5 Solid Strategies You Can Use to Grow Your Business Online With Jayson DeMers

Welcome to the podcast. I am Shane Barker, your host of Shane Barker’s Marketing Madness Podcast. Today, my guest is Jayson DeMers. He’s the founder and CEO of EmailAnalytics, a Seattle-based brand. He specializes in entrepreneurship, online marketing, and SEO. Jayson is from Seattle, the home of Starbucks and the first-ever gas station in America. He completed his bachelor’s in marketing at the University of Washington’s Michael G. Foster School of Business.

Alright, guys, thank you so much for joining Shane Barker’s Marketing Madness podcast with Jayson DeMers on the show. Jayson, you are the man.

Absolutely. So, for all of you who already listen to podcasts, you might know who you are—but if there’s someone out there who doesn’t know who you are, let’s give them a little color commentary about you. I know you from back in the day, from marketing events like Search Marketing Expo. I’d love to hear your story. You’re from Seattle, so that’s interesting. Did you grow up in Seattle? Where did you go to college?

Awesome. Are you a Seahawks fan?

I’m a Niner fan, man. That’s okay. We’ll work that out; we’ll figure it out.

I didn’t realize that. Now, if I didn’t really want to interview you, I’d say let’s call it a day at this point. Maybe I’ll buy you some coffee or a beer next time I see you. I’m not a big emotional man—I never have been—but I feel like we’ll just keep it short. I think we’re both grown men, so I’m sure we can figure it out. We’ll figure it out.

Alright, so you’re in the Seattle area. How big was your family growing up?

Gotcha. So you go up to Alaska a lot?

That’s awesome. Has he since passed? No, he’s still around, or is it just—

Yeah, once again, man, we touched on this a little bit before we jumped on here. But yeah, there’s this whole Coronavirus. Hopefully, it doesn’t put too much of a monkey wrench in things. I mean, obviously, right now, we’re only at the beginning of how it’s going to affect travel, the economy, and business. As we go through, we’ll learn more. It sucks for everybody, right? But you know, I like to think there’ll be something good that comes out of it somehow. And I really hope it reminds people about family and basic needs. Like, if you’ve got food and a roof over your head, you’re already doing better than a lot of people. It’s just perspective.

So, when this podcast comes out, hopefully it’s not worse—I can’t imagine it being too much better at this point—but we’ll get through it. It’s like anything else; you just have to be strong through it. Now, tell us something: do you have an interesting fact from growing up? Something cool your family did? Maybe a family reunion around your grandpa’s birthday—that’s awesome. Anything else interesting? Like, hey, “I had a sister and I killed her”? Not really—you don’t want to say that here because then we’d have to turn it in for court or something. But was there anything fun growing up?

So, you know, it’s funny—when I think Seattle, other than the football thing, which we’ll have to get past, I think about the music scene, right? Because it’s phenomenal, plus coffee—Starbucks started there too. I have nothing but great memories of Seattle every time I’ve been there. It’s a little rainy, but for my fair skin, that’s not a bad thing. Too much sun and I turn into a Red Lobster, so I have to be careful. That’s awesome. Did you go to college in Seattle as well?

The Huskies right?

There we go. Good to know. So did you go to the same college your parents went to, or no?

You guys, Huskies—do you have a good basketball team, or is it football, both?

Alabama. Yeah, that’s not safe territory, but that’s awesome. I remember some good things about the Huskies. My son has a friend up there going to school, so we’ve followed them a bit through sports and stuff. They play rugby too, and I think their rugby team’s not too bad, right? Anyway, there’s some connection there. But okay, so you got through college—what was your degree in college?

Well, it’s funny because my degree is basically the same. You can’t see it, but it’s literally on the wall over there. I did business administration with a concentration in marketing. It’s great, but the funny part is when I graduated—I’m not going to give you the exact date, because you’d probably say, “Oh, that’s when I was born” or something. It was a few moons ago.

Anyway, what’s really changed is how we do marketing. When I took marketing classes, they barely talked about online marketing. It was mostly offline because the internet wasn’t such a big thing yet. I sound like I’m a thousand years old, but that’s how it was. I graduated in 2003, and it took me 10 years to finish, not because I’m unintelligent—at least I hope not—but because I was traveling and kind of avoiding the real world. I was visiting different countries, started a business, opened a bar, did all kinds of fun stuff in between. So when did you graduate?

It was fun, man—the journey I took. It’s funny, you always look at your journey, right? People ask, “Oh, do you wish you would’ve done this or that?” I’m like, “Not really. I feel like my journey was my journey.” The only thing I’ve always wondered is, “Man, what if I’d gone to San Francisco right after high school?” I graduated in ’93, so it was a few moons ago. I live in Sacramento, only about an hour and a half from San Francisco, so if I had gone, I might’ve been right in the tech bubble instead of on the outskirts. I can jump into it and then jump out—it’s like a safe zone. But if I’d gotten involved in some San Francisco companies back then, maybe I’d be a billionaire or maybe I’d be broke. Either way, it would be something different.

It’s interesting times. Even back then it was interesting, just a different version of it. I took a pretty unorthodox journey—I graduated mid-semester from high school, then started college. But, man, I didn’t want to jump straight into college. I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I knew it would be something business- or money-related, or marketing. But I was like, “I’m not just going to finish in four years, be 21 or 22, and start a family. I want to travel a little, have some fun.” So I did. I looked at different types of businesses and started some stuff. Once again, my journey was interesting, and I enjoyed it. It continues to amaze me—the opportunities I’ve had and the journey I’m still on. I feel really fortunate in that sense.

I tell my son the same thing. He says, “Hey, I want to get out of college,” and I’m like, “Listen, if it takes longer than four years, that’s okay. I’m not going to pay for it for ten years, though, so we should probably define that—you’ve got four years of payments, and after that, it’s on you.” But he’s on a good course. I’ve never believed there’s a single right or wrong route; I just say, “From what I’ve done, this is what I’ve seen, and you can take that from my experience.” But you have to do your own thing, follow your own journey, and as long as you’re having fun and figuring things out as you go, that’s life.

So tell me—after college, you got your business administration degree with an emphasis in marketing. How did that jump into content marketing and the things you’ve got going on today happen? How did that transition come about?

Don’t you love that transition when you’re like, “Hey, my side gig is making more than my real gig?”

Yeah, and then you have to pay your own insurance and all the other fun stuff.

That’s why I didn’t graduate for 10 years—I heard it gets really real out in the “real world.” And that’s exactly it. I try to explain to employees and others that for every dollar I make, 40% of it isn’t even mine. And they’re like, “Wait, what do you mean?” They assume if I close a deal for ten grand a month, I’m rolling in it. But, no, not really.

I think being an entrepreneur—and obviously you have that background, and you’ve done a few different companies, which we’ll talk about in a second—a lot of people don’t understand that if entrepreneurship was easy, everybody would be doing it. I’ve said that constantly: it takes a lot of work. Most of the time, I’ve worked for myself, probably 95% of my career. I did have a stint with an agency once—it was a good fit when I really needed some help. It was a friend of mine’s agency, and it wasn’t bad. Everything was paid for; if I wanted to go to a conference, they’d cover it. That was three grand I usually would have had to pay out of my own pocket. These days, I speak at conferences, so I’m lucky to mitigate that cost.

But at the end of the day, you see these companies flying first class, and I’m like, “Dude, I would never do that—that’s five grand out of my pocket.” If you work for Google or whoever, it’s no big deal, but for me, working for myself does have its benefits—I can do what I want. The flip side is, if I used to take five days off, I’d come back to five days’ worth of work. I’m better about that now—we have processes in place and a phenomenal team—so I can leave for a while and things would still be fine, outside of minor issues.

Unfortunately, you learn a lot of this through the school of hard knocks. Nobody really tells you—or maybe they do, but you don’t listen—and it doesn’t sink in until you’re writing that check. Then you think, “Man, it would’ve been nice to avoid all that.”

Yeah, the school of hard knocks. So tell us a little bit—you said you had a few different businesses. Why don’t you kind of touch on that a bit? I know I want to talk about EmailAnalytics—that’s a phenomenal company. We’ll get to that soon. But let’s talk about your history: you were doing your little side gig thing, and then you’ve had a few businesses. Just tell us about that.

Nice, nice. So yeah, you sold that and said, “All right, what’s the next project, huh?”

So how did that work? Obviously, there can be big money in software, right? But you’ve got to get it up and running—you’ve got bugs, you’ve got this, you’ve got that. How has that transition been, going from creating content to running a SaaS company?

And you know, it’s funny—not necessarily “ha-ha” funny—but that’s what’s always scared me about software. I’m not…like, literally, I tried taking one coding class about five years ago. I went in, and it was like, “Oh my God,” because they were saying, “Okay, read this, the CSS goes here, you change this, watch out for commas, watch out for dots. If you miss one, you’ll get an error.” I was thinking, holy smokes. I’ve got ADHD, so I’m not trying to focus on every single dot. I don’t have the attention span for that. I’m the type who’s got 50 things going on. And then they said, “Oh, you don’t want to use a mouse—you want to do it this way.” I took the class, which was a pass/fail continuing education deal. I remember thinking, “God, I have to bow down to the people who can code. If you can focus on that and be efficient, it’s amazing.” But I’ve always been nervous about software for that reason. Of course, if you get it up and running, you’re making residual income, so life is good—just like anything, right? But getting there is the challenge everybody talks about.

Man, that was the realest thing you could have ever heard in your life. I wish he would’ve told me that before I took that class. I went in there thinking, “You know what, I’m gonna study, I’m gonna do this.” And I remember looking at the guy who was teaching, and I’m sure he was looking at me like, “This poor guy is never gonna make it.” Because I was just like a deer in headlights. I was, “Oh yeah, holy smokes, I’m doing this and I’m doing that.” I’m watching the videos, and my brain just never caught up with the concept. Some people don’t even take classes, and it’s like they’re wired for it. Meanwhile, I’m looking at this thing going, “Man, I can’t study enough.” I tell my son, “Hey, study more, do more, get extra help.” And I’m thinking, we have a better chance of seeing God than seeing me become a coder. I mean, that’s probably what I came up with at the end. And the only reason I did it wasn’t necessarily to code everything, it was more to have a better idea so that if I need to jump in or do something—or if somebody’s talking to me from a technical aspect—I could talk some tech talk. But if I go in and double-check somebody’s code, that’s not gonna work too well.

Well, that’s me, man. If I took it a second time, that means the first time I was drunk and didn’t know what I was doing, because if I go back a second time, that’s like going to get beaten up by an MMA fighter or something. I’m like, “I’m gonna go back and talk trash to him again and see what happens.” I’d rather fight an MMA fighter than code. That’s where I’m at. I’ll go tell my neighbor—he’s not far from me—“I’m gonna kick your ass right now,” and I’d probably lose. But that’s okay. I’d rather take a punch than try to learn code.

You know, I would definitely record that for everyone’s entertainment, to see me here—yes, you’re right. I’ll tell you, you’re right.

We’re gonna meet behind, like, Circle K or something like that. I’m gonna kick his ass and let everybody know—and I’ll probably lose. But anyway, we’ll figure that out.

So tell us a little bit: obviously, EmailAnalytics is what you’re talking about. There are good things happening. You guys are moving, not yet profitable, which is pretty common for software—you’re taking steps and going forward. So what else is going on? Because I know one thing you used to do a lot—maybe because of your agency—was writing, right? I mean, you had a really good footprint when it came to guest blog posts, like in Forbes. Did you still do some of that, or are you mainly just focusing on EmailAnalytics as your baby now?

So I have a question about when you sold the agency. I’m always interested in acquisitions and exit strategies and all that. Not that you need to give us the amount you sold it for, but what did you actually sell? Was it the whole agency—like the book of business? Or something else? I’m just trying to figure out, did you say, “Give me this amount, and then I’ll hand everything over,” and you started fresh? It sounds like that was the case?

Isn’t it funny when that happens? I mean, I’ve effectively sold two businesses at this point, and it’s kind of funny—you say, “Yeah, I sold it,” and then you’re like, “Damn, it’s kind of lonely now.” What happened to all those conversations? It’s tough going from fifth gear—grinding, grinding, grinding—to suddenly first gear. It’s great to start a new project, but you think, “God, I have to start from the ground up, which is a challenge.” And then you realize you don’t have 500 people emailing or messaging you. What just happened? It’s kind of quiet out there.

Yeah, for sure. I know that feeling—like, “This is super awesome, I cashed out, yay,” and then you’re like, “Huh, it’s kind of lonely now.” It’s no different than a famous singer who had a hit album five years ago and is now playing local shows and nobody cares. Not that we’re exactly like Guns N’ Roses or something, but it’s like, you were wanted, and now you’re not quite as wanted. Is that good or bad? You have to figure it out. I used to hate it when people would call me all the time, and now I wouldn’t mind getting an email from someone saying they still need me. It’s an interesting transition.

So right now, you’ve got the development team you’re working with, knocking things out. I think another upside, even though it takes more time, effort, and resources, is that you’re also the customer service rep, so you can fully understand the issues, what’s good, and what’s bad. A lot of times, when companies grow, the owner can’t do customer service anymore, and they lose touch. In the beginning, though, bootstrapping and staying close to what’s going on is extremely valuable. I’ve had companies where I was the customer service guy. Then when I wasn’t, I’d check in, and they’d say, “Everything’s fine,” maybe candy-coating it. It’s awesome that you’re grinding it out yourself—it’s better for improving the product.

And what about the content? You said you’ve written over 100 blog posts on the site, obviously to reach your target audience. Do you have a team helping with the content writing, or do you write it all yourself? What’s your system there?

Nice. And then do you write the content around keywords? Or is it more conceptual? Does it also include product features you guys talk about? What’s your mix there?

Absolutely. So you’ve got some competition in what you’re doing, right? I mean, I haven’t heard about many companies doing exactly what you’re doing. Are there any big fish you have to move out of the way?

Awesome. Well, that’s because you’ve got that agency background, and you’ve done that for other…

Yeah, it’s awesome, and it’s funny. I think the same thing—I have a lot of little sub-companies or side projects that I’ve started, and I look at it like, “Man, the amount of knowledge I have now… If only I’d known this 20 years ago when I started, it would be crazy.” Now it feels like I can start some of these other side projects and really make them take off. In six months, I can get them where they need to be.

Yeah, that’s the difference. Before, I spent years grinding, figuring out those clients, and now I’m at a point where I’m almost too cocky, like, “I know what I’m doing because of all the time, research, and work I put in.” It’s almost like having an unfair advantage—but it took a lot to get here. One of those things is, “Man, it’s cool to be able to see that take off.” You’re like, “Oh, this is gonna…”

Well, it’s funny—you touched on this a bit earlier. And, you know, I do have people on my team who are international, but it’s interesting. When you talk about coding, I’ve heard this: you think, “God, this is a huge savings,” but then the reality is, yes, it’s a big savings, but trying to manage it, doing this and that, and understanding what they’re doing is a whole other level, right? Because you don’t know code, you don’t know what needs to be done. You just have an idea, and it becomes very difficult. Meanwhile, producing content is something we can practically do in our sleep—we understand the whole process, so there isn’t a massive learning curve. But when you’re talking about software or something like that, the learning curve is huge.

Daunting, for sure.

So, let’s say I’m someone with limited time and budget—an entrepreneur, a startup—who wants to produce great content. What would you recommend? Obviously, you can’t have zero time and zero money, because you won’t get anything done, but what would Jayson today tell Jayson from 10 or 12 years ago about doing it better?

I’m asking from a content marketing perspective. When you first started producing content, you might have just put things up without keyword research—talked about whatever you wanted. Later, you realized you needed to be more intentional. What’s the goal of the content? Do you want to rank number one for a keyword? Which audience are you aiming for with those keywords?

If I’m going to start producing content, what is the system you use? You mentioned keywords, but do you give the content a month to see where it indexes and then revamp it? What’s your strategy there?

And then do you look at backlinks as well? Like, if you see your competitor’s post is 1,000 words and has 30 backlinks, so you decide to make yours 2,000 words with a video—do you factor in, “Hey, we need to get 30 backlinks,” or at least 15 strong ones? What’s your strategy there?

Gotcha. So, when you put a new piece of content up, you backlink or interlink to your older articles. Or when you post something new, you go back to your old articles and interlink them?

Gotcha. Okay, that’s what I thought. Because that makes sense. Internal linking is super valuable—people don’t understand how helpful that can be for bounce rate and other things. You can keep people on your site, and once you have enough content, you can have 100 different topics interlinked. It’s all tied up together.

Yeah, no, it absolutely does—especially if you’re driving some kind of traffic—because the whole point is to keep people from leaving your site. What I’ve found interesting is that my highest-ranking blog articles, and the ones that drive the most traffic, aren’t necessarily the ones with a lot of backlinks. It’s like Google decided, “Hey, this post is so good, we’re gonna rank it really high,” and I never even worked on building links for it. I’m not saying backlinks aren’t important—everyone knows they are—but there’s more opportunity in focusing on great content and internal links than people realize. That’s what I’m picking up on.

I mean, let’s put it this way: anytime you get the Google blessing—like, you put out a piece of content, and it goes to the first page with no backlinks—you’re like, “Life is good. Google loves me, at least this time.” But then there are nine other articles you wrote that you thought were more phenomenal, and they don’t get the love. For whatever reason, it’s just how it goes sometimes.

I remember actually outranking Google for “Google tools,” for their own tool. I was literally number one. I did a video where I was kind of talking trash—like, “Look at this!” Then I thought, “I gotta be careful,” because it’s like going to the bank and saying, “Hey, you guys accidentally put extra money in my account,” and they freeze your account. So I never publicly bragged about it, but I took a screenshot a few months ago. That was a fun little internal high five for my team.

It was a glitch in the Matrix, trust me, because I was—that’s why I screenshot it. I was like, “We’ve got to get a picture of this, or do a video or something,” because this is just not—you know, once again, it’s that delicate line of, like, “I’ll show it to some people I know, but I can’t tell Google, because then they’ll find out.” Well, I’m just putting it on a podcast, so we’ll see if anybody at Google listens.

I know—it is what it is. The funny part was, like, “Now, how do I make some money from this thing?” I was getting a good amount of searches and that kind of stuff. That was a whole other podcast, probably. But yeah, cool. So, what other hobbies do you have? Man, I mean, other than fighting with developers on a daily basis to get your EmailAnalytics up and going?

So, uh, who’s better, man? Don’t be shy. Go ahead, tell me you’re better, dude, so I can send this to your wife. I don’t even know your wife—I’m gonna find out who she is and say, “Your hubby was on my podcast and said he could kick your ass,” and she’s gonna go, “Hmm?”

Why are you winking? Why are you winking when you said that? Don’t—I know the podcast game; don’t play that with me. That’s the safest answer, buddy. I appreciate that. I know deep down you’re like, “I do want to say something,” but you can’t, because she’s close. You’re at home right now, so safety first. I get it. I say the same thing. It’s important to be safe, buddy. You don’t want to get cut off from those VIP tickets to E3 and all that. So that’s…

That’s it. You’re a smart man, boy—you just keep it coming, huh? I love that. You can tell you’ve been married long enough, because you’re like, “Listen, whatever she says, I do.” That’s good, man. I love it. You even looked down a little bit when you said it—I love it. You kind of…

Real talk—they say, “Happy wife, happy life.” I mean, that’s it. I’m telling you right there. That’s it, right there. People, if you want to go ahead and tell your wife all the time that she’s wrong, you might as well jump on Tinder right now and call it a day. Get the attorney, give her half, and just call it a day. Who cares about anything we said before? That’s the thing you need to write down—just shake your head and say, “You know what, baby? Absolutely, that sounds perfect. You’re 100% right. In fact, I’m so wrong on this one, I can’t even look you in the eyes right now.” That’s how badly I’m off. So, all right.

We’re sneaking up on a year. It’s funny—about a year and a half ago we were talking about it, doing this and that, and we had some transition stuff. But yeah, we’ve been doing it for just under a year now.

You guys have some synergies there, right? Why not? You’re playing video games together, so why not jump on and, you know, as long as she’s always right on everything you talk about, you’ll be fine—you’ll be solid. And as long as all the money…

Yeah. So I’m here to help you. Trust me, it took us about seven months to actually launch, because we were like, doing this and doing that. I’ve got a good system. In fact, we’ve talked about offering it as a service, but hey, you give me a call anytime, and we’ll talk anytime. I’ll let you know what we can do to help.

So we’re at the end of this thing, man—this is the sad part. This is where we get really high, talking about stuff, and then we hit a low where we have to break up. But here’s what I do: I like to ask all my guests, if you had three people you could have dinner with, dead or alive, who would they be? Who would be at your little table of sphere?

I mean, I just want to be a fly on the wall at that table. Honestly, if I was there, I wouldn’t even say anything. I’d be like, “I don’t know if Jesus should talk first or Albert—go ahead, talk. I’ll take notes.” That’s awesome. So, if anybody needs to get in contact with you, Jayson—what’s good? You’ve got your email, people can go to EmailAnalytics—give us the whole shebang.

You don’t want your numbers to drop, because you’d hate to have low email analytics and be the one running the company.

All right, you guys, test him. This is the big test—you have his email address. Let’s see how quickly he responds. Hopefully, it’s not too many people. Thank goodness, I only have one regular listener—my mom—and she’s not really amazing at email, so you’ll probably be pretty solid, man.

Mom, email him right now. Teach him a lesson!

Well, okay, give him an hour—give him one hour. If he doesn’t email you, let me know, and I’ll email him to make sure he emails you back. We’ll interlink the emails so everybody’s connected.

That’s awesome. That’s Jayson. Once again, man, I knew this was going to be a good interview. I really appreciate you being on the podcast. And you guys, if you’re listening to the podcast and you like what you hear, make sure you subscribe. And hey, at the end of all my podcasts, I mention my new course—it’s going to be launching soon at howtobeaninfluencer.com. Go check it out and see if it makes sense for you. If you want to sign up, please do. We’ll be talking about how to be an influencer: less about getting a pink poodle and a private jet, and more on how to build your business, pitch brands, talk to brands, and maybe, one day, make serious money. Who knows? All right, you guys—thank you so much for listening. Take care.