My Compulsion To Share What I Learn
My greatest pleasure is to successfully help others find ways to make their business and marketing efforts more successful, more productive, and more fun. I’d like my goal to share helpful tips and trends from my own experience and from other experts to be like a little gentle, guiding tailwind, hence my podcast and newsletter, both named “Fair Trends and Following Winds,” a takeoff of the sailor’s expression of good wishes for a safe trip: “fair winds and following seas.”
The challenge of multi-channel campaign management is an art, a balancing act, demanding the right content at the right time while delivering messages that meet your ROI goals.
While I’m not taking on new consulting gigs, I am always thrilled to matchmake my favorite vendors with prospective clients. I’ve referred business to a direct marketing agency, a pay-per-click company, a graphic designer and a fulfillment house. And all parties are delighted.
I’m promoting my book Rockin’ ROI: How to Bootstrap Ecommerce with Performance-based Marketing and accepting speaking engagements and podcast interviews. I participate in discourse around marketing ROI, my passion topic.
As I finished Rockin’ ROI…” I knew I wasn’t done. I needed to start a podcast.
After decades of offline and online marketing channeled into results-oriented campaign efforts, I wanted to share that strategy with entrepreneurs new to promotion and advertising. My idea was to guide others to use all free methods first, followed by the incremental addition of paid programs. Crucial to the success is the requirement to track, analyze, and tweak each method to meet return on advertising goals before moving on to another.
As podcasting was enjoying a surge, I made the decision not to do a chapter on that new subject of the moment; that it was time to wrap and publish the book and find a new way to address marketing industry changes in a more timely fashion.
I knew as I wrote the book that I couldn’t go as deeply into each topic as I wanted. I would use the interview approach to dive into the subjects with other experts, tackling current ideas in the moment. Something another book can’t do quickly.
Recording interviews has been a blast. I began in July of 2021. In this last year, I’ve managed a conversation a month. My guests and I have discussed Dick Clark’s trailblazing techniques, better decision-making, trademarks and business agreements, and ways for consultants to provide greater value, yielding significantly greater revenues.
Topics vary from the benefits of vision boarding, to making our home spaces better us, to marketing with promotional items, coordinating Facebook ads with direct mail, using a quiz to transform prospects and publicity to attract more of them. I’ve learned a lot and thoroughly enjoyed the journey.
Find great strategy for marketing, business, and lifehacks in “Fair Trends and Following Winds” podcast.
In 2022, I added a monthly newsletter, also called “Fair Trends and Following Winds,” writing and curating pieces on trending ideas. I like to follow experts who “practice in public,” sharing ideas as they discover solutions that improve thought leadership, reach, conversions, and more. I enjoy the feedback from connections that find these ideas exciting and useful. Find my newsletter on LinkedIn here.
I use Medium too, as a way to share blog posts, podcast episodes, and increase reach on a large platform. I’ve gone another step to publish pieces behind the Partner Paywall and on Medium Publications, such as Illumination. Medium is just one of the ways I recommend trying to use other people’s platforms to expand your own.
See thirty of those ideas here in “30 Ways To Leverage Other People’s Platforms To Increase Awareness, Credibility, and Revenues.” On Medium. Ha! See what I did there???
My class “How to Add Pay-for-Performance Affiliate Marketing to Your Mix” for the DMAnc.org is available on demand. Students can take classes live or on demand and choose to complete a series to obtain a Digital Marketing Certificate.
My penchant for cutting edge media options reflects the importance to me to know what’s coming, so I’ll have the answers. I’m always excited about new directions our industry is taking. We live in exciting times and they will continue to offer incredible opportunities for marketers.
I created some digital products from presentations and materials for distribution through Etsy, mostly because I think marketers today should be on that platform too.
The Epiphany That Sparked My Passion For ROI
As a media buyer at an ad agency, I was asked to put together a plan to meet certain goals, including reaching a demographic with a certain frequency over a certain period of time. I presented a plan that not only met those goals, but did it under budget. I was so pleased with myself, until my boss told me to go reconfigure the buy to spend every nickel.
I was devastated.
I reworked the buy, but that experience lit a fire under me. I felt strongly that that was the wrong thing to do for the client.
From that point on, I made choices to work in-house for companies, with a bent toward areas that had fixed measurement to track and constantly improve results. That was meaningful work that gave me a purpose and a mission.
I’ve worked on the client side, the agency side and the TV station side, as well in media research. I know traditional advertising (print, radio & TV), infomercial (long form) and sixty-second (short form) direct response TV, affiliate, Internet and social media marketing as well as print, TV and web production.
What’s more, I also understand the requisite package of direct response services from payment processing, TV production, telemarketing, fulfillment, club/upsell, Internet and social media.
It seemed perfectly natural to begin to blog and to join industry groups in LinkedIn to offer advice and share knowledge with peers and prospects. Teaching Media Planning at the college level and training countless staff provided a platform to give back, share “real world” experience that I craved in college, and invest in great people to make them more valuable to their companies.
You can view my detailed LinkedIn Profile, groups I participate in, blogs, and widespread nature of my network across retail, direct response, Internet and social media industries and media at LinkedIn.
The list of household name brands I have served speaks for itself: Better Homes & Garden, Blue Cross, Braun (division of Gillette), Color Tile (division of Tandy Corporation), Columbia House, Eureka Vacuum, HP, Louisiana Tourism and New Mexico Departments of Tourism, M&M Mars, Peninsula Hotels, Platinum Guild, Real Entertainment (Cops TV show), Sears, Soloflex, Time/Life, Rhino Records and Volvo, to name a handful.
Speaking: Canadian Broadcasters Association, Data Protection Association (NAID), Health and Beauty Association Expo, International Institute for Research, Invention Convention, Electronic Retailing Association and Ad Club, among others
For more, check out what I’m liking now and the editions of my newsletter.
Subscribe to my newsletter on LinkedIn.
Testimonials
Find testimonials for “Rockin’ ROI: How to Bootstrap Ecommerce with Performance-based Marketing” here.
“Jan Carroza knows more about how to make an eCommerce business successful than anyone I know. She looks at a business from every angle: operations, marketing, merchandising, and distribution…and figures out the right products at the right price and how to market them profitably. Her book is a “must read” for anyone contemplating an eCommerce business or who is running one and needs to do it better.”
~Laurie Beasley, President, Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc. and President, Direct Marketing Association of Northern California
“There has never been a time when I’ve turned to Jan that she hasn’t been able to answer to the most complex marketing challenge. Jan is the best at keeping up with marketing trends, constantly being curious about new technologies and strategies that are converting and remembering the basics that are still relevant today! This book is true marketing magic.”
~Lauryn Wingate, The Devereux Group, a professional business consultancy
“I have worked with Jan for over 25 years in various capacities…co-workers, client/vendor and vendor/client relationships. She never ceases to amaze me with her knowledge of the e-commerce world. She has exceptional marketing prowess, superior technical aptitude and the demeanor of a caring teacher. Her curiosity for learning is admirable which is only surpassed by her ability to comprehend new marketing technologies and how to successfully apply them.”
~Kathy Kelly, Kathy Kelly Productions, Inc. & Kathy Kelly Photography
DMAnc.org Course Testimonials
“Good breakdown and insight on how the big companies run their programs.”
~Alexandra W., Marketing Specialist
“The nuts and bolts of Affiliate Marketing. The company that I work for is active on Amazon. We sell both vendor fulfilled and FBA. We have tested the Vine program, but I didn’t know that there were Influencer shops. Something for us to look into.”
~Jennifer H., Digital Marketing Manager
“I liked that it went over the basics but also very detailed descriptions and ideas.”
~Chelsea F., Marketing Manager
“I really appreciated the easy to digest format of how the content was presented.”
~Jennifer V., Brand Supervisor
“I really enjoyed the case studies on successful affiliate marketing programs.”
~Alexandra C., Social Media Manager
“Good information and very informative!”
~McCall C., Director of Sales