Welcome, welcome, welcome. Episode 493. This is the third episode in our Marketing 101 Series. If you didn’t listen to the last two, I highly recommend going back to 490 and 491. In 490, we talked about why Marketing 101 matters for established business owners. We spent a ton of time talking about why in this episode. I’m hoping after listening to that episode, that you’ll be removing some things from your list. Because you realize you don’t know why you do them. Or you realize that you don’t have to do them anymore because you don’t like the reason why. And then in 491, we talked about those three questions. That’s where we’re talking about what we’re selling, who we’re selling it to, and how we’re selling it. Tapping into our existing data instead of best guesses and estimations like we do in the beginning.
Today, I want to talk about how to choose the marketing options right for you and use that information to make the best choices for you as far as channels, and then a little bit about making those channels work together.
So I want to first jump in and talk about as you’re reviewing those hows, how am I currently selling things, those are going to be your priorities for your best marketing options. Because those are already working. Let me say that again. Those are already working, so there’s not a lot you have to change there, but because they’re already working, they may give you an indication on what you can do to support them more. So it might be doubling down.
Maybe you are killing it with Facebook ads, absolutely killing it. It is getting people onto your list, and through a sequence, and converted magic mojo style. Awesome. Where could you put more money in Facebook ads so you can front-load more leads through that funnel that you know is working? Maybe it’s referral marketing. Maybe you saw that how, and it was a ton of referrals, then you need to be looking at your referral strategy.
And here’s where we start talking about how these things work together.
If we sort of look ahead to our marketing options, we have to look at all of the pieces in a referral cycle, meaning the actual referral is important, so how do we ensure we get more referrals from our clients? Maybe it’s setting up a referral system, an affiliate system. Maybe it is at the close of a project, sending an email that just says, “Hey, I loved working with you. If you know of anybody right now, please let me know.” Or, “You’ll receive XYZ for each referral.” Something like that.
But also, and too, too often, we skip this, and I talked about this in a past episode, I’ll link to it in the show notes, really paying attention to our marketing and our social media as part of our referral system. The same is true for our podcast. If we know we get a ton of referrals, generally speaking, the place people are going to refer them to first is our content. And so you need to have a podcast that is built to nurture people coming in through a referral system.
So it needs to be a lot of education about you, about the experience of working with you, about the process, and the value, and showing your expertise. Whereas if you get a ton of referrals to your social media, you’re going to want to make sure you’re repurposing that there.
The cool thing is, and this is where we get into that how do we make them work together, when you’re utilizing these pieces, you can repurpose and break them down so that they are supporting each other.
But again, we know all of these decisions because we already looked at what is already working. And so that’s the first place we’re going to go. We’re going to go doubling down on our existing system. As an example, I know that this podcast is something that works for us. This podcast is something that comes up in every conversation with every prospective client. This is a really easy way to get a feel for what it’s like to sit down and talk to me, it’s a really good way to hear our production services in action.
Because guess what? The agency produces the show for the agency, and so it’s a living example. It is a living experience of the end product. So I know this is an incredibly important piece. So what do we do to support that? How can we look at ways that we can take this marketing option that works and build on it? We talked about doubling down already.
Let’s talk about how we could use a piece we know is working in other ways.
So again, we know the podcast is working, how can we use this in other ways? Well, how else could we create this content? This is actually something we’re going to be doing as we move into Q4 of this year, we can be taking these show notes and turning them into blog posts for third-party sites. Maybe it’s LinkedIn; perhaps it’s Medium. Maybe it’s regularly contributing articles to a publication. Whatever the marketing option may be, we already know this content works. So how can we use it in another medium? This is something I’ve done with a lot of success in the past. Specifically repurposing podcasts and putting them up on LinkedIn. It’s been a great way to drive content, not just to the podcast, but also reach people who prefer to read versus listen. I can give the same value there.
What’s another way? Well, we can get more traffic to the content.
So our Q3 project this year has been SEO, and how can we get better organic search traffic to the website? So that’s meant optimizing some things, that means shifting some things. You will very likely see a shift in our show notes as we move into the second half of this year. Hopefully, in Q4, you’ll see some big changes coming to our show notes, more on that in Q4 as I talk about it more. But that’s another way we can say, “Cool, this is working. How can I support this with another option?” SEO marketing, other versions of content marketing, through content marketing on other people’s sites.
What’s another way we can work this? Well when I or my team pitches me to go on other podcasts, often I talk about a lot of the things we talk about on this show, generally in a smaller fashion. So recently we did an episode, that again, I’ll link to in the show notes, over on Lora Shipman’s show and we talked about podcast myths. And a lot of those myths were actually, in fact, each of those myths were content we talked about in a full-length show at some other time.
For example, if you go and listen to that, you’ll hear myth one is New and Noteworthy. That you have to get on New and Noteworthy. We have an entire episode of this show, an episode that does quite well for us, by the way, about why I don’t care about New and Noteworthy.
So I took content, and something that I already knew was resonating with my people, and integrated it in what I was talking about when I was a guest on someone else’s show.
So when we pitched that conversation to Lora, we said I want to talk about the three myths. It’s A, B, and C. And I know those particular myths will resonate because it’s something I’ve gotten traction with on the podcast before or in conversations with clients before. Again, looking at actual data of what is already working and using that in more ways.
And so the other way we can do that is we can turn this content into social media content. So if you look at the Uncommonly More Instagram or my The Stacey Harris Instagram, we’re starting to roll a lot of that out there as well. When you see value posts, they’re frequently abbreviated versions of podcast episodes. They are content that we’ve already used, and already are getting traction here. So again, we’re using the data that this marketing option works, and then we’re utilizing that thing in more places.
The last part of this that I want to talk about is how do we make these marketing options work together?
Well, when we repurpose from one central place that we know is working, we consistently showing up in multiple ways. You’ll notice as we broke out this podcast working, we found out a way to integrate SEO marketing, social media, marketing, and PR. Essentially a version of it through other people’s content and getting articles and other publications. We just used a lot of different pieces of marketing to very consistently share the same message because it’s all originating from one place. So this way, when people come to engage with your content, it feels familiar. It feels like your natural next step. It feels like you and your brand because it’s consistently sounding and feeling the same.
And, oh, by the way, it’s the thing we already know is working. It’s the thing we already know we’re getting our results with.
This is why the basics are so valuable for those of us who’ve been doing this awhile. Because we get to revisit these basics without estimations, without best guesses, without, oh, maybe I hope this works too.
But instead with, oh, real data, actual experience. And so we can do more with those basics. We put together the best marketing options four our business. And so they’re so much more valuable for us than they are with little baby business owner us.
I think so often about my first ideal client avatar that I ever created, it was in 2013. I was in B-school, which feels like forever ago. Which to be fair, I think anything pre-2020, feels like history on a whole other level, ancient history, maybe. But anyways, and I had no idea. I had been in business for two years at that point. And I still no idea. A, because I was evolving into something different than what I had been doing. But also because I hadn’t been doing this long enough to have enough experience to know, so I was making best guesses. And it’s continued to be best guesses until really the last few years. I consistently have been doing the same thing, working with the same kind of people, refining it and perfecting it.
But I wouldn’t be able to do that refining if I wasn’t continuing to look back at what was working. Both on an ideal client front and in our services and how we deliver them, but also in how we sell them and what works in that process.
So when you’re looking at where to invest your time and where to invest your money, I want you to look first at what’s working and then start prioritizing how you do that in other places. And how do we do that? How do we decide what the prioritization is of all of these marketing options of SEO, or email, or content, or PR, or whatever else? Well, we go back to who are we working with? When we go back to the who, then we can say, great, how do they consume? Because that is going to create our priorities when it comes to those “whats” that we’ve already figured out are possibilities.
I know I’m saying “who” and “what” a lot. So I’m trying to map this together in a way that makes sense. This is the time whenever clients work with me one-on-one, well, certainly back in the day, when I had people in my office with me, it was always the time where I get up the whiteboard, and I’m like, “So this is what we’re doing.” I always feel like I could visualize it. So when we do Backstage Live virtually, I use my iPad as a whiteboard, and I can display it on my screen. I’m always like, “This is what I’m talking about.” Anyways, unnecessary tangent.
We’re using that prioritization based on what we know about them and how they consume.
So if I know my clients are spending a ton more time in a highly curated inbox, I want to make sure that my emails are on point. I want to make sure that my emails are valuable and my emails are impactful, because A, they are curating their email inbox on a whole other level. A great example is, think about you when you first started your business, how many email lists for you on? No judgment. I was on a lot, a lot, a lot. And I’m willing to bet the same is true for you versus now. I can count all the email lists I’m currently on, on one hand. And they rotate.
There are times I’m on some and times I’m on others. There a couple that I’m on solid because they’re more news sources. But as far as potential service providers, or potential coaches, things like that, I’m not on very many lists at all because I’m very intentional about what I’m consuming. And I’m guessing the same is true for you and quite possibly your clients.
Now, if you’re working with people who are newer in business, that may not be as true. They may be signing up for more email lists.
Then, it becomes really important when you figure out that prioritization, that you’re going to be able to deliver something that stands out and above everything else in their inbox because there’s a lot more noise in their inbox.
And you’re going to want to be supporting that with another piece. And so I wouldn’t prioritize email until you have another piece that you can sort of one-two it with. So being aware of your social and your SEO, how can those work for you? So that’s how I’m prioritizing my tasks.
For example, of all my marketing options, this show and then social media and my email were all priorities for me ahead of SEO. Because yes, I do have clients that Google. Referrals and the podcast are the major way we get clients in the agency. And so I want it to make sure from a referral perspective that the podcast was supporting them because I knew the podcast would work.
Whether they found it on social or they happen to find it, even though we were doing an only fair so-so job SEO-wise. As far as its priority and the attention it was getting, if they got there, then it was nurturing them. So that’s where I was paying attention to. Now, we’ve got those pieces working for us and they’re doing really well, so now I’m investing in SEO and getting that in place.
If I had a local business, or if I had a company that served a particular group or a highly searched business, so maybe something super service-based, then I would probably have optimized for SEO much, much, much earlier.
Especially if you were in a particular niche or niche, depending on how you’d like that said, then Googling is probably a way they’re going to find you. I think a lot about this with my service providers specifically geared towards anything related to children. Think about the moms up in the middle of the night or the dads up in the middle of the night, trying to figure out how to put their baby to sleep. They are not scrolling Instagram to find you. They’re not searching on Facebook. They are Googling, how do I get my baby to sleep? Right? We’ve all been there. So SEO is something I would have prioritized sooner based on who my clients were.
I’m hoping this makes sense. I’m hoping this is landing. What I want to encourage you to do if this is landing, but you don’t want to do this alone, let’s sit down and map out your marketing options together.
That is what the strategy and support sessions, which are now officially available on the website are for.
It’s a 90-minute session with me, one-on-one, just you, and me. And it’s a work session. This is not a consulting call alone. This is not a call where I’m going to sit there and tell you what to do when we get off the call. It is a call where yes, we’re going to be talking about what you need to do. But we’re also going to be doing it on the call.
So if you want to get in and say, “Great, my priority is getting my email list growing, really nurturing those leads. Because I’m seeing everybody have to come online during this pandemic and so social is getting noisier,”. Or, “The election in the states is coming up, and Facebook has always worked for me, but I’m seeing a big, big drop because people are spending more time in their inbox than on Facebook because they don’t want to deal with their crazy racist uncle.”. I think we’re all sort of in that boat right now. “So, I want to double down on my email list.” Well, great, then we’ll start building out that email funnel on our call together. Then when we wrap the call, you’ll get a full recording of the call.
Plus, you will have Voxer access to me, you, and me in Voxer, just the two of us for 30 days from the day of that call.
So you’ll be able to say, “Hey, Stacey, can you review these marketing options for me? Hey, I don’t know how to tell my assistant to organize these social posts. Can you help me format this in a way that’s going to make sense to somebody besides us?” This is something we’ve legitimately done with clients for it. Like, cool, yeah. Since we do this for clients, it’s really easy for me to do that. “Hey, I don’t know how to show up on stories today. I don’t know how to show up on stories today. I just need some encouragement.” And we talk it through.
Whatever it is, I’m there to support you for those 30 days. So if you are ready to do that, I only have a few spots open. We will be booking them out ahead. There will be a waitlist that’s gone up if it’s already filled. I’ll be booking people into September already. So I want to hear from you. I want to do this. Let’s do it. Head on over to uncommonlymore.com/services, and you will see a place to apply.
If you are sold and ready to take action, you’ll be able to book your call right on the follow-up page to that application. If you’re not ready, that’s cool. There’s also a link to book a call with me, and we can talk more about how you want to use this time and how it makes sense in your business, or if it makes sense in your business.
Because if it doesn’t make sense in your business right now, I’m going to tell you not to do it.
And I do have a standard, just one-hour consulting call where we’re not doing the work on the call, but we’re talking through all your questions about your marketing options. It’s a great way to do Q&A. You still get a recording of that call. It’s just not a work session, it’s more of a consulting session, and there’s no follow-up on Voxer. But maybe that’s what’s better for you. We can figure that out and get that booked.
If you have any questions, let me know. Respond to the email that told you that this episode was out. Because I’m assuming you’re already on the email list. If not, DM me, and we’ll fix that. Or, you found us on social, great, DM me and ask your question. Or, maybe you just found this in your podcast player. Great, head over to the website and fill out the contact form—easy-breezy, baby. I will see you next week for the final episode of our Marketing 101 Series. We will be talking about what tasks are worth delegating and what tasks are a not priority to delegate. All right, I’ll see you next week.