Duray - Viaduct Generation (00:00) Hello everyone, my name is Duray. I am the South African SEO co-founder of Viaduct Generation and I am here with another episode on the wise build bridges. The wise build bridges believe that in uncertain times, the wise do in fact build bridges. They share ideas, build connections and help others grow. I am here with a special guest today, Daniel, marketing manager from Topan Group. Daniel, thanks so much for being here. I appreciate it. Daniel (00:24) Hello everyone and thank you for inviting me, it's a pleasure to be here. Duray - Viaduct Generation (00:28) Thanks, Daniel Topan Group, tell us what is it that you guys are doing on a day to day basis? Daniel (00:32) Topang Group is a fencing and hoarding specialist focused on the tier 1 construction companies. Our focus is in building long-term relationships with the clients. not just what we want is to the client once, sort their needs and then move to the next one. We believe that how difficult it to win a new client and we want to build a long-term relationship with those clients. Duray - Viaduct Generation (00:59) That's the dream, right, of any marketing manager, have a customer that really loves what you guys do for a long period of time so that we don't have to work on acquisition all day long. We can really kind of work on retention and we'll touch on that in a moment. But you've been at Topang Group for two years. Am I right in saying that before this they actually didn't have anyone in marketing? Daniel (01:19) You're absolutely right. Toppan, before I started there, they didn't do any marketing. was mostly by references with a client and they referred to a new one. And yeah, they decided that they wanted to keep growing or growing faster. And that's they brought me in. you actually can see the difference, not just the world tone. I think it has been a... team effort. Obviously adding marketing to the equation of the whole company and the product, how it is delivered, it is looked after the client, adding marketing to the equation has definitely boosted the business. Duray - Viaduct Generation (01:59) What's one thing that you may be particularly proud of that the impact that you're trying to make if we're going to get specific? Daniel (02:04) One thing that I'm really proud of, and it's becoming even more obvious now because we are doing more campaigns in different areas, is that the clients... Companies, they are not clients yet. They have recognized already our name. So at the beginning it was for the sales people, especially when they went on calls. prospects, they were asked who they were. Now they recognize the name, I have seen you in this event or I have received your newsletter or I follow you on LinkedIn or I have seen your website. I'm really proud that the name is more recognized and that's partially or in a big impact by marketing. Duray - Viaduct Generation (02:44) I think it's important for us to recognize that right and to celebrate those small wins because often times when a massive deal closes everyone high fives the sales team and marketing is left there kind of with their hand up so it's important that we take a moment to reflect back on our successes so well done on that side. You've been there for two years congratulations now Quite often people will fall into marketing is the term I've used. But would you give us a of a whistle stop tour as to how you found yourself as marketing manager for Topen Group? What did you have to do prior to getting this job? Daniel (03:18) Well, I have been in marketing for 13 years. I work in Spain for a good two or three years. Then I started my own company, providing marketing services to small and medium companies. And then I moved to the UK and I... It was happy like starting again or starting from the beginning, marketing assistant, marketing executive through different companies. I would say I specialized or I went into SEO which was something that really hooked me and I found it so interesting and it opened my eyes about how people perceive marketing as well. And then after I went to, I arrived to Topan and the growth was I think... really good and then I became marketing manager. and as you say earlier, I think sometimes we forget to celebrate the small victories and it's quite important in a marketing career to, okay, not just take the responsibility when something goes wrong, but also when something goes well, yeah, it was me. Thank you. Duray - Viaduct Generation (04:31) Yeah, absolutely. No, it's super important that we do that. Tell me a little bit about SEO. You mentioned there that you kind of fell in love with SEO a little bit. Why is it so important that brands in this world that is constantly evolving, why should they still invest in something as kind of almost classic or timeless as SEO? Daniel (04:49) Well, have the same question. years ago that why a certain company had to use SEO and if it was necessary or mandatory to use SEO and I told you that no it's not necessary it's not mandatory it's exactly the same as a car doesn't need four wheels to be on the road obviously it's gonna go faster and better and safer with four wheels but SEO is a is a way to put you in front of people that you might never thought that you could An example for a top on is we have reached people Not out of our area of war because we were nationally the people that we never even Dreamed that we will get in touch with and they are actually they saw us and then they came they went in touch with us or think SEO Is Some people say that SEO is dead. I don't think it's dead at all. I think it's a powerful tool. And I'm not gonna say it's easy, but once you understand how it works, and more than how it works, the possibilities that it has is really interesting. And it's something that I never should let in a corner. I will work on that later, because I think it's really powerful. Duray - Viaduct Generation (05:58) So funny though, sometimes considered the ugly stepsister. SEO is considered the ugly stepsister of marketing, right? We've got paid, we've got PPC, we've got PR, and they all seem kind of wrapped in gold. And then there's just SEO, which is just like daily consistent grafting. And sometimes the value in that is lost. But I think what you say there is absolutely brilliant in that SEO changes the game whereby instead of you having to knock on so many doors or cold call or cold email or... like outbound approach focusing on that inbound approach with search at the helm means that you can really increase your status to a different perspective if mr. mrs. big enterprise company comes and knocks on your door you have a different way of approaching that deal as opposed to you going and saying please can I have some of that budget you know Daniel (06:48) Exactly. I totally agree. And I think sometimes people can see SEO as ranking high, and that's it. And yeah, if my website is in the first position, it's high world. But it doesn't have to be necessarily your website. It can be a blog. It can be... one sub page of your website and that's what the client is looking for and that's what they they phone and it's how or why they they get in touch with you so is is if it's seen as a quite simple thing just ranking then yeah It's not necessary, but it has more behind that people don't see. And I think as a marketer, and especially those on SEO, I don't consider myself being on SEO anymore, even if I still do it, but it's necessary to explain what SEO is about to people to understand that it's not just ranking or adding keywords or links to other websites. Duray - Viaduct Generation (07:42) I think it's also, I guess, heavily dependent on the other elements of your website, right? So if your website has got multiple calls to action, if it's got the ability for someone to subscribe to your newsletter, if it's got the ability for other people to engage and to filter the information for a lead magnet, and if there's a number of ways that my eyeballs on your website can actually support your sales team, and there's a number of ways that I can get in touch, depending on where I am in that market. funnel then the more value SEO is right but if you are essentially only having a buy now button on your website where you're asking people to take the final stage of consideration and purchase your product or even your service then the value is probably less valuable in getting people higher up because sometimes I have conversations with prospects all the time where they're like yeah we've done SEO before and it does increase our leads but we find that the quality drops And I can see how that can happen, especially if you're not targeting the right keywords You start getting inquiries for things that you don't really want to be dealing with but There's always always always that that reference back to that one or two big deals that were there and weren't you there they would have definitely gone to to one of their competitors, so yeah, but this isn't a SEO podcast as much as we have done in so in the past this is a Podcasts to highlight marketeers who are really focusing on building something worthwhile and building it in the right way And I asked you a few questions previously about what are the key things that you think? Marketeers should be focusing on in this kind of new world that we are living in What are some of the key aspects that you think marketeers should be should be focusing their time on? Daniel (09:23) One of the things that obviously has become very relevant lately is artificial intelligence. think everyone at the moment is using it or is curious about it, and not just as marketers. out of the industry there are people using it for everything, for writing emails, to create financial plans or booking holidays. If you go on social media you see reels from everyone teaching you how to do this, how to do that. I think it's a really, really interesting tool as long as... issues properly. one of the things that I think we might be missing is to exactly that, using it properly. And I think it's quite important to ask the right questions to all, in this case, the right prompts to chatgpt, gemini, the one anyone prefers to use. Because if you ask the right questions, you will get the right answers. When I mean the right answers, I more accurate or more tailored answers for you, for your need. Let's say, example, let's focus on, I don't want to focus too much on SEO, but I know that some people are using it for SEO audits to two websites. You can say, okay, how did Topant website and they will find there is a fencing company and they can give you, okay, you need to focus on content for houses. We don't do houses. We are a B2B company. So if you don't send the right problems, it's not gonna give you the right outcome. And I think that's something that we are missing a little bit. It's good to create content, for example. then you can adapt the content to your needs. No, just put the content there, and just straight away it goes to the website, for example. It's something that needs to work, it needs to be adapted. In the advanced case, for example. If we created a content like that, will need to add this. If Topanis have a P2B company, we are focusing on these particular companies, for example, or in this particular location. So it's necessary to adapt the answers that they are going to give you. And for that, have to give them to us, the right questions, if that makes sense. Duray - Viaduct Generation (11:45) think you're so right. think it's so interesting in the world where maybe there's becoming an over-reliance on AI, where AI is going to be copying what's out there already. We've seen these massive publications becoming very upset with these LLMs and AI businesses whereby they feel like they are plagiarizing their hard work and hard graph. They've been paying journalists for many, many years to create this bulk of content and AI has in and just copied them immediately. Now if the bad marketing manager that hasn't had advice from Vidak generation or from someone like yourself and he's just said, Oh, you know what? I can create 12 blogs a day now utilizing AI. This is a 95 % AI usage with a couple of changes here and there and internal link chucked in. If 95 % of marketing managers think like this, which thank God they don't, but if they did, then AI would be getting advice and information. and leaning on existing content which is also created by AI. We've lost our ability to think for ourselves and it's a crazy world that we're living in if we allow that to happen. Daniel (12:53) absolutely agree and I think that work that he saved you is... it should be... or you should go with some personal work as well. It's not just rely on, as you say, it's a snowball. If you create something that relies on something that is not 100 % true, and the next one is gonna rely on that, is not 100, it's gonna be 98 % true, at the end, we'll have a content that is gonna be 0 % true, because it's a chain. So I think that A, it's really interesting tool. but it also requires some personal work, some dedication time to, okay, I have the idea, I have the main idea, have some, even in my case, for example, English is not my first language, it's a good way to get some sentence, it's a catchy phrase, you know? But that, I cannot rely 100 % on that. And okay, from there, okay, I take this, I take that, then I use my experience, the comment of one client, the... and then you create a content that is relevant, has authority, and is interesting for the people, or the potential clients that are reading that content, for example. Duray - Viaduct Generation (14:00) Is AI the Chinese whispers of content? Daniel (14:03) I don't think... I mean, that's a really... That's a really weird question. I wouldn't define it like that. But it's true they can make us a bit complacent. And yeah, I think that everything is done. It's gonna be easier. I can rely, for example. I was thinking about this this morning. If I need to do a website audit for SEO audit of a website, will I trust more Chars GPT or Screamin' Frog? put an example. And probably the things that you get from TACTPT, it will be really interesting and it will be close to some things that Screen Inform can give you. Obviously Screamin' Frog requires more personal work, more learning, some experience and see some things. So I believe you cannot just say, I will trust what ChatGPD told me and I don't need to do Screamin' Frog because Screamin' Frog is gonna give you things that you are, that you know about that website, how people have reacted for very long time and then... And that's what is going to make the difference. I'm not going to call it that, but it's a good point. Duray - Viaduct Generation (15:07) Maybe it has the opportunity to be the Chinese whispers rather than it is. But Daniel, we've got a lot of people that listen to this podcast that are marketing managers, a lot of people in the SEO space. And acquisition is a key focus for a number of us. It's a focus for myself and it's a focus for a number of the people listening to this podcast, as it probably is for you as well as marketing manager. What is one bit of advice you would give to marketing managers that are really looking to improve the acquisition Daniel (15:12) you Duray - Viaduct Generation (15:35) part of the business. Daniel (15:36) One advice that I will give to everyone based on my experience and that I remind myself as much as possible is that it's quite difficult to win a new client, it's so easy to lose a client and it's almost impossible to recover an old client. focusing on customer acquisition, which everyone as a marketing manager, I think marketing manager, marketing assistant, everyone should be focused on that. I think that should be the focus and that should be hard work, but without forgetting that once that translates into a new client, we should look after the client because once the client is gone, It's going to be really, really difficult to bring it back. yeah, it's not just that. It's also the investment that we have to do to gain a new client and then lose it is massive. If we want to recover that or win that client again, it's going to be... huge effort in terms of investment, financial time, effort. I will go, or will advise, once you have winning, which is difficult enough, just try to keep it. Duray - Viaduct Generation (16:47) You mentioned there that it really is important that we look after the client. In your lifetime in marketing, can you give us maybe one or two things that you've done that would surprise most people listening to this podcast about some of the things that you might have done to delight and focus on that customer retention element? Daniel (17:04) Yes, I'm going to give you two examples. One that sounds negative and one that is positive. I will start with the positive because it's always easier. It was a client that... It was a top-up actually. We finished the project that we were doing with them and we included them in the newsletter. simple is the easiest way is a really simple thing we have a external we started a new external newsletter and we include them in the newsletter which obviously was a surprise for them and it was a surprise for us as well because obviously not everyone wants to be subscribed to a newsletter that they didn't ask for but there are many of them that they don't unsubscribe they keep doing because they know us they have worked with us they were happy what happened? I think it was a couple of months ago, some of them, they reply for another project that they have to that newsletter. So we had that client that we never worked with them before, we kept them on the newsletter and when they had another need, another project that they need fencing, they came back to us because they were on the newsletter. So that's a good example of how keeping the client Stay in touch is like having a friend. If you stay in touch with your friends, you always will have the relationship. And there was another one that was good a years ago. I was in a B2C company, Fencing as well, and we had reviews, Google reviews. And probably now it's less usual, but years ago, having a bad review, was a drama. It was an absolute drama. a bad review and most people might be thinking we're gonna close down because of this review. So there were so many reviews that if you face the reviews and you answer the reviews in a positive tone, a constructive tone, in a non-confrontational tone, which is important, you can turn that bad experience, that bad review into something good. I think sometimes that is important. It's just because something didn't go well, it doesn't mean that it has to end well. yeah, that was another example of how people with bad experiences and obviously, you know how Google reviews are. It seems like some people have a day and they just put everything in there. You can turn that into a good situation. it's a thin line between Having a client that things didn't went well, and it's gonna be your worst enemy because it's gonna talk really bad about you to listen, this went wrong, but they fix it, they sort it. They approach me in a constructive way, and that's a completely game changer. Duray - Viaduct Generation (19:32) We're not always going to get it right. A lot of us are in service based businesses. know SEO sometimes, you know as well. You can do all the right things. You can tick all the right boxes, but sometimes the results aren't quite exactly what you need. So I think the... thing a past employer taught me was it's not always going to go right but when it goes wrong your ability to handle that and take responsibility and to still somehow save some face in circumstances where things are not going right really tells the difference which I think is kind of not too similar to what you were saying. Okay there's a few people in this podcast that are in shall we call it quite not so niche spaces. They are in some what I would call crowded spaces. They are selling something maybe less exciting. They are selling something in a saturated market like myself maybe. I'm in SEO. My mom today can decide, hey, you know what? I'm in SEO. There's no course she has to take. She just needs to be convinced herself that she's in SEO. Low barrier to entry, lots of people, high price ranges from the big boy agencies that are charging 1500, 2000 pounds a day right through to offshore or freelancers that are 20 years old. There's a massive mix of people. How do people that are in those crowded spaces, how do they ensure visibility? What things can they do to improve their visibility when they are in such saturated markets? Daniel (21:00) To improve visibility in a crowded market or in a crowded niche, the first thing you need is to be realistic and to know that there are, as you say, 1000 people a year. Well, that's actually not correct. There are a thousand people doing the same as you do. So the first thing I have, I have had experience on that, as you say, SEO is probably the best example, thousand of people doing it, is try, fail and try again. you know, never stop learning. That would be the first thing. But along that process, which is really important. I think the second thing, which is... more important is stay authentic, be authentic and be authentic because that's what makes you different. It's the way how you approach or it's the way how you plan or it's the way how you... present things or the strategy that you make or anything, you definitely have something different. So once you find that that is different, don't try to see like everyone else. Stay as you are. Remain authentic because that's what people... And that's not gonna work for everyone. That's another thing. It's like being you, you are not gonna like everyone. Someone will love you. Someone will say, well, you're another one. Perfect. But those who... love you, they are yours. And that's it. And then that will take us to the previous question. Once you have them, just keep them. So I think being authentic and always working and failing and trying again while being authentic, think that would be the best advice I have experienced and probably I will give to everyone. Duray - Viaduct Generation (22:30) So to summarize there, be authentic in who you are to really differentiate your USP and then be okay with not connecting with some others, but connecting with people that truly will connect with you. And then just don't be shy of hard work, right? You've got to keep that process up. You've got to keep failing to keep succeeding and to keep learning. Have I got that about right? Daniel (22:50) Absolutely, right you have it absolutely right, you know, you know blood right and I Simon The CEO he always say that we don't we don't want all the clients you And you have to be able, you have to be honest about that. At some point you will have right clients and there will be clients that are not right for you. And it's totally fine. And some clients will like you as much as they want. And that's totally fine. You cannot get into SEO or you cannot get into marketing or you cannot get into selling baseball caps and pretending or expecting that everyone is going to buy your baseball caps. will be people that will buy yours, there will be people that will buy from other brands. And it's totally fine. You remain authentic and that's what will keep you in the market. Duray - Viaduct Generation (23:35) Nice, I really like that. And that's really useful. Thank you, Daniel. Tell me a little bit about what advice you would give to a younger audience. Sometimes we have CMOs listening to this podcast, directors of marketing, but sometimes we have marketing execs and marketing interns and marketing assistants and apprentices. And for those people that are starting their career in marketing, what advice would you give to them? Daniel (23:58) The advice for people studying marketing and the advice that I will give to myself from when I started marketing years ago, it will be to not be scared of failing. If you are scared of failing, you never will try things. And if you don't try things, you won't learn. Failure is the best teacher that you can have. And I know sometimes, especially when you are in those initial steps of marketing, marketing assistant or executive, and you have to explain why you have failed. That is not, it's a really uncomfortable position. You have to go to your manager and say, you know, well, I failed. It didn't work as I planned. I know it's not, it's not the, it's probably one of the worst feelings in the world, but that's, it's a good teacher. Obviously, it depends on how you face that situation as well. If you just go to your manager and say, listen, this is not working, then no, you're not gonna learn anything. But if you go to your manager and say, this is not working, and I think it's not working because of this, this, and this, and I think we can do this, this, this to sort it. If you do that, you definitely will have learned. You have a new solution, you have a new strategy, you have a new plan. which is going to work and if not, you're going to keep learning. And the most important thing, and again, because I think that's a feeling that I have had, so I'm talking from experience, your manager is not going to tell you anything or he's not going to fire you. If you come with solutions, you come with answers, most of the times they will tell you, yeah, go ahead, or they will advise you, okay, yes, you can do this, change this. let's do it in this way. And that's the way of learning. Because doing that, means that you have gone through the situation, you have analyzed why it didn't work, you analyzed the possible solutions for that, the possible outcomes with those new solutions, and it's totally fine. It's a really good way of learning and grow yourself and overcome any... situations for the future. Duray - Viaduct Generation (25:51) So for those junior marketers out there who are worried that they have to be perfect, worried that they have to know everything, your advice is to appreciate and accept that they will fail and that when they do fail, making sure that they come with their next steps to their manager as opposed to just crying about it, but being like, okay, we failed here, but this is why I think we failed and this is what I think we can do in the future to learn from it. And I guess it's all about enjoying that process too, right? And knowing that Ultimately, everything that we do and all the campaigns that we put together and the strategies that we put together, they might not fail. They might fail, but to actually enjoy that process and to be okay with it is what sets great marketeers apart from the good ones, Daniel (26:33) Absolutely, absolutely. think and it's a really difficult thing to accept and assume that even go well. I did something and it failed. It's difficult. But that process takes you to the point of thinking that perfection doesn't exist. You will have to be honest. Perfection doesn't exist. And if you aim for 100%, you will fail. You will fail to 10%. But if you aim for 80%, which is not perfect, you probably will get 70%. 70 % is really good. If you go to anyone and say, client, manager, whoever, you say, listen, we have gained or we have achieved 70 % of the goal that we... No one is going to tell you that you have failed. But if you aim for 100 % and then you get 10%, yes, you have failed, definitely. accepting that nothing is perfect. nothing is gonna work perfect. As you say earlier, can go through SEO or anything, tick all the boxes, you have done this, go with the book and still it doesn't work. And you didn't go as you wanted. And it's how it is. It doesn't happen. It's not the end of the world. You just left from there, you think about it, you reflect, you came up with new ideas and... Next time it will be better and it will be better. It never will be perfect. It will be better, definitely. Duray - Viaduct Generation (27:50) I am constantly telling my team perfection is the enemy of progress and that we shouldn't be focusing on trying to get things perfect because they are constantly evolving and constantly changing up. Daniel, thank you so much for being on the Wise Bull Bridges. I think we'll wrap it up there. It's been absolutely brilliant to learn from you. Is there anything that you'd like to say to close off the podcast? And if anyone really resonated with anything you said and wants to get in touch with you, what's the best for them to do that. Daniel (28:19) Well, first of all, thank you very much for inviting me. It has been an absolute pleasure and I hope any of what we spoke today can help to anyone. I would be really happy. yeah, I'm on LinkedIn. My name is Daniel Brun. They can find me there. They can get in touch if I can help in any way or I would be happy to help. Duray - Viaduct Generation (28:40) Well there we go. To all those listening to the Wise Bull Bridges, I hope that was helpful, hope that was insightful, practical and useful. Daniel, you were brilliant. Thank you so much for being on the Wise Bull Bridges and for everyone else, we'll see you at the next one. Cheers for now. Daniel (28:53) Thank