost in the mental story of, “I have nothing to say, and I'm not good at this and nobody wants to hear what I have to say.” That is the train to “I suck,” and it doesn’t go anywhere else. Enter: Johanna Walker.  As a speaking coach and storytelling expert, Johanna joins Little Bird Momma and CEO, Priscilla McKinney, on the Ponderings from the Perch podcast to discuss the stories that we tell ourselves, and how tapping into, owning and sharing your story can transform your business and can transform YOU. One of Johanna’s mantras is: “Go before you’re ready.” While there are a thousand uncomfortable feelings and thoughts that can pop up when imagining getting on stage, being vulnerable and sharing your story, you have to embrace the sensations and drop the stories. If you wait until you’re ready, you may never feel ready. You have to go before you’re ready. When fear arises, “Drop out of the story and into your body, into your breath, into the sensation. Lose the story, connect with the sensation.”​​  Johanna is an artful speaker, and the power of her presence and voice translates beautifully in this episode.  During Priscilla and Johanna’s conversation, they discuss: Fear as a “battery pack” Your voice as an expression of your human truth Curiosity as the best teacher Speaking as essential for business owners – especially those who want to step into thought leadership The power of dropping into the sensations that arise in your body  The process of preparing for a TEDx talk and how it has served her business Johanna Walker is the fear-blasting, storytelling maven for coaches, consultants, leaders and change-makers (also known as a public speaking coach). As a keynote speaker and workshop facilitator, she’s presented for corporations, non-profits, start-ups, community organizations and the TEDx stage, helping audiences develop an authentic presence as speakers, find the ideas they want to be known for, and craft those ideas into compelling presentations. She’s the founder of Craft Your Talk, a transformational speaker coaching program for emerging speakers, and The Speaker’s Playground, an unconventional training program where entrepreneurs and community leaders become confident and memorable speakers. She is the founder and host of Boulder’s Story Slam, where audience members come to the stage to tell true stories about their lives. Johanna’s TEDx talk: “The stories that live in our bodies” Johanna’s TED-style talk: “A Long Drink of Water: How telling the story makes anything bearable” Johanna’s FREE download “Ten tips for telling more spine-tingling stories:” www.johannawalker.com/betterstories   Want more from Johanna? She’ll be speaking live at Insights Marketing Day brought to you by Little Bird Marketing and Fieldwork. Don’t miss your chance!  Don’t let the learning stop here. Little Bird Marketing’s 12-week social selling course is a practical hands-on experience designed specifically to help you network effectively and at scale, build rapport with targeted audiences, expand your influence, and become the go-to authority in your area of expertise. So this is not a quick “tips and tricks” for LinkedIn's success flash in the pan. It's a commitment to changing the way you show up online and experience career-shifting breakthroughs. This is expert instruction in small cohorts with personalized one-on-one coaching. If you're interested, learn more at https://littlebirdmarketing.com/social-influence-course/