Digital Velocity

Erik Martinez

Welcome to the Digital Velocity Podcast...a podcast covering the intersection between strategy, digital marketing, and emerging trends impacting each of us. Host Erik Martinez, Founder and Lead Strategist of Digital Velocity Agency, brings you a wealth of marketing experience along with his unique perspectives. Join him each week as he interviews industry veterans to dive into the best hard-hitting analysis of industry news and critical topics facing brand executives.

  1. Episode 110: Strip the Buzzwords: What Actually Drives Search Visibility in the AI Era with Cameron LiButti

    26. Mai

    Episode 110: Strip the Buzzwords: What Actually Drives Search Visibility in the AI Era with Cameron LiButti

    The headlines say AI is changing everything about how businesses get found online. Cameron LiButti says those headlines are missing the point. Cameron is the founder of Bidview Marketing, a fourteen-person agency working with medical practices, law firms, and service businesses across the country. He spent four years as a mechanical engineer before finding his way into digital marketing, and that engineering background shapes how he approaches SEO: start with the data, build the structure, and be willing to tell clients what they don't want to hear. In this episode, Erik Martinez and Cameron work through what's actually happening inside search — and what isn't. AI Overviews aren't a new algorithm; they're a new interface sitting on top of machine learning that's been running since 2015. LLMs like ChatGPT aren't pulling from an independent database; they're scraping the web and Google's results. And the businesses that tried to game that system in 2024 are seeing the consequences now. The conversation covers: •          Why Cameron's answer to the most important SEO question hasn't changed in eight years •          How search intent determines whether AI is sending your prospects to you or past you •          What a tax attorney and a medical practice reveal about where AI leads actually come from •          The site structure fundamentals that apply equally to traditional crawlers and AI crawlers •          Red flags to watch for when evaluating an SEO agency or consultant

    32 Min.
  2. Episode 107: Using AI as a Contrarian Thought Partner: How Ryan Shenefelt Stress-Tests Strategy Before Spending a Dollar

    13. Apr.

    Episode 107: Using AI as a Contrarian Thought Partner: How Ryan Shenefelt Stress-Tests Strategy Before Spending a Dollar

    Ryan Shenefelt, digital marketing and AI innovation lead at deNovo Marketing, has been in this work for 13 years. Over that time he's watched what happens when agencies and marketing teams use AI the way most people use it: to confirm what they already think, to move faster, to check the box.   In Episode 107 of the Digital Velocity Podcast, Ryan shares a different approach. He uses AI to argue against himself. When he has a hunch about a decision, he tells the tool where he's leaning and then asks for every reason he's wrong. He separates the "why" and the "why not" into two distinct prompts so the AI fully commits to each side rather than hedging both at once.   This episode covers: ●        How to use AI as a contrarian thought partner when evaluating marketing strategy ●        Why synthetic panels and persona-based focus groups can surface blind spots in a plan before money is spent ●        The case for stopping new tool evaluation and mastering what you already have ●        How Notebook LM reduces the risk of hallucinations by keeping AI grounded in your own data ●        Using AI as a leadership coach to tailor communication across different personality types on your team ●        What "vibe coding" made possible for someone with a limited development background   "I will straight up tell it, I'm thinking this. Why not? Give me five reasons. Give me 10 reasons why not. And it's doing that gut check. It's telling me okay, you think this, what about this?"   Ryan and Erik Martinez also discuss the practical reality of building AI capability inside an agency: why it takes longer than expected to start, how to identify the recurring tasks worth automating, and what it actually feels like to spend 10 hours on something that saves you 15 minutes, and why that's still worth doing.   Ryan Shenefelt is the digital marketing and AI innovation lead at de Novo Marketing. He leads the agency's AI task force and works across account management, digital advertising, and strategy.

    38 Min.
  3. Episode 106: Your Digital Chief of Staff: How Joe Newberry Is Helping Leaders use AI to Reclaim Strategic Focus

    30. März

    Episode 106: Your Digital Chief of Staff: How Joe Newberry Is Helping Leaders use AI to Reclaim Strategic Focus

    What would happen if you had a version of yourself available every morning that already knew your values, your blind spots, and the two or three things that actually need your attention today?   In Episode 106 of the Digital Velocity Podcast, Erik Martinez sits down with Joe Newberry, founder of ExecClone.com, to explore how AI is changing the way high-functioning leaders work. Joe brings a background in tech, finance, and sales leadership to a practical question most business owners avoid asking out loud: how much of what I do every day actually requires me?   Joe tracked his own time and behaviors down to the minute across a 30-day period and found he was only hitting his top three strategic priorities about 40% of the time. The remaining 60% was consumed by what he calls the urgent box, fires, repetitive input requests, and administrative tasks that did not require his level of experience. That data became the foundation for Exec Clone.   The conversation covers the core concept of building an AI "clone" as a leadership tool, including how the True Mirror operating system onboards a user with over 150 personality and values-based questions to create a digital Chief of Staff anchored in who you are and who you are trying to become. Erik and Joe discuss the difference between an AI that knows your most recent conversations and one that holds your past, present, and 10-year goals in memory at once. They explore the concept of emotional drift.   The episode also addresses data security and Joe walks through how ExecClone handles sensitive personal data differently than most cloud-based AI agents, including the option to run the system on encrypted hardware shipped directly to the client.   For agency owners and business leaders who are doing the work alongside their teams, this episode offers a grounded look at what it means to use AI not just as a productivity tool but as a real accountability partner.

    32 Min.

Info

Welcome to the Digital Velocity Podcast...a podcast covering the intersection between strategy, digital marketing, and emerging trends impacting each of us. Host Erik Martinez, Founder and Lead Strategist of Digital Velocity Agency, brings you a wealth of marketing experience along with his unique perspectives. Join him each week as he interviews industry veterans to dive into the best hard-hitting analysis of industry news and critical topics facing brand executives.