[03:00] Why human beats perfect in the age of AI

[08:32] The power of authentic storytelling

[10:35] Funnel not megaphone strategy for content

[12:52] Using content to test your marketing ideas

[14:57] How AI is changing SEO forever

[20:11] Leveraging local partnerships for success

Dan Uyemura: [00:00:00] So anyways, my point was what I think the biggest fuck up that people are doing is they're trying to do SEO like it's 2019 and they need to do this it this way instead. Welcome to the PushPress Podcast, where gym owners learn to dodge bad advice, crush their competition, and actually make money doing what they love.

Let's get after it.

Nick Reyes: All right, so something that I think is really interesting for us to dive into today is marketing. We haven't done an episode on marketing yet. And these are one of those episodes that's always a little bit scary because marketing is part science, part art. Uh, there's a lot of different directions you can go with all things marketing, and it also changes so freaking fast.

If there's one thing that I know, it's that marketers ruin everything. So the minute something becomes good, everyone floods to it over does it. Yeah. Next thing you know, it ain't popular anymore. Right? Have we ever heard of a six week challenge? You know, like that type of thing? So. [00:01:00] Uh, let's spend some, let's spend some time today and dive into what do we think the trends in marketing are looking like as we move through 2025 and, uh, uh, may maybe give some tips here.

Dan Uyemura: Yeah, I think one thing you touched on there that, that I loved is generally speaking, whenever I notice something becomes a trend, I'm trying to figure out how, not how to do the opposite because, um, like you said, marketers. Marketers will sell what's working until it stops working and it only stops working because the consumers catch on and they become deaf to it.

And so it's like by, I think by the time you're starting to hear it being sold everywhere, you're already past that initial, initial wave where it all works for everybody. And you're, you're heading into the decline

Nick Reyes: you're heading. Yep. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. So I think another, another way that I look at it is, uh, what got my attention.

Why did it get my attention? And is that core thing that [00:02:00] worked? Is there some life? You know, is there a different way to see it that is there, is there something I can steal from the core that doesn't play out, that doesn't fall into getting played out with what the main playbook looks like? Right?

Mm-hmm. Uh, one of the ones, and we never end up doing this, but I tell this all the time, uh, that got me as a gym owner was I received a snail mail packet. It was, uh, like a, the postcard of it was like a, like a thick. And it is like, do not bend envelope. And I'm like, there's some pictures in here who's who sent me pictures and I opened it up and it was basically a slideshow, more or less of a software product.

And it was like a, it was like a accounting software. And I was like, this is genius. I They sent you the deck Y Yeah, yeah, exactly. But it was, it wasn't like paper. It wasn't, it was something that you had to open. 'cause it was too valuable to throw away. And I didn't buy it, but in my head I've always been like, that's how you capture attention.

Right? That's one way to do it. Yeah. So anyways. Um, so yeah. You ready? You want us to dive right [00:03:00] in? Yes, I'm in. All right. So there's something that, uh. You are known for around PushPress in some ways, which is your spelling errors that you have always intentionally left in there. And so the first highlight here I wanna jump into is that I think human beats perfect.

Do you want to maybe kick us off on like why you do that? Or maybe why you just said, you know what screwed I'm leaving them in?

Dan Uyemura: Yeah. I mean the spelling error thing is just, that's how I communicate naturally. Like uh, I've mentioned this many times before. I can't type as fast as I can think and stopping my train of thought to go and fix typing.

Like I'm already three sentences further. Like it makes it worse. So for the most part, like I just bang the whole thing out and send it. Sometimes after I get the whole thing banged out, I will look for the most egregious spelling errors and right click on it and fix it. Um, but that's just how I communicate.

And like I've, I've said, I think I've on this podcast before, like people just learn how to speak Dan here. [00:04:00] Um. However, when I, whenever I write an email or anything from a marketing lens, this kind of, well, actually, let me back up. You know what this, this is, this is, it's like whenever you write an email from a marketing lens, you don't talk like yourself anymore.

You talk like you write, not like you speak. And I think when you're marketing, you should write like you speak. Not write like you write. Mm-hmm. Like for some reason the minute we start writing, we turn into like, I don't know, English professors and shit and, hello Daniel. Yeah. Comma enter. Yeah. I would never say that.

I'd be like, yo, like when I see you, wouldn't I be like, hello Nick? Never, I would never say hello. Right. In fact, I wouldn't even say, Hey, Nick.

Nick Reyes: Yeah, yeah.

Dan Uyemura: Like I'd be like, yo, what's up? Like, you know, so like that's how I write my emails very specifically and like every time someone new comes into marketing, I'm like, no, do not touch my email.

Like leave it as it is. This is how I write, this is how I talk, and I want my emails to read like I talk. Yeah. And that includes spelling error sometimes, and I'd leave 'em in,

Nick Reyes: which [00:05:00] is, I think when we talk about what is the, what do the trends look like, you know, there are so many. AI email composing tools like AI is, you know, good at like writing in general.

And so we're, we already can look at an email and go, that's AI. Mm-hmm. We get spammed a ton from vendors trying to sell us stuff and it's very clear when something's AI and when it's not. So I have this, you know, it's like between all of the, the Sora videos and all the stuff that's so perfectly polished out there now, uh.

I actually believe that that human, like obvious human is going to stand out more than perfectly polished as we, as we continue to move forward. Because when everything is catered to. What the world knows about you as an individual, what it knows about your members as individuals. There's not gonna, it's gonna be like everything's perfect for you.

So [00:06:00] like that, that little imperfection is gonna be what captures attention. And that's ultimately what we're talking about.

Dan Uyemura: Yeah. I mean, this is years ago, but when I used to, when I used to be the marketer here at PushPress, I would run paid ads. And the ones that always outperformed were I, they were meme ads.

It was like a woman walking to into a wall that I just stole off Reddit. Then I put like, this is what it feels like owning a gym or something like that. But it was like a meme, like it was the rainiest video, super unpolished. I wrote it with like, you know, Microsoft Paint or something and threw it up there and it would always outperform.

Like all the ones where I had in graphic designer make a little pretty ad or whatever. And then it, and then it kind of dawned on me that like when I'm scrolling my social feed, I skip right past ads and I look at memes. 'cause memes are like shit people make to make funny jokes, you know? Mm-hmm. And so.

For the most part. I do think in some regards, I've said this in other episodes, social media is changing some now, where like the level of quality, if you're gonna make a reel, can't just be you sitting in a car talking to a camera anymore. Like you used to be able to do that before. I think there's a little bit [00:07:00] that's changed there, but if I was gonna send a video to a customer, I literally can just pull my phone, yo, Shayna, you know, I saw your email.

Just wanna reply every video. Here it is. You know, like you can do that raw. Yeah. One take. Doesn't matter if you mess up. Yep. Send it.

Nick Reyes: But you know, even even that, sending a video, it's getting to the point where, you know, I've been testing, uh, my own Nick AI avatar. There are going to be, and right now you can stand up on platforms like, Hey Jen, an AI avatar of nobody.

Yep. That could be a talking head, like there are going to be. AI avatars that speak directly to you and what their system knows about you. So even like this podcast, it's authentically, doesn't have to be us anymore, Nick and Dan. It doesn't. Yeah. But, but it, it, or it doesn't have to be. Yeah.

Dan Uyemura: Am I AI

Nick Reyes: You always know.

'cause the hands.

Dan Uyemura: Oh yeah. How many fingers you got?

Nick Reyes: [00:08:00] But I guess the point is, is like this is authentically us and that's what will stand out.

Dan Uyemura: It just goes back to that initial point I made when we kicked off. Like when, when the, when the industry zigs you zag. Mm-hmm. Always with marketing and yeah, dude, this year you're gonna be getting fucking calls, video calls from AI, fake bot things.

Mm-hmm. When that happens, just be real. Like, just go and walk up to someone face to face to shake their hand, you know?

Nick Reyes: Yeah. Do the opposite. It's so easy. Yep. Exactly. Yeah. So, uh, our next point here, uh, is, is tell a damn story, right? So, uh, we, you know, it is well known that like, brand marketing is essentially dead.

Uh, people buy from people, they connect with people, so. We're starting to see where brands are actually hiring influencers, not within their normal chain, but to be, uh, have a separate story arc [00:09:00] following. You know, their journey into running and it, why, why, uh, Nike is, is their, you know, brand of choice in all of this, right?

So, like, uh, we just did a whole episode on, on tells on, on storytelling that, you know, we'll, we'll, we'll publish of course, and, and you can dive into there to get more. But like, storytelling really is like the crux of what, what captures people's attention at this point.

Dan Uyemura: Storytelling is, and I think especially what you're talking about.

The personal story, um, whether it's you as the gym operator slash owner, or if it's your members, um, people just are interested. Everyone, everything, even AI to be honest right now, is interested in the human story. Yep. So yeah. Lean into that.

Nick Reyes: Yep. I mean, you can look at, uh, Netflix and how they did the drive to survive.

They did full swing, they did the quarterback, I mean. Sports now have evolved [00:10:00] beyond, let me watch a game, which has been what it's, it's been since the NFL was created in the fifties or sixties or whatever the hell it was. Yeah. You watch

Dan Uyemura: a baseball game, there's 18 stories on the field.

Nick Reyes: Yep, exactly. What

Dan Uyemura: about the bananas?

It's banana bananas, like,

Nick Reyes: yeah, like it's, it's going bonkers at this point. Now, to that point, maybe we could, maybe we get tired of stories, you know, because they're, it's

Dan Uyemura: overplayed.

Nick Reyes: I doubt it. But we'll see, you know,

Dan Uyemura: we are wired as humans to be attracted to stories, so. I don't see, I don't see the, the trend away from brand and interpersonal changing anytime soon.

Nick Reyes: I don't either. I don't either. Uh, next one, uh, I call this one funnel not megaphone. So I think when most small business owners post content, they generally take it from the approach of That was, that was cool. Let me toss it out there. And instead, uh, content needs to map towards where [00:11:00] someone is at in the buyer buyer's journey when they are, if you want them to actually consume your product or service at some point in the future.

So, you know, your three stages are gonna be awareness. So, oh, crap. Your gym exists. I am now aware of it. Mm-hmm. And then it's consideration, which is like, oh, huh, they know a thing or two, they might be able to solve my problem. And then decision, which is I'm gonna go book my consult, sign up, buy from them.

And if you look at a gym like, uh, Kansas Athletic Club, which we reference on an earlier recorded episode. Some of the goofy stuff that's out there, like the, you know, lady kicking the water bottle that you catch, you know, take a drink and you know, like throw it back to her. She kicks it back. Like that type of thing is like, just get awareness.

You're looking for reach, uh, people to go, oh, that's funny. Oh, they're in my city. Cool. They exist. Yeah. They're not buying from that. You've done nothing to demonstrate that you're an [00:12:00] expert at what you do, but, so you have to start sprinkling in. Now that I have your attention. Here's what we do, here's how we do it, here's why we do it.

Yeah. Those types of reels and continue to move through. So funnel, not megaphone, anything to maybe add on there?

Dan Uyemura: Um, the thing, the thing I would think is like, you have to continually do all of these, because even if I'm in the awareness stage, I might dip into consideration, but then another one of your funny ones will come across my tongue.

Like the awareness ones are just like, they're hooks to bring you back. Mm-hmm. To, you know, like if you're doing meme stuff or stitches or whatever, following trends. Um, so it's not like you, you literally funnel your content where you're doing one for a while and then another for a while. Correct. You just have to do 'em all,

Nick Reyes: correct?

Absolutely. Absolutely. You have to continue to, you know, sprinkle them in all across the

Dan Uyemura: board. Let me, let me throw a bonus topic in here. Ooh. So, three point a I like bonus content is the free way to test, uh, marketing. Right. In general. So even if you wanted to run paid [00:13:00] ads or you wanna learn, you wanna figure out like, um, you know, dive deeper into a blog topic or whatever.

The, the content is the free, dirty, easy, fast, throwaway version of anything that you wanna say. And so, like, if you want to test, um, headlines, like if you're gonna do paid ads and you wanna test headlines, you could build 10 versions of the same content. You throw it on TikTok, because I, from, as far as I understand, TikTok does not penalize you for publishing the same video.

Um, throw them all on TikTok together and then just see which one gets more eyeballs or more clicks or more interaction or whatever. And then you're like, okay. Then you can, you can continue to refine like your headlines, your test, you can test. Mm-hmm. For free. So that's kind of, um, like an interesting way.

I know people who create like four or five versions of the same reel, but test the hook upfront. So if you look at their, their page, it's like. Five videos. Five videos, five videos, just all the same shit over and over and over again. Yep.

Nick Reyes: Yeah. Yep. Uh, funny you say that, uh, I made a blog post [00:14:00] this past week or last week, and what I decided to test on it was whenever I post the link to the blog on Instagram as a story, I'm actually not gonna give a summary of what the blog is about.

I'm gonna open it with a story and before the story gets to its first, like pull in point, I just stopped it. You know, do, do, do. I wanted to see what the engagement was. Mm-hmm. Best performing blog I've written. Hmm. So there was, to your point, you can test things and go, I wonder if this works. How does this work?

Let me throw it out there. But then just look at the engagement, look at the re you know, look at the, yeah. And then move forward with it. Right.

Dan Uyemura: Yeah. Truth be told, for me, the reason I started doing content years ago was for that reason. Like I just wanted to test how do I communicate things? What am I trying to talk about?

What, what resonates with people in, in my market, in my audience? And, um, it works.

Nick Reyes: Yep. A hundred percent. Yeah. Uh, so this next one, and we could, we might get down a rabbit hole here, but, uh, [00:15:00] but bear with us is, uh, AI, SEO.

Dan Uyemura: Mm-hmm.

Nick Reyes: So. They're, I think, are traditional SEO tactics. And you know, I would say all of the things that you currently hear marketers step on stage or do podcasts about, like it's running its course.

Um, everyone's tried to hack the Google algorithms for years and years and years and years and years and years. And AI is radically changing how we approach all of that.

Dan Uyemura: Yeah. Yep. Yeah, I mean, in short, all the stuff that we know to date about SEO is pretty much dead, uh, or dying. It'll be dead soon. Um, and I think in my opinion where this goes to is you have to be producing content specifically.

You have to be producing content that now no longer can you keyword stuff some page on your website and just rank for something pretty soon. In [00:16:00] fact, there probably is not gonna be any more. Map, pack any of that, because AI is just gonna tell someone what to do. So there's no point, like, gym near me concept is dead for all intents and purposes.

Nick Reyes: Yep. Um, let, let's, before we go deeper, let's just unpack maybe why that's the case. Uh, and I'll, I'll lead off here. It's like what we've talked about with several individuals already here this weekend has been, uh. People are going less to Google and saying, find a gym near me. They're going less to Google Maps and saying, find a, you know, gym near me or whatever.

And instead they're going to chat GPT or they're even going to Google and they're just looking at the AI result. They're querying Google in different ways that they haven't normally done.

Dan Uyemura: Yep.

Nick Reyes: And then why would I scroll down a page? Google gave me the damn answer at the top.

Dan Uyemura: Yeah, so what it, what it essentially is, is AI has created a [00:17:00] speed to information and it's training people to ask deeper questions earlier.

So before where you might say, you know, best fried chicken near me since we're in Nashville, you might say, you know, best fried chicken with a, with a sweet upfront, but very spicy on the back. Who serves high-end pickles? Waffle french fries and his beer on tap. Dude, I'm so, but you see what I'm saying?

Like Yep. That, that is gonna be natural search cadence. Pretty soon I already do that. That's how I search. Now I just ask everything I need to know upfront, because I know with a little bit of like eight more misspelled words up upfront, AI will gimme exactly what I'm looking for, down to like one or two things.

Yep. Um, so I, I actually stopped using Google for a while because I was getting all my answers from perplexity and, you know, a open AI chat, BT and all that kinda stuff. But now Google's like, fuck that. Like, I want the search traffic back. So now that, now [00:18:00] if you ask it detailed enough, you will always get an answer on top.

And I, you can already see where Google's going with it. Mm-hmm. Like, there's just not gonna be search results anymore. It's just gonna be like, why would there be. They've always said that they're trying to make the ability for someone to find something on the internet the fastest as possible, and that is the fastest as possible.

Nick Reyes: Yep. They're gonna have to figure out how to monetize it and, but they will.

Dan Uyemura: No, they're, well, they'll, they're, they'll monetize it with the same ads and stuff. They'll pepper ads through it. But here's the thing is, like a year ago. Maybe 18 months ago AI was like trained on 2022 data or something. Like it was, you know, it was like, mm-hmm.

We don't know who won the Super Bowl in 2024. Like remember, I dunno if you remember asking some of that. I do. But yeah, last week I've written a series of blog posts and I went to, in into the chat, asked like, I wrote a blog post series of blog posts about our operating tenants. I'm only through 10. I got more to do, but I just wanted to see, and I was like, what are PushPress's operating tenants?

I asked Chat GBT. You can ask Google too. Same thing. [00:19:00] And both of 'em came back with all of our operating tenants in order, like they were, they were indexing it daily. Now that's

Nick Reyes: mind boggling.

Dan Uyemura: Yeah. So I mean, we'll kind of get into this about the AI SEO stuff, but it's like you put up content that AI doesn't know, can't know, and can only know through your content, and it will find it and index it, and you will be, you know, ranking for that quick,

Nick Reyes: right?

Yeah. Yep. A hundred, a hundred percent. Uh, and it's only gonna get scarier as we start seeing AI. Begin to penetrate. If Apple ever catches up like iOS where you're, you're asking, you know, Siri for a response and it's not giving you a Google search result, it's giving you the result that you need. We're gonna be, have speed of data so far in front of us that again, it's gonna kill everything that we're currently doing.

Dan Uyemura: Yes. Yeah. So this is gonna be a rapidly evolving field. I do think there's, there's definitely, like, I've proven it with my blog post that I didn't even intend for this to happen, but you can get your stuff indexed into this. The AI is pretty quick and [00:20:00] AI will spit it back as part of their reference to answers.

But you actually have to write stuff that is ultimately massively informational for AI.

Nick Reyes: Yes. Let, let's, let's maybe dive into that. What are some, some of those areas? Uh. I think before we started recording here, we talked about, you know, if you're a local gym and you want your information to be picked up by AI, one of the ways that we can do it is by working with, you know, partners or other businesses within your, within your region, right?

Dan Uyemura: Yeah. So the first thing, lemme lemme take one step back because there's actually a topic that's important. We're over time, but we can keep going all good. Uh, there's a concept called Eat cons, eat, um, content. Um, and that's only funny because I say AI eats everything, but it's EEAT, right? Expertise, experience, authenticity, and transparency and trust, right?

So you have to write posts in a local sense that drive all of those things. And the beautiful thing about this, to be honest, is like gyms [00:21:00] have everything they need to do that they have expertise within their four walls, whatever they train their clients and all that kind of thing, right? They're trained to do it.

They have licensure or whatever in the space that they're in. If they have the experience, so they're actually really in the gyms working with people. They're not just some AI bot izing about mm-hmm what, what's happening. And on top of that, they have members. So like if you get a member review and you surface that in a blog post, that's showcasing your expertise and experience.

Um, because it's actually happening and it's stuff AI doesn't know, um, the authority. So this is a piece that partnerships will come in. So I'll skip that for a second. The a part and trustworthiness, like you're making sure that the AI bots that are, that are spidering your site. Know, like, you know, who wrote it, what kind of, you know, what, do you have an affiliation with the, the, the gym or whatever that wrote it.

You know, why are you picking things for local content? Like, you have to, you have to establish some type of trustworthiness, right? For them to, to know that we should cite you. Mm-hmm. The authority part's the interesting part because if you work for Torrance Training Lab [00:22:00] and you, your blog posts are all about why Torrance Training Lab is the best gym in Torrance to X, eventually they're gonna be like, oh, this guy's self-serving.

Right? So while he might have authority or she might have authority, it's like there, this isn't really, this isn't really good content. It's very, it's biased. Mm-hmm. So I think this is where the partnerships come in because you start to write about other people around you, which spreads. The, you know, it makes, it makes it way, much, way less biased, which is important for this.

Nick Reyes: Yep, yep. Yeah. And there, there's a bunch of different ways to maybe leverage partnerships. Uh, and this is a key one, right? 'cause every of, of everything that you just outlined, but I think in general, the way that I look at partnerships and why, you know, they made the list here, is that. Costs are up significantly for all small businesses, and a lot of small businesses are struggling.

They're looking for, uh, how do I get in front of more customers? They're looking for more potential customers. How do I retain my customers? How can I get growth without [00:23:00] spending a ton more? And you know, I have this theory that. Small businesses are gonna need to circle the wagons and help each other out more than what they have in the boom years when hell, you could open up the doors to anything and it was gonna survive and be fine.

Right? So if, if that's the case, then how can you work out or work with a. The local daycare to, you know, have them do on your blog or like, uh, one of the things I've seen a gym do recently is, you know, work with an A partner to donate committed club prizes or buy committed club prizes at a fraction of the cost, right?

So how can we, you know, find these synergistic relationships with other businesses that serve a similar avatar as you? So, um, to me, that's where we have to go when economy is struggling a little bit.

Dan Uyemura: Yeah. So let me actually give you a real world example of how we can use that with this EAT concept.

Mm-hmm. To actually, uh, leverage AI, SEO. [00:24:00] Um, so you do a committed club and a random winner of the committee club gets. A night of, um, babysitting at the local babysitting service or whatever, an Italian dinner for two and, I don't know, um, a, a glass of wine at the wine court, whatever you call it. Bottle shop.

Okay. So you got three, three people involved. Mm-hmm. When you, when you run the committee club, they all know that that's gonna happen. It's promoted as the prize when, when the commit club's over you, you pick a winner, but don't just interview the winner, like interview the winner. Interview a couple of other people that were in committee club.

Oh, I wish really won the prize. Like I love that wine. That's my favorite bottle shop, yada, yada, yada. Write a blog ghost like we ran our committee club. You know, we're stoked. This month, like 49% of our members made the committed club. This month's prize is Italian dinner babysitting parents night out. You know, a night out on the town without your kids.

You get wine, you get this, you get other. Donated by this. Donated by that the owner of the bottle shop had this quote. We love to support the [00:25:00] members of our local community. You know, the owner of the babysitting thing, like, we have services available for everyone, we love working, whatever. And then you, you pick the winner, you announce the winner, you post it.

That's something that gives the AI, like they don't care that you ran a committee club, but they do care to know like the details of like this, this babysitting service works inside Torrance and you know, is supporting of other members of the community. 'cause like, you gotta think through the long tail keywords.

People will ask, what are some babysitting services that are in Torrance that, you know, work on a Friday night? Like that type of thing. And that's where this will get pulled in by AI and become like searchable.

Nick Reyes: Damn. Yeah. That's a hell of a tactic. Uh, it is gonna

Dan Uyemura: take some time, but that, that is how you win it.

Nick Reyes: It is, it is. Uh, the issue will be if you don't do it. You'll be left behind. Ultimately, just like if you didn't do anything with SEO. What will eventually happen is, you know, the large businesses with these massive marketing budgets, the large franchises, they will swoop [00:26:00] in and do it because you, I guarantee you the CMO of Orangetheory Yeah.

Is like, how do we make sure we stay on top of the search game here and they're already moving down this path.

Dan Uyemura: Yeah. I do think that the way boutiques can win is we have the authentic stories of the people that are coming to the gym, and it's, it's just a little more real than some of the stuff that's happening in, in the non boutique space.

Not, not to say that those stories aren't real, I just think the way that they get surfaced and the way the community's developed is different in our space, and so we actually have more of a right to win, but we have less time and energy and ability to do it. Correct. That's the problem.

Nick Reyes: Yep. Yeah. So those are it, those are, um, the, our trends for, you know, moving forward.

Obviously things change quick if we come up, come across anything else we feel is changing and we'll obviously do a, uh, do an update to the episode. Uh, what I would like to know, Dan's gonna come up with a better question than me 'cause that's what we've been doing, but it's okay. What marketing tactic have you tried recently that completely failed [00:27:00] or succeeded wildly?

I wanna know Nick, wait, not Nick@pushpress.com. You can email me, but podcast@pushpress.com. Thanks a lot guys.

Dan Uyemura: See you. Thanks for listening to another episode of the PushPress Podcast, where we help gym owners, entrepreneurs and fitness enthusiasts thrive with actionable insights, inspiring stories and strategies for growth.

Nick Reyes: Don't forget to follow the show to stay updated on new episodes. And if you're ready for more, join our free Facebook community for gym owners. Check the show notes for the link and we'll see you next time. Keep raising the bar for your business and community.

‍