March 21, 2024 • 50 mins
Unlock the secrets to marketing success with Angel Melvin from Light Alive Marketing as we share a trove of strategies and insights tailored for the budget-conscious entrepreneur. From painting studios to accounting firms, our conversation promises to equip you with the knowledge to craft a marketing language that resonates with your clientele. Discover how to create an impactful presence in the marketplace, find the sweet spot between DIY marketing and when to bring in the pros, and learn to navigate the challenges of self-promotion with the finesse of a seasoned marketer.
Diving into audience identification, we unveil the importance of knowing not just who your customers are but where to find them and how to capture their attention. Listen as we dissect the relationship between audience demographics and media channel selection, offering a strategic approach to content that converts. Whether your target audience is millennials on Instagram or boomers on Facebook, we've gotten the lowdown on how to engage them effectively with the resources you have at hand.
Lastly, we shatter the myth that email marketing is a relic of the past, highlighting its enduring value in a robust marketing toolkit. From becoming a Storybrand certified guide to weaving your customer into the fabric of your brand's story, this episode is jam-packed with practical advice and actionable steps. Ready to take your small business marketing to new heights? Join us for a marketing masterclass that will transform the way you connect with your audience and amplify your message.
Connect with Angel Melvin:
https://www.lightalive.marketing/
https://www.bbb.org/us/ok/norman/profile/digital-marketing/light-alive-marketing-0995-90060637/#sealclick
Email marketing resources:
Can-Spam: https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/can-spam-act-compliance-guide-business
Story Brand: https://storybrand.com/
Follow BBB Serving Central Oklahoma on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn @BBBCentralOK
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
So I think that is one of the struggles that I see
for new businesses um, that theythey forget to plan for that.
Whatever that looks like, theyforget to plan for that.
They say, okay, I got all mythings in place, but I don't
know how to market myself.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Hey there, friends, and welcome back to the build
with BBB podcast.
I'm your host, casey Farmer,here with Angel Melvin of Light
Alive Marketing.
Angel, welcome to the podcast.
Angel has been an ambassadorfor BBB.
She supports all of our events.
She's very active in thecommunity.
I think you also have anupcoming event with the chamber.
So exciting she.
You will see her at a lot ofdifferent places and we're so
(00:56):
excited that she's also servingon our Revere and Rebel planning
committee today.
So if you haven't met her,welcome, angel.
We're glad to have you on thepodcast.
Thank, you?
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Yeah, I'm happy to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
So today we're talking about all things
marketing which you and I thinkcould get up down a whole rabbit
hole course, because probablycould marketing gals.
But do you want to give a justan overview of what listeners
are going to?
Speaker 1 (01:16):
learn today?
Yeah, so today we're going totalk about some marketing
tactics that you could use ifyou wound up being in a
situation where maybe youstarted a business recently or
you're just generally in asituation where you're not able
to afford working with an agency, because sometimes that could
get apparently pricey for smallbusinesses or startups.
(01:37):
So, basically, if they are notin the market to hire a
marketing agency, but there arecertain tools that they can use
and there are just things that Ithink that every business
should know about themselves andabout how to promote themselves
.
So, if a business findsthemselves in a situation where
they're not able to hire amarketing agency because maybe
that is just not in their budget, I would like to talk about a
(02:00):
couple of tools that they coulduse, that are available to them,
that they could still promotethemselves, but also a couple of
things that are important toknow when using those tools, so
that you're not just blindlymarketing your business, but
have a little bit of guidance onwhere to start.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Yeah, so our first point that we are going to talk
about today is understanding thechallenges of marketing on a
budget and what that means for asmall business owner.
Right, Because I haveconversations with business
owners constantly who say youknow, I'm an expert in this
field, but I'm not a marketingexpert too, but I don't have the
money yet to hire a marketingexpert on my team.
(02:36):
So what are some commonchallenges that businesses face
when they're trying to do that?
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Well, I get this question a lot too, and I
sometimes tell people well, youknow what I may do all the
marketing things, but I am not afinance person right Numbers,
financial things, okay.
So I have to decide is itsomething that I feel confident
in taking on myself, even thoughI know that that's not my
(03:02):
strong suit, or will I look foroptions where I have somebody
help me with that?
Because once in a while, evenif you think it's not in the
budget, not getting that can bemore detrimental to your
business than trying to figureout ways to pay for it.
So that is one thing, and I'mnot saying that everybody should
be able to just write out thedoor, be able to hire a
(03:23):
marketing agency.
However, it's something whereyou really have to decide.
Is it something that I couldtake on, that I feel confident
of taking on, or is it somethingwhere I should at least you
know, maybe consult withsomebody, because there are
options in between hiring amarketing agency to do all the
work for you?
You can still hire a marketingcoach, for example, which is one
(03:49):
of the services that I offer isto work with a coach and
getting started and handling ityourself, but still being able
to market yourselfprofessionally, looking
professional and giving yourcustomers a good impression.
So the struggle comes in a lotof businesses when they start
(04:13):
out, they have all their piecesin place.
When it comes to their actualoperations, whenever it comes to
, say, your painting businessright, you know how to paint,
you know where to buy the paint,you know how to, you know maybe
you know how to talk tocustomers, you know all those
things, but you don't know howto market yourself.
And that's okay because you'rea painter, so nobody expects you
(04:33):
to market yourself.
But when you start out yourbusiness thinking about the
painting process itself and youleave out the marketing piece
altogether, you're settingyourself up for failure.
It's like coming up with aproduct and you're not telling
anyone about it.
I mean, even if you go outsideyour door, you know you develop
some cool little new thing inyour garage, you walk out your
(04:55):
door, you tell your neighborabout it because you want to
make money, you want to sell it.
Well, that's marketing.
But if you don't tell anyone,no one's going to know, you're
not going to be able to make anymoney, you're not going to be
able to sell your services, yourbusiness or you know products
if you don't market at all.
So I think that is one of thestruggles that I see for new
(05:18):
businesses is that they forgetto plan for that.
Whatever that looks like, theyforget to plan for that.
They say, okay, I got all mythings in place, but I don't
know how to market myself.
So what I recommend asbusinesses are starting up you
know, especially starting up isto remember that just doing the
(05:41):
job alone is not enough.
Just being a good painter orjust having a cool new little
project product that you'retrying to sell is not enough.
You have got to plan for themarketing.
So when you establish yourbusiness plan, when you try to
figure out how much money am Igoing to need to get this
(06:02):
business off the ground,marketing should already be part
of that.
And then you can still decidewell, I may have $20,000 to
launch my brand, which is adecent amount to you know, get
an agency to do some of thestuff for you.
Or you can say you know, Ireally just don't have any money
, so I have only a few dollarsto work with.
(06:23):
Now we want to look at whatthat may look like if you only
have a very small budget, andthen you know what can you do as
a business to still not looklike something that was produced
in your basement.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
So are we going down the line, or I think what you're
getting at is hiring a fullagency to do all of your
marketing versus hiring amarketing coach.
How do you know which way to go?
Is it all based on budget?
Is it based on the type ofbusiness that you have?
Who you're serving, how bigyour service area is?
Speaker 1 (06:55):
I mean primarily it's based on budget, of course, but
another factor that may affectyour decision there is how
confident you feel in handlingsome of your marketing, just
like the example I used earlierwith the finances.
You know, do I want to run myown finances for my business?
No, I certainly don't.
I just I don't feel competentin the financial aspect.
(07:18):
I keep track of what's going on, I know where we stand and then
I let my accountant do the restand I have got to come up with
the money to pay my accountantright.
So that is a huge factor for mewhen I run my business to
figure out what am I going tooutsource and what do I feel
like I could handle, with alittle bit of guidance maybe,
(07:39):
because I mean, the truth isthat most people if they start a
business, they don't reallyknow everything.
That's part of it, like it's.
You live and learn, you knowyou have to, you get into the
processes and then suddenlyyou've got to learn how to you
know have employees and how torun payroll and how to have good
processes and HR stuff, and youknow the list goes on, it just
(08:01):
keeps going.
You know and you have to learn.
You have to learn all thedifferent different aspects and
you have to decide for everystep what do I feel like I can
learn and I can handle, and whatis just over my head.
And if marketing is way overyour head, if that's like a
foreign language to you, thenmaybe that may be something
(08:23):
where you need to look at, maybehiring someone to help you with
it.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
And it can be for so many, because you and I both
know that it's constantlychanging.
There's always new informationout there.
There's always a new platformthat you've got to learn and
that you've got to get trainedup on and figure out.
Is my business supposed to bethere?
Is it not supposed to?
Speaker 1 (08:40):
be there Is this represent my brand.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Well, all of the things.
So let's now go into, like,budget-friendly marketing
strategies, how to createcontent, what those marketing
ideas should be.
Leveraging social mediaplatforms, of course that's a
free, cheap and easy way to do.
Digital marketing, which I'msure you see a lot of yes.
Creating engaging blog content,and why somebody needs to do
(09:03):
that.
Or user-generated content,which I don't want to go too
much down the hole of all thesethings, because, of course,
these are all services that youoffer at your business and could
help a small business with.
But what tips do you have for asmall business Maybe who's just
getting started and hasn't hiredsomebody yet?
Speaker 1 (09:20):
So the first and foremost to me, the most
important thing for marketingoverall, it doesn't matter what
you do, how you market yourself.
The one thing that you've gotto understand is who your
audience is, and that issomething that you can do
Absolutely for free.
You know, you can sit down andjust brainstorm.
(09:44):
We want to know you know someof the demographics.
Are they male, female?
Are they?
What is their age range?
Sometimes it's relevant whatincome range they are.
What are their interests?
Are they into a healthylifestyle?
Are they into fancy cars?
You know, and it's not so muchjust what your business offers,
(10:06):
but we want to try to create aprofile.
We call it like a customerpersona.
We want to actually create aperson, like a person that we
make up, basically a character.
It's like you make up acharacter for a movie, except
they're your ideal customer.
So what does it look like ifyou are a roofing company, for
example?
(10:26):
Most likely, I mean, they'regoing to be homeowners, right?
Because somebody that rents isnot going to, it's not going to
hire you as a roofing company.
So if they're homeowners, theyprobably have a certain income
level.
If they have a certain incomelevel, they probably have a
certain they have certaininterests.
It's not.
We don't always know exactlywhat it is, but we can derive
(10:48):
things from establishing thosefacts that we do know for a fact
.
We do know that a renter or acollege student that is renting
a house is not going to pay fora new roof.
So they're not within ourtarget audience, right?
So you just break it down intowhat we define as our target
audience.
Now, once we do, once we writeall of that out and I would
(11:13):
highly recommend you write allof that out, so don't just sit
there and have it in your head,write it all out, put it on
paper or on your computer,whatever you prefer, but write
it out and come up with thisimage of this is my person, this
is the person I'm talking toNow.
We have usually have a primaryaudience and at least a
(11:33):
secondary audience.
There's not usually just onetype of audience, but try to
figure that out, Try to figureout who you're talking to.
And then, once we figure outwho we're talking to, then you
can say, okay, this audience ismostly between the ages of, you
know, 40 and 50 years old, forexample.
(11:53):
Then we think about, like, thechannels, the multimedia, the
media channels, for example,even even social media.
The younger generation tends tobe more on Instagram, whereas
you know my daughter, mydaughter is 23, and she says
Facebook is for old people.
So there's 21 over 23,apparently, is old and is on
(12:15):
Facebook.
No, but on a serious note, it'syou.
You figure out not only who,who your audience is, but where
they're at.
Do they drive to work everymorning?
Do they see billboards alongthe highway?
Do they listen to the radio?
Maybe are they going to spend alot of time on social media?
And so by figuring out who theaudience is, you're
(12:38):
automatically going to figureout some ways of how to reach
them.
Because if you don't know thatpiece, then you can spend
thousands of dollars here,thousands of dollars here, and
you're still not going to talkto the right audience.
So that is the number one thingthat I think every business
should do, and that is also thenumber one thing that I have
(13:00):
noticed in marketing coachingwhen businesses come to me, that
a lot of times they don't know,they don't know who their
audience is.
They say everybody.
They say everybody, and nobodyhas an audience of everybody.
It doesn't exist.
Or you can say well, everybodywho needs a new roof, that's not
an audience.
So we have to be more specificthan that, and I mean that's one
(13:24):
of the services we offer, thatI offer as a marketing coach,
but also that we offer, you know, as a business, we sit down
with our clients.
For the most part, they will,you know, we just ask specific
questions and they will know allof the answers, but they have
never sat down and actually putit on paper or put it, you know,
anywhere where they can seeexactly.
(13:46):
This is who we're talking to.
So, and once you, once you havedetermined who your audience is
, then you can get into some ofthe details on how are we going
to reach them.
Now, like I mentioned earlier,you can figure out do they spend
time on social media?
(14:07):
Do they spend time reading thepaper?
Do they look at differentmagazines?
You know where are they at,what are their behaviors and how
do we reach them through that?
Speaker 2 (14:19):
So how do you, if you're, how do you figure out
where your audience is?
Speaker 1 (14:25):
You figure it out based on what you determine
their interest is and what theirlifestyle looks like and what
some of their habits are, whichis what you can figure out.
I mean, you're not going toknow that 100%, but we can sort
of figure out.
You know what the main bulk ofour audience is most likely
(14:48):
doing and what some of theirbehaviors are.
So, again, if they're of acertain age group and you want
to figure out where to reachthem on social media, you can
look at some statistics that youcan pull.
You just get on Google and seeyou know what are some of the
statistics of what age groupshang out on what social media
platforms.
It's free information, it's outthere.
I think there's also if I'm notmistaken.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
if I am, I will cut this out, but I think that
there's a database offered bythe Pioneer Public Library as
well for small businesses thatcan kind of find some of that
information.
I think there used to be theMetro Library also.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Yeah, I think there's several sources like that that
will offer this information, andI mean to be completely honest
with you.
I mean as a marketing firm, andwe have to stay on top of
everything.
On a regular basis, we use thesame type of resources.
It's just we research that forour customers so that we can
then share the knowledge withthem, so they can paint.
(15:45):
You know, and they don't have toworry about the money.
That's exactly right, so thatthey can do what they're really
great at and which is, you know,their job.
But if someone were to be in aposition where they are not able
to work with us, they couldthen spend some time and go
research that information andit'll just give them some
insights on that.
(16:05):
You know, like, who knew thatYouTube is now the second
largest search engine?
You know, so if you're not onYouTube, you're missing out on a
huge crowd.
I mean, those are things.
When you tell people they areusually surprised.
But again, this is informationthat is publicly available that
(16:26):
you should spend the time ifyou're not able to work with an
agency.
Spend the time research.
You know.
Research the, the, the channels, research, the Research the
platforms that you could use,especially when it comes to
social media, to figure out by,by age group, by interest, what
(16:47):
would be a good platform to use.
So then, we're facing thechallenge of what is it that
we're going to post, becauseJust posting memes usually does
not do the trick, althoughsometimes memes can be great,
but it's not really gonnapromote your business.
You know, you're not reallygonna get any sales off of
posting a bunch of memes and Ijust use that as an example
(17:09):
because that's a lot of.
Big go-to of just post funnymemes and and and that's great.
Funny memes are great, but inmoderation.
So the first thing that I wouldRecommend, if you are trying to
create social media content foryour own business, is to come
(17:30):
up with a strategy.
I feel like everything inmarketing should have a strategy
.
You should never just blindlythrow stuff out there and see
what sticks.
Doesn't usually work.
Usually and so social mediastrategies can look a couple of
different ways.
I mean the first.
The first thing I would do iscoming up with what we call like
(17:50):
a content pillar system wherewe we Define how many posts are
we going to create per week, oryou know per month, or you know
for for whatever time frame, andthen what types of posts you
know.
Help yourself out by givingyourself a structure.
Don't just start writing.
Figure out Okay, we're gonnahave two posts where we talk
(18:11):
about our products and services.
We're gonna have one post thatcan be a funny meme, one post
that is maybe Something relatedto the topic that you're talking
about.
You know, could be industryrelated, could be educational
resources, could be communityevents.
I mean, that's always somethingthat's nice to promote if, if
(18:32):
businesses show off that theyare Basically active in their
community, that they care aboutthe community, and so come up
with a list of I want to do somany posts of this, so many
posts of that, and Then, whenyou get to that point of writing
, you're already gonna have astructure.
You're not just writing wildlyand running out of content in
(18:52):
two minutes because you haveideas now and and when writing.
Think back on that time thatyou were sitting down and coming
up with this customer personathat describes in detail who
you're talking to, and imaginethat person sitting across the
table from you.
Imagine this person is sittingthere.
(19:13):
They're your potentialcustomers and you have to
convince them to hire you or topurchase a product from you.
So we want to think of who theyare.
How do we talk to them?
What kind of tone of voice dowe use?
Is it gonna be all fun and youknow, crazy wild, or do we have
(19:34):
to sound really professional?
If you're in the financialfield or Something, or you know
in law, you may not want tosound crazy wild.
You want to maybe sound, youknow.
You want to sound right, butthat's the tone.
That's the voice that you'reyou're Using in order to talk to
your client and to yourcustomers, and for that you got
to know who you're talking to.
(19:54):
Again, it always comes back tothe one thing, and so once you
Figure out who you're talking toand once you're figuring out
what types of posts you'rewriting, remember that the only
reason that people are gonna dobusiness with you is because
they have a problem, a problemof sorts.
(20:15):
If you're a painting company,well, their walls don't look
great, or they just really don'twant to deal with, you know,
having to paint their house orwhatever their problem is, but
you're here to solve thatproblem.
So you don't just say I paint,I use red, green and blue.
That's not solving anybody'sproblem.
But if you can say, you know wecan give your house, we can give
(20:37):
your home the new fresh lookthat you've been wanting to get,
or you know you can, you, youbasically want to focus on how
you can improve their lives, howyou can make their lives better
.
Fix that pain point.
Fix that pain point.
Yes, exactly so address theirproblem.
Never, never, stop talkingabout your customer's problems.
(20:58):
Because, that's where you'rehere to do is to solve their
problems and fix the pain points, and so think in terms of what
the customers want From you,what they want, how they want to
improve their lives and how youare able to improve their lives
for them.
Yeah, yeah, yeah we.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
I know we're talking about content.
We want us just a little low.
We're not rewind us, but forthe brand new business.
I know we talked a little bitabout this before the show,
about branding and why that's soimportant, and maybe this is
the thing you want to spend alittle bit of money on.
Do you want to talk about that?
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Yeah, sure, um, branding is one of those things
that I think if you're going tohave one piece and all of your
marketing materials that you'regonna that you Should work with
a professional Um.
It would be the branding piece.
You want to look good, you wantto look good but you also more.
(21:52):
So we're not talking, we're notjust talking about a logo.
When we're talking aboutbranding, we're talking about
establishing who you are andwhat you stand for and what
you're trying to communicate.
So, as a brand strategist, youknow yes, I wear a lot of
different hats I'm also a brandstrategist and work with
businesses to um to establishtheir brand and their brand
(22:12):
narrative Um.
That is equally important, ifnot more important, than what
your logo looks like, um.
So we want to not only knowwhat the visual aspect is going
to be, but also what are werepresenting?
How do we say what we're, whatwe're trying to do?
How do we communicate that tothe brand?
How do we define what ourbusiness does like?
(22:35):
If I meet you somewhere, youknow, walking down the street
and asking hey, what do you doas a business?
I want you to know exactly howto answer that and I want you to
know exactly what to say, likethe actual words that you should
say as part of your elevatorpitch or as part of your
descriptions that you put on thescreen.
So that's what we're trying todo.
(22:55):
We're trying to do that.
So if you're not going to be inyour elevator pitch or as part
of your descriptions that youput on different platforms, you
know what good is a facebookaccount if you don't know how to
Describe what your businessdoes?
You can post all the stuff inthe world, but if you don't know
how You're going to talk aboutyour business, how you describe
(23:15):
your business in the first place, then it's not going to work,
and that's what we do inbranding.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
It should be a little bit more than we paint.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
Yes, we're here to help.
Yeah, that's great.
It's so deeper than that it is.
It is a running joke a littlebit in our Within.
Our team is so that we're hereto help, because that is the
most generic marketing messageyou can ever have, and you see
it a lot.
You know you got a problem.
We're here to help.
Well, that's wonderful, butwhat are we doing?
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Like what are we helping?
What problem are you solving?
Speaker 1 (23:47):
What problem are you solving?
Are we a doctor?
Are we a painter?
Are we a marketer?
Are we a you know?
So we're here to help.
Is, um, not really equal?
And just speak to yourcustomers.
But, that's what we figure outduring your brand session to
your brand brand strategy iswhat are we saying?
You know, what are your valuesthat you want to stand on?
What are you taking thosevalues?
(24:08):
How do we now communicate thatwith the customers?
What sets us apart from thenext, from the next person?
I like the painting example.
You know there's a lot ofpainting shops out there Pain
companies so what makes you sodifferent?
Why do people come to yourbusiness and not to the next guy
?
I mean, there are many factors,but one of them is to figure out
how do we communicate what weare doing.
(24:30):
How do we improve your lives?
And so the brand strategy piece, I think, is, if you have never
worked with that before, so ifyou are not savvy in marketing
or branding, I feel like that isone of the things that you
should really try to findsomeone that knows what they're
talking about, to get that pieceoff the ground, to design you a
(24:53):
logo professionally.
So we don't want to Just get inall the free software and put
some circles and shapes togetherand it's not going to represent
your business in the light thatyou want to be seen.
And so once you have that onceyou have your brand narrative,
(25:14):
once you have your logo and allthe visual aspects that go with
it you know fonts, colors onceyou define that, then you can
take those and implement theminto other materials.
You know you can put them onsocial media.
You can even put them on awebsite if you feel like you're
savvy enough and want to buildyour own website.
(25:34):
I mean, there are many, manythings to know and to remember
when you're building your ownwebsite, and just because
something is cheap doesn'talways mean that it's going to
be a good product.
However, if that is all you canafford at the time, you know,
at least you know that it'sgoing to represent your brand.
(25:56):
If you have worked with aprofessional that has developed
that brand for you, I think thebranding should always come
first.
However, if you are in aposition where you have already
started doing some of thosethings and the sooner the better
, I'd say you can still go inand make some adjustments and,
(26:18):
you know, tweak it to where itrepresents your brand.
But that's really, again, thatis going to represent everything
that you're going to do.
Visually, the logo is going tobe, is going to be important.
It's going to be on all of yourmaterials.
So if you don't have that inplace, how are you going to
create materials?
What is it going to look like?
(26:38):
You can make it green one timeand black the second time, and
now we make it yellow.
You know, because you don'thave consistency, you can't be
recognized, people don't knowthey're dealing with the same
business.
So we want to have that inplace.
And then the same with the,with the narrative, with the
verbiage that you know, that youcan use across the materials
and knowing that you'recommunicating what you want to
(26:59):
communicate.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
And that can be extremely confusing for a
consumer who's found you on.
You know, found your websiteand they're looking at the
things and it looks one way.
And then they find you onFacebook and they say this
doesn't even look like the samebusiness.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
Yeah, which can truly be a detriment to your business
.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
Exactly, Keep somebody from calling you
because they're like man theydon't even seem like they know
where they're headed.
So why would I hire thisbusiness?
Speaker 1 (27:25):
Yeah, exactly, and but that's exactly that in a
nutshell, why branding isimportant so that people can
recognize you for being.
You know the business that youare and that people do know that
you know the website, yourlocal listings, you know Google
listings and such social media.
All of those things tietogether and it's all consistent
(27:45):
across the board.
That gives you credibility.
I mean it looks professional,of course, but it's.
It establishes trust that youknow what you're talking about
and that's important.
And if you don't have that, Imean we've all seen businesses
that just try to put somethingout there.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
Yeah, and to be clear , like we're not doubting you
for what you've done, werecognize that it's a lot of
work to do.
Absolutely this is more, justlike, just be a little more
thoughtful about it, becausemarketing might not be your
thing, and that's where hiring acompany like yours can be so,
so helpful, because one you'renot stressing about it anymore.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Right.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
Like it's not your thing and you can worry about
the problem that you're reallygood at solving.
But, then it's not going to bethe thing that keeps you up at
night wondering like what am Igoing to post tomorrow or what
should?
Those like pillars of my socialaccounts be.
Instead, you're wondering likeokay, how can we get some
business to roll in so that Ican pay my employees this week,
or whatever it is.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
Exactly, yeah, yeah, and I think I think, no matter
what having a strategy, you know, if you are one of those people
that just is trying to do it onyour own and it keeps you up at
night and you're stressingabout it because you haven't you
haven't posted anything onsocial media in a month, or you
know that your website is notbringing you any leads there's
(29:06):
so many things.
It's it's okay, you know.
I think a lot of businesseshave been there.
They've tried that, theystarted something.
But that may be a good time toreally think about what the next
step is going to be.
If it's going to stress you tothat extent or if it keeps you
up at night, consider maybeworking with a marketing coach
(29:30):
If you feel like you can'tafford working with a marketing
firm.
You know most marketing firms.
They will give you freeconsultations, they will talk to
you about what it is that youneed and if it's something that
you can that they can help youwith.
I always ask my customers whatis your budget?
I know that that gets peoplekind of.
(29:50):
You know they get they get alittle weirded out by it
sometimes when I ask about thebudget but it's not about, oh, I
can charge you this much or Ican charge you that much.
It's not what it's about.
But if you tell me I have a$2,000 marketing budget, then I
know what I can do for youwithin that budget.
If you tell me you have a$20,000 budget, I know I can do
a lot more for you, and so thenwe can talk through that what
(30:12):
that looks like and how we'regoing to structure it so that
you get the biggest bang foryour buck.
It's not about me trying to seehow much I can charge you no
it's not like that and I try toexplain that to them.
But you know, if, if, if you areon a very little budget, again,
consider working with a coach,because that is that costs a lot
less and the coach, like myself, would sit down with you and
(30:35):
look at where you're at.
And we have a couple ofdifferent sessions that are like
the standard sessions that Ioffer.
You know, starting with thetarget audience.
Again, let's let's talk aboutwhether or not you know who your
audience is and let's let'stalk through that.
And it is.
It is always great to see whenbusinesses, when they, when we
work through that and then theystart to really understanding oh
(30:58):
, this is, oh, yeah, okay, nowyou know it's.
It's just something that yousometimes just need to sit down
and talk about.
And there's other sessions thatwe can, you know, talk about
different types of media, youknow what would be a good fit
for your business, differenttypes of strategies, content
(31:18):
strategy.
You know we can, we could talkabout digital systems.
How can we, how can you runyour operations a little bit
more smoothly by the use ofdigital systems?
There are several differenttypes of sessions, but you can,
we can also just book a sessionwhere you're just talking about
whatever you want to talk about.
So it doesn't have to be like apre shaped session of saying
(31:40):
this is an area of struggle, Ineed to talk to you about said
thing, and then we talk about it, and then you know I will be
able to give you some guidanceon your situation specifically
and what I think that you coulddo within the means that you
have available to you.
Or if that's really a casewhere we say you know that this
(32:02):
is such a struggle for you,let's see how maybe we can work
something out where we can helpyou as an agency like we do it
for you and still find like ahappy medium that works for
everybody.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
So, angel, something that we get a lot of questions
about from small business ownersis email marketing and how to
do that on a budget and whatthat looks like.
Let's go down that line becauseI think there's if you search
email marketing in Google you'regoing to get really overwhelmed
.
There's a lot, a lot, a lot oftools.
There's laws that surroundemail marketing that you have to
be aware of, so let's go downthat line.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Okay, yes, so email marketing?
I get the question a lot ifemail marketing is dead?
The answer is no, not evenclose.
We all get a lot of emailsevery single day and sometimes
we get obnoxious marketingemails and sometimes that's too
much.
But at the end of the day, whensomebody is interested in a
(32:57):
topic and you subscribe tocertain emails and you start
receiving them, you are going to, even if you click delete 10
times, and then the 11th timeyou're going to need the service
and you're going to rememberthe 10 times that you clicked
delete.
So email marketing isdefinitely not dead.
And so again, their services.
(33:19):
You know companies, agenciesthat help you with your email
marketing, but it's actuallysomething that is that can be
done by yourself, because thereare several tools available to
you.
So the first thing is you'regoing to have to have a system.
So we don't want to send anyemails from just your email
address and CC everybody.
(33:40):
That's one of the seven deadlysins of email marketing.
We do not want to divulge theinformation and share email
addresses and stuff.
So that's a big no-no, even inany sort of form.
We don't want to use just ouremail to send out bulk emails.
(34:00):
So there are systems availableand there are different types of
CRMs, customer relationshipmanagement tools, so these tools
will allow you to basically addcontacts, a list of contacts.
You can import them, you canmanually add them and then you
can design a little.
(34:21):
They have a lot of templatesusually that you can go into and
if you are not a designer,maybe contact your brand
strategist.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
Contact your brand strategist.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
But if you are not a designer, you should still be
able to navigate those templates.
Just pick one that you feellooks good with your brand, you
pop your logo in there andusually I mean most people
should be able to just kind ofdo that.
You know, even if you don'tcome up with your whole custom
thing.
That's when you hire an agency.
However, you can design thosetemplates and then, when you
(34:56):
write your sales emails againfrom a content strategy point
think about the problems you'retrying to solve as a business of
what are you offering to them.
Don't just talk about yourselfand look at my product.
Just think about the peoplethat are reading it.
But you can write content forit.
You can go into the systems,you can put it into your
(35:19):
templates.
You specify your mailing lists.
You know these are the peoplethat I want to send it to and
you can bulk send it out.
Some of the tools that I wouldrecommend are systems like
Consum Contact.
It's fairly cost efficient.
They have a lot of options.
They have a lot of add onoptions.
So if you want to add moreservices to it, you can.
(35:40):
You know you can add texts,messaging, you can add all kinds
of stuff, but out of all of theCRMs, it's one that's fairly
cost effective in what you getfor what you pay for.
So that is a great way to startwith email marketing Now, as far
as gathering the information,the mailing lists.
So you can't just email anyoneand expect that they're going to
(36:10):
be happy with you.
Ideally, people opt in to youremails, especially if it's
promotional emails.
So you can do that a couple ofdifferent ways.
You could have something onyour website that they can
subscribe to.
You know, whatever you callyour publication we don't really
want to call it newsletter,because people kind of get tired
(36:30):
of newsletters but we can callit something something witty.
Whatever you want to call your,you know your emails, but they
can sign up for something.
Another, another way to gettheir information is to, you
know, have like a.
For example, if you download,if you have a PDF or something
that people can download fromyour website as a free resource,
(36:52):
you get to capture theirinformation and then you can
follow it up with sending thememails.
Now you want to have verbiagein there that says that they're
opting in, so that they eitherhave to opt in while they're
subscribing, or what you see alot of times is that it sends
them an email that you have tothen confirm.
So it says you have signed upfor such and such and such, you
(37:16):
will need to confirm that youare going to receive emails from
now on.
So at the same time you have tohave legally, you have to have
an opt out feature in all ofyour emails.
So in the footer, I mean thesesystems, they put it in
automatically, just don't deleteit.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
No, you have to have it.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
That is illegal to delete it.
So you have to have an opt outand like an unsubscribe feature
that if someone gets signed upand say, you know, I changed my
mind, I don't want, then theycan unsubscribe.
They can, they can removethemselves basically from your
email list and you're stillgoing to have their information
in the system, but you just willnot send them any more emails.
(37:57):
So that is a good legal way ofyou know sending sending emails
and another, just one otherthing to to consider when
planning some email marketing.
Usually, again, come up with astrategy.
Usually there would be at leastthree to four emails.
(38:21):
If someone signs up forsomething, I would maybe even
try to say that you could sendmore emails.
Don't bombard them.
Don't send an email every dayunless they specifically
requested it.
Give them a couple of days inbetween at least.
But do follow up with thecustomers because a lot of times
(38:44):
someone may not be ready to buyyour product or your service at
the time that they sign up.
But again, you're gonna staycurrent on their radar when they
do need something, or maybethey will just see something
later on down the road and sayyou know what?
That is really cool.
Let me go back to their website.
You may get customers that way.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
Maybe more than once every six months is a good idea.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
That would be a good idea.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
I have an email list that I'll get one, and then, six
months later, I'm like did I,was I subscribed to that or was
I?
And confusing your customers isone of the number of things
that you do not wanna do, or?
Potential customers, and thenalso link down in the show notes
.
I will link to the FTC's pageabout laws and what it means to
email market and what you needto know and what you don't need
(39:29):
to know, all the things so youcan check that out as well.
Speaker 1 (39:32):
And again, most of the systems they will have it
built into their templates, soyou're pretty safe when you're
using.
That's another reason why youshouldn't just use your email
address and just email everybodyin your contact list we can't
subscribe.
that way they get unsubscribed.
But also you just you wanna beintentional about how you're
going about this.
Now, if you wanna publishsomething like a blog, if you
(39:55):
have a blog, for example, onyour website, or if you're
running some sort of contentpublishing of any sorts on a
regular basis, it is reallybeneficial to give your readers
an option to subscribe to that,to receive that in their email,
and that's something where youdon't even have to put anything
additionally into the campaignsif you're publishing the content
(40:20):
anyway and have peoplesubscribe to it.
So yeah, we'll talk about that.
Email marketing tips.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
I love it.
So last year, I think, you andI met for coffee and you had
recently become Storybrandcertified, which is amazing.
Congratulations, thanks.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
Well, it's been a year, I think so.
It has been a year.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
Let's talk a little bit about that and tell our
small businesses what they needto know about Storybrand.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
So I am a Storybrand certified guide and Storybrand
if you haven't heard of it, youshould really look it up,
because it doesn't matter if youare a marketer or if you are
running your own marketing andyou're doing something
completely different.
Storybrand is one of thoseconcepts that I think that
(41:07):
anyone can benefit from ifyou're trying to market anything
at all whatsoever.
It is a marketing framework thatwas developed by bestselling
author Donald Miller.
He wrote a bunch of books andhe created a bunch of courses
that help businesses grow.
Business made simple is one ofthem.
Marketing made simple is partof it and it's literally what it
(41:30):
says.
Marketing made simple is comingup with a structure, with a
concept to market your business.
The information is out there.
He has written a book aboutStorybrand.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
I think you get it from the library.
I think you can rent it fromour public metropolitan
libraries.
Oh okay, so just sharing, ifyou want to add a little bit
about it.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
Yeah, the book is fantastic, it really is, yeah,
and so in Storybrand and what itis, is a pattern, essentially,
that is based on storytellingand it's based on the components
of story, and we're not talkingabout telling our business
story.
We're not saying oh yeah, we'vebeen in business since 1843,
like nobody cares, right?
I mean not that nobody cares,but it's not gonna sell anything
(42:15):
if all you tell people is howlong you've been in business 150
years, yeah, that's wonderful,they want to know.
I mean, it does give you somecredibility, for sure.
But the point is, though, thatit's not about us, it's not
about telling our story.
It is about using thecomponents of storytelling to
invite the customer into yourstory, so that, basically,
(42:35):
you're taking the customer on ajourney by inviting them into
your story, and they're acharacter of the story that has
a problem.
They bring the problem to you,you become the guide and you
call them to action, you givethem steps on how to solve their
problem, and then you basicallytell them the successful
(42:59):
outcomes, you tell them what'sat stake, and so those are some
of the components, and it's thispattern that Donald Miller
developed, in which we use tobase our marketing materials of.
So we come up with thisnarrative that follows these
guidelines, that describes indetail what your product offer
(43:20):
is, how it's going to solve thecustomer's problem, and it is a
way of breaking it down,clarifying your message,
simplifying your message towhere people can understand what
it is that you're doing, andit's a wonderful marketing tool,
and, about a year ago, I gotcertified in implementing this
(43:43):
framework, and so I feel like Ihave learned so much just
through doing that.
And I've been in marketing for12, 13 years, I mean since the
beginning.
I mean you think that you'regreat at what you're doing, but
then Storybrand comes and bringsup all these new aspects and it
(44:04):
was an interesting experienceand I love working with it.
I mean we use the Storybrandconcept for all of the content
that we develop all of our owncontents, but also for our
clients website content, socialmedia content, any type of
marketing materials we base iton the Storybrand concepts.
One way to learn about theStorybrand concept if you kind
(44:30):
of want to venture out on yourown rather than hiring a
Storybrand certified guide, isto get the book Building a
Storybrand by Donald Miller.
Also, there are some onlineresources.
So if you look at the website,you can just Google it.
There are some online resourcesyou can use.
That describes the differentcomponents of Storybrand and how
(44:53):
it's implemented, and so it isout there.
If you need help withimplementation, then of course
you're always welcome to contactme or a Storybrand certified
guide that is trained andcertified to actually help you
put it into action.
(45:14):
But I do feel like there's alot of great information out
there and I see a lot morepeople reading it and figuring
some stuff out for themselvesand how to use it as part of
their marketing narrative.
Speaker 2 (45:27):
Thank you for sharing .
I know there's a lot that goesinto becoming a certified guide.
Speaker 1 (45:32):
So I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (45:34):
That's just a small little tip for people who are
listening today.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
Like it is deep it is .
It's not a training that youhave to go through to become a
guide For sure, for sure.
Yeah, there's quite a bit oftraining, and one of the things
that I realized becoming acertified guide was that there
is Storybrand has.
There's a lot of greatinformation to it.
It's really the training reallyhelped me being able to
(46:00):
implement it to pretty much anytype of business for any types
of materials.
That it's not just.
You don't just write what wecall a brand script, which is
kind of like the cornerstone forall of your brand narrative,
and you don't just stay with thebrand script.
You use it, like I mentionedearlier, you use it on the
website or you come up with thecontent structure on your
website that's based onStorybrand.
(46:21):
You come up with sales scriptsthat could be used for email
marketing, for example, or forother sales materials.
Your brochures, your socialmedia content, even billboards
anything that has any sort ofnarrative, any words in a simple
form, can be based on theStorybrand concept and what you
(46:43):
develop as part of that with thehelp of that framework, and
it's really cool stuff.
Speaker 2 (46:50):
Thank you.
Thank you for sharing Lastclosing thoughts, closing tips,
maybe top three things that youwant business owners to take
away from this podcast today.
Speaker 1 (46:58):
Top three things.
One marketing can be done evenif you have no idea what you're
doing.
There's so many resources, somany resources out there.
Take the time and read.
Take the time and read.
Educate yourself on what youcan do.
Educate yourself on marketingtactics and figuring out your
(47:26):
audience.
There's a lot of tools outthere that are available for you
.
You just got to take the timeand do it.
Don't expect to just magicallyfigure out how to market your
business.
There's a lot to it.
I mean, there's a reason whythere's agencies that have got
years and years and years oftraining under their belt to try
to do that for businesses.
But it is doable.
(47:48):
There are resources.
Go out and find them.
Go out and use them.
The other takeaway is the samething that I started with Know
your audience Know who youraudience is is the beginning and
end of all things.
Marketing.
Yeah, and also the third thing,maybe, is try to figure out
(48:13):
where you stand and if you feellike you really can't do it,
like you're really overwhelmedwith it, there are options,
there are different levels ofmarketers there are some
freelance marketers.
That may be a better fit for youthan having a full agency or
(48:35):
just depending on what yoursituation is.
But if you feel like you'rejust ripping your hair out, just
talk to someone.
Talk to someone like you wouldgo find an accountant or a legal
person, or I mean, that's whywe're here.
Speaker 2 (48:50):
Angel, thank you so much for your kind of closing
tips for small businesses whoare listening today.
If you want to connect withAngel, you're on all the social
media accounts, of course youcan send to there, also very
involved with BBB and then withour Chamber partners, and you're
always out in the community, sohopefully I'll bump into you
there.
You can find a live marketingon BBBorg, of course with other
(49:14):
businesses as well, but you canfind live marketing on BBBorg
Listed linked below in the shownotes.
We'll have some of theresources mentioned today for
small businesses who tuned in sothat you can check out all of
the camp spam laws, marketinglaws, all the things that you
might need to know, andresources and tools to get you
started.
In the meantime, reach out toyou if they've got questions, if
(49:34):
they said you know I love whatAngel said today.
I want to work with her.
Yeah, so make sure to check outher information below.
Thank you so much for listeningtoday and we will see you in
the next episode.
Bye-bye.
So I think that is one of the struggles that I see
for new businesses um, that theythey forget to plan for that.
Whatever that looks like, theyforget to plan for that.
They say, okay, I got all mythings in place, but I don't
know how to market myself.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Hey there, friends, and welcome back to the build
with BBB podcast.
I'm your host, casey Farmer,here with Angel Melvin of Light
Alive Marketing.
Angel, welcome to the podcast.
Angel has been an ambassadorfor BBB.
She supports all of our events.
She's very active in thecommunity.
I think you also have anupcoming event with the chamber.
So exciting she.
You will see her at a lot ofdifferent places and we're so
(00:56):
excited that she's also servingon our Revere and Rebel planning
committee today.
So if you haven't met her,welcome, angel.
We're glad to have you on thepodcast.
Thank, you?
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Yeah, I'm happy to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
So today we're talking about all things
marketing which you and I thinkcould get up down a whole rabbit
hole course, because probablycould marketing gals.
But do you want to give a justan overview of what listeners
are going to?
Speaker 1 (01:16):
learn today?
Yeah, so today we're going totalk about some marketing
tactics that you could use ifyou wound up being in a
situation where maybe youstarted a business recently or
you're just generally in asituation where you're not able
to afford working with an agency, because sometimes that could
get apparently pricey for smallbusinesses or startups.
(01:37):
So, basically, if they are notin the market to hire a
marketing agency, but there arecertain tools that they can use
and there are just things that Ithink that every business
should know about themselves andabout how to promote themselves
.
So, if a business findsthemselves in a situation where
they're not able to hire amarketing agency because maybe
that is just not in their budget, I would like to talk about a
(02:00):
couple of tools that they coulduse, that are available to them,
that they could still promotethemselves, but also a couple of
things that are important toknow when using those tools, so
that you're not just blindlymarketing your business, but
have a little bit of guidance onwhere to start.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Yeah, so our first point that we are going to talk
about today is understanding thechallenges of marketing on a
budget and what that means for asmall business owner.
Right, Because I haveconversations with business
owners constantly who say youknow, I'm an expert in this
field, but I'm not a marketingexpert too, but I don't have the
money yet to hire a marketingexpert on my team.
(02:36):
So what are some commonchallenges that businesses face
when they're trying to do that?
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Well, I get this question a lot too, and I
sometimes tell people well, youknow what I may do all the
marketing things, but I am not afinance person right Numbers,
financial things, okay.
So I have to decide is itsomething that I feel confident
in taking on myself, even thoughI know that that's not my
(03:02):
strong suit, or will I look foroptions where I have somebody
help me with that?
Because once in a while, evenif you think it's not in the
budget, not getting that can bemore detrimental to your
business than trying to figureout ways to pay for it.
So that is one thing, and I'mnot saying that everybody should
be able to just write out thedoor, be able to hire a
(03:23):
marketing agency.
However, it's something whereyou really have to decide.
Is it something that I couldtake on, that I feel confident
of taking on, or is it somethingwhere I should at least you
know, maybe consult withsomebody, because there are
options in between hiring amarketing agency to do all the
work for you?
You can still hire a marketingcoach, for example, which is one
(03:49):
of the services that I offer isto work with a coach and
getting started and handling ityourself, but still being able
to market yourselfprofessionally, looking
professional and giving yourcustomers a good impression.
So the struggle comes in a lotof businesses when they start
(04:13):
out, they have all their piecesin place.
When it comes to their actualoperations, whenever it comes to
, say, your painting businessright, you know how to paint,
you know where to buy the paint,you know how to, you know maybe
you know how to talk tocustomers, you know all those
things, but you don't know howto market yourself.
And that's okay because you'rea painter, so nobody expects you
(04:33):
to market yourself.
But when you start out yourbusiness thinking about the
painting process itself and youleave out the marketing piece
altogether, you're settingyourself up for failure.
It's like coming up with aproduct and you're not telling
anyone about it.
I mean, even if you go outsideyour door, you know you develop
some cool little new thing inyour garage, you walk out your
(04:55):
door, you tell your neighborabout it because you want to
make money, you want to sell it.
Well, that's marketing.
But if you don't tell anyone,no one's going to know, you're
not going to be able to make anymoney, you're not going to be
able to sell your services, yourbusiness or you know products
if you don't market at all.
So I think that is one of thestruggles that I see for new
(05:18):
businesses is that they forgetto plan for that.
Whatever that looks like, theyforget to plan for that.
They say, okay, I got all mythings in place, but I don't
know how to market myself.
So what I recommend asbusinesses are starting up you
know, especially starting up isto remember that just doing the
(05:41):
job alone is not enough.
Just being a good painter orjust having a cool new little
project product that you'retrying to sell is not enough.
You have got to plan for themarketing.
So when you establish yourbusiness plan, when you try to
figure out how much money am Igoing to need to get this
(06:02):
business off the ground,marketing should already be part
of that.
And then you can still decidewell, I may have $20,000 to
launch my brand, which is adecent amount to you know, get
an agency to do some of thestuff for you.
Or you can say you know, Ireally just don't have any money
, so I have only a few dollarsto work with.
(06:23):
Now we want to look at whatthat may look like if you only
have a very small budget, andthen you know what can you do as
a business to still not looklike something that was produced
in your basement.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
So are we going down the line, or I think what you're
getting at is hiring a fullagency to do all of your
marketing versus hiring amarketing coach.
How do you know which way to go?
Is it all based on budget?
Is it based on the type ofbusiness that you have?
Who you're serving, how bigyour service area is?
Speaker 1 (06:55):
I mean primarily it's based on budget, of course, but
another factor that may affectyour decision there is how
confident you feel in handlingsome of your marketing, just
like the example I used earlierwith the finances.
You know, do I want to run myown finances for my business?
No, I certainly don't.
I just I don't feel competentin the financial aspect.
(07:18):
I keep track of what's going on, I know where we stand and then
I let my accountant do the restand I have got to come up with
the money to pay my accountantright.
So that is a huge factor for mewhen I run my business to
figure out what am I going tooutsource and what do I feel
like I could handle, with alittle bit of guidance maybe,
(07:39):
because I mean, the truth isthat most people if they start a
business, they don't reallyknow everything.
That's part of it, like it's.
You live and learn, you knowyou have to, you get into the
processes and then suddenlyyou've got to learn how to you
know have employees and how torun payroll and how to have good
processes and HR stuff, and youknow the list goes on, it just
(08:01):
keeps going.
You know and you have to learn.
You have to learn all thedifferent different aspects and
you have to decide for everystep what do I feel like I can
learn and I can handle, and whatis just over my head.
And if marketing is way overyour head, if that's like a
foreign language to you, thenmaybe that may be something
(08:23):
where you need to look at, maybehiring someone to help you with
it.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
And it can be for so many, because you and I both
know that it's constantlychanging.
There's always new informationout there.
There's always a new platformthat you've got to learn and
that you've got to get trainedup on and figure out.
Is my business supposed to bethere?
Is it not supposed to?
Speaker 1 (08:40):
be there Is this represent my brand.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Well, all of the things.
So let's now go into, like,budget-friendly marketing
strategies, how to createcontent, what those marketing
ideas should be.
Leveraging social mediaplatforms, of course that's a
free, cheap and easy way to do.
Digital marketing, which I'msure you see a lot of yes.
Creating engaging blog content,and why somebody needs to do
(09:03):
that.
Or user-generated content,which I don't want to go too
much down the hole of all thesethings, because, of course,
these are all services that youoffer at your business and could
help a small business with.
But what tips do you have for asmall business Maybe who's just
getting started and hasn't hiredsomebody yet?
Speaker 1 (09:20):
So the first and foremost to me, the most
important thing for marketingoverall, it doesn't matter what
you do, how you market yourself.
The one thing that you've gotto understand is who your
audience is, and that issomething that you can do
Absolutely for free.
You know, you can sit down andjust brainstorm.
(09:44):
We want to know you know someof the demographics.
Are they male, female?
Are they?
What is their age range?
Sometimes it's relevant whatincome range they are.
What are their interests?
Are they into a healthylifestyle?
Are they into fancy cars?
You know, and it's not so muchjust what your business offers,
(10:06):
but we want to try to create aprofile.
We call it like a customerpersona.
We want to actually create aperson, like a person that we
make up, basically a character.
It's like you make up acharacter for a movie, except
they're your ideal customer.
So what does it look like ifyou are a roofing company, for
example?
(10:26):
Most likely, I mean, they'regoing to be homeowners, right?
Because somebody that rents isnot going to, it's not going to
hire you as a roofing company.
So if they're homeowners, theyprobably have a certain income
level.
If they have a certain incomelevel, they probably have a
certain they have certaininterests.
It's not.
We don't always know exactlywhat it is, but we can derive
(10:48):
things from establishing thosefacts that we do know for a fact
.
We do know that a renter or acollege student that is renting
a house is not going to pay fora new roof.
So they're not within ourtarget audience, right?
So you just break it down intowhat we define as our target
audience.
Now, once we do, once we writeall of that out and I would
(11:13):
highly recommend you write allof that out, so don't just sit
there and have it in your head,write it all out, put it on
paper or on your computer,whatever you prefer, but write
it out and come up with thisimage of this is my person, this
is the person I'm talking toNow.
We have usually have a primaryaudience and at least a
(11:33):
secondary audience.
There's not usually just onetype of audience, but try to
figure that out, Try to figureout who you're talking to.
And then, once we figure outwho we're talking to, then you
can say, okay, this audience ismostly between the ages of, you
know, 40 and 50 years old, forexample.
(11:53):
Then we think about, like, thechannels, the multimedia, the
media channels, for example,even even social media.
The younger generation tends tobe more on Instagram, whereas
you know my daughter, mydaughter is 23, and she says
Facebook is for old people.
So there's 21 over 23,apparently, is old and is on
(12:15):
Facebook.
No, but on a serious note, it'syou.
You figure out not only who,who your audience is, but where
they're at.
Do they drive to work everymorning?
Do they see billboards alongthe highway?
Do they listen to the radio?
Maybe are they going to spend alot of time on social media?
And so by figuring out who theaudience is, you're
(12:38):
automatically going to figureout some ways of how to reach
them.
Because if you don't know thatpiece, then you can spend
thousands of dollars here,thousands of dollars here, and
you're still not going to talkto the right audience.
So that is the number one thingthat I think every business
should do, and that is also thenumber one thing that I have
(13:00):
noticed in marketing coachingwhen businesses come to me, that
a lot of times they don't know,they don't know who their
audience is.
They say everybody.
They say everybody, and nobodyhas an audience of everybody.
It doesn't exist.
Or you can say well, everybodywho needs a new roof, that's not
an audience.
So we have to be more specificthan that, and I mean that's one
(13:24):
of the services we offer, thatI offer as a marketing coach,
but also that we offer, you know, as a business, we sit down
with our clients.
For the most part, they will,you know, we just ask specific
questions and they will know allof the answers, but they have
never sat down and actually putit on paper or put it, you know,
anywhere where they can seeexactly.
(13:46):
This is who we're talking to.
So, and once you, once you havedetermined who your audience is
, then you can get into some ofthe details on how are we going
to reach them.
Now, like I mentioned earlier,you can figure out do they spend
time on social media?
(14:07):
Do they spend time reading thepaper?
Do they look at differentmagazines?
You know where are they at,what are their behaviors and how
do we reach them through that?
Speaker 2 (14:19):
So how do you, if you're, how do you figure out
where your audience is?
Speaker 1 (14:25):
You figure it out based on what you determine
their interest is and what theirlifestyle looks like and what
some of their habits are, whichis what you can figure out.
I mean, you're not going toknow that 100%, but we can sort
of figure out.
You know what the main bulk ofour audience is most likely
(14:48):
doing and what some of theirbehaviors are.
So, again, if they're of acertain age group and you want
to figure out where to reachthem on social media, you can
look at some statistics that youcan pull.
You just get on Google and seeyou know what are some of the
statistics of what age groupshang out on what social media
platforms.
It's free information, it's outthere.
I think there's also if I'm notmistaken.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
if I am, I will cut this out, but I think that
there's a database offered bythe Pioneer Public Library as
well for small businesses thatcan kind of find some of that
information.
I think there used to be theMetro Library also.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Yeah, I think there's several sources like that that
will offer this information, andI mean to be completely honest
with you.
I mean as a marketing firm, andwe have to stay on top of
everything.
On a regular basis, we use thesame type of resources.
It's just we research that forour customers so that we can
then share the knowledge withthem, so they can paint.
(15:45):
You know, and they don't have toworry about the money.
That's exactly right, so thatthey can do what they're really
great at and which is, you know,their job.
But if someone were to be in aposition where they are not able
to work with us, they couldthen spend some time and go
research that information andit'll just give them some
insights on that.
(16:05):
You know, like, who knew thatYouTube is now the second
largest search engine?
You know, so if you're not onYouTube, you're missing out on a
huge crowd.
I mean, those are things.
When you tell people they areusually surprised.
But again, this is informationthat is publicly available that
(16:26):
you should spend the time ifyou're not able to work with an
agency.
Spend the time research.
You know.
Research the, the, the channels, research, the Research the
platforms that you could use,especially when it comes to
social media, to figure out by,by age group, by interest, what
(16:47):
would be a good platform to use.
So then, we're facing thechallenge of what is it that
we're going to post, becauseJust posting memes usually does
not do the trick, althoughsometimes memes can be great,
but it's not really gonnapromote your business.
You know, you're not reallygonna get any sales off of
posting a bunch of memes and Ijust use that as an example
(17:09):
because that's a lot of.
Big go-to of just post funnymemes and and and that's great.
Funny memes are great, but inmoderation.
So the first thing that I wouldRecommend, if you are trying to
create social media content foryour own business, is to come
(17:30):
up with a strategy.
I feel like everything inmarketing should have a strategy
.
You should never just blindlythrow stuff out there and see
what sticks.
Doesn't usually work.
Usually and so social mediastrategies can look a couple of
different ways.
I mean the first.
The first thing I would do iscoming up with what we call like
(17:50):
a content pillar system wherewe we Define how many posts are
we going to create per week, oryou know per month, or you know
for for whatever time frame, andthen what types of posts you
know.
Help yourself out by givingyourself a structure.
Don't just start writing.
Figure out Okay, we're gonnahave two posts where we talk
(18:11):
about our products and services.
We're gonna have one post thatcan be a funny meme, one post
that is maybe Something relatedto the topic that you're talking
about.
You know, could be industryrelated, could be educational
resources, could be communityevents.
I mean, that's always somethingthat's nice to promote if, if
(18:32):
businesses show off that theyare Basically active in their
community, that they care aboutthe community, and so come up
with a list of I want to do somany posts of this, so many
posts of that, and Then, whenyou get to that point of writing
, you're already gonna have astructure.
You're not just writing wildlyand running out of content in
(18:52):
two minutes because you haveideas now and and when writing.
Think back on that time thatyou were sitting down and coming
up with this customer personathat describes in detail who
you're talking to, and imaginethat person sitting across the
table from you.
Imagine this person is sittingthere.
(19:13):
They're your potentialcustomers and you have to
convince them to hire you or topurchase a product from you.
So we want to think of who theyare.
How do we talk to them?
What kind of tone of voice dowe use?
Is it gonna be all fun and youknow, crazy wild, or do we have
(19:34):
to sound really professional?
If you're in the financialfield or Something, or you know
in law, you may not want tosound crazy wild.
You want to maybe sound, youknow.
You want to sound right, butthat's the tone.
That's the voice that you'reyou're Using in order to talk to
your client and to yourcustomers, and for that you got
to know who you're talking to.
(19:54):
Again, it always comes back tothe one thing, and so once you
Figure out who you're talking toand once you're figuring out
what types of posts you'rewriting, remember that the only
reason that people are gonna dobusiness with you is because
they have a problem, a problemof sorts.
(20:15):
If you're a painting company,well, their walls don't look
great, or they just really don'twant to deal with, you know,
having to paint their house orwhatever their problem is, but
you're here to solve thatproblem.
So you don't just say I paint,I use red, green and blue.
That's not solving anybody'sproblem.
But if you can say, you know wecan give your house, we can give
(20:37):
your home the new fresh lookthat you've been wanting to get,
or you know you can, you, youbasically want to focus on how
you can improve their lives, howyou can make their lives better
.
Fix that pain point.
Fix that pain point.
Yes, exactly so address theirproblem.
Never, never, stop talkingabout your customer's problems.
(20:58):
Because, that's where you'rehere to do is to solve their
problems and fix the pain points, and so think in terms of what
the customers want From you,what they want, how they want to
improve their lives and how youare able to improve their lives
for them.
Yeah, yeah, yeah we.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
I know we're talking about content.
We want us just a little low.
We're not rewind us, but forthe brand new business.
I know we talked a little bitabout this before the show,
about branding and why that's soimportant, and maybe this is
the thing you want to spend alittle bit of money on.
Do you want to talk about that?
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Yeah, sure, um, branding is one of those things
that I think if you're going tohave one piece and all of your
marketing materials that you'regonna that you Should work with
a professional Um.
It would be the branding piece.
You want to look good, you wantto look good but you also more.
(21:52):
So we're not talking, we're notjust talking about a logo.
When we're talking aboutbranding, we're talking about
establishing who you are andwhat you stand for and what
you're trying to communicate.
So, as a brand strategist, youknow yes, I wear a lot of
different hats I'm also a brandstrategist and work with
businesses to um to establishtheir brand and their brand
(22:12):
narrative Um.
That is equally important, ifnot more important, than what
your logo looks like, um.
So we want to not only knowwhat the visual aspect is going
to be, but also what are werepresenting?
How do we say what we're, whatwe're trying to do?
How do we communicate that tothe brand?
How do we define what ourbusiness does like?
(22:35):
If I meet you somewhere, youknow, walking down the street
and asking hey, what do you doas a business?
I want you to know exactly howto answer that and I want you to
know exactly what to say, likethe actual words that you should
say as part of your elevatorpitch or as part of your
descriptions that you put on thescreen.
So that's what we're trying todo.
(22:55):
We're trying to do that.
So if you're not going to be inyour elevator pitch or as part
of your descriptions that youput on different platforms, you
know what good is a facebookaccount if you don't know how to
Describe what your businessdoes?
You can post all the stuff inthe world, but if you don't know
how You're going to talk aboutyour business, how you describe
(23:15):
your business in the first place, then it's not going to work,
and that's what we do inbranding.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
It should be a little bit more than we paint.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
Yes, we're here to help.
Yeah, that's great.
It's so deeper than that it is.
It is a running joke a littlebit in our Within.
Our team is so that we're hereto help, because that is the
most generic marketing messageyou can ever have, and you see
it a lot.
You know you got a problem.
We're here to help.
Well, that's wonderful, butwhat are we doing?
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Like what are we helping?
What problem are you solving?
Speaker 1 (23:47):
What problem are you solving?
Are we a doctor?
Are we a painter?
Are we a marketer?
Are we a you know?
So we're here to help.
Is, um, not really equal?
And just speak to yourcustomers.
But, that's what we figure outduring your brand session to
your brand brand strategy iswhat are we saying?
You know, what are your valuesthat you want to stand on?
What are you taking thosevalues?
(24:08):
How do we now communicate thatwith the customers?
What sets us apart from thenext, from the next person?
I like the painting example.
You know there's a lot ofpainting shops out there Pain
companies so what makes you sodifferent?
Why do people come to yourbusiness and not to the next guy
?
I mean, there are many factors,but one of them is to figure out
how do we communicate what weare doing.
(24:30):
How do we improve your lives?
And so the brand strategy piece, I think, is, if you have never
worked with that before, so ifyou are not savvy in marketing
or branding, I feel like that isone of the things that you
should really try to findsomeone that knows what they're
talking about, to get that pieceoff the ground, to design you a
(24:53):
logo professionally.
So we don't want to Just get inall the free software and put
some circles and shapes togetherand it's not going to represent
your business in the light thatyou want to be seen.
And so once you have that onceyou have your brand narrative,
(25:14):
once you have your logo and allthe visual aspects that go with
it you know fonts, colors onceyou define that, then you can
take those and implement theminto other materials.
You know you can put them onsocial media.
You can even put them on awebsite if you feel like you're
savvy enough and want to buildyour own website.
(25:34):
I mean, there are many, manythings to know and to remember
when you're building your ownwebsite, and just because
something is cheap doesn'talways mean that it's going to
be a good product.
However, if that is all you canafford at the time, you know,
at least you know that it'sgoing to represent your brand.
(25:56):
If you have worked with aprofessional that has developed
that brand for you, I think thebranding should always come
first.
However, if you are in aposition where you have already
started doing some of thosethings and the sooner the better
, I'd say you can still go inand make some adjustments and,
(26:18):
you know, tweak it to where itrepresents your brand.
But that's really, again, thatis going to represent everything
that you're going to do.
Visually, the logo is going tobe, is going to be important.
It's going to be on all of yourmaterials.
So if you don't have that inplace, how are you going to
create materials?
What is it going to look like?
(26:38):
You can make it green one timeand black the second time, and
now we make it yellow.
You know, because you don'thave consistency, you can't be
recognized, people don't knowthey're dealing with the same
business.
So we want to have that inplace.
And then the same with the,with the narrative, with the
verbiage that you know, that youcan use across the materials
and knowing that you'recommunicating what you want to
(26:59):
communicate.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
And that can be extremely confusing for a
consumer who's found you on.
You know, found your websiteand they're looking at the
things and it looks one way.
And then they find you onFacebook and they say this
doesn't even look like the samebusiness.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
Yeah, which can truly be a detriment to your business
.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
Exactly, Keep somebody from calling you
because they're like man theydon't even seem like they know
where they're headed.
So why would I hire thisbusiness?
Speaker 1 (27:25):
Yeah, exactly, and but that's exactly that in a
nutshell, why branding isimportant so that people can
recognize you for being.
You know the business that youare and that people do know that
you know the website, yourlocal listings, you know Google
listings and such social media.
All of those things tietogether and it's all consistent
(27:45):
across the board.
That gives you credibility.
I mean it looks professional,of course, but it's.
It establishes trust that youknow what you're talking about
and that's important.
And if you don't have that, Imean we've all seen businesses
that just try to put somethingout there.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
Yeah, and to be clear , like we're not doubting you
for what you've done, werecognize that it's a lot of
work to do.
Absolutely this is more, justlike, just be a little more
thoughtful about it, becausemarketing might not be your
thing, and that's where hiring acompany like yours can be so,
so helpful, because one you'renot stressing about it anymore.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Right.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
Like it's not your thing and you can worry about
the problem that you're reallygood at solving.
But, then it's not going to bethe thing that keeps you up at
night wondering like what am Igoing to post tomorrow or what
should?
Those like pillars of my socialaccounts be.
Instead, you're wondering likeokay, how can we get some
business to roll in so that Ican pay my employees this week,
or whatever it is.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
Exactly, yeah, yeah, and I think I think, no matter
what having a strategy, you know, if you are one of those people
that just is trying to do it onyour own and it keeps you up at
night and you're stressingabout it because you haven't you
haven't posted anything onsocial media in a month, or you
know that your website is notbringing you any leads there's
(29:06):
so many things.
It's it's okay, you know.
I think a lot of businesseshave been there.
They've tried that, theystarted something.
But that may be a good time toreally think about what the next
step is going to be.
If it's going to stress you tothat extent or if it keeps you
up at night, consider maybeworking with a marketing coach
(29:30):
If you feel like you can'tafford working with a marketing
firm.
You know most marketing firms.
They will give you freeconsultations, they will talk to
you about what it is that youneed and if it's something that
you can that they can help youwith.
I always ask my customers whatis your budget?
I know that that gets peoplekind of.
(29:50):
You know they get they get alittle weirded out by it
sometimes when I ask about thebudget but it's not about, oh, I
can charge you this much or Ican charge you that much.
It's not what it's about.
But if you tell me I have a$2,000 marketing budget, then I
know what I can do for youwithin that budget.
If you tell me you have a$20,000 budget, I know I can do
a lot more for you, and so thenwe can talk through that what
(30:12):
that looks like and how we'regoing to structure it so that
you get the biggest bang foryour buck.
It's not about me trying to seehow much I can charge you no
it's not like that and I try toexplain that to them.
But you know, if, if, if you areon a very little budget, again,
consider working with a coach,because that is that costs a lot
less and the coach, like myself, would sit down with you and
(30:35):
look at where you're at.
And we have a couple ofdifferent sessions that are like
the standard sessions that Ioffer.
You know, starting with thetarget audience.
Again, let's let's talk aboutwhether or not you know who your
audience is and let's let'stalk through that.
And it is.
It is always great to see whenbusinesses, when they, when we
work through that and then theystart to really understanding oh
(30:58):
, this is, oh, yeah, okay, nowyou know it's.
It's just something that yousometimes just need to sit down
and talk about.
And there's other sessions thatwe can, you know, talk about
different types of media, youknow what would be a good fit
for your business, differenttypes of strategies, content
(31:18):
strategy.
You know we can, we could talkabout digital systems.
How can we, how can you runyour operations a little bit
more smoothly by the use ofdigital systems?
There are several differenttypes of sessions, but you can,
we can also just book a sessionwhere you're just talking about
whatever you want to talk about.
So it doesn't have to be like apre shaped session of saying
(31:40):
this is an area of struggle, Ineed to talk to you about said
thing, and then we talk about it, and then you know I will be
able to give you some guidanceon your situation specifically
and what I think that you coulddo within the means that you
have available to you.
Or if that's really a casewhere we say you know that this
(32:02):
is such a struggle for you,let's see how maybe we can work
something out where we can helpyou as an agency like we do it
for you and still find like ahappy medium that works for
everybody.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
So, angel, something that we get a lot of questions
about from small business ownersis email marketing and how to
do that on a budget and whatthat looks like.
Let's go down that line becauseI think there's if you search
email marketing in Google you'regoing to get really overwhelmed
.
There's a lot, a lot, a lot oftools.
There's laws that surroundemail marketing that you have to
be aware of, so let's go downthat line.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Okay, yes, so email marketing?
I get the question a lot ifemail marketing is dead?
The answer is no, not evenclose.
We all get a lot of emailsevery single day and sometimes
we get obnoxious marketingemails and sometimes that's too
much.
But at the end of the day, whensomebody is interested in a
(32:57):
topic and you subscribe tocertain emails and you start
receiving them, you are going to, even if you click delete 10
times, and then the 11th timeyou're going to need the service
and you're going to rememberthe 10 times that you clicked
delete.
So email marketing isdefinitely not dead.
And so again, their services.
(33:19):
You know companies, agenciesthat help you with your email
marketing, but it's actuallysomething that is that can be
done by yourself, because thereare several tools available to
you.
So the first thing is you'regoing to have to have a system.
So we don't want to send anyemails from just your email
address and CC everybody.
(33:40):
That's one of the seven deadlysins of email marketing.
We do not want to divulge theinformation and share email
addresses and stuff.
So that's a big no-no, even inany sort of form.
We don't want to use just ouremail to send out bulk emails.
(34:00):
So there are systems availableand there are different types of
CRMs, customer relationshipmanagement tools, so these tools
will allow you to basically addcontacts, a list of contacts.
You can import them, you canmanually add them and then you
can design a little.
(34:21):
They have a lot of templatesusually that you can go into and
if you are not a designer,maybe contact your brand
strategist.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
Contact your brand strategist.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
But if you are not a designer, you should still be
able to navigate those templates.
Just pick one that you feellooks good with your brand, you
pop your logo in there andusually I mean most people
should be able to just kind ofdo that.
You know, even if you don'tcome up with your whole custom
thing.
That's when you hire an agency.
However, you can design thosetemplates and then, when you
(34:56):
write your sales emails againfrom a content strategy point
think about the problems you'retrying to solve as a business of
what are you offering to them.
Don't just talk about yourselfand look at my product.
Just think about the peoplethat are reading it.
But you can write content forit.
You can go into the systems,you can put it into your
(35:19):
templates.
You specify your mailing lists.
You know these are the peoplethat I want to send it to and
you can bulk send it out.
Some of the tools that I wouldrecommend are systems like
Consum Contact.
It's fairly cost efficient.
They have a lot of options.
They have a lot of add onoptions.
So if you want to add moreservices to it, you can.
(35:40):
You know you can add texts,messaging, you can add all kinds
of stuff, but out of all of theCRMs, it's one that's fairly
cost effective in what you getfor what you pay for.
So that is a great way to startwith email marketing Now, as far
as gathering the information,the mailing lists.
So you can't just email anyoneand expect that they're going to
(36:10):
be happy with you.
Ideally, people opt in to youremails, especially if it's
promotional emails.
So you can do that a couple ofdifferent ways.
You could have something onyour website that they can
subscribe to.
You know, whatever you callyour publication we don't really
want to call it newsletter,because people kind of get tired
(36:30):
of newsletters but we can callit something something witty.
Whatever you want to call your,you know your emails, but they
can sign up for something.
Another, another way to gettheir information is to, you
know, have like a.
For example, if you download,if you have a PDF or something
that people can download fromyour website as a free resource,
(36:52):
you get to capture theirinformation and then you can
follow it up with sending thememails.
Now you want to have verbiagein there that says that they're
opting in, so that they eitherhave to opt in while they're
subscribing, or what you see alot of times is that it sends
them an email that you have tothen confirm.
So it says you have signed upfor such and such and such, you
(37:16):
will need to confirm that youare going to receive emails from
now on.
So at the same time you have tohave legally, you have to have
an opt out feature in all ofyour emails.
So in the footer, I mean thesesystems, they put it in
automatically, just don't deleteit.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
No, you have to have it.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
That is illegal to delete it.
So you have to have an opt outand like an unsubscribe feature
that if someone gets signed upand say, you know, I changed my
mind, I don't want, then theycan unsubscribe.
They can, they can removethemselves basically from your
email list and you're stillgoing to have their information
in the system, but you just willnot send them any more emails.
(37:57):
So that is a good legal way ofyou know sending sending emails
and another, just one otherthing to to consider when
planning some email marketing.
Usually, again, come up with astrategy.
Usually there would be at leastthree to four emails.
(38:21):
If someone signs up forsomething, I would maybe even
try to say that you could sendmore emails.
Don't bombard them.
Don't send an email every dayunless they specifically
requested it.
Give them a couple of days inbetween at least.
But do follow up with thecustomers because a lot of times
(38:44):
someone may not be ready to buyyour product or your service at
the time that they sign up.
But again, you're gonna staycurrent on their radar when they
do need something, or maybethey will just see something
later on down the road and sayyou know what?
That is really cool.
Let me go back to their website.
You may get customers that way.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
Maybe more than once every six months is a good idea.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
That would be a good idea.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
I have an email list that I'll get one, and then, six
months later, I'm like did I,was I subscribed to that or was
I?
And confusing your customers isone of the number of things
that you do not wanna do, or?
Potential customers, and thenalso link down in the show notes
.
I will link to the FTC's pageabout laws and what it means to
email market and what you needto know and what you don't need
(39:29):
to know, all the things so youcan check that out as well.
Speaker 1 (39:32):
And again, most of the systems they will have it
built into their templates, soyou're pretty safe when you're
using.
That's another reason why youshouldn't just use your email
address and just email everybodyin your contact list we can't
subscribe.
that way they get unsubscribed.
But also you just you wanna beintentional about how you're
going about this.
Now, if you wanna publishsomething like a blog, if you
(39:55):
have a blog, for example, onyour website, or if you're
running some sort of contentpublishing of any sorts on a
regular basis, it is reallybeneficial to give your readers
an option to subscribe to that,to receive that in their email,
and that's something where youdon't even have to put anything
additionally into the campaignsif you're publishing the content
(40:20):
anyway and have peoplesubscribe to it.
So yeah, we'll talk about that.
Email marketing tips.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
I love it.
So last year, I think, you andI met for coffee and you had
recently become Storybrandcertified, which is amazing.
Congratulations, thanks.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
Well, it's been a year, I think so.
It has been a year.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
Let's talk a little bit about that and tell our
small businesses what they needto know about Storybrand.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
So I am a Storybrand certified guide and Storybrand
if you haven't heard of it, youshould really look it up,
because it doesn't matter if youare a marketer or if you are
running your own marketing andyou're doing something
completely different.
Storybrand is one of thoseconcepts that I think that
(41:07):
anyone can benefit from ifyou're trying to market anything
at all whatsoever.
It is a marketing framework thatwas developed by bestselling
author Donald Miller.
He wrote a bunch of books andhe created a bunch of courses
that help businesses grow.
Business made simple is one ofthem.
Marketing made simple is partof it and it's literally what it
(41:30):
says.
Marketing made simple is comingup with a structure, with a
concept to market your business.
The information is out there.
He has written a book aboutStorybrand.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
I think you get it from the library.
I think you can rent it fromour public metropolitan
libraries.
Oh okay, so just sharing, ifyou want to add a little bit
about it.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
Yeah, the book is fantastic, it really is, yeah,
and so in Storybrand and what itis, is a pattern, essentially,
that is based on storytellingand it's based on the components
of story, and we're not talkingabout telling our business
story.
We're not saying oh yeah, we'vebeen in business since 1843,
like nobody cares, right?
I mean not that nobody cares,but it's not gonna sell anything
(42:15):
if all you tell people is howlong you've been in business 150
years, yeah, that's wonderful,they want to know.
I mean, it does give you somecredibility, for sure.
But the point is, though, thatit's not about us, it's not
about telling our story.
It is about using thecomponents of storytelling to
invite the customer into yourstory, so that, basically,
(42:35):
you're taking the customer on ajourney by inviting them into
your story, and they're acharacter of the story that has
a problem.
They bring the problem to you,you become the guide and you
call them to action, you givethem steps on how to solve their
problem, and then you basicallytell them the successful
(42:59):
outcomes, you tell them what'sat stake, and so those are some
of the components, and it's thispattern that Donald Miller
developed, in which we use tobase our marketing materials of.
So we come up with thisnarrative that follows these
guidelines, that describes indetail what your product offer
(43:20):
is, how it's going to solve thecustomer's problem, and it is a
way of breaking it down,clarifying your message,
simplifying your message towhere people can understand what
it is that you're doing, andit's a wonderful marketing tool,
and, about a year ago, I gotcertified in implementing this
(43:43):
framework, and so I feel like Ihave learned so much just
through doing that.
And I've been in marketing for12, 13 years, I mean since the
beginning.
I mean you think that you'regreat at what you're doing, but
then Storybrand comes and bringsup all these new aspects and it
(44:04):
was an interesting experienceand I love working with it.
I mean we use the Storybrandconcept for all of the content
that we develop all of our owncontents, but also for our
clients website content, socialmedia content, any type of
marketing materials we base iton the Storybrand concepts.
One way to learn about theStorybrand concept if you kind
(44:30):
of want to venture out on yourown rather than hiring a
Storybrand certified guide, isto get the book Building a
Storybrand by Donald Miller.
Also, there are some onlineresources.
So if you look at the website,you can just Google it.
There are some online resourcesyou can use.
That describes the differentcomponents of Storybrand and how
(44:53):
it's implemented, and so it isout there.
If you need help withimplementation, then of course
you're always welcome to contactme or a Storybrand certified
guide that is trained andcertified to actually help you
put it into action.
(45:14):
But I do feel like there's alot of great information out
there and I see a lot morepeople reading it and figuring
some stuff out for themselvesand how to use it as part of
their marketing narrative.
Speaker 2 (45:27):
Thank you for sharing .
I know there's a lot that goesinto becoming a certified guide.
Speaker 1 (45:32):
So I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (45:34):
That's just a small little tip for people who are
listening today.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
Like it is deep it is .
It's not a training that youhave to go through to become a
guide For sure, for sure.
Yeah, there's quite a bit oftraining, and one of the things
that I realized becoming acertified guide was that there
is Storybrand has.
There's a lot of greatinformation to it.
It's really the training reallyhelped me being able to
(46:00):
implement it to pretty much anytype of business for any types
of materials.
That it's not just.
You don't just write what wecall a brand script, which is
kind of like the cornerstone forall of your brand narrative,
and you don't just stay with thebrand script.
You use it, like I mentionedearlier, you use it on the
website or you come up with thecontent structure on your
website that's based onStorybrand.
(46:21):
You come up with sales scriptsthat could be used for email
marketing, for example, or forother sales materials.
Your brochures, your socialmedia content, even billboards
anything that has any sort ofnarrative, any words in a simple
form, can be based on theStorybrand concept and what you
(46:43):
develop as part of that with thehelp of that framework, and
it's really cool stuff.
Speaker 2 (46:50):
Thank you.
Thank you for sharing Lastclosing thoughts, closing tips,
maybe top three things that youwant business owners to take
away from this podcast today.
Speaker 1 (46:58):
Top three things.
One marketing can be done evenif you have no idea what you're
doing.
There's so many resources, somany resources out there.
Take the time and read.
Take the time and read.
Educate yourself on what youcan do.
Educate yourself on marketingtactics and figuring out your
(47:26):
audience.
There's a lot of tools outthere that are available for you
.
You just got to take the timeand do it.
Don't expect to just magicallyfigure out how to market your
business.
There's a lot to it.
I mean, there's a reason whythere's agencies that have got
years and years and years oftraining under their belt to try
to do that for businesses.
But it is doable.
(47:48):
There are resources.
Go out and find them.
Go out and use them.
The other takeaway is the samething that I started with Know
your audience Know who youraudience is is the beginning and
end of all things.
Marketing.
Yeah, and also the third thing,maybe, is try to figure out
(48:13):
where you stand and if you feellike you really can't do it,
like you're really overwhelmedwith it, there are options,
there are different levels ofmarketers there are some
freelance marketers.
That may be a better fit for youthan having a full agency or
(48:35):
just depending on what yoursituation is.
But if you feel like you'rejust ripping your hair out, just
talk to someone.
Talk to someone like you wouldgo find an accountant or a legal
person, or I mean, that's whywe're here.
Speaker 2 (48:50):
Angel, thank you so much for your kind of closing
tips for small businesses whoare listening today.
If you want to connect withAngel, you're on all the social
media accounts, of course youcan send to there, also very
involved with BBB and then withour Chamber partners, and you're
always out in the community, sohopefully I'll bump into you
there.
You can find a live marketingon BBBorg, of course with other
(49:14):
businesses as well, but you canfind live marketing on BBBorg
Listed linked below in the shownotes.
We'll have some of theresources mentioned today for
small businesses who tuned in sothat you can check out all of
the camp spam laws, marketinglaws, all the things that you
might need to know, andresources and tools to get you
started.
In the meantime, reach out toyou if they've got questions, if
(49:34):
they said you know I love whatAngel said today.
I want to work with her.
Yeah, so make sure to check outher information below.
Thank you so much for listeningtoday and we will see you in
the next episode.
Bye-bye.
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