January 12, 2024 • 58 mins
In this episode, we dive deep into Brand Marketing Strategies: Boosting Your Presence. Join us as we explore the tactics, emerging trends, and crucial insights to help your brand thrive in the upcoming year.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to the Mastermind Al's Podcast, where we help entrepreneurs and digital content
(00:26):
creators grow their online presence.
I'm your host, Creative.
And in this episode, we'll be diving into brand marketing strategies, boosting your
online presence.
Join us as we explore tactics, emerging trends, and critical insights to help your brand thrive
in this upcoming year.
If you haven't done so, go ahead and subscribe to the podcast.
(00:49):
I am so excited for today's show.
I have a special guest with me here today.
Caitlin Slaney is going to be joining us here live throughout the show.
Caitlin, how are you doing today?
Hey, thanks so much for having me.
I've got a new mic today, so let me know if it's coming through.
Okay.
But great to be here.
Yeah, great to have you here.
You are a thought leader, advisor, CEO, women advocate in the tech space, and someone who
(01:15):
understands marketing.
And we had our last session that we did our last episode as we talked about how to grow
your brand in 2024.
And we covered three amazing pillars, right?
Brand identity, brand strategy, and then brand marketing.
And brand marketing is such a huge eye opener for everybody because everybody wants to talk
(01:35):
about, okay, how do I brand myself?
How do I market myself?
How do I put myself out there?
And there's so many different ways to do it, depending on your business.
So today's topic, we're going to be talking about how to market your brand.
What are some strategy ways that you can do to get the most eyes on your brand?
Now marketing, from my perspective, obviously, it's about reach.
(01:56):
How many people are seeing your content, but also the right people are seeing your content.
And in today's conversation, we're going to be talking about why marketing matters.
And we're also going to be talking about some actionable things that you can be doing to
actually enhance your marketing into the new year.
This has been a really, really fun topic to hit.
(02:16):
And especially if you're a CEO, you're an entrepreneur, you're growing a business and
you're growing a brand, it's really good to get this kind of perspective ahead of the
time, because you don't want to be building a brand for a year or two years and then realize,
oh man, I've done it wrong.
So establishing your marketing in the very beginning with your presence for your strategy
is going to make a huge impact as you move forward.
(02:38):
Warren Buffett had a quote that says, it takes about 20 years to build a strong brand and
it takes about five minutes to ruin it.
But I want to ask you, Kailin, before we dive into it, why does marketing matter?
You know, in a society where not only individuals, but also brands are so populous, right?
(02:59):
There are infinite numbers of options for so many things that we encounter and people
to interact with.
And it really telegraphs the message, why you?
Why should I interact with your persona?
Why should I observe and adopt your art?
Why should I buy your product?
That's why it's important to, you know, marketing is important to really let people know, how
(03:24):
will you resonate with me and why should you be here and part of my community?
I want to add on to that.
It's really it's also like I think it matters because it's like you want to get your product
and your brands out there, right?
And if you really want to grow your business, there has to be a marketing effort that has
to take place.
(03:45):
And there's many ways that we'll talk about how to do it.
But overall marketing, the way I look at it, my perspective is getting your product and
your service in front of the right target audience, getting them to see it and doing
it over and over and over and over again.
That's what I think creates really strong marketing.
And you've seen ads, you've seen content come up and it takes a while for the consumer
(04:09):
to actually notice your brand or what you're marketing.
You know, there's the first one through five times you see it, they're like, OK, what is
it?
Five to eight times, like, OK, I see what's going on.
Nine to like 12 times, they might click on the link.
But if they see it 15 times, they say, OK, why do I keep seeing this brand coming up?
(04:30):
What is it about them?
Why do I keep seeing it up?
And creating that brand awareness and also creating that trust of this brand is not going
to go anywhere.
And that's what people are looking for and consumers are looking for is trust.
And the more you brand, the more you market, the more you can charge for your product and
services.
So, Caitlin, let me ask you, what has been some marketing tactics that you have done
(04:53):
within your business over the last couple of years?
So we actually, you know, at Magnetic, we are looking at marketing strategy going forward
out the gate of this year because we spent most of last year building and working on
personal relationships.
Word of mouth, right?
We haven't gone after a big marketing campaign.
(05:14):
But one thing that we did put a lot of time into was, you know, emerging as a thought
leader, because we are in a new space.
I think this is applicable to a couple of different niches and a lot of big swaths across
markets right now is when you are doing something new, you have to educate people about what
it is, why you're doing it and why, as you just said, why they should trust you.
(05:39):
I think there's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of behind the scenes brand building
that we've been doing so that when people come in diligence as they see, oh, you guys
have been putting in the work, you've laid the foundation, you've written on these topics
about why, you know, for instance, we're in retention and engagement with brand communities.
(06:01):
Great.
That's our niche.
And people want to see that you have put in the time to, you know, put knowledge out there.
And like we've talked about a few times now, how you've become a thought leader.
So that's something we've been doing.
What I would call sort of behind the scenes marketing is building up your repository.
But when people come to diligence you, they have something to go dig into and they can
(06:23):
understand how you got to where you are, what you're about and why you've built what you
built.
I think a lot of that comes into play with legacy brands who sort of, they almost do
a full circle loop where, you know, some old fashion houses and luxury brands are bringing
their origin story back to the surface.
It's become something that people want to understand your why.
(06:45):
You know, just as you're asking them to trust you, they want to say, okay, great.
Well, why should I?
So laying a strong foundation is what I would call sort of an elemental marketing tactic
is building that base and then we'll come out of the gate ready to shine.
And when people's eyes are on us, they'll have something to go dig into.
So that's something we spent actually a ton of time working on in 2023 and 2024.
(07:11):
I think we've got a lot coming up for, you know, more outward facing marketing.
I love that you talked about thought leadership.
It's like one of my bread and butter around like marketing is showing what you can do
for others with your product or your services and talking about it 50 different ways and
(07:32):
then doing it through different media outlets and different channels because your target
audience, one might like videos, one might like reading, one might just like social media
posts.
But by doing that.
Yeah, I just wanted to hop in and say that that's an amazing point.
Yes, you have to say it 50 different ways and in different modalities because you're
exactly spot on.
(07:53):
You don't know how people will consume their knowledge, their content, etc.
And you may be surprised at who it resonates with in simply a different format.
So I love that.
And you know what I figured out from the personal branding perspective of a marketing like yourself,
right?
For my young CEOs or my young entrepreneurs or my digital artists in the space, talking
(08:14):
about a certain topic of creating 3D animation, gamification, how to build a community, blockchain,
products and services, like talking about those things, talking about the latest trends,
what ends up happening, what I've noticed, not only do you become a thought leader, but
the opportunities that come out of it.
(08:36):
So when there's spaces or there's like podcast sessions that are going on or someone's looking
for that solution, who do you think that they're going to refer them to?
They're going to refer them to the person that's been talking about it and marketing
their solutions out there.
And I think you really got to be consistent with it.
And like we talked about, figure out different outlets to get that communication out there,
(09:01):
but that message that really runs with your brand, your brand identity that we talked
about.
Now that we're heading into 2024, Kaylin, let me ask you a question.
What are some things that you have seen so far that has really stood out from other product
and from other businesses that are doing really well in the marketing space?
Honestly, I think actually some marketing forms of even physical goods, it's really
(09:27):
fun to look at ads that get really, really creative.
I think, you know, we're all visual consumers in some form or fashion where we're always
looking at billboard ads, but those show up in very, very different ways, right?
The air quotes billboard ad is now, you know, in print or a piece of digital art or an ad
(09:48):
space filler, whatever it is.
I think catching people's attention in an unexpected way has been the most fun sort
of observation from a, you know, from a marketer's perspective.
I think catching people's attention, maybe making them read some fine print or, you know,
whatever it is, like read between the lines or catch a joke that may not be immediately
(10:12):
obvious.
I think that what resonates with people is something they appreciate on a slightly different
level.
Yes, you're transmitting your message, but how you're conveying it is just as important.
If you're a brand that has sort of a cheeky personality, I'm sure everybody's seen Oatly
Oat Milk ads, even if you don't know you have, if you saw one of them, some of the bus benches
(10:34):
or whatever, they get really, really creative with their advertising and that's become the
voice of their brand.
You know, De Beers had put out an actually a really interesting ad, I think it was at
the end of last year where it was like how to make three months salary last forever.
And they, you know, it was then the picture of a De Beers diamond, right?
(10:56):
And however you feel about natural diamonds versus lab grown versus whatever, it's something
that made you think for a second and then you went, oh, that's clever.
And I think that sticks with people.
So figuring out your brand messaging, your voice, and then making a, you know, an ad
or a marketing endeavor that really reflects that is almost this extra layer of transmitting
(11:20):
and sticking with people.
So I think it helps make your marketing stick.
I love the video content for me.
My generation map, my Gen Z millennial map where I'm at with it is that I love video
content but I love, but also my attention span is really short.
So for me, it's that I have to create something that's very catching in the very beginning
(11:40):
to draw me in to look at what the product is.
And the other part is the outcomes.
By using this brand or using the services, what do I get from it?
What is the outcome that by using this brand, what am I going to get at?
Am I going to look cool?
Am I going to feel good?
You know, do my, what is it going to do for me and improve my wellbeing with certain brands
(12:01):
and certain aspects of it?
So into 2024.
So let's get into the first segment.
Kaylin is what are the real big benefits of really strong marketing?
You know, you stay top of mind for people and you find what I would say are your people.
If you're trying to build a community, if you're looking for, you know, the on the ground,
(12:23):
I would call it boots on the ground for word of mouth marketing.
The best type of marketing you can possibly achieve is one-on-one word of mouth marketing.
But how do you get there?
And I think that means building a strong brand and getting creative with your marketing,
being memorable, right?
I mean, I just remembered, I hadn't done research into specific ads that I liked, but I remembered
(12:46):
the only ones in the De Beers ones right off the top of my head because I thought they
were clever to me.
I, you know, a clever still frame will always catch my eye.
Video isn't really my favorite, right?
So that's something that resonated with me.
And then I think about it.
And the more I see, the more instances, the more touch points I have, you know, if they
(13:06):
continue to develop and evolve what I would think are clever, witty ads, for example,
if it was a product that I was inclined to buy, I would definitely try that out.
And I think the strongest marketing will yield, like I said, word of mouth marketing.
That is your sort of pinnacle because we all look to cut through the noise.
(13:27):
You know, we want to find the signal in the noise.
And often our friends and family, the people that we speak to on a day to day basis are
the ones that we trust the fastest.
So if you want me to trust your brand, come through another person I already trust.
And you know, that to me is like really your ultimate objective.
(13:48):
And how you get there is by finding out who you resonate with and how to reach them.
So you know, whether it's through video content, whether it's clever still frames or witty
anecdotes or experiential marketing, some people love an experience or, you know, a
pop up or an event, things like that.
(14:08):
Whatever is resonating with the community you hope to develop, you know, reaching them
on a visceral level will then get them talking about you to their friends.
You also can't drop that trust as you were talking about the Warren Buffett quote, right?
It takes so long to build your brand.
You now have to be careful with maintaining that consistency.
And if this is the brand voice you developed, if you accidentally change it or intentionally
(14:33):
change it, know that you're changing your audience and can you rebuild with them.
So I think, you know, that's more of a cautionary tale, but it all plays into the idea that
getting folks, you know, in your corner and then they'll do the work for you.
You know, you've amplified your resources the minute you get into somebody else's mind
(14:54):
and they're talking about you for free.
So that's, I would say that's your sort of ultimate objective.
Yeah, drive sales, trust, loyalty, brand awareness.
And I want to say this, what I'm about to say in a nice way.
You know, I'm having an audio book, it's called Not Taught, that I'm listening to what it
(15:18):
takes to be successful.
And if your best friends and family are the only ones that know your business or know
that you kick ass in something, you're doomed.
You're living in a digital age where if people can't Google you or find you, they sure well
won't do business with you.
So not only is it establishing a brand, but a reputation about your brand.
(15:42):
One of the things I always ask people is before you buy anything on Amazon, before you go
to a restaurant, what is like one of the things that you do before you do that?
You go online, you search for them, you check out the reviews.
What are people saying about you?
And then also, if you do get the good reviews and you do get five stars, how are you marketing
(16:05):
that?
As a restaurant, if you're getting the five star reviews and people are praising the food,
the culture, the service, go ahead and highlight that.
And that's like the free marketing because it's organic, it's coming from a client that's
actually using your product or going into your restaurant that are enjoying it.
(16:25):
That's a really strong way to market yourself.
But you have to keep pushing, keep trying new things, be found, put yourself on different
platforms and we'll talk about the six effective ways to market your brand.
But the reason why I say that is that if I can't find you on Google and I want to do
business with you and I want to work with you or if I want to find, collaborate with
(16:47):
you, if you don't have a strong online presence or you don't market yourself correctly, I
sure well will not do business with you.
Kailin, what are your thoughts on that perspective?
What is your take on that?
I think you hit the nail on the head, but I have a really interesting anecdote and that
is there was a new nail salon that came into the commercial space in the building where
(17:09):
I live.
And this is the first L'Oreal commercial and I was really excited about the fact that whatever
they put up, it was a beauty salon.
I was like, great, that cuts my commute time down to zero.
Excellent.
But it didn't seem like I was ever catching them on hours where they were open.
And so if I leave early in the morning and then come back in the evening, fine.
(17:30):
So all I wanted to know was what services do you provide?
And I could not for the life of me find a website for them.
I obviously have the exact address, couldn't find it on Google Maps and understanding that
it's new, of course, that it takes a little bit of time to get things like that up and
running.
But I think those should really be priorities because we do exactly as you said, we do our
(17:51):
homework or we do a little bit of research, especially if you're comparing, you know,
I usually go eat here.
Okay, well, I have an option for where I go eat or where I would like to go eat.
In order to get me over the hurdle of trying something new, you've got to reach me in a
certain way.
And then even if you do, I may want to do a little bit of diligence, which is check
(18:11):
out the menu online or check out your prices.
I wanted to look at the prices of the salon downstairs and just see how does it compare
to where I might otherwise go.
Those little things are enough.
You know, it's now been quite a few months that I've never tried this place.
Just I could walk in.
But like I said, I'm not usually here when they're open and I could certainly make a
(18:34):
point to be.
But it doesn't really rise to the level of converting me.
So or even sort of attempting to.
So that's where that's where I think that diligence and that presence is really important.
The online presence is a really big one because we're all such digital natives at this juncture.
Even if you were born, you know, I'm a I'm an elder millennial, I think is that Eliza
(18:57):
Schlesinger would classify it.
And I was not a digital native growing up, but it has now become second nature.
So you do really, even if you're a very in-person focused business, you still need a presence
for people to find you.
And one other thing I wanted to come back to was when you were talking about, you know,
advertising about your reviews, one one campaign that really stands out to me is a coffee shop
(19:22):
that used on a just a little sandwich board outside.
And I think it went viral years ago.
But it said, come taste the worst coffee one woman on Yelp has ever had.
Right.
So they took one of the you know, they took a bad review and they got creative with it
because they obviously have enough faith in their brand that their coffee is great.
(19:44):
Right. You can use the feedback and the reviews as not only advertising, but some contrarian
advertising.
And then further, if you've got a bad review, using that as a as a touch point and an opportunity
to reach out to the person who had a bad experience, because not only do we see, we all know that
(20:04):
some people are just kind of disgruntled.
And if I see a business who responds very enthusiastically or is really curious about
that person's experience and says, hey, we want to make it right.
Even if that person never takes them up on it.
I look at that and I say as another data point, wow, they're confident enough in their product
or their service to offer someone to come back and let them remedy the situation.
(20:29):
And beyond that, they really care.
So you know, one of the circle back to that, because I think it's a I think all of those
are really useful data points, but there are also opportunities for brands to craft their
own narrative and showcase to the world how they engage with people who aren't happy with
their service or do love their service.
Do you thank people for their nice reviews, stuff like that, you know, really just adds
(20:53):
a little bit of dimension to your what I would otherwise call a two dimensional presence
online.
Do you guys look at reviews before you actually buy a product?
Because I know damn sure if I'm going to be going out spending dinner with with my wife
or my friends, I want to check it out before.
I want to know what it's going to be like.
I want to know what the best things are about that, that that business before I get there.
(21:17):
I want to turn it over to our next segment, which is really exciting is like the actionable
things that you can do to market your brand.
Now this is this is going to be probably my favorite part of today's today's podcast session
is that I've got a list of like six things that that you could do to really enhance your
(21:38):
your marketing perspective.
And we'll talk about we're going to talk about some some things that you can do today for
you to start implementing, start for you to think about and start just for you maybe start
planning ahead.
And if you're doing this already, this is a big kudos to you.
If you are if you haven't started doing this, maybe start seeing if this is something that
(21:58):
can start integrating into your business plan to help you with your marketing strategies
moving forward throughout the new year.
So I've got six of them.
The first one I think is really important from from from my perspective.
And I want to ask you, Galen, is around social media marketing.
I want to kind of get your take on what are some actionable things people can start doing
(22:18):
on their social media platforms to market themselves.
I think that's where just about everybody should start in no matter what industry you're
in and especially folks who are here live, you know, participating digitally and are
building brands themselves.
You can already tell the power of social media because largely that's how you got here.
That's how you found us.
(22:40):
And it's a really interesting territory, I think, because it is a very choose your own
adventure.
You again, you have to decide what are your brand attributes, what's your voice.
And in that realm, start engaging with people and the channels that support that the best.
Are you you know, is Facebook your demographic?
(23:02):
Is Twitter your more your demographic?
Is Instagram?
Are you a product that you know, where visuals are really, really well supported?
Maybe Instagram is, you know, a better platform for you.
If you love producing video content or it's part of your business, maybe TikTok is for
you.
So I think identifying the channels where you really want to focus your efforts and
(23:24):
maybe that's just one or two.
I do think there's something to having a broad presence.
You should have a presence in as many places as you can.
But it's not usually tenable for somebody who's separately running a business as well
to be excelling on every platform.
So I think picking what resonates not only with your brand voice and your services or
your product, but also again, the people you're trying to reach, where did they live?
(23:48):
Are they you know, I look at it as largely divided by age and demographics.
There are obvious, you know, major, major flaws in those broad strokes assumptions.
But to reach, you know, 18 year olds on Facebook is probably not your best tactic or trying
(24:09):
to reach someone who, you know, if you're doing marriage counseling for folks who are
in their, you know, late forties, early fifties in suburbia, maybe TikTok isn't your best
angle.
Maybe it is.
I think there again, folks are successful in all kinds of channels, but I think identifying
your strongest channel where you're comfortable putting your efforts.
(24:31):
If you hate making video content, it doesn't matter how many folks on TikTok are in your
target demographic.
If you aren't putting out your best work in that way, you either have to get better at
it or choose another platform.
So I think identifying again, what works for both you, your skills, your products, and
where does your audience sit?
(24:53):
And there's a right way to do social media.
And then there's also a wrong way to do social media.
I realize that the same content that you post on Twitter is going to resonate different
than what it does on LinkedIn.
So if we do like a GM post on Twitter, you might not, you probably get more outcomes
on there than you probably would on LinkedIn.
(25:16):
But if you were to do a snazzy infographic, you could probably hit both of the target
audience the same way or have one or the other.
What I recently did, this is a really interesting case study, is that I used my social media
platforms for my Twitter and my LinkedIn and I created a poll.
And I said, what do you guys think is the most successful way to market?
(25:40):
Is it content marketing?
Is it using social media?
And I got different answers for both of them.
So that lets me know that both of these segments are different target audience and they want
information differently.
So I think identifying that as soon as possible and catering to your target audience is going
(26:03):
to work well.
And around social media, social media is hard to manage because there's a lot of different
platforms you have to learn to talk different ways.
There are tools out there that could help you streamline that process.
And if you're a business and you're growing, you want to figure out a way to automate some
of that social media marketing out there.
(26:24):
So using tools like Hootsuite, Mericool, anything that you can use to kind of help you plan
ahead, put those posts out there, especially if you're going to be talking about a subject
for so long or certain ways, planning it, thinking about it and scheduling it out will
help you grow your marketing presence.
You can do it at the right time, depending on the right data points that you see and
start making data driven decisions based off those analytics that you get back on your
(26:50):
social media platform.
So you know when is the right time to post.
Is my target audience in the UK?
Is my target audience in California?
Identifying those points on your social media platforms and using automation will help you
still be able to reach your target audience at the right time and use making sure that
you're using the right content.
So that's around, I think, social media marketing.
(27:10):
I think it's really strong.
We talked about a little different ways of how to approach it.
And I think if you're only using one right now, I'm not going to advise for you to use
four.
Start with two.
Start with three and start seeing the engagement that you get with it and see if it's the return
on investment.
I started using Threads and I thought, man, Threads was going to take off and Threads
(27:33):
was not it.
I didn't get the right engagement.
I didn't get the right return on investment.
So maybe utilizing that platform wasn't for me.
But if I spent more time using like YouTube, sharing my videos, more people would also
like that.
So don't be scared to try different social media platforms.
Try to grow as much as you can that's reasonable for you to keep yourself accountable for to
keep that consistency moving forward.
(27:55):
Kaylee, I want to kind of ask you the next part about the actionable part.
The next part is collaboration, partnering up with personnel's brands, products to enhance
your marketing campaign.
What's your take on this?
I love collaborations so much.
(28:16):
I think it has to be done well.
I think people can spot a paid collaboration a mile away.
And that's not to say it has to be free, but there's got to be some synergy there, some
overlapping your audiences and your target demographic because again, you can have the
(28:36):
biggest influencer in the world.
You can pay all kinds of money and have a Kardashian spout your product or service,
but they have become their own brand.
A lot of influencers have actually crossed into becoming their own brands right now.
And so we are also very savvy and can appreciate and understand that they're probably getting
(28:58):
paid for this post or air quotes collaboration.
If it doesn't seem like there's anything that's really substantive about it, then we can all
pretty much sniff it out and say that's just paid placement.
So I think collaborations in their most organic sense are incredible so long as you don't
(29:20):
end up looking like simply paid placement.
But collaborations themselves are so powerful because you can reach folks who are almost
audience adjacent or community adjacent.
So people who are half a step removed from your core audience already, and you can reach
them in a new and organic way by collaborating with an audience that they are part of or
(29:41):
a community that they are organically part of.
And I think it benefits both collaborators in its most optimal scenario where you and
a collaborator or you and a brand partner are each getting just as much out of this
as the other.
And I think genuinely communities really, really love and respect that.
(30:08):
Even some really wacky ones, some crazy crossover flavors.
I think there was like a Doritos, somebody help me out if you've seen this, it's like
a Doritos flavored vodka or something really ridiculous.
And it's like for the kitchiness of it, it was funny and it got a lot of attention.
But you have to already be at a certain level to be able to play with collaborations like
(30:29):
that.
So thinking about it tactically, you should be thinking about who am I trying to reach?
Who's really close to my core community, but just isn't in it yet?
And where are those people operating and existing?
How can I reach them by doubling down on the efforts of collab to reach them?
So I love collaboration.
(30:51):
This is a collaboration.
You and I coming up here doing a podcast shows a collaboration.
And for my perspective, for my personal growth, being in the Web3 space, collaboration is
really what really took off.
When I first got into this space, I was a very young creative, and I was kind of like
(31:11):
my lone wolf.
And I was like, I don't need a partner with anybody.
I don't trust anybody.
I can do it myself.
I don't need to be on this stage.
And it wasn't working for me.
People didn't know who I was.
I wasn't associated with somebody.
I wasn't associated with other brands.
It wasn't until I met a group of other entrepreneurs that had the same vision and mission as I.
(31:35):
And I think that's also very important to talk about is make sure if you're collaborating
with someone, make sure you really understand their mission and vision because you don't
want to collaborate.
And then their brand has a really awful flavor that could inject into your brand that can
really kind of mix the two up.
So be careful when you're collaborating.
Make sure that you do your diligence.
Check out those reviews.
(31:56):
See what people are saying.
But collaboration is really how we grow in this space and really expand our reach within
different networks.
So if you are an artist, you can do like giveaways.
You can do collaboration art piece with someone and figure out how you can tie those two together
and then represent each other and promote each other on your social media channels.
(32:18):
That's really like the growth.
I won't say growth hack, but the way that I've seen a lot of small creators intertwine
with big creators and kind of kind of create that like powerful collaboration to also lift
up both of their voices.
And what ends up happening is that new people get to find out who they are.
New people get to see how their artwork looks like.
(32:38):
And if they like it, it could it could really lead to sales and it really can increase the
growing the brand.
The next part I want to talk about is content marketing.
This is like my jam jam, which I really, really enjoy.
The content creation side of things.
Kaylin, I want to get kind of get your take on on the content marketing perspective.
(32:59):
Yeah, I think depending on what your service or business or product is, there is a lot
to content marketing that can be said for it being done well versus it not being done.
Well, it all kind of comes back to are you being authentic?
Are you showcasing something people want to see whether it is something new they can learn
(33:22):
and you're giving them, you know, bits of tidbits of free information to showcase your
knowledge and again, become a thought leader that pops into their mind the next time they
want or need something from you.
Or are you, you know, are you teaching them how to do something?
Are you making them laugh?
Anything that really resonates with your audience against being true to your brand and what
(33:44):
it is that you are putting out into the world is super critical.
But we consume content all day long.
I mean, just look at the stats on your, you know, your phone in an average week.
We are constantly consuming.
And so to put the script and become a content creator and put out marketing content, right,
(34:05):
doing content marketing is something that's really interesting.
And I think it's harder than people think because you're so accustomed to consuming
and you register what you think is good, bad or indifferent.
But when it comes to putting your own content marketing together and having it reflect your
(34:25):
brand, whether it's a blog, I was talking earlier about doing so many blog posts for
Magnetic, whether it was blog or LinkedIn posts, it's so interesting because if I read
that with a fully removed observer's eyes, I would have lots of opinions about what I
thought was missing or should be added or should have gone in place of this or that
(34:46):
wasn't the topic that I wanted to hear about in that particular moment.
I wanted to read about something else that you guys do.
You know, you've got to be careful to remove a lot of the noise about how you should create
it and just make sure that it's authentically transmitting your message.
And again, it'll find the right audience.
But I think content marketing is genuinely, it's so much harder to create it than it is
(35:10):
to consume it.
And we consume a lot of it.
So getting over that hurdle, I think is actually something that a lot of brands struggle with.
They're like, OK, cool.
I want to put content out there.
I want to use my content as a marketing tool to reach and educate and inform and amuse,
(35:31):
whatever it is.
But holy cow, where do I start?
Yeah.
And that's kind of goes back to what we talked about our last episode is what type of content
should I be creating?
And it kind of goes back to that three pillar, understanding your brand identity, your brand
strategy.
Who am I?
Why should people care?
And I think if you really hone on those perspectives, it's going to get easier for you to create
(35:53):
those type of content.
You know, blog articles, videos, infographics, anything that you can do to attract and retain
your target audience is going to be very crucial for you, very powerful for you to stay up
to date.
And people love, love content.
I mean, we consume it like you talked about so much.
But how do you make your content stand out?
(36:14):
Right.
One is being consistent.
Two is having the same look and feel throughout your videos.
Right.
Oh, I can recognize this font or I can recognize this intro.
I can recognize this branding.
Some type of consistency throughout your content marketing is super powerful.
But also, it's actually an asset for you.
So many times I've actually met with the business and we've talked about a certain topic and
(36:37):
I can say, hey, I actually wrote a blog article about that product or actually, hey, I actually
wrote an article about web web security.
Right.
And it adds that validation of why they should be doing business with you.
In a consumer world where there's so many people out there, there's so many different
brands, validating yourself and building that trust through your content marketing is so
(37:00):
powerful.
It can just take it can really take your brand to the next level and having that strong,
consistent marketing can help out.
So if you're creating videos, if you're doing tutorials, blog articles, any thought leadership
stuff or highlighting how people feel within the product and marketing that is definitely
a winning winning formula heading into the new year.
(37:21):
Number four.
And I think this is really this is this is really my topic.
Events you know, hosting events, sponsoring events, being a part of workshops, collaborating.
I know we have NFT NYC.
What are your thoughts on this, Kaylin, around the events for marketing?
I think there's nothing like it.
I think that they are often the most impactful piece of marketing because it really leaves
(37:47):
an impression.
It's multisensory, right?
You might meet someone interesting and tie it back to your memory of that event and who
threw it.
You may hear or see or learn something new, whatever that is.
You now tie an association long after the event is over that I think is just so incredibly
powerful.
(38:07):
The trouble with it is it's often difficult to scale, right?
Unless you're throwing massive, massive conferences, which are so expensive and time intensive
as a brand or a creator.
Those can be hard to scale, pay for, etc.
But they are just so incredibly impactful.
I'm also a huge proponent of being in person as often as you can.
(38:30):
I'm online all day long and many of us are.
But I just had a meeting this morning with a woman who came in from Philly to New York
and it was the greatest thing.
We talked about catching up and meeting and she said, you know, I've really been putting
on my to-do list, having more in-person meetings.
Do you mind if we do this in person?
And I said, absolutely.
(38:50):
But that, I mean, that's a real commitment coming in from Philly just for a meeting.
But that is such an impressive manifesto or like something to make part of your personal
brand.
You know, go visit with people, you know, set up a string of meetings if you can.
And that too is experiential marketing.
You are leaving your own personal impression with another individual that they will take
(39:17):
long after the meeting, right?
When you shut down a screen, a Zoom screen, you don't have anywhere near the dimension
that you had in person.
And many of us developing personal brands, that is actually just as important as throwing
a huge event.
We all love, we love a good event around here.
But I want to sort of give credit where credit is due to even just being physically in the
(39:40):
same place and with a person for a meeting can also be experiential marketing when you
are the brand.
In those introductions, right, when you are at those conferences or that workshops, you
could meet, you know, the sabbat.
You can meet creative vows, you know, you can meet the CEO of a company, right, just
(40:01):
based off networking, being at the right place at the right time.
And we talked about brand positioning, right, in our last episode, positioning yourself
being at the right events, but also maybe being a speaker at one of these events.
Kaylin, you're about to be a speaker at NFT NYC, correct?
Yeah, that's exactly right.
So tell me about some of the benefits that you'll get out of being a speaker there.
(40:25):
You know, there's visibility.
You, again, you can establish thought leadership.
I will be speaking on taking some creativity into the tech world, you know, collaborating
between industries, brands, partnerships.
When people think of that speech or that, you know, panel that I was on, they can now
(40:48):
associate that with magnetic.
And if they liked what I had to say, they can go do some further diligence or just come
up to me afterward.
You know, I find that even I host crypto Mondays sometimes we always have, you know, we try
to have speakers and panelists and whatever.
And I will say whether do or undo, people automatically assume that you have some level
(41:11):
of established reputation that's that may be bigger than it is.
You know, I've been doing this for a year and a half in and around the New York community.
And people come up to the moderator, even if you weren't the featured speaker, they
come up to the moderator and think like, oh, well, you must be somebody.
And they introduce themselves.
And so it's a great opportunity for me.
(41:32):
I mean, that's what I get out of speaking at conferences, somewhere like NFT NYC.
I get a little bit of extra access to people because we're all in one space and they kind
of mill about after an event like that.
And if they have questions or disagreed with something I said, I've had some really incredible
conversations that have stemmed from, oh, you know, you said this thing, I really agree
(41:55):
because or totally disagree because and it generates conversation.
So it's further opportunity to refine your point of view and put, you know, putting your
point of view out there can be really, really scary.
But getting the feedback after is invaluable.
You know, it really gives you the opportunity to connect with people and see what's resonating,
(42:17):
what they hate, what they love and what didn't land at all, what they might have been totally
indifferent to.
So I see it as almost like experiential marketing for me in a way where I'm testing the waters
with here's how I think about a topic.
What does the rest of the world think?
And you get that feedback very quickly in real time when you're at, you know, big events
(42:40):
like NFT NYC.
And we talk about thought leadership, right?
One of the key things about marketing yourself or your product is putting yourself out there
at the right place.
And that content marketing is super crucial for your brand and becoming a thought leader,
being on stage and participating in these events.
I do it by collaborating like 50 artists, you know, and bringing them all in one space
(43:05):
to them talk about their artwork and giving them a voice.
And that's helped me establish myself as a thought leader, as a creator.
And then every now and then I share what my vision is.
But it's been an extremely powerful tool for myself.
And I think some other creators in this space, when you're hosting events, an educational
event, a get together and happy hour, and you're able to put people inside a room.
(43:29):
That's great.
But also here's a tip after you meet someone follow up, follow up, get their business card
and send them a message and say, Hey, it was nice meeting you.
Because you never know where that relationship could take you or that referral could take
you.
Right?
I have a good friend of mine who's her name is Lila Pinto, who's introduced me to so many
people in this space.
(43:51):
And she does it on a consistent basis where she's like, Hey, I need to introduce you to
this person that I met at this event and so forth.
So keeping those strong relationships because you never know when you might want to ask
that person for a collaboration, right?
Or ask that person for their intake and so forth.
Kaylin, what's your take on this?
I was going to say, I actually think that's how we met.
I was hosting crypto Mondays and Lila was there.
(44:13):
She and I met, I'm pretty sure that's where it was.
And then she introduced you and me.
So that's a direct reflection of exactly those in-person experiences where you leave an impression
on somebody where they're at least interested enough in following up, maintaining some sort
of relationship.
It doesn't have to be something that is immediately identifiable.
(44:36):
You just think, all right, I like you.
I liked what you spoke about.
So I have some sense of your perspective and let's just stay in touch.
It does not have to be a transaction.
It does not have to be something immediately within ROI.
So I think those types of events, the experiential marketing elements of it, those are all so
(44:58):
critical because I also think as we get further into the digital world, we do seek, many of
us seek to reconnect on a human level.
So being in-person is irreplaceable for things like that.
We're going to go to our fifth subject, which is also one of my favorites, is search engine
optimization, optimizing your content, your website to rank higher in search engine results
(45:25):
and making it easier for people to find your brand online.
And one of the things I did with content creation was what I created in my first YouTube video.
And I was scared to figure out how I was going to create this.
But I knew a good title that people were searching for is like how to set up an environment in
(45:45):
spatial like a meta version of an environment.
And I was really scared to post it because it was my first time doing a video, educational
video around that topic.
And I just posted it, right?
And not expecting a lot of return on investment.
That till this day is still my number one video based off search engine optimization,
how people find me online.
(46:06):
And I just reached 1,000 followers on YouTube.
And there's so many times that people message me or find me in an event or something like
that and they say to me, hey, I found you through YouTube.
I love your work.
I love what you put out there.
I checked out your website.
(46:29):
So utilizing search engines to create your content and market yourself is super powerful.
And we were talking about website development, having a strong website.
I think that's kind of like for me personally when I look at a website, if it looks really
professional, I'm expecting the brand to be very professional, right?
(46:50):
And the better you market and the better your brand, the more you can charge for your product
and services.
So that's kind of my thoughts when it comes to branding and marketing.
But the search engine optimization does such a powerful way of people finding you, recognizing
you and wanting to do business with you, provide that thought leadership.
So it's a really good mix of when you're creating a blog article, make sure you're using the
(47:14):
right header, make sure you're using meta description, make sure you're using alt tags.
You're using all the things that are really going to help the search engines rank your
pages higher for them to be visible.
Even in thumbnails, like creating searchable thumbnails that have like really good strong
eye catching is really going to help your search engine for people finding you and clicking
(47:37):
on your content to discover you.
Caitlin, what's your take on search engine optimization?
I think this is one, I think it's a no brainer as a concept.
If you are trying to be found, it is an absolute, absolute no brainer.
But I do think it's underutilized for sure.
I think people are putting out really amazing content.
They might write the most beautiful, well-informed article that would be so helpful to millions
(48:04):
of people, but if they cannot find it, it doesn't matter.
So I think SEO is something that is absolutely critical.
And I'm curious, I want to flip it back to you with a question is, what do you think
is the most basic entry level way?
I think for folks listening, I think it would be really interesting to remove a little bit
(48:25):
of the mystery around it.
That's something that I believe exists.
I think there's a little bit of mystery about SEO and folks are keen to do it, but they
don't know where to start.
Are there easy tools that you've found really package it well, rather than getting super
technical about it and doing a level 10 job?
Instead of doing nothing, where can people dip a toe in?
(48:49):
I'll give you two answers into one, without getting too technical.
If you're a business or you're a content creator, you're trying to establish yourself, spend
a lot of time on your website, right?
Spend as much time as you can on your website to making it look well branded, have all the
information that you have that could help people understand what your product and service
(49:13):
at all the visuals there.
I want you guys to start thinking of your website as your new employee.
Stay with me.
When you are asleep, when you're at the gym, when you're out to dinner, your employees
going to be up and it's going to be working the whole time.
Your employee is going to be there helping answering questions, right?
(49:37):
I would spend a lot of time on your website and building your website out.
The second part is that when you're creating content on social media, LinkedIn, banners,
make sure your call to actions are always going to your website.
Not to Discord, not to a link tree or anything like that.
(50:01):
You are literally stopping the algorithm or the search engines to validate you.
Because the way search engines work is that they look at how many people are going to
that site, how long are they staying on that site, and where are they navigating through
the site, right?
So having a good navigation is going to help search engine optimization.
So I want you to start thinking about that, is build a strong website, make the navigation
(50:26):
super easy for them to have, have the right text, the right information for them to say,
okay, I get it.
But every time you post or create content, make sure that you're funneling back everything
back over to your website, because that's going to help you rank higher on search engines.
It could be Yahoo, Google, and it's going to help you start indexing your pages, right?
(50:47):
So start thinking about that as you're trying to build out your SEO.
I would really strong building out the website.
And then the second part is, you know, utilize, let's say if you have WordPress or Drupal
or whatever you have, Wix, start building content on there.
If you just have a five page site that's static, it's going to be static.
(51:07):
But if you create it dynamically by keep adding in content, the little crawler spiders that
are searching the web every couple of 15 days, they're going to recognize that and they're
going to index that.
And if you're talking about trends, latest trends, you'll populate up there pretty quickly
if you're consistently posting and if you're getting all that traffic to your site.
(51:29):
So hopefully that answers that question for there.
I want to get to my sixth one, which is email marketing, which is a little bit old school,
I feel like at times around marketing, but it's super powerful because everybody here
checks their email every single day.
Caitlin, do you check your email every day?
Oh, I got really interesting thoughts on this one.
(51:51):
But yes, I do check my email every day.
Although my co founder Tyler just joked this morning.
He was like, just flagging this, I sent it to your least checked medium email because
we have so many instant messaging apps, whether it's telegram signal, you know, WhatsApp,
iMessage, Slack, all of the above, the email to me is definitely for serious things only.
(52:17):
I treat my email as these are action items, these are formal communications and everything
else.
I personally pretty much ditch.
So I'm the worst candidate to receive email marketing because I actually, you know, batch
delete most of it and unsubscribe from almost anything.
But that is not to say it doesn't work.
(52:39):
Otherwise people wouldn't be doing it.
There are, I would say most people are not as aggressive as I am about keeping their
inbox to an absolute bare minimum.
Yeah.
And there's the people that just let everything slide and let it come into place.
So I think email marketing, like when I thought about a couple of years ago, I was like, man,
this is really isn't an effective tactic, but it really is over time because you keep
(53:02):
seeing that email pop up.
You're too lazy to hit unsubscribe.
And it's also another way for you to reshare your content.
So I have a sub stack newsletter and I've gained my audience 700, 700 people that I
have on there.
And whatever I post on my website, I usually copy it and paste it and put it in that sub
(53:23):
stack, add a little bit more flavor and I send it out.
Most people are not going to go straight to my website and just pick, Oh, let me go check
out a news article.
But if I promote it to them and it goes right into their email, they're more likely to check
it out.
So I have a 34, 35 opening rate on my newsletters, which is good.
So I know people are actually kind of looking at it.
(53:43):
But over time, you keep seeing it and we talked about, Hey, I see it one time.
I don't pay attention.
I see it 10 times.
Okay.
I'm like, what's going on?
I see it 15 times.
Okay.
What am I missing out on?
What do I keep seeing this?
So I think it's also part of like the campaign, like the war, right?
Or the strategy, right?
Is being consistent and being consistent through different channels because our target audience
(54:07):
is very different.
And some people might like emails.
Some people might like video.
Some people like tweets.
Some people like infographics.
But if you can really understand how to put them all together and kind of shoot them all
out the same time on a consistent basis and direct all that traffic back to your website
at once, that's that like really magical search engine optimization.
(54:30):
And everybody's looking at your content at the same time.
Everybody's like, okay, I saw it on LinkedIn.
And I'm also on Twitter and I actually saw it on there, right?
That's one thing I do really well from my perspective on branding is that I'll post
my Twitter, I'll post on my LinkedIn, my Facebook, my stories.
I'll sprinkle it everywhere I can to get the most eyes on it as much as possible.
(54:51):
And email marketing is still something that I do use to keep people up to date.
I probably don't use it as strong as other brands where you have deals and discounts
and so forth.
But I still think it's a very interesting tactic on that.
Yeah, I will say, you know, I should have clarified that I love newsletters and I read
(55:12):
them all the time.
So I love the you know, if you've written something and you send it through email, that's
awesome because you're right.
I'm probably not going to go check the website or a blog or a substack.
When it comes to my email, now I read it, but that is a very small and curated group
of things that I'm interested in and have proven consistently useful.
(55:36):
It's the things that you just mentioned at the end there that I have batch delete, which
is to say that, you know, promotions and I shopped in a store once and now they've got
my email and they send me something every single day with a promotion.
Absolutely not.
So that's where I think email marketing really loses efficacy.
(55:57):
It's still like I said, it still obviously works because people are doing it and they're
converting it.
But I am a lot more interested personally in something that I've opted into because
I feel it delivers value.
That's where I think newsletters and updates on things I care about fall into that category.
And each single strategy that we talked about has its own strengths and best approaches
(56:20):
when often involves mixing tailored your brand and around your audience.
So I know we covered some really insightful, actionable items for you guys here today.
We talked about social media, marketing, influence and collaborations, content marketing, events,
SEO and email marketing.
Now these are still kind of traditional in some sense, but there's always a new flavor
(56:43):
of creating content of these type of things.
There's always a new way to go away of how you create it.
And if you figure out your niche is all good, but this is probably the most important part
that I want to talk about marketing is looking at your data.
This is really the juice right here and building a strategy is looking at the data points and
(57:05):
being able to make data driven decisions is going to help you one know where you're branding
at, what time to scale, know who the target audience is, what do they like.
So utilize polls, utilize your Twitter or your Google analytics, your Facebook dashboard,
your business dashboard, whatever you can to get some matrix about your business.
(57:30):
I think really studying the data is really going to help you create content.
It's going to help you pick the right person you want to influence.
It's going to help you pick the right events.
So if I went to this event, how many people actually signed up for my article, my newsletter
here or actually people attended the event that I spoke at compared to this other event.
(57:51):
You want to start thinking about that because you want to get the best return on investment
for your time and your effort when you're marketing.
I want to thank you guys for joining me here today.
Kailin, I want to give you a safe round.
Anything else that you want to add to today's topic here?
Honestly, I usually have a lot to say.
I think you really nailed it.
I will just echo the fact that there are core tenets, but be creative.
(58:17):
Whatever you think will work, whatever seems authentic and resonates with you, try it.
Try it, see how it goes.
And as you just said, look at the data afterwards and maybe you've come up with your own brand
new strategy that other people can learn from.
So go experiment.
Welcome to the Mastermind Al's Podcast, where we help entrepreneurs and digital content
(00:26):
creators grow their online presence.
I'm your host, Creative.
And in this episode, we'll be diving into brand marketing strategies, boosting your
online presence.
Join us as we explore tactics, emerging trends, and critical insights to help your brand thrive
in this upcoming year.
If you haven't done so, go ahead and subscribe to the podcast.
(00:49):
I am so excited for today's show.
I have a special guest with me here today.
Caitlin Slaney is going to be joining us here live throughout the show.
Caitlin, how are you doing today?
Hey, thanks so much for having me.
I've got a new mic today, so let me know if it's coming through.
Okay.
But great to be here.
Yeah, great to have you here.
You are a thought leader, advisor, CEO, women advocate in the tech space, and someone who
(01:15):
understands marketing.
And we had our last session that we did our last episode as we talked about how to grow
your brand in 2024.
And we covered three amazing pillars, right?
Brand identity, brand strategy, and then brand marketing.
And brand marketing is such a huge eye opener for everybody because everybody wants to talk
(01:35):
about, okay, how do I brand myself?
How do I market myself?
How do I put myself out there?
And there's so many different ways to do it, depending on your business.
So today's topic, we're going to be talking about how to market your brand.
What are some strategy ways that you can do to get the most eyes on your brand?
Now marketing, from my perspective, obviously, it's about reach.
(01:56):
How many people are seeing your content, but also the right people are seeing your content.
And in today's conversation, we're going to be talking about why marketing matters.
And we're also going to be talking about some actionable things that you can be doing to
actually enhance your marketing into the new year.
This has been a really, really fun topic to hit.
(02:16):
And especially if you're a CEO, you're an entrepreneur, you're growing a business and
you're growing a brand, it's really good to get this kind of perspective ahead of the
time, because you don't want to be building a brand for a year or two years and then realize,
oh man, I've done it wrong.
So establishing your marketing in the very beginning with your presence for your strategy
is going to make a huge impact as you move forward.
(02:38):
Warren Buffett had a quote that says, it takes about 20 years to build a strong brand and
it takes about five minutes to ruin it.
But I want to ask you, Kailin, before we dive into it, why does marketing matter?
You know, in a society where not only individuals, but also brands are so populous, right?
(02:59):
There are infinite numbers of options for so many things that we encounter and people
to interact with.
And it really telegraphs the message, why you?
Why should I interact with your persona?
Why should I observe and adopt your art?
Why should I buy your product?
That's why it's important to, you know, marketing is important to really let people know, how
(03:24):
will you resonate with me and why should you be here and part of my community?
I want to add on to that.
It's really it's also like I think it matters because it's like you want to get your product
and your brands out there, right?
And if you really want to grow your business, there has to be a marketing effort that has
to take place.
(03:45):
And there's many ways that we'll talk about how to do it.
But overall marketing, the way I look at it, my perspective is getting your product and
your service in front of the right target audience, getting them to see it and doing
it over and over and over and over again.
That's what I think creates really strong marketing.
And you've seen ads, you've seen content come up and it takes a while for the consumer
(04:09):
to actually notice your brand or what you're marketing.
You know, there's the first one through five times you see it, they're like, OK, what is
it?
Five to eight times, like, OK, I see what's going on.
Nine to like 12 times, they might click on the link.
But if they see it 15 times, they say, OK, why do I keep seeing this brand coming up?
(04:30):
What is it about them?
Why do I keep seeing it up?
And creating that brand awareness and also creating that trust of this brand is not going
to go anywhere.
And that's what people are looking for and consumers are looking for is trust.
And the more you brand, the more you market, the more you can charge for your product and
services.
So, Caitlin, let me ask you, what has been some marketing tactics that you have done
(04:53):
within your business over the last couple of years?
So we actually, you know, at Magnetic, we are looking at marketing strategy going forward
out the gate of this year because we spent most of last year building and working on
personal relationships.
Word of mouth, right?
We haven't gone after a big marketing campaign.
(05:14):
But one thing that we did put a lot of time into was, you know, emerging as a thought
leader, because we are in a new space.
I think this is applicable to a couple of different niches and a lot of big swaths across
markets right now is when you are doing something new, you have to educate people about what
it is, why you're doing it and why, as you just said, why they should trust you.
(05:39):
I think there's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of behind the scenes brand building
that we've been doing so that when people come in diligence as they see, oh, you guys
have been putting in the work, you've laid the foundation, you've written on these topics
about why, you know, for instance, we're in retention and engagement with brand communities.
(06:01):
Great.
That's our niche.
And people want to see that you have put in the time to, you know, put knowledge out there.
And like we've talked about a few times now, how you've become a thought leader.
So that's something we've been doing.
What I would call sort of behind the scenes marketing is building up your repository.
But when people come to diligence you, they have something to go dig into and they can
(06:23):
understand how you got to where you are, what you're about and why you've built what you
built.
I think a lot of that comes into play with legacy brands who sort of, they almost do
a full circle loop where, you know, some old fashion houses and luxury brands are bringing
their origin story back to the surface.
It's become something that people want to understand your why.
(06:45):
You know, just as you're asking them to trust you, they want to say, okay, great.
Well, why should I?
So laying a strong foundation is what I would call sort of an elemental marketing tactic
is building that base and then we'll come out of the gate ready to shine.
And when people's eyes are on us, they'll have something to go dig into.
So that's something we spent actually a ton of time working on in 2023 and 2024.
(07:11):
I think we've got a lot coming up for, you know, more outward facing marketing.
I love that you talked about thought leadership.
It's like one of my bread and butter around like marketing is showing what you can do
for others with your product or your services and talking about it 50 different ways and
(07:32):
then doing it through different media outlets and different channels because your target
audience, one might like videos, one might like reading, one might just like social media
posts.
But by doing that.
Yeah, I just wanted to hop in and say that that's an amazing point.
Yes, you have to say it 50 different ways and in different modalities because you're
exactly spot on.
(07:53):
You don't know how people will consume their knowledge, their content, etc.
And you may be surprised at who it resonates with in simply a different format.
So I love that.
And you know what I figured out from the personal branding perspective of a marketing like yourself,
right?
For my young CEOs or my young entrepreneurs or my digital artists in the space, talking
(08:14):
about a certain topic of creating 3D animation, gamification, how to build a community, blockchain,
products and services, like talking about those things, talking about the latest trends,
what ends up happening, what I've noticed, not only do you become a thought leader, but
the opportunities that come out of it.
(08:36):
So when there's spaces or there's like podcast sessions that are going on or someone's looking
for that solution, who do you think that they're going to refer them to?
They're going to refer them to the person that's been talking about it and marketing
their solutions out there.
And I think you really got to be consistent with it.
And like we talked about, figure out different outlets to get that communication out there,
(09:01):
but that message that really runs with your brand, your brand identity that we talked
about.
Now that we're heading into 2024, Kaylin, let me ask you a question.
What are some things that you have seen so far that has really stood out from other product
and from other businesses that are doing really well in the marketing space?
Honestly, I think actually some marketing forms of even physical goods, it's really
(09:27):
fun to look at ads that get really, really creative.
I think, you know, we're all visual consumers in some form or fashion where we're always
looking at billboard ads, but those show up in very, very different ways, right?
The air quotes billboard ad is now, you know, in print or a piece of digital art or an ad
(09:48):
space filler, whatever it is.
I think catching people's attention in an unexpected way has been the most fun sort
of observation from a, you know, from a marketer's perspective.
I think catching people's attention, maybe making them read some fine print or, you know,
whatever it is, like read between the lines or catch a joke that may not be immediately
(10:12):
obvious.
I think that what resonates with people is something they appreciate on a slightly different
level.
Yes, you're transmitting your message, but how you're conveying it is just as important.
If you're a brand that has sort of a cheeky personality, I'm sure everybody's seen Oatly
Oat Milk ads, even if you don't know you have, if you saw one of them, some of the bus benches
(10:34):
or whatever, they get really, really creative with their advertising and that's become the
voice of their brand.
You know, De Beers had put out an actually a really interesting ad, I think it was at
the end of last year where it was like how to make three months salary last forever.
And they, you know, it was then the picture of a De Beers diamond, right?
(10:56):
And however you feel about natural diamonds versus lab grown versus whatever, it's something
that made you think for a second and then you went, oh, that's clever.
And I think that sticks with people.
So figuring out your brand messaging, your voice, and then making a, you know, an ad
or a marketing endeavor that really reflects that is almost this extra layer of transmitting
(11:20):
and sticking with people.
So I think it helps make your marketing stick.
I love the video content for me.
My generation map, my Gen Z millennial map where I'm at with it is that I love video
content but I love, but also my attention span is really short.
So for me, it's that I have to create something that's very catching in the very beginning
(11:40):
to draw me in to look at what the product is.
And the other part is the outcomes.
By using this brand or using the services, what do I get from it?
What is the outcome that by using this brand, what am I going to get at?
Am I going to look cool?
Am I going to feel good?
You know, do my, what is it going to do for me and improve my wellbeing with certain brands
(12:01):
and certain aspects of it?
So into 2024.
So let's get into the first segment.
Kaylin is what are the real big benefits of really strong marketing?
You know, you stay top of mind for people and you find what I would say are your people.
If you're trying to build a community, if you're looking for, you know, the on the ground,
(12:23):
I would call it boots on the ground for word of mouth marketing.
The best type of marketing you can possibly achieve is one-on-one word of mouth marketing.
But how do you get there?
And I think that means building a strong brand and getting creative with your marketing,
being memorable, right?
I mean, I just remembered, I hadn't done research into specific ads that I liked, but I remembered
(12:46):
the only ones in the De Beers ones right off the top of my head because I thought they
were clever to me.
I, you know, a clever still frame will always catch my eye.
Video isn't really my favorite, right?
So that's something that resonated with me.
And then I think about it.
And the more I see, the more instances, the more touch points I have, you know, if they
(13:06):
continue to develop and evolve what I would think are clever, witty ads, for example,
if it was a product that I was inclined to buy, I would definitely try that out.
And I think the strongest marketing will yield, like I said, word of mouth marketing.
That is your sort of pinnacle because we all look to cut through the noise.
(13:27):
You know, we want to find the signal in the noise.
And often our friends and family, the people that we speak to on a day to day basis are
the ones that we trust the fastest.
So if you want me to trust your brand, come through another person I already trust.
And you know, that to me is like really your ultimate objective.
(13:48):
And how you get there is by finding out who you resonate with and how to reach them.
So you know, whether it's through video content, whether it's clever still frames or witty
anecdotes or experiential marketing, some people love an experience or, you know, a
pop up or an event, things like that.
(14:08):
Whatever is resonating with the community you hope to develop, you know, reaching them
on a visceral level will then get them talking about you to their friends.
You also can't drop that trust as you were talking about the Warren Buffett quote, right?
It takes so long to build your brand.
You now have to be careful with maintaining that consistency.
And if this is the brand voice you developed, if you accidentally change it or intentionally
(14:33):
change it, know that you're changing your audience and can you rebuild with them.
So I think, you know, that's more of a cautionary tale, but it all plays into the idea that
getting folks, you know, in your corner and then they'll do the work for you.
You know, you've amplified your resources the minute you get into somebody else's mind
(14:54):
and they're talking about you for free.
So that's, I would say that's your sort of ultimate objective.
Yeah, drive sales, trust, loyalty, brand awareness.
And I want to say this, what I'm about to say in a nice way.
You know, I'm having an audio book, it's called Not Taught, that I'm listening to what it
(15:18):
takes to be successful.
And if your best friends and family are the only ones that know your business or know
that you kick ass in something, you're doomed.
You're living in a digital age where if people can't Google you or find you, they sure well
won't do business with you.
So not only is it establishing a brand, but a reputation about your brand.
(15:42):
One of the things I always ask people is before you buy anything on Amazon, before you go
to a restaurant, what is like one of the things that you do before you do that?
You go online, you search for them, you check out the reviews.
What are people saying about you?
And then also, if you do get the good reviews and you do get five stars, how are you marketing
(16:05):
that?
As a restaurant, if you're getting the five star reviews and people are praising the food,
the culture, the service, go ahead and highlight that.
And that's like the free marketing because it's organic, it's coming from a client that's
actually using your product or going into your restaurant that are enjoying it.
(16:25):
That's a really strong way to market yourself.
But you have to keep pushing, keep trying new things, be found, put yourself on different
platforms and we'll talk about the six effective ways to market your brand.
But the reason why I say that is that if I can't find you on Google and I want to do
business with you and I want to work with you or if I want to find, collaborate with
(16:47):
you, if you don't have a strong online presence or you don't market yourself correctly, I
sure well will not do business with you.
Kailin, what are your thoughts on that perspective?
What is your take on that?
I think you hit the nail on the head, but I have a really interesting anecdote and that
is there was a new nail salon that came into the commercial space in the building where
(17:09):
I live.
And this is the first L'Oreal commercial and I was really excited about the fact that whatever
they put up, it was a beauty salon.
I was like, great, that cuts my commute time down to zero.
Excellent.
But it didn't seem like I was ever catching them on hours where they were open.
And so if I leave early in the morning and then come back in the evening, fine.
(17:30):
So all I wanted to know was what services do you provide?
And I could not for the life of me find a website for them.
I obviously have the exact address, couldn't find it on Google Maps and understanding that
it's new, of course, that it takes a little bit of time to get things like that up and
running.
But I think those should really be priorities because we do exactly as you said, we do our
(17:51):
homework or we do a little bit of research, especially if you're comparing, you know,
I usually go eat here.
Okay, well, I have an option for where I go eat or where I would like to go eat.
In order to get me over the hurdle of trying something new, you've got to reach me in a
certain way.
And then even if you do, I may want to do a little bit of diligence, which is check
(18:11):
out the menu online or check out your prices.
I wanted to look at the prices of the salon downstairs and just see how does it compare
to where I might otherwise go.
Those little things are enough.
You know, it's now been quite a few months that I've never tried this place.
Just I could walk in.
But like I said, I'm not usually here when they're open and I could certainly make a
(18:34):
point to be.
But it doesn't really rise to the level of converting me.
So or even sort of attempting to.
So that's where that's where I think that diligence and that presence is really important.
The online presence is a really big one because we're all such digital natives at this juncture.
Even if you were born, you know, I'm a I'm an elder millennial, I think is that Eliza
(18:57):
Schlesinger would classify it.
And I was not a digital native growing up, but it has now become second nature.
So you do really, even if you're a very in-person focused business, you still need a presence
for people to find you.
And one other thing I wanted to come back to was when you were talking about, you know,
advertising about your reviews, one one campaign that really stands out to me is a coffee shop
(19:22):
that used on a just a little sandwich board outside.
And I think it went viral years ago.
But it said, come taste the worst coffee one woman on Yelp has ever had.
Right.
So they took one of the you know, they took a bad review and they got creative with it
because they obviously have enough faith in their brand that their coffee is great.
(19:44):
Right. You can use the feedback and the reviews as not only advertising, but some contrarian
advertising.
And then further, if you've got a bad review, using that as a as a touch point and an opportunity
to reach out to the person who had a bad experience, because not only do we see, we all know that
(20:04):
some people are just kind of disgruntled.
And if I see a business who responds very enthusiastically or is really curious about
that person's experience and says, hey, we want to make it right.
Even if that person never takes them up on it.
I look at that and I say as another data point, wow, they're confident enough in their product
or their service to offer someone to come back and let them remedy the situation.
(20:29):
And beyond that, they really care.
So you know, one of the circle back to that, because I think it's a I think all of those
are really useful data points, but there are also opportunities for brands to craft their
own narrative and showcase to the world how they engage with people who aren't happy with
their service or do love their service.
Do you thank people for their nice reviews, stuff like that, you know, really just adds
(20:53):
a little bit of dimension to your what I would otherwise call a two dimensional presence
online.
Do you guys look at reviews before you actually buy a product?
Because I know damn sure if I'm going to be going out spending dinner with with my wife
or my friends, I want to check it out before.
I want to know what it's going to be like.
I want to know what the best things are about that, that that business before I get there.
(21:17):
I want to turn it over to our next segment, which is really exciting is like the actionable
things that you can do to market your brand.
Now this is this is going to be probably my favorite part of today's today's podcast session
is that I've got a list of like six things that that you could do to really enhance your
(21:38):
your marketing perspective.
And we'll talk about we're going to talk about some some things that you can do today for
you to start implementing, start for you to think about and start just for you maybe start
planning ahead.
And if you're doing this already, this is a big kudos to you.
If you are if you haven't started doing this, maybe start seeing if this is something that
(21:58):
can start integrating into your business plan to help you with your marketing strategies
moving forward throughout the new year.
So I've got six of them.
The first one I think is really important from from from my perspective.
And I want to ask you, Galen, is around social media marketing.
I want to kind of get your take on what are some actionable things people can start doing
(22:18):
on their social media platforms to market themselves.
I think that's where just about everybody should start in no matter what industry you're
in and especially folks who are here live, you know, participating digitally and are
building brands themselves.
You can already tell the power of social media because largely that's how you got here.
That's how you found us.
(22:40):
And it's a really interesting territory, I think, because it is a very choose your own
adventure.
You again, you have to decide what are your brand attributes, what's your voice.
And in that realm, start engaging with people and the channels that support that the best.
Are you you know, is Facebook your demographic?
(23:02):
Is Twitter your more your demographic?
Is Instagram?
Are you a product that you know, where visuals are really, really well supported?
Maybe Instagram is, you know, a better platform for you.
If you love producing video content or it's part of your business, maybe TikTok is for
you.
So I think identifying the channels where you really want to focus your efforts and
(23:24):
maybe that's just one or two.
I do think there's something to having a broad presence.
You should have a presence in as many places as you can.
But it's not usually tenable for somebody who's separately running a business as well
to be excelling on every platform.
So I think picking what resonates not only with your brand voice and your services or
your product, but also again, the people you're trying to reach, where did they live?
(23:48):
Are they you know, I look at it as largely divided by age and demographics.
There are obvious, you know, major, major flaws in those broad strokes assumptions.
But to reach, you know, 18 year olds on Facebook is probably not your best tactic or trying
(24:09):
to reach someone who, you know, if you're doing marriage counseling for folks who are
in their, you know, late forties, early fifties in suburbia, maybe TikTok isn't your best
angle.
Maybe it is.
I think there again, folks are successful in all kinds of channels, but I think identifying
your strongest channel where you're comfortable putting your efforts.
(24:31):
If you hate making video content, it doesn't matter how many folks on TikTok are in your
target demographic.
If you aren't putting out your best work in that way, you either have to get better at
it or choose another platform.
So I think identifying again, what works for both you, your skills, your products, and
where does your audience sit?
(24:53):
And there's a right way to do social media.
And then there's also a wrong way to do social media.
I realize that the same content that you post on Twitter is going to resonate different
than what it does on LinkedIn.
So if we do like a GM post on Twitter, you might not, you probably get more outcomes
on there than you probably would on LinkedIn.
(25:16):
But if you were to do a snazzy infographic, you could probably hit both of the target
audience the same way or have one or the other.
What I recently did, this is a really interesting case study, is that I used my social media
platforms for my Twitter and my LinkedIn and I created a poll.
And I said, what do you guys think is the most successful way to market?
(25:40):
Is it content marketing?
Is it using social media?
And I got different answers for both of them.
So that lets me know that both of these segments are different target audience and they want
information differently.
So I think identifying that as soon as possible and catering to your target audience is going
(26:03):
to work well.
And around social media, social media is hard to manage because there's a lot of different
platforms you have to learn to talk different ways.
There are tools out there that could help you streamline that process.
And if you're a business and you're growing, you want to figure out a way to automate some
of that social media marketing out there.
(26:24):
So using tools like Hootsuite, Mericool, anything that you can use to kind of help you plan
ahead, put those posts out there, especially if you're going to be talking about a subject
for so long or certain ways, planning it, thinking about it and scheduling it out will
help you grow your marketing presence.
You can do it at the right time, depending on the right data points that you see and
start making data driven decisions based off those analytics that you get back on your
(26:50):
social media platform.
So you know when is the right time to post.
Is my target audience in the UK?
Is my target audience in California?
Identifying those points on your social media platforms and using automation will help you
still be able to reach your target audience at the right time and use making sure that
you're using the right content.
So that's around, I think, social media marketing.
(27:10):
I think it's really strong.
We talked about a little different ways of how to approach it.
And I think if you're only using one right now, I'm not going to advise for you to use
four.
Start with two.
Start with three and start seeing the engagement that you get with it and see if it's the return
on investment.
I started using Threads and I thought, man, Threads was going to take off and Threads
(27:33):
was not it.
I didn't get the right engagement.
I didn't get the right return on investment.
So maybe utilizing that platform wasn't for me.
But if I spent more time using like YouTube, sharing my videos, more people would also
like that.
So don't be scared to try different social media platforms.
Try to grow as much as you can that's reasonable for you to keep yourself accountable for to
keep that consistency moving forward.
(27:55):
Kaylee, I want to kind of ask you the next part about the actionable part.
The next part is collaboration, partnering up with personnel's brands, products to enhance
your marketing campaign.
What's your take on this?
I love collaborations so much.
(28:16):
I think it has to be done well.
I think people can spot a paid collaboration a mile away.
And that's not to say it has to be free, but there's got to be some synergy there, some
overlapping your audiences and your target demographic because again, you can have the
(28:36):
biggest influencer in the world.
You can pay all kinds of money and have a Kardashian spout your product or service,
but they have become their own brand.
A lot of influencers have actually crossed into becoming their own brands right now.
And so we are also very savvy and can appreciate and understand that they're probably getting
(28:58):
paid for this post or air quotes collaboration.
If it doesn't seem like there's anything that's really substantive about it, then we can all
pretty much sniff it out and say that's just paid placement.
So I think collaborations in their most organic sense are incredible so long as you don't
(29:20):
end up looking like simply paid placement.
But collaborations themselves are so powerful because you can reach folks who are almost
audience adjacent or community adjacent.
So people who are half a step removed from your core audience already, and you can reach
them in a new and organic way by collaborating with an audience that they are part of or
(29:41):
a community that they are organically part of.
And I think it benefits both collaborators in its most optimal scenario where you and
a collaborator or you and a brand partner are each getting just as much out of this
as the other.
And I think genuinely communities really, really love and respect that.
(30:08):
Even some really wacky ones, some crazy crossover flavors.
I think there was like a Doritos, somebody help me out if you've seen this, it's like
a Doritos flavored vodka or something really ridiculous.
And it's like for the kitchiness of it, it was funny and it got a lot of attention.
But you have to already be at a certain level to be able to play with collaborations like
(30:29):
that.
So thinking about it tactically, you should be thinking about who am I trying to reach?
Who's really close to my core community, but just isn't in it yet?
And where are those people operating and existing?
How can I reach them by doubling down on the efforts of collab to reach them?
So I love collaboration.
(30:51):
This is a collaboration.
You and I coming up here doing a podcast shows a collaboration.
And for my perspective, for my personal growth, being in the Web3 space, collaboration is
really what really took off.
When I first got into this space, I was a very young creative, and I was kind of like
(31:11):
my lone wolf.
And I was like, I don't need a partner with anybody.
I don't trust anybody.
I can do it myself.
I don't need to be on this stage.
And it wasn't working for me.
People didn't know who I was.
I wasn't associated with somebody.
I wasn't associated with other brands.
It wasn't until I met a group of other entrepreneurs that had the same vision and mission as I.
(31:35):
And I think that's also very important to talk about is make sure if you're collaborating
with someone, make sure you really understand their mission and vision because you don't
want to collaborate.
And then their brand has a really awful flavor that could inject into your brand that can
really kind of mix the two up.
So be careful when you're collaborating.
Make sure that you do your diligence.
Check out those reviews.
(31:56):
See what people are saying.
But collaboration is really how we grow in this space and really expand our reach within
different networks.
So if you are an artist, you can do like giveaways.
You can do collaboration art piece with someone and figure out how you can tie those two together
and then represent each other and promote each other on your social media channels.
(32:18):
That's really like the growth.
I won't say growth hack, but the way that I've seen a lot of small creators intertwine
with big creators and kind of kind of create that like powerful collaboration to also lift
up both of their voices.
And what ends up happening is that new people get to find out who they are.
New people get to see how their artwork looks like.
(32:38):
And if they like it, it could it could really lead to sales and it really can increase the
growing the brand.
The next part I want to talk about is content marketing.
This is like my jam jam, which I really, really enjoy.
The content creation side of things.
Kaylin, I want to get kind of get your take on on the content marketing perspective.
(32:59):
Yeah, I think depending on what your service or business or product is, there is a lot
to content marketing that can be said for it being done well versus it not being done.
Well, it all kind of comes back to are you being authentic?
Are you showcasing something people want to see whether it is something new they can learn
(33:22):
and you're giving them, you know, bits of tidbits of free information to showcase your
knowledge and again, become a thought leader that pops into their mind the next time they
want or need something from you.
Or are you, you know, are you teaching them how to do something?
Are you making them laugh?
Anything that really resonates with your audience against being true to your brand and what
(33:44):
it is that you are putting out into the world is super critical.
But we consume content all day long.
I mean, just look at the stats on your, you know, your phone in an average week.
We are constantly consuming.
And so to put the script and become a content creator and put out marketing content, right,
(34:05):
doing content marketing is something that's really interesting.
And I think it's harder than people think because you're so accustomed to consuming
and you register what you think is good, bad or indifferent.
But when it comes to putting your own content marketing together and having it reflect your
(34:25):
brand, whether it's a blog, I was talking earlier about doing so many blog posts for
Magnetic, whether it was blog or LinkedIn posts, it's so interesting because if I read
that with a fully removed observer's eyes, I would have lots of opinions about what I
thought was missing or should be added or should have gone in place of this or that
(34:46):
wasn't the topic that I wanted to hear about in that particular moment.
I wanted to read about something else that you guys do.
You know, you've got to be careful to remove a lot of the noise about how you should create
it and just make sure that it's authentically transmitting your message.
And again, it'll find the right audience.
But I think content marketing is genuinely, it's so much harder to create it than it is
(35:10):
to consume it.
And we consume a lot of it.
So getting over that hurdle, I think is actually something that a lot of brands struggle with.
They're like, OK, cool.
I want to put content out there.
I want to use my content as a marketing tool to reach and educate and inform and amuse,
(35:31):
whatever it is.
But holy cow, where do I start?
Yeah.
And that's kind of goes back to what we talked about our last episode is what type of content
should I be creating?
And it kind of goes back to that three pillar, understanding your brand identity, your brand
strategy.
Who am I?
Why should people care?
And I think if you really hone on those perspectives, it's going to get easier for you to create
(35:53):
those type of content.
You know, blog articles, videos, infographics, anything that you can do to attract and retain
your target audience is going to be very crucial for you, very powerful for you to stay up
to date.
And people love, love content.
I mean, we consume it like you talked about so much.
But how do you make your content stand out?
(36:14):
Right.
One is being consistent.
Two is having the same look and feel throughout your videos.
Right.
Oh, I can recognize this font or I can recognize this intro.
I can recognize this branding.
Some type of consistency throughout your content marketing is super powerful.
But also, it's actually an asset for you.
So many times I've actually met with the business and we've talked about a certain topic and
(36:37):
I can say, hey, I actually wrote a blog article about that product or actually, hey, I actually
wrote an article about web web security.
Right.
And it adds that validation of why they should be doing business with you.
In a consumer world where there's so many people out there, there's so many different
brands, validating yourself and building that trust through your content marketing is so
(37:00):
powerful.
It can just take it can really take your brand to the next level and having that strong,
consistent marketing can help out.
So if you're creating videos, if you're doing tutorials, blog articles, any thought leadership
stuff or highlighting how people feel within the product and marketing that is definitely
a winning winning formula heading into the new year.
(37:21):
Number four.
And I think this is really this is this is really my topic.
Events you know, hosting events, sponsoring events, being a part of workshops, collaborating.
I know we have NFT NYC.
What are your thoughts on this, Kaylin, around the events for marketing?
I think there's nothing like it.
I think that they are often the most impactful piece of marketing because it really leaves
(37:47):
an impression.
It's multisensory, right?
You might meet someone interesting and tie it back to your memory of that event and who
threw it.
You may hear or see or learn something new, whatever that is.
You now tie an association long after the event is over that I think is just so incredibly
powerful.
(38:07):
The trouble with it is it's often difficult to scale, right?
Unless you're throwing massive, massive conferences, which are so expensive and time intensive
as a brand or a creator.
Those can be hard to scale, pay for, etc.
But they are just so incredibly impactful.
I'm also a huge proponent of being in person as often as you can.
(38:30):
I'm online all day long and many of us are.
But I just had a meeting this morning with a woman who came in from Philly to New York
and it was the greatest thing.
We talked about catching up and meeting and she said, you know, I've really been putting
on my to-do list, having more in-person meetings.
Do you mind if we do this in person?
And I said, absolutely.
(38:50):
But that, I mean, that's a real commitment coming in from Philly just for a meeting.
But that is such an impressive manifesto or like something to make part of your personal
brand.
You know, go visit with people, you know, set up a string of meetings if you can.
And that too is experiential marketing.
You are leaving your own personal impression with another individual that they will take
(39:17):
long after the meeting, right?
When you shut down a screen, a Zoom screen, you don't have anywhere near the dimension
that you had in person.
And many of us developing personal brands, that is actually just as important as throwing
a huge event.
We all love, we love a good event around here.
But I want to sort of give credit where credit is due to even just being physically in the
(39:40):
same place and with a person for a meeting can also be experiential marketing when you
are the brand.
In those introductions, right, when you are at those conferences or that workshops, you
could meet, you know, the sabbat.
You can meet creative vows, you know, you can meet the CEO of a company, right, just
(40:01):
based off networking, being at the right place at the right time.
And we talked about brand positioning, right, in our last episode, positioning yourself
being at the right events, but also maybe being a speaker at one of these events.
Kaylin, you're about to be a speaker at NFT NYC, correct?
Yeah, that's exactly right.
So tell me about some of the benefits that you'll get out of being a speaker there.
(40:25):
You know, there's visibility.
You, again, you can establish thought leadership.
I will be speaking on taking some creativity into the tech world, you know, collaborating
between industries, brands, partnerships.
When people think of that speech or that, you know, panel that I was on, they can now
(40:48):
associate that with magnetic.
And if they liked what I had to say, they can go do some further diligence or just come
up to me afterward.
You know, I find that even I host crypto Mondays sometimes we always have, you know, we try
to have speakers and panelists and whatever.
And I will say whether do or undo, people automatically assume that you have some level
(41:11):
of established reputation that's that may be bigger than it is.
You know, I've been doing this for a year and a half in and around the New York community.
And people come up to the moderator, even if you weren't the featured speaker, they
come up to the moderator and think like, oh, well, you must be somebody.
And they introduce themselves.
And so it's a great opportunity for me.
(41:32):
I mean, that's what I get out of speaking at conferences, somewhere like NFT NYC.
I get a little bit of extra access to people because we're all in one space and they kind
of mill about after an event like that.
And if they have questions or disagreed with something I said, I've had some really incredible
conversations that have stemmed from, oh, you know, you said this thing, I really agree
(41:55):
because or totally disagree because and it generates conversation.
So it's further opportunity to refine your point of view and put, you know, putting your
point of view out there can be really, really scary.
But getting the feedback after is invaluable.
You know, it really gives you the opportunity to connect with people and see what's resonating,
(42:17):
what they hate, what they love and what didn't land at all, what they might have been totally
indifferent to.
So I see it as almost like experiential marketing for me in a way where I'm testing the waters
with here's how I think about a topic.
What does the rest of the world think?
And you get that feedback very quickly in real time when you're at, you know, big events
(42:40):
like NFT NYC.
And we talk about thought leadership, right?
One of the key things about marketing yourself or your product is putting yourself out there
at the right place.
And that content marketing is super crucial for your brand and becoming a thought leader,
being on stage and participating in these events.
I do it by collaborating like 50 artists, you know, and bringing them all in one space
(43:05):
to them talk about their artwork and giving them a voice.
And that's helped me establish myself as a thought leader, as a creator.
And then every now and then I share what my vision is.
But it's been an extremely powerful tool for myself.
And I think some other creators in this space, when you're hosting events, an educational
event, a get together and happy hour, and you're able to put people inside a room.
(43:29):
That's great.
But also here's a tip after you meet someone follow up, follow up, get their business card
and send them a message and say, Hey, it was nice meeting you.
Because you never know where that relationship could take you or that referral could take
you.
Right?
I have a good friend of mine who's her name is Lila Pinto, who's introduced me to so many
people in this space.
(43:51):
And she does it on a consistent basis where she's like, Hey, I need to introduce you to
this person that I met at this event and so forth.
So keeping those strong relationships because you never know when you might want to ask
that person for a collaboration, right?
Or ask that person for their intake and so forth.
Kaylin, what's your take on this?
I was going to say, I actually think that's how we met.
I was hosting crypto Mondays and Lila was there.
(44:13):
She and I met, I'm pretty sure that's where it was.
And then she introduced you and me.
So that's a direct reflection of exactly those in-person experiences where you leave an impression
on somebody where they're at least interested enough in following up, maintaining some sort
of relationship.
It doesn't have to be something that is immediately identifiable.
(44:36):
You just think, all right, I like you.
I liked what you spoke about.
So I have some sense of your perspective and let's just stay in touch.
It does not have to be a transaction.
It does not have to be something immediately within ROI.
So I think those types of events, the experiential marketing elements of it, those are all so
(44:58):
critical because I also think as we get further into the digital world, we do seek, many of
us seek to reconnect on a human level.
So being in-person is irreplaceable for things like that.
We're going to go to our fifth subject, which is also one of my favorites, is search engine
optimization, optimizing your content, your website to rank higher in search engine results
(45:25):
and making it easier for people to find your brand online.
And one of the things I did with content creation was what I created in my first YouTube video.
And I was scared to figure out how I was going to create this.
But I knew a good title that people were searching for is like how to set up an environment in
(45:45):
spatial like a meta version of an environment.
And I was really scared to post it because it was my first time doing a video, educational
video around that topic.
And I just posted it, right?
And not expecting a lot of return on investment.
That till this day is still my number one video based off search engine optimization,
how people find me online.
(46:06):
And I just reached 1,000 followers on YouTube.
And there's so many times that people message me or find me in an event or something like
that and they say to me, hey, I found you through YouTube.
I love your work.
I love what you put out there.
I checked out your website.
(46:29):
So utilizing search engines to create your content and market yourself is super powerful.
And we were talking about website development, having a strong website.
I think that's kind of like for me personally when I look at a website, if it looks really
professional, I'm expecting the brand to be very professional, right?
(46:50):
And the better you market and the better your brand, the more you can charge for your product
and services.
So that's kind of my thoughts when it comes to branding and marketing.
But the search engine optimization does such a powerful way of people finding you, recognizing
you and wanting to do business with you, provide that thought leadership.
So it's a really good mix of when you're creating a blog article, make sure you're using the
(47:14):
right header, make sure you're using meta description, make sure you're using alt tags.
You're using all the things that are really going to help the search engines rank your
pages higher for them to be visible.
Even in thumbnails, like creating searchable thumbnails that have like really good strong
eye catching is really going to help your search engine for people finding you and clicking
(47:37):
on your content to discover you.
Caitlin, what's your take on search engine optimization?
I think this is one, I think it's a no brainer as a concept.
If you are trying to be found, it is an absolute, absolute no brainer.
But I do think it's underutilized for sure.
I think people are putting out really amazing content.
They might write the most beautiful, well-informed article that would be so helpful to millions
(48:04):
of people, but if they cannot find it, it doesn't matter.
So I think SEO is something that is absolutely critical.
And I'm curious, I want to flip it back to you with a question is, what do you think
is the most basic entry level way?
I think for folks listening, I think it would be really interesting to remove a little bit
(48:25):
of the mystery around it.
That's something that I believe exists.
I think there's a little bit of mystery about SEO and folks are keen to do it, but they
don't know where to start.
Are there easy tools that you've found really package it well, rather than getting super
technical about it and doing a level 10 job?
Instead of doing nothing, where can people dip a toe in?
(48:49):
I'll give you two answers into one, without getting too technical.
If you're a business or you're a content creator, you're trying to establish yourself, spend
a lot of time on your website, right?
Spend as much time as you can on your website to making it look well branded, have all the
information that you have that could help people understand what your product and service
(49:13):
at all the visuals there.
I want you guys to start thinking of your website as your new employee.
Stay with me.
When you are asleep, when you're at the gym, when you're out to dinner, your employees
going to be up and it's going to be working the whole time.
Your employee is going to be there helping answering questions, right?
(49:37):
I would spend a lot of time on your website and building your website out.
The second part is that when you're creating content on social media, LinkedIn, banners,
make sure your call to actions are always going to your website.
Not to Discord, not to a link tree or anything like that.
(50:01):
You are literally stopping the algorithm or the search engines to validate you.
Because the way search engines work is that they look at how many people are going to
that site, how long are they staying on that site, and where are they navigating through
the site, right?
So having a good navigation is going to help search engine optimization.
So I want you to start thinking about that, is build a strong website, make the navigation
(50:26):
super easy for them to have, have the right text, the right information for them to say,
okay, I get it.
But every time you post or create content, make sure that you're funneling back everything
back over to your website, because that's going to help you rank higher on search engines.
It could be Yahoo, Google, and it's going to help you start indexing your pages, right?
(50:47):
So start thinking about that as you're trying to build out your SEO.
I would really strong building out the website.
And then the second part is, you know, utilize, let's say if you have WordPress or Drupal
or whatever you have, Wix, start building content on there.
If you just have a five page site that's static, it's going to be static.
(51:07):
But if you create it dynamically by keep adding in content, the little crawler spiders that
are searching the web every couple of 15 days, they're going to recognize that and they're
going to index that.
And if you're talking about trends, latest trends, you'll populate up there pretty quickly
if you're consistently posting and if you're getting all that traffic to your site.
(51:29):
So hopefully that answers that question for there.
I want to get to my sixth one, which is email marketing, which is a little bit old school,
I feel like at times around marketing, but it's super powerful because everybody here
checks their email every single day.
Caitlin, do you check your email every day?
Oh, I got really interesting thoughts on this one.
(51:51):
But yes, I do check my email every day.
Although my co founder Tyler just joked this morning.
He was like, just flagging this, I sent it to your least checked medium email because
we have so many instant messaging apps, whether it's telegram signal, you know, WhatsApp,
iMessage, Slack, all of the above, the email to me is definitely for serious things only.
(52:17):
I treat my email as these are action items, these are formal communications and everything
else.
I personally pretty much ditch.
So I'm the worst candidate to receive email marketing because I actually, you know, batch
delete most of it and unsubscribe from almost anything.
But that is not to say it doesn't work.
(52:39):
Otherwise people wouldn't be doing it.
There are, I would say most people are not as aggressive as I am about keeping their
inbox to an absolute bare minimum.
Yeah.
And there's the people that just let everything slide and let it come into place.
So I think email marketing, like when I thought about a couple of years ago, I was like, man,
this is really isn't an effective tactic, but it really is over time because you keep
(53:02):
seeing that email pop up.
You're too lazy to hit unsubscribe.
And it's also another way for you to reshare your content.
So I have a sub stack newsletter and I've gained my audience 700, 700 people that I
have on there.
And whatever I post on my website, I usually copy it and paste it and put it in that sub
(53:23):
stack, add a little bit more flavor and I send it out.
Most people are not going to go straight to my website and just pick, Oh, let me go check
out a news article.
But if I promote it to them and it goes right into their email, they're more likely to check
it out.
So I have a 34, 35 opening rate on my newsletters, which is good.
So I know people are actually kind of looking at it.
(53:43):
But over time, you keep seeing it and we talked about, Hey, I see it one time.
I don't pay attention.
I see it 10 times.
Okay.
I'm like, what's going on?
I see it 15 times.
Okay.
What am I missing out on?
What do I keep seeing this?
So I think it's also part of like the campaign, like the war, right?
Or the strategy, right?
Is being consistent and being consistent through different channels because our target audience
(54:07):
is very different.
And some people might like emails.
Some people might like video.
Some people like tweets.
Some people like infographics.
But if you can really understand how to put them all together and kind of shoot them all
out the same time on a consistent basis and direct all that traffic back to your website
at once, that's that like really magical search engine optimization.
(54:30):
And everybody's looking at your content at the same time.
Everybody's like, okay, I saw it on LinkedIn.
And I'm also on Twitter and I actually saw it on there, right?
That's one thing I do really well from my perspective on branding is that I'll post
my Twitter, I'll post on my LinkedIn, my Facebook, my stories.
I'll sprinkle it everywhere I can to get the most eyes on it as much as possible.
(54:51):
And email marketing is still something that I do use to keep people up to date.
I probably don't use it as strong as other brands where you have deals and discounts
and so forth.
But I still think it's a very interesting tactic on that.
Yeah, I will say, you know, I should have clarified that I love newsletters and I read
(55:12):
them all the time.
So I love the you know, if you've written something and you send it through email, that's
awesome because you're right.
I'm probably not going to go check the website or a blog or a substack.
When it comes to my email, now I read it, but that is a very small and curated group
of things that I'm interested in and have proven consistently useful.
(55:36):
It's the things that you just mentioned at the end there that I have batch delete, which
is to say that, you know, promotions and I shopped in a store once and now they've got
my email and they send me something every single day with a promotion.
Absolutely not.
So that's where I think email marketing really loses efficacy.
(55:57):
It's still like I said, it still obviously works because people are doing it and they're
converting it.
But I am a lot more interested personally in something that I've opted into because
I feel it delivers value.
That's where I think newsletters and updates on things I care about fall into that category.
And each single strategy that we talked about has its own strengths and best approaches
(56:20):
when often involves mixing tailored your brand and around your audience.
So I know we covered some really insightful, actionable items for you guys here today.
We talked about social media, marketing, influence and collaborations, content marketing, events,
SEO and email marketing.
Now these are still kind of traditional in some sense, but there's always a new flavor
(56:43):
of creating content of these type of things.
There's always a new way to go away of how you create it.
And if you figure out your niche is all good, but this is probably the most important part
that I want to talk about marketing is looking at your data.
This is really the juice right here and building a strategy is looking at the data points and
(57:05):
being able to make data driven decisions is going to help you one know where you're branding
at, what time to scale, know who the target audience is, what do they like.
So utilize polls, utilize your Twitter or your Google analytics, your Facebook dashboard,
your business dashboard, whatever you can to get some matrix about your business.
(57:30):
I think really studying the data is really going to help you create content.
It's going to help you pick the right person you want to influence.
It's going to help you pick the right events.
So if I went to this event, how many people actually signed up for my article, my newsletter
here or actually people attended the event that I spoke at compared to this other event.
(57:51):
You want to start thinking about that because you want to get the best return on investment
for your time and your effort when you're marketing.
I want to thank you guys for joining me here today.
Kailin, I want to give you a safe round.
Anything else that you want to add to today's topic here?
Honestly, I usually have a lot to say.
I think you really nailed it.
I will just echo the fact that there are core tenets, but be creative.
(58:17):
Whatever you think will work, whatever seems authentic and resonates with you, try it.
Try it, see how it goes.
And as you just said, look at the data afterwards and maybe you've come up with your own brand
new strategy that other people can learn from.
So go experiment.
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