April 23, 2025 • 16 mins
On this episode of 1000 Ways to Market Your Business, Samantha Scott, APR, is joined by Paige Johnson, Digital Operations Coordinator at Pushing the Envelope.
The two discuss how to make a big impact with a small marketing budget, providing valuable tips on setting realistic budgets, the importance of targeting the right audience, and leveraging low-cost strategies such as A/B testing, community engagement, and public relations.
Have a question or feedback to share? Visit www.getpushing.com or one of our many social media channels. We look forward to hearing from you.
#marketing #business #communication #strategy
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:05):
Hi, everybody.
Welcome back to another episodeof 1000 Ways to Market Your
Business.
I'm Samantha Scott, APR, andtoday I am delighted to be
joined by Paige Johnson.
Hi, I'm Paige.
I'm PTE's Digital OperationsCoordinator, and I'm delighted
to be here.
So we are so excited to talkabout big impact on a small
budget.
This is probably one of myfavorite topics.
(00:26):
I mean, okay, testing,measuring, strategy.
I've got a few of them, but thisis one of my favorites because I
am an all time like deal seekingperson.
I love getting, you know, thingsnot full price.
So I love the idea of being ableto make a really, really big
impact with not a huge budget.
So today we're going to give yousome really fantastic tips if
that's something that you'reinto as well.
(00:48):
So Paige, kick it off.
Yeah, I will second that and sayI also like a good deal.
But also, I am a strong believerthat it's very possible and I
think it can be a littleintimidating deciding where
you're going to set your budget,especially if you're starting
off advertising for the firsttime on Meta or other platforms.
So it can be a littleintimidating, so rest assured,
(01:08):
you can start low and doubledown on what works, scratch what
doesn't, and you can see greatresults with minimal budgets.
I've seen it happen myself.
Absolutely.
And this goes to the point ofhaving the right offer and the
right audience, and then itdoesn't require thousands of
dollars to create the resultsthat you're looking for.
Now, I want to say this with acaveat, and we try to be really,
(01:29):
really honest with ourprospects, with our clients
that, you know, if you come andsay, oh, I've only got 50 bucks,
you know, I want to be able tosee X results.
We're going to be realistic inthis, right?
So, when we say really goodresults, just marry that with
expectations of what's right foryour business, what's your
budget, who's your targetaudience.
Yeah, and ideally, if you startwith a low budget, let's say if
you're starting with$100 or$200for a month, ideally, you'll be
(01:53):
able to increase that because ofbeing really strategic with the
small budget up front and thenyou'll start seeing results in
bigger numbers.
Yeah, absolutely.
It takes time to establish andbuild up and use these
strategies that we're going totalk about.
Yeah and we've got anotherepisode coming up a few down the
road that talks specificallyabout pay-per-click and budgets
and we get into all the nittygritty of making sure that you
(02:14):
have separate campaigns andtesting.
So make sure you tune into thatone as well.
But let's start by picking likewho are you trying to talk to,
setting goals, setting budgets,let's dive into how our
listeners and viewers canactually do this.
Yeah, so I think the first stepis being realistic with yourself
and where you're able to start.
Again, don't try to put a bunchof money into something because
(02:36):
you, you still want thetechnologies and the efforts
that you're putting in, you wantto see conversions and look at
what's working before you startdumping in.
So I think the first thing'sfirst is be realistic and like I
said, double down with whatworks and scratch what doesn't.
And to that point, I would addtwo things.
One is, just because you seeyour competitor doing something,
does not mean that you shouldnecessarily be doing that.
(02:59):
And also, don't take theapproach of, okay, well I'm
going to do Meta ads on Facebookand Instagram, and I'm going to
do something on LinkedIn, andI'm going to do something on
YouTube, and I'm going to dosomething on Google and
pay-per-click.
Just start slow.
It's quality over quantity,because ultimately, the whole
intent of this is to getconversions, to get people to
buy your product, to sign upwith you, to go to your
(03:20):
restaurant, take an action whereyou're generating revenue.
So, completely agree, greatpoint.
Yeah, and to that point, settingthat budget and using it for an
audience that's very niche, andthankfully a lot of these
technologies allow you to dothat, which is great for having
a small budget.
So I think that would be one ofthe first steps, is having
personas and defining who you'remarketing to from the start.
(03:41):
On Facebook, specifically, youcan target based on interests,
demographics, locations, income,someone who has a birthday in a
week.
There's a million things thatyou can use to maximize your
budget to the most high valueaudience members.
And so you want your budget togo to those people.
You don't want to spray and prayand just get the most
impressions possible.
Yeah, be really targeted, andmake sure you really reflect on
(04:03):
that, right?
Because I always tell peoplewhen I did public speaking, I
used to say this all the time.
It's not the you show.
It's not about you.
It's not about what's going toresonate with you.
It's what's going to resonatewith your audience.
What problem are you trying tosolve for them?
What solution do you have?
What feeling do you want toevoke?
What are you trying to get themto do as a result of this?
It's focusing on that versusfocusing on the particular
(04:26):
product or service, et cetera,the widget that you have for
sale.
That doesn't necessarily matter.
They want the end result.
I want to be able to chopvegetables faster.
I don't care how I do that.
Okay, this is a tool that can dothat, great.
I don't need to know the detailsof it.
So keep that in mind, and bevery specific about your
audience and what motivatesthem.
And you might have a wideranging audience, you know.
I've used this example before.
(04:47):
If you are a restaurant, sure,anyone technically could come to
you and purchase your food andbuy it and eat it.
But that may not be everybody,right?
You may not want everybody tocome to your restaurant.
If you're a fine diningestablishment, for example, you
want people who are prepared topay a higher price point, want
that kind of experience, soyou're going to focus on those
individuals.
So Paige mentioned personas.
(05:09):
Build those out.
It's really easy to do.
So you can create who thatperson might look like.
Are they male, female,otherwise?
What are their interests?
Where do they live?
How are they motivated?
What problems are they trying tosolve, or what feelings do they
want to have, what kind oflifestyle do they have?
And then you can start to workbackwards and say, okay, a day
in the life of.
And right now we're talkingabout all different types of
(05:30):
ways to reach individuals,online and offline, but do they
drive a car?
Do they ride public transit?
Are they listening to the news?
Do they do podcasts?
You know, try to find ways tointersect in their day in their
life and make it specific tothose audiences.
And if that means running a fewcampaigns, one maybe overarching
theme, if you want them to cometo your location, you have a
(05:51):
campaign concept or something,but specific to the middle aged
woman versus the 20 year oldmale versus, you know, somebody
else, making sure that the callsto action, the messaging and the
channels are appropriate forthem.
Yeah, absolutely.
And that's, I think, especiallywhen we're talking about working
with a smaller budget, gettingthe most impact, that's
especially important.
Sometimes depending on theindustry you're in and the size
(06:12):
of your budget when you'restarting out you have less of
that total amount to spend ontesting.
And so definitely getting verygranular and niche with each
audience.
And instead of, you know, it isgood to try different ad
creatives and see what'sperforming best, different ad
copy, but because we're talkingabout working with something
(06:33):
small initially, it's superimportant that from the start,
because Meta specifically, andeven LinkedIn offer really
advanced targeting features,knowing who your audience is and
reaching them where they are atis incredibly important.
And to that point, Meta has alot of tools, and if you're
starting off, I think you shouldtrust it.
A lot of AI behind the Metatechnologies that will help find
(06:55):
your audience, the rightplacement, what creative is
resonating best with them, andeven distributing your budget to
an ad or ad set that isperforming best.
And to that point, it can onlydo that if it has good input and
direction.
So first, you have to do thehomework to say, who is my
target audience?
And if you have a few of them,which one do I have the greatest
(07:17):
opportunity to increase thataudience size?
And or, which one is mostvaluable to me?
So for example, if you are arestaurant, again, if you have a
lunch service and a dinnerservice, which one has an
average higher ticket value?
And or, where do you have morecapacity?
Keep those things in mind, andthen you can prioritize the
audiences that you're trying toreach.
You know, if you tend to get abunch of college students and
(07:39):
they're coming just for coffee,and that's part of your, you
know, lunch brunch serviceversus your evening diners.
Maybe you want more of theevening diners and you're going
to be more specific aboutreaching them.
You get more volume, you getmore money.
So being very specific out ofthe gate.
But yeah, absolutely leveragingthe tools that are available to
you.
Meta has great resources.
Google has great resources.
Lots of data available to you.
(08:00):
Pair that with your own owneddata as well.
Who makes up your social mediaaudience?
Who's visiting your website?
G4 or Google Analytics can tellyou all of that.
Meta Suite is fantastic withthat as well.
Making sure you're using thatdata to your advantage.
But I'd also like to add onthere's some other components
that are offline that can bevery low cost as well.
Community engagement is one ofthem.
(08:20):
Think about the causes ororganizations that your audience
is interested in.
How can you get involved in thatand support them and connect
with them?
Really powerful way.
Another tool is publicrelations.
So knowing the right media tocontact, telling your story that
way.
Maybe you have a new product orservice and you can put out a
news release about it.
Maybe your employees arevolunteering or have a great
cause you're supporting.
(08:41):
There's a number of ways tocreate awareness among your
target audiences using mediarelations.
And that doesn't just stick withyour traditional sources of like
a newspaper or, you know, TV,things like that, but you could
also think about podcasters aswell often have guests on, where
that might be able to get yourmessage to your target audiences
at a very low to no cost.
(09:04):
Yeah, and to that point as well,there's those other outlets
where you can generate brandawareness, coupling your organic
social media content with yourpaid, what's working on organic
and repurpose that kind ofcontent.
What organic social mediaformats are performing best, and
what kind of topics are youtalking about organically that
people are responsive to.
(09:25):
Repurpose that in your paidstrategy when you're starting
off with a low budget before youhave the extra budget to kind of
test things that might be alittle bit riskier if you have a
larger budget but would have alarge return.
You can do that down the lineonce you have more money in your
budget to decipher youraudience, where conversions are
happening, and their behaviorwhen they see ads.
(09:45):
Yeah, I always like to say thatyour audience will tell you
everything you need to know ifyou know where to look.
And Paige here is our dataqueen.
She does all of our dataanalysis, reporting, everything.
So she totally gets it.
But literally to her point, Imean, they'll tell you
everything.
How long should your YouTubevideos be?
Because if they're dropping outafter 20 seconds when it's a
minute long, cut it.
Or what campaign is working, youknow, tag your content and also
(10:07):
look at the time of day, the dayof the week.
Is this a feel good?
Is it related to employees?
Is it related to your product, anew service?
You know, think about the typeof content, the type of day, the
channel, and then look at whatyour audience is telling you in
terms of what they're connectingwith, sharing with, commenting
on, etc.
And then, to your point, usethat in your paid as well.
(10:28):
It works both ways.
And it has to balance because ifsomebody sees a paid ad and it's
about something way over here inright field and all the organic
stuff in your website doesn'trelate.
That creates a disconnect.
Even if it's subconscious,they're going to go, huh, I
don't know.
Yes, your audience is going totell you a lot of what you need
to hear in your analytics and itshould be regularly monitored,
monthly, quarterly, as often asyou have the capacity to.
(10:52):
They're going to speak to you,but you also need to be sure
that you're speaking to them thecorrect way that you get the
outcome that you want.
So when setting up ads from theget go, you need to be really
certain of your campaign goals.
Do you want sales, or do youreally just want to drive
engagement on a specific post aslike a boost?
Or do you want people to go toyour website and look at your
offerings?
(11:12):
Like, be 100 percent confidentand sure in that conversion goal
from the start so that you canspeak to them properly.
The algorithm is going to showto people who are most likely to
take that action and some peoplejust aren't engaged shoppers, so
it's not going to resonate withthem.
So speaking to your audiencethrough your objectives and
being realistic with yourbusiness goals in setting up
(11:34):
your paid ads from the start.
I think that is just a tried andtrue best practice of marketing
as a whole is what is yourintent?
What does success look like atthe end of this particular
campaign?
What are we trying toaccomplish?
And you could even say thatstarts at the 30,000 foot view
of your marketing strategy foryour business.
Are we trying to createawareness?
And then we also want a 5percent lift in revenues.
(11:55):
And we also want to increaseengagement or audience size.
But it also goes into what wecall kind of roadmaps by area of
service too.
So your paid and organic social,are we trying to nurture and
engage and create more usergenerated content and
connections that way?
Are we just trying to drivepeople to a website or to make a
phone call?
You know, what are we trying toaccomplish there?
(12:16):
Yeah, really, really importantto go in with your intent.
Yeah.
So you talked about paid and youtalked about some other stuff in
testing.
What are some ways people cantest?
Cause I think sometimes that's ahangup for people.
They're like, okay, well, I'mputting it out there and I'm
seeing how it's working, but Idon't know how to test that
against something else.
Maybe we can talk about A/Btesting and some other ways.
Yeah, definitely A/B testing isa good one if you want to test
(12:37):
the efficacy of differentheadlines, types of creatives,
captions in your ads.
So in this case, you would betesting either the creative, or
the call to action, or the link.
So it's going to be the sameexact campaign, call to action.
So maybe I am a pet store andit's the same thing about a dog
food sale, for example.
But in option A, it's going tohave a picture of this
(12:57):
particular dog.
And in option B, it's going tohave a different dog.
Or we could have the same exactimage, but a different call to
action.
You don't want to run multipleA/B tests at the same time,
because then you don't knowwhich change is the one that
performed well.
But being able to do that helpsyou really get a sense of what
imagery, what text, what call toaction, et cetera, is going to
motivate your audience.
(13:17):
Yeah and I like the thought ofan A/B test because you can
really pinpoint what the exactchange was.
Another great indicator or testof which type of ad is going to
perform better, maybe you changelike a element of the targeting
or some other element of the adand you can use Meta's
technology to disperse thatbudget to the ad that's
(13:37):
performing better, and that'lltell you a lot about the people
that are responding.
Maybe one you target to men andwomen, similar to A/B testing,
but this is the budget justgoing one way or another within
one ad.
Yeah, I think those are reallyhelpful.
Also using tagging is alsoreally a powerful way to make
sure that your budget is goingto the maximum, making sure that
you're keeping an eye on whatelements of your marketing are
(13:59):
performing best.
So if I'm saying tagging, thatmeans like if you're doing some
digital content, making sure,you know, I'll use a retail
example, if it's women's wearversus men's wear versus shoes
or an event or something thatyou're tagging your content, so
you can go back and look at howthat's performing.
But making sure, at the end ofthe day, you're reporting on the
things that matter.
You know, we're talking aboutsmall business and big impact.
(14:21):
How can we create the biggestchange with the least amount of
money?
That starts with the intention.
Who are we trying to reach?
What are we trying toaccomplish?
Then it goes into monitoring aswe're going through this in real
time, making adjustments andthen making sure that we're
looking at the correct data.
So, how many conversions did weget?
And that, in your world, couldbe bookings, appointments,
(14:43):
signups, reservations, sales,etc.
And then, ultimately, what drovethat?
So you should be able to trackthat.
Was it an email?
Was it the news release that wasin the newspaper?
Was it an event you hosted?
What's driving these things?
And then you can pull back fromthe stuff that may be
underperforming and pour intothe things that continue to
perform.
(15:03):
Yeah, I completely agree.
And looking into the benchmarksof the industry that you're
within, and if you're well belowor well above that, what are you
doing that's working or isn't?
If you have trackable links andyou're tagging things internally
and you have all these systemsin place, the data will tell a
story of why you're above orbelow what other businesses in
your industry are doing or howthey're doing.
(15:24):
So definitely important to lookat competitors, but not
duplicate what they're doing.
Yes, absolutely.
Benchmarking is great, butcreate your own thing.
And tell your story, you know,going back to episode one with
Kinfay, where we talked abouttelling your story and making
sure that you're weaving thatthroughout is incredibly
important.
So we hope this has beenhelpful.
If you want more tips on how toleverage marketing to grow your
(15:46):
business in cost effective ways,we have lots of blogs, ebooks,
other podcasts.
All of them are free.
We would love to help you, andalways feel free to leave a
comment or question below.
Thank you for turning intoanother episode of 1000 Ways to
Market Your Business, and thanksfor joining me.
Thank you.
Hi, everybody.
Welcome back to another episodeof 1000 Ways to Market Your
Business.
I'm Samantha Scott, APR, andtoday I am delighted to be
joined by Paige Johnson.
Hi, I'm Paige.
I'm PTE's Digital OperationsCoordinator, and I'm delighted
to be here.
So we are so excited to talkabout big impact on a small
budget.
This is probably one of myfavorite topics.
(00:26):
I mean, okay, testing,measuring, strategy.
I've got a few of them, but thisis one of my favorites because I
am an all time like deal seekingperson.
I love getting, you know, thingsnot full price.
So I love the idea of being ableto make a really, really big
impact with not a huge budget.
So today we're going to give yousome really fantastic tips if
that's something that you'reinto as well.
(00:48):
So Paige, kick it off.
Yeah, I will second that and sayI also like a good deal.
But also, I am a strong believerthat it's very possible and I
think it can be a littleintimidating deciding where
you're going to set your budget,especially if you're starting
off advertising for the firsttime on Meta or other platforms.
So it can be a littleintimidating, so rest assured,
(01:08):
you can start low and doubledown on what works, scratch what
doesn't, and you can see greatresults with minimal budgets.
I've seen it happen myself.
Absolutely.
And this goes to the point ofhaving the right offer and the
right audience, and then itdoesn't require thousands of
dollars to create the resultsthat you're looking for.
Now, I want to say this with acaveat, and we try to be really,
(01:29):
really honest with ourprospects, with our clients
that, you know, if you come andsay, oh, I've only got 50 bucks,
you know, I want to be able tosee X results.
We're going to be realistic inthis, right?
So, when we say really goodresults, just marry that with
expectations of what's right foryour business, what's your
budget, who's your targetaudience.
Yeah, and ideally, if you startwith a low budget, let's say if
you're starting with$100 or$200for a month, ideally, you'll be
(01:53):
able to increase that because ofbeing really strategic with the
small budget up front and thenyou'll start seeing results in
bigger numbers.
Yeah, absolutely.
It takes time to establish andbuild up and use these
strategies that we're going totalk about.
Yeah and we've got anotherepisode coming up a few down the
road that talks specificallyabout pay-per-click and budgets
and we get into all the nittygritty of making sure that you
(02:14):
have separate campaigns andtesting.
So make sure you tune into thatone as well.
But let's start by picking likewho are you trying to talk to,
setting goals, setting budgets,let's dive into how our
listeners and viewers canactually do this.
Yeah, so I think the first stepis being realistic with yourself
and where you're able to start.
Again, don't try to put a bunchof money into something because
(02:36):
you, you still want thetechnologies and the efforts
that you're putting in, you wantto see conversions and look at
what's working before you startdumping in.
So I think the first thing'sfirst is be realistic and like I
said, double down with whatworks and scratch what doesn't.
And to that point, I would addtwo things.
One is, just because you seeyour competitor doing something,
does not mean that you shouldnecessarily be doing that.
(02:59):
And also, don't take theapproach of, okay, well I'm
going to do Meta ads on Facebookand Instagram, and I'm going to
do something on LinkedIn, andI'm going to do something on
YouTube, and I'm going to dosomething on Google and
pay-per-click.
Just start slow.
It's quality over quantity,because ultimately, the whole
intent of this is to getconversions, to get people to
buy your product, to sign upwith you, to go to your
(03:20):
restaurant, take an action whereyou're generating revenue.
So, completely agree, greatpoint.
Yeah, and to that point, settingthat budget and using it for an
audience that's very niche, andthankfully a lot of these
technologies allow you to dothat, which is great for having
a small budget.
So I think that would be one ofthe first steps, is having
personas and defining who you'remarketing to from the start.
(03:41):
On Facebook, specifically, youcan target based on interests,
demographics, locations, income,someone who has a birthday in a
week.
There's a million things thatyou can use to maximize your
budget to the most high valueaudience members.
And so you want your budget togo to those people.
You don't want to spray and prayand just get the most
impressions possible.
Yeah, be really targeted, andmake sure you really reflect on
(04:03):
that, right?
Because I always tell peoplewhen I did public speaking, I
used to say this all the time.
It's not the you show.
It's not about you.
It's not about what's going toresonate with you.
It's what's going to resonatewith your audience.
What problem are you trying tosolve for them?
What solution do you have?
What feeling do you want toevoke?
What are you trying to get themto do as a result of this?
It's focusing on that versusfocusing on the particular
(04:26):
product or service, et cetera,the widget that you have for
sale.
That doesn't necessarily matter.
They want the end result.
I want to be able to chopvegetables faster.
I don't care how I do that.
Okay, this is a tool that can dothat, great.
I don't need to know the detailsof it.
So keep that in mind, and bevery specific about your
audience and what motivatesthem.
And you might have a wideranging audience, you know.
I've used this example before.
(04:47):
If you are a restaurant, sure,anyone technically could come to
you and purchase your food andbuy it and eat it.
But that may not be everybody,right?
You may not want everybody tocome to your restaurant.
If you're a fine diningestablishment, for example, you
want people who are prepared topay a higher price point, want
that kind of experience, soyou're going to focus on those
individuals.
So Paige mentioned personas.
(05:09):
Build those out.
It's really easy to do.
So you can create who thatperson might look like.
Are they male, female,otherwise?
What are their interests?
Where do they live?
How are they motivated?
What problems are they trying tosolve, or what feelings do they
want to have, what kind oflifestyle do they have?
And then you can start to workbackwards and say, okay, a day
in the life of.
And right now we're talkingabout all different types of
(05:30):
ways to reach individuals,online and offline, but do they
drive a car?
Do they ride public transit?
Are they listening to the news?
Do they do podcasts?
You know, try to find ways tointersect in their day in their
life and make it specific tothose audiences.
And if that means running a fewcampaigns, one maybe overarching
theme, if you want them to cometo your location, you have a
(05:51):
campaign concept or something,but specific to the middle aged
woman versus the 20 year oldmale versus, you know, somebody
else, making sure that the callsto action, the messaging and the
channels are appropriate forthem.
Yeah, absolutely.
And that's, I think, especiallywhen we're talking about working
with a smaller budget, gettingthe most impact, that's
especially important.
Sometimes depending on theindustry you're in and the size
(06:12):
of your budget when you'restarting out you have less of
that total amount to spend ontesting.
And so definitely getting verygranular and niche with each
audience.
And instead of, you know, it isgood to try different ad
creatives and see what'sperforming best, different ad
copy, but because we're talkingabout working with something
(06:33):
small initially, it's superimportant that from the start,
because Meta specifically, andeven LinkedIn offer really
advanced targeting features,knowing who your audience is and
reaching them where they are atis incredibly important.
And to that point, Meta has alot of tools, and if you're
starting off, I think you shouldtrust it.
A lot of AI behind the Metatechnologies that will help find
(06:55):
your audience, the rightplacement, what creative is
resonating best with them, andeven distributing your budget to
an ad or ad set that isperforming best.
And to that point, it can onlydo that if it has good input and
direction.
So first, you have to do thehomework to say, who is my
target audience?
And if you have a few of them,which one do I have the greatest
(07:17):
opportunity to increase thataudience size?
And or, which one is mostvaluable to me?
So for example, if you are arestaurant, again, if you have a
lunch service and a dinnerservice, which one has an
average higher ticket value?
And or, where do you have morecapacity?
Keep those things in mind, andthen you can prioritize the
audiences that you're trying toreach.
You know, if you tend to get abunch of college students and
(07:39):
they're coming just for coffee,and that's part of your, you
know, lunch brunch serviceversus your evening diners.
Maybe you want more of theevening diners and you're going
to be more specific aboutreaching them.
You get more volume, you getmore money.
So being very specific out ofthe gate.
But yeah, absolutely leveragingthe tools that are available to
you.
Meta has great resources.
Google has great resources.
Lots of data available to you.
(08:00):
Pair that with your own owneddata as well.
Who makes up your social mediaaudience?
Who's visiting your website?
G4 or Google Analytics can tellyou all of that.
Meta Suite is fantastic withthat as well.
Making sure you're using thatdata to your advantage.
But I'd also like to add onthere's some other components
that are offline that can bevery low cost as well.
Community engagement is one ofthem.
(08:20):
Think about the causes ororganizations that your audience
is interested in.
How can you get involved in thatand support them and connect
with them?
Really powerful way.
Another tool is publicrelations.
So knowing the right media tocontact, telling your story that
way.
Maybe you have a new product orservice and you can put out a
news release about it.
Maybe your employees arevolunteering or have a great
cause you're supporting.
(08:41):
There's a number of ways tocreate awareness among your
target audiences using mediarelations.
And that doesn't just stick withyour traditional sources of like
a newspaper or, you know, TV,things like that, but you could
also think about podcasters aswell often have guests on, where
that might be able to get yourmessage to your target audiences
at a very low to no cost.
(09:04):
Yeah, and to that point as well,there's those other outlets
where you can generate brandawareness, coupling your organic
social media content with yourpaid, what's working on organic
and repurpose that kind ofcontent.
What organic social mediaformats are performing best, and
what kind of topics are youtalking about organically that
people are responsive to.
(09:25):
Repurpose that in your paidstrategy when you're starting
off with a low budget before youhave the extra budget to kind of
test things that might be alittle bit riskier if you have a
larger budget but would have alarge return.
You can do that down the lineonce you have more money in your
budget to decipher youraudience, where conversions are
happening, and their behaviorwhen they see ads.
(09:45):
Yeah, I always like to say thatyour audience will tell you
everything you need to know ifyou know where to look.
And Paige here is our dataqueen.
She does all of our dataanalysis, reporting, everything.
So she totally gets it.
But literally to her point, Imean, they'll tell you
everything.
How long should your YouTubevideos be?
Because if they're dropping outafter 20 seconds when it's a
minute long, cut it.
Or what campaign is working, youknow, tag your content and also
(10:07):
look at the time of day, the dayof the week.
Is this a feel good?
Is it related to employees?
Is it related to your product, anew service?
You know, think about the typeof content, the type of day, the
channel, and then look at whatyour audience is telling you in
terms of what they're connectingwith, sharing with, commenting
on, etc.
And then, to your point, usethat in your paid as well.
(10:28):
It works both ways.
And it has to balance because ifsomebody sees a paid ad and it's
about something way over here inright field and all the organic
stuff in your website doesn'trelate.
That creates a disconnect.
Even if it's subconscious,they're going to go, huh, I
don't know.
Yes, your audience is going totell you a lot of what you need
to hear in your analytics and itshould be regularly monitored,
monthly, quarterly, as often asyou have the capacity to.
(10:52):
They're going to speak to you,but you also need to be sure
that you're speaking to them thecorrect way that you get the
outcome that you want.
So when setting up ads from theget go, you need to be really
certain of your campaign goals.
Do you want sales, or do youreally just want to drive
engagement on a specific post aslike a boost?
Or do you want people to go toyour website and look at your
offerings?
(11:12):
Like, be 100 percent confidentand sure in that conversion goal
from the start so that you canspeak to them properly.
The algorithm is going to showto people who are most likely to
take that action and some peoplejust aren't engaged shoppers, so
it's not going to resonate withthem.
So speaking to your audiencethrough your objectives and
being realistic with yourbusiness goals in setting up
(11:34):
your paid ads from the start.
I think that is just a tried andtrue best practice of marketing
as a whole is what is yourintent?
What does success look like atthe end of this particular
campaign?
What are we trying toaccomplish?
And you could even say thatstarts at the 30,000 foot view
of your marketing strategy foryour business.
Are we trying to createawareness?
And then we also want a 5percent lift in revenues.
(11:55):
And we also want to increaseengagement or audience size.
But it also goes into what wecall kind of roadmaps by area of
service too.
So your paid and organic social,are we trying to nurture and
engage and create more usergenerated content and
connections that way?
Are we just trying to drivepeople to a website or to make a
phone call?
You know, what are we trying toaccomplish there?
(12:16):
Yeah, really, really importantto go in with your intent.
Yeah.
So you talked about paid and youtalked about some other stuff in
testing.
What are some ways people cantest?
Cause I think sometimes that's ahangup for people.
They're like, okay, well, I'mputting it out there and I'm
seeing how it's working, but Idon't know how to test that
against something else.
Maybe we can talk about A/Btesting and some other ways.
Yeah, definitely A/B testing isa good one if you want to test
(12:37):
the efficacy of differentheadlines, types of creatives,
captions in your ads.
So in this case, you would betesting either the creative, or
the call to action, or the link.
So it's going to be the sameexact campaign, call to action.
So maybe I am a pet store andit's the same thing about a dog
food sale, for example.
But in option A, it's going tohave a picture of this
(12:57):
particular dog.
And in option B, it's going tohave a different dog.
Or we could have the same exactimage, but a different call to
action.
You don't want to run multipleA/B tests at the same time,
because then you don't knowwhich change is the one that
performed well.
But being able to do that helpsyou really get a sense of what
imagery, what text, what call toaction, et cetera, is going to
motivate your audience.
(13:17):
Yeah and I like the thought ofan A/B test because you can
really pinpoint what the exactchange was.
Another great indicator or testof which type of ad is going to
perform better, maybe you changelike a element of the targeting
or some other element of the adand you can use Meta's
technology to disperse thatbudget to the ad that's
(13:37):
performing better, and that'lltell you a lot about the people
that are responding.
Maybe one you target to men andwomen, similar to A/B testing,
but this is the budget justgoing one way or another within
one ad.
Yeah, I think those are reallyhelpful.
Also using tagging is alsoreally a powerful way to make
sure that your budget is goingto the maximum, making sure that
you're keeping an eye on whatelements of your marketing are
(13:59):
performing best.
So if I'm saying tagging, thatmeans like if you're doing some
digital content, making sure,you know, I'll use a retail
example, if it's women's wearversus men's wear versus shoes
or an event or something thatyou're tagging your content, so
you can go back and look at howthat's performing.
But making sure, at the end ofthe day, you're reporting on the
things that matter.
You know, we're talking aboutsmall business and big impact.
(14:21):
How can we create the biggestchange with the least amount of
money?
That starts with the intention.
Who are we trying to reach?
What are we trying toaccomplish?
Then it goes into monitoring aswe're going through this in real
time, making adjustments andthen making sure that we're
looking at the correct data.
So, how many conversions did weget?
And that, in your world, couldbe bookings, appointments,
(14:43):
signups, reservations, sales,etc.
And then, ultimately, what drovethat?
So you should be able to trackthat.
Was it an email?
Was it the news release that wasin the newspaper?
Was it an event you hosted?
What's driving these things?
And then you can pull back fromthe stuff that may be
underperforming and pour intothe things that continue to
perform.
(15:03):
Yeah, I completely agree.
And looking into the benchmarksof the industry that you're
within, and if you're well belowor well above that, what are you
doing that's working or isn't?
If you have trackable links andyou're tagging things internally
and you have all these systemsin place, the data will tell a
story of why you're above orbelow what other businesses in
your industry are doing or howthey're doing.
(15:24):
So definitely important to lookat competitors, but not
duplicate what they're doing.
Yes, absolutely.
Benchmarking is great, butcreate your own thing.
And tell your story, you know,going back to episode one with
Kinfay, where we talked abouttelling your story and making
sure that you're weaving thatthroughout is incredibly
important.
So we hope this has beenhelpful.
If you want more tips on how toleverage marketing to grow your
(15:46):
business in cost effective ways,we have lots of blogs, ebooks,
other podcasts.
All of them are free.
We would love to help you, andalways feel free to leave a
comment or question below.
Thank you for turning intoanother episode of 1000 Ways to
Market Your Business, and thanksfor joining me.
Thank you.
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