Aren Johnstone is the President and Owner of Franchise Ramp, a leading marketing agency in the franchising industry that partners with the world's top fitness and wellness franchise brands. During his senior year of high school at the age of 18, Aren bypassed multiple full-ride college scholarships to purchase his first company, an ecommerce business. By 19, he ventured into marketing and software consulting, hiring his first employee. By the age of 20, his team had grown to five, and he co-founded an agency specializing in media buying for top ecommerce brands, overseeing more than $100M in ad spend.
In 2019, Aren joined Franchise Ramp to introduce cutting-edge marketing strategies from the Ecommerce world to the franchise industry. Since then, Franchise Ramp has served thousands of franchise locations and has been recognized on the Inc 5000 list for two consecutive years, achieving a notable #49 ranking in 2022. He is passionate about entrepreneurship and committed to developing products and businesses that address real-world challenges.

• Aren’s story of how he got started in business during his high school years by selling t-shirts and apparel in Tulsa and then by purchasing an online figure-staking store at 18 years old
• Aren’s journey into Facebook advertising back in 2015
• The specific challenges that come from marketing franchise businesses
• The basics of “hyper-local” ad targeting
• Ecomm vs franchising: the main differences in paid media strategies
• The essential skills needed to be a great media buyer
• The nuances behind high-performing performance creative (*now that’s a mouthful hehe)
• Changes in performance marketing that brands need to be aware of

And more!

Here’s the episode I mentioned about MasterMind groups, featuring Liz Scully - https://www.kennysoto.com/podcast/interview-liz-scully-could-a-mastermind-group-elevate-your-marketing-ep-14/

You can connect with Aren via email here - aren@franchiseramp.com

You can say hi on LinkedIn here - https://www.linkedin.com/in/aren-johnstone/

You can find me on LinkedIn here - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kennysoto/

Past guests of The People of Digital Marketing include April Dunford, Amanda Goetz, Melissa Rosenthal, Bill Macaitis, Miruna Dragomir, Andrew Capland, Erik Newton, Andy Crestodina, Sarah Bedrick, Michael Wieder, Dan McGaw, Kathleen Booth, Foti Panagiotakopoulos, Tommy Walker, Lea Pica, Maya Grossman, Sara Pion, Margaret Kelsey, and more.

Music for this podcast comes from www.davidcuttermusic.com

Over her career, Lindsay McGuire has contributed to the content functions at the largest credit union in Alabama, the most well-known nonprofit brand in the world, and a SaaS company that made five acquisitions within two years. Now as the Associate Director of Content & Campaigns at Goldcast, her days are spent overseeing and creating content around how B2B marketers can use events as one of their top revenue-driving channels.

Her diverse background across various industries makes Lindsay a well-rounded content leader and a strategist who knows how to create a content engine, build relationships across teams, integrate holistic messaging, and think creatively while staying laser-focused on business goals.

Questions and topics we covered include:

• Lindsay’s method to recover from layoffs
• Ways marketers can improve their confidence on camera
• The lessons Lindsay has learned about marketing events and webinars by working at Goldcast?
• What’s the right strategy for promoting and repurposing events?
• What are the keys to strong customer interviews? How can marketers leverage them to improve their brand’s storytelling?

And more!

You can connect with Lindsay on LinkedIn here - https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindsayladeroute/

And you can find me on LinkedIn here - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kennysoto/

Past guests of The People of Digital Marketing include April Dunford, Amanda Goetz, Melissa Rosenthal, Bill Macaitis, Miruna Dragomir, Andrew Capland, Erik Newton, Andy Crestodina, Sarah Bedrick, Michael Wieder, Dan McGaw, Kathleen Booth, Foti Panagiotakopoulos, Tommy Walker, Lea Pica, Maya Grossman, Sara Pion, Margaret Kelsey, and more.

Music for this podcast comes from www.davidcuttermusic.com

Amir Shahzeidi, Head of Demand Generation at Uscreen.tv and Host of the Beyond the Funnel podcast, combines deep SEO roots with a passion for driving growth. His expertise empowers brands and creators to thrive in the digital landscape, through strategic, revenue-centric marketing approaches.

Questions and topics we covered in this episode include:

• The unique challenges you’ll face when you’re the first marketing hire
• How does Amir define demand generation and how to properly measure it
• What does a marketer need to do after demand is generated?
• Examples of short-term marketing tactics that create the wrong incentives for businesses…
• Examples of vanity metrics we need to avoid as marketers and some of them aren’t that obvious…
• What can marketing teams learn from creators?
• What has contributed the most to Amir’s success at UScreen?
• What does Amir look for in new team members?

And more!

Connect with Amir on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/amir-shahzeidi/

You can say hello to me on LinkedIn at - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kennysoto/

Past guests of The People of Digital Marketing include April Dunford, Amanda Goetz, Melissa Rosenthal, Bill Macaitis, Miruna Dragomir, Andrew Capland, Erik Newton, Andy Crestodina, Sarah Bedrick, Michael Wieder, Dan McGaw, Kathleen Booth, Foti Panagiotakopoulos, Tommy Walker, Lea Pica, Maya Grossman, Sara Pion, Margaret Kelsey, and more.

Music for this podcast comes from www.davidcuttermusic.com

Two years after graduating from Harvard with a degree in Applied Math, I quit my corporate job to travel the world with my then girlfriend for 5 years. Together we visited over 60 countries. During that time I launched and exited from my first SaaS, NinjaOutreach, an influencer marketing platform. Nowadays I run Shortlist.io, a boutique digital marketing agency. Our team is 20 people strong and we work on cool problems.

I've been on dozens of podcasts and my style is always to be engaging, energetic, and transparent - often focusing more on the realities and the failures than the highlights.

Questions and topics we covered include:

• The story of NinjaOutreach and what lessons do you take from that experience into the agency you manage today?
• The latest trends in link building, whether or not link building is still an effective way to increase rankings
• How to select websites (what's a good target what's a bad target)
• Behind the scenes look at your data from building thousands of links
• What to expect in terms of results (how long does it take to rank)
• When linkbuilding is most effective and who it's most effective for
• Google Generative Search experience, thoughts on how it will affect marketers?
• Go to SEO and MarTech tools…

And more!

Connect with Dave on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/dave-schneider-8a693115/

You can say hello to me on LinkedIn at - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kennysoto/

Past guests of The People of Digital Marketing include April Dunford, Amanda Goetz, Melissa Rosenthal, Bill Macaitis, Miruna Dragomir, Andrew Capland, Erik Newton, Andy Crestodina, Sarah Bedrick, Michael Wieder, Dan McGaw, Kathleen Booth, Foti Panagiotakopoulos, Tommy Walker, Lea Pica, Maya Grossman, Sara Pion, Margaret Kelsey, and more.

Music for this podcast comes from www.davidcuttermusic.com

Allie is currently the Growth Marketing Lead (formerly the Content Marketing Lead at the recording of this episode) at Sequel.io, a webinar platform that allows you to host events directly on your website. She lives and breathes SaaS start-up marketing after falling into the space while overseas and diving deeper into the realm of content.

Over the years she has become a huge advocate for killing bad B2B marketing and bringing life into every relationship, campaign, and content piece. Connect with her on LinkedIn for marketing insights & the best coffee beans to fuel your day!

Questions and topics we covered include:

• The qualities in a team/company that Allie looks at before deciding to join them…
• Why it’s ok to (and how to) evaluate a company's leadership team before accepting an offer
• What are the pros and cons of working directly under the founder/CEO?
• Why is it important to make yourself visible at work?
• How to do “Self Check-Ins”
• Why it’s important to evaluate the product or service that a company is selling before accepting a job offer
• Should marketers specialize or be generalists?

And more!

Connect with Allie on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandra-smith223/

You can say hello to me on LinkedIn at - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kennysoto/

Bonus Resources

Check out Allie’s Job Search Tracker template: https://l.linklyhq.com/l/1jeDq

Check out her Career Goals template: https://l.linklyhq.com/l/1jeq5

Work Results template: https://l.linklyhq.com/l/1jeq1

Past guests of The People of Digital Marketing include April Dunford, Amanda Goetz, Melissa Rosenthal, Bill Macaitis, Miruna Dragomir, Andrew Capland, Erik Newton, Andy Crestodina, Sarah Bedrick, Michael Wieder, Dan McGaw, Kathleen Booth, Foti Panagiotakopoulos, Tommy Walker, Lea Pica, Maya Grossman, Sara Pion, Margaret Kelsey, and more.

Music for this podcast comes from www.davidcuttermusic.com

Nathan Yeung has over 10+ years of experience advising B2B businesses on their marketing strategy. He has helped companies build their marketing teams from 0-1, delivering GTM deployments, and launching new products into the market.

“You know, 99% of the time marketing gets handcuffed…we have golden handcuffs.”

Questions and topics we covered:

• How Nathan’s past experience as a VP of Finance makes him a better marketing leader
• How would you suggest people find good marketers? How do we make ourselves a “good marketer?”
• What is the most important thing to know when it comes to implementing marketing as a function?
• How long does it take for marketing to become effective?
• What’s the #1 thing you would do in any company as a marketing leader?
• Paying for ops and paying for creative = why it’s necessary
• How to build a marketing team from scratch
• How to avoid getting laid off as a marketer? Is it even possible?

Connect with Nathan via LinkedIn at - https://www.linkedin.com/in/yeungnathan/

You can say hello to me on LinkedIn at - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kennysoto/

Past guests of The People of Digital Marketing include April Dunford, Amanda Goetz, Melissa Rosenthal, Bill Macaitis, Miruna Dragomir, Andrew Capland, Erik Newton, Andy Crestodina, Sarah Bedrick, Michael Wieder, Dan McGaw, Kathleen Booth, Foti Panagiotakopoulos, Tommy Walker, Lea Pica, Maya Grossman, Sara Pion, Margaret Kelsey, and more.

Music for this podcast comes from www.davidcuttermusic.com

This is a special episode of The People of Digital Marketing. In this episode, I talk briefly about the future of SEO. It’s hard to predict what will happen in the future but, there are some things I’m willing to bet on (with actual money too) when it comes to how marketers will approach Search as a channel.

What are your thoughts? How is your team preparing for the future when it comes to SEO?

You can say hello to me on LinkedIn at - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kennysoto/

Past guests of The People of Digital Marketing include April Dunford, Amanda Goetz, Melissa Rosenthal, Bill Macaitis, Miruna Dragomir, Andrew Capland, Erik Newton, Andy Crestodina, Sarah Bedrick, Michael Wieder, Dan McGaw, Kathleen Booth, Foti Panagiotakopoulos, Tommy Walker, Lea Pica, Maya Grossman, Sara Pion, Margaret Kelsey, and more.

Music for this podcast comes from www.davidcuttermusic.com

Justin consults, advises, and executes content distribution and repurposing strategies for growing SaaS companies and founders. He is the host of the Distribution First podcast and creator of the Content Repurposing Roadmap.

Questions and topics we covered include:

• Justin’s origin story from experiencing a 2022 tech layoff to diving into solopreneurship
• How to manage creating content at scale
• Why is content distribution a challenge for most B2B businesses?
• The rookie mistakes Justin wishes he knew about before becoming a content marketer
• How Justin approaches repurposing podcast content (a “walkthrough” into how he thinks about marketing
• Justin’s content marketing tools

And more!

Connect with Justin via LinkedIn at - https://www.linkedin.com/in/justincsimon/

You can say hello to me on LinkedIn at - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kennysoto/

You can check out Justin’s newsletter here - https://news.justinsimon.co/

You can check out Justin’s content repurposing course here - https://contentrepurposingroadmap.com/

Past guests of The People of Digital Marketing include April Dunford, Amanda Goetz, Melissa Rosenthal, Bill Macaitis, Miruna Dragomir, Andrew Capland, Erik Newton, Andy Crestodina, Sarah Bedrick, Michael Wieder, Dan McGaw, Kathleen Booth, Foti Panagiotakopoulos, Tommy Walker, Lea Pica, Maya Grossman, Sara Pion, Margaret Kelsey, and more.

Music for this podcast comes from www.davidcuttermusic.com