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EP 11: Navigating Holiday Consumerism from a Marketer's Perspective
85 Plays1 year ago
In this week's episode, Lindsay and Betsy discuss their honest feelings and frustrations regarding the inevitable consumerism overload of the holiday season online. The overwhelming amount of promotions, sales, and influencer brand pushes - it can all be just a little too much. On the flip side, as two marketers, they talk about the benefits of a strong Q4 strategy from a business perspective and how service providers can help their clients capitalize on the "most wonderful time of the year" to help catapult their company into the New Year.
Follow us online & come say hi!
- The Business Playdate Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebusinessplaydate/
- Lindsay White's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lindsaywhite.co/
- Betsy Moorehead's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/betsymoorehead.biz/
- Learn more about Lindsay's marketing agency here: https://thewhitelabelcreative.com/
- Learn more about Betsy's marketing services here: https://betsymoorehead.com/
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Business Playdate'
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome to the Business Playdate, a podcast hosted by Lindsay White and Betsy Moorehead, two internet strangers turned business besties. We're two marketing professionals living across the country, raising our kiddos while running our own individual businesses.
Balancing Business and Family
00:00:15
Speaker
We built these businesses based on our experiences working in corporate management roles with the end goal to be able to show up for our families first. And we did it. We're so happy you're here with us. Now let's get into this week's episode.
Recap: Lindsay and Betsy's Backgrounds
00:00:30
Speaker
Hey guys, welcome back to the business play date. And we are recording this on a Friday as we always do. And if you listened to last week, we had a two part episode. We dove deep into Lindsay and I's background. Um, and you got a two for one last week. So I thought that that hopefully everyone had fun
Weekend Plans and Changes
00:00:49
Speaker
with that. Yeah, a little bit fun, a little different. Yes. Um, but yeah, we're going into the weekend. It's as we're recording, this is the weekend before Halloween. So do y'all have any plans? Are you doing anything fun, family related?
00:01:01
Speaker
We're not really doing anything Halloween related, but my husband just sent me a, you know, like about 10 minutes ago. An email, how formal of him. Yes, we are an emailing couple. And he let me know that our neighborhood is doing a, they're doing a father-son camp out or a father-child camp out. And they're all going camping. Oh, how fun. I think I'm gonna bring Asher to this. And it does sound fun.
00:01:30
Speaker
In theory, it sounds really fun until you realize I am sure most of these like we don't live in this neighborhood yet. So like we don't even know the people. I'm sure a lot of these children are over the age of three. Yeah. Well, dad move. I mean,
00:01:45
Speaker
I can't wait to hear how it goes. They're going to have to go buy a tent and sleeping bags and the whole nine because we're not a camping family. Yeah. Yeah. Well, props to him for wanting to take the initiative to go do something explorative. Very explorative. I'm proud of him. Adventurous was the word I was looking for.
00:02:06
Speaker
I'm proud of him. I'm excited for them. I think it has the potential to be a lot of fun. Well, that's fun. I mean, and maybe there will be like some Halloween stories around the campfire.
00:02:16
Speaker
Yeah, it could be good or it could be like a traumatic experience. Yeah. So next week's episode, maybe I'll report back. Who knows? Oh my gosh. That's so funny. We, um, my weekend actually just freed up
Frustrations with Influencer Marketing
00:02:29
Speaker
a lot. My, my daughter is my oldest one. She's in dance. She does ballet and tap and she just started, but she is going to be in the like Christmas program. And so we, by committing to that, we've committed to like some practices on Saturdays and this is going to be their first like two hour rehearsal.
00:02:46
Speaker
but they just canceled it for the three and four year olds. So I'm like, bravo. We got our Saturday back. Love that two hours. It's a long time. It is. It is a long time. Um, but it's so cute. Like it's like a version of the nutcracker, but like it's, it's like with bears. And so they're like little bitty bears like balleting around. It's really cute. It's like, I don't know. It's probably like an hour or so long, probably plus program and their part like three minutes long. So that'll be interesting.
00:03:15
Speaker
That is interesting. Well, I can't wait to hear how it goes. I know. I know. Maybe you'll one day be in your dance mom era. We'll see. I actually was just looking up if they did dance for my daughter's age yet, but they don't. So I have to wait another year. Oh yeah. I think the earliest they start here is like two. So I don't know. We'll see.
00:03:34
Speaker
Um, well, fun. Well, speaking of like holiday fun, I think that's a little bit about what we wanted to dive into today and kind of talk about something that I think, um, like we have some personal opinions on, but also we understand the reasoning behind this from a personal or from a professional like marketing standpoint. So, um, I brought this topic up to Lindsay because
00:03:58
Speaker
I get so just icked out by the pushing of products and brand deals that influencers have. I feel like it's so overwhelming. How this all came up was the October Prime days a few weeks ago. Of course, this is a personal thing. I can put my phone down and I don't have to be on social media.
00:04:23
Speaker
It is just so much in your face. Every influencer pushing the same products with the same links, like the whitening strips and the AG1 and the, oh gosh, something else, like some kind of like nail products. I'm just like, everyone must have like the same management company because everybody I follow is pushing the exact same brands, exact same products. And I'm just like, this is too much.
The Influence of Social Media on Purchases
00:04:49
Speaker
It is,
00:04:50
Speaker
Well, do you want to know something? You want to know something interesting? And this is more from like a business perspective, but AG1. So my husband and I actually, he was influenced and he is the least likely person to ever get influenced. He was influenced and he's like, we should try it. So we actually do, we have AG1 in the fridge and like we do take it regularly.
00:05:10
Speaker
That said, he was like, we should try AG-1. Can you figure out how to order it? And I was like, sure. So I went on the AG-1 website. You can't order it unless you have a link from an influencer. That is an MLM.
00:05:21
Speaker
It's like wild. That is MLM style, right? Like you can't just go straight. That's direct. I don't know. Is it? I don't know. What is it called? It's not like you're buying it through the influencer, but it was like impossible for me to learn anything about the product. It was impossible for me to figure out how to order it from any like general
00:05:46
Speaker
And so we had I had to like go find an influencer and find their link to get to like a landing page that allowed me to get the information that I wanted and purchase it
00:05:53
Speaker
Yeah, and to be clear, I am not knocking the products that these people are pushing. I myself want to try AG1. I also have been influenced and bought the Luminex whitening strips. It's just annoying if I'm just being perfectly honest. Let me ask you, how did the strips work? Did they work as well as everyone says they work?
00:06:18
Speaker
wasn't as consistent with them as it probably should have been. But I tell you, every whitening strip I've ever used has hurt my teeth, and these didn't. Okay, so that's a possibility. Yeah, so maybe you should be influenced. But I think the point I'm trying to get at here is we're going into the holiday season.
Critique of Holiday Consumerism
00:06:35
Speaker
It's just consumerism overload.
00:06:38
Speaker
And personally, it just makes me want to like not be on social media at all and like, or have to mute like all these influencers just cause it's just too much. And I don't want to be, I don't want to see it all the time. Yeah. I don't.
00:06:53
Speaker
need my social media page flooded with all of that content. And there's so many negative impacts. Yeah. And I think, too, from the perspective of those of us that work in marketing, and we understand why this is happening. And I think sometimes that makes it
00:07:12
Speaker
even more annoying to me, if that makes sense? Let me use this as an example. So last week I was telling you guys about how for 10 years I worked in the entertainment industry at an event and it was a concert. They put on these massive concerts, like 75,000 people every night in the stadium would come watch these concerts. So I was very jaded on concerts for the longest time. I couldn't go because I was like, I know how the backend works. I know this, I know that. I know the reality of the situation. It was like bursting my bubble. So I think that for me,
00:07:41
Speaker
As a consumer, personally, whenever I see big pushes, like brand products and stuff like that, it's like my bubble's bursted. I don't have the joy or the luxury of being naive to the situation, which sometimes I would love.
00:07:55
Speaker
You get what I'm saying? Yeah. And I think to it, like you were talking about the gift guides, right? So many people put out gift guides around this time of year. Everyone is gearing up for Black Friday. Right now we are going to be in the absolute thick of Black Friday promotions and everyone's going to put out their gift guides. They're going to say, this is what you should buy for your husband. This is what you should buy for your kids. This is what you should buy for your girlfriends. This is what you should buy for your mother-in-law. And it's like all of these lists of these very generic products. It's the same stuff every single year. And it takes the joy out of finding gifts that you think someone might actually like.
00:08:25
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I totally agree. Totally. And it, I don't know, it just creates this like pressure of, Oh, well, you know, the gift guides all said, I need to buy this Hermes belt for my mother-in-law. And it's like, that's not in my budget. So then it's this weird comparison game of like, Oh, well, I didn't even buy her a good gift because I didn't do what, you know, all of the influencers told me to do.
00:08:52
Speaker
Yeah, and I think we were talking about this earlier, but I am sometimes not the most creative gift giver. My husband is an excellent gift giver. He is so thoughtful. That is one of his love languages. I'm not so much. And so I find myself being like, oh, well, this gift guide says that my husband would like to have an engraved bedside table charger for his phone and his watch and his wedding ring. And I'm like, no, he fucking doesn't.
00:09:20
Speaker
He's going to open it and be like, what? What am I talking about? I know. But to flip the script a little bit, I get
Holiday Marketing Strategies
00:09:28
Speaker
it. I get why this is the time. It's Q4. It's crazy. It's busy. I'm even the one telling my clients from an ad perspective, we need to come up with promotions. We need to be pushing specific content. So I get it. I'm just annoyed as a consumer. I'm definitely annoyed as a consumer. I'm annoyed as a
00:09:48
Speaker
social media user. I'm annoyed as a member of
00:09:53
Speaker
the audience of many influencers. But I would say from a business perspective, there are a lot of opportunities. There's also a lot of things that you should know, like you're mentioning ads. I mean, ad spend is going to go wildly up because you're competing in such a bigger pool of brands who are pushing to audiences to buy X, Y, and Z because their husband needs it. Yeah. Well, let's talk about a couple of the opportunities so we're not just bitch in this entire episode. Yeah, that sounds good.
00:10:20
Speaker
Um, so some opportunities here as a, as a, like a business. So we're flipping the script a little bit here. Like as a business this season in the holiday season, here are some opportunities that you can do to capitalize on the holidays, black Friday, the, the, like the just, um, consumer intake, you know, ways that you can be a part of that conversation.
00:10:48
Speaker
Well, and I think you can get as a service provider and a lot of the people who listen to this podcast are marketing service providers. You can get so much more creative with the content that you're putting out there and the campaigns that you're putting out there because I mean, A, again, you need to be able to compete. So you're going to be competing with some campaigns that have a lot of money and ad spend behind them. But you also kind of have a little bit more creative freedom because you are trying to compete and it gives you this, I don't know, I think sometimes it can be really nerve wracking to put something
00:11:17
Speaker
off the wall out there as a service provider, as a marketer for your clients. And at this point in the year, you kind of have to put something off the wall out there or you're not going to be able to compete. Right. You won't, you won't stand out. One thing that I talk about with my clients is like, how can we tap into the emotion of everybody right now? Like what is, cause the holidays are such an emotional time. You literally want to like,
00:11:40
Speaker
your copy and your creative and your, um, like the, the physical, like you want to invoke some kind of emotion in everybody. And, and sure you want to do that all year round in your, in your marketing efforts, but especially this time of year, like family and like traveling and making memories and traditions. Like, how do you embody that? Okay. So this goes back to the X, but, and we're back and we're back.
00:12:08
Speaker
Um, the materialism of all of it, you know, the constant exposure to these materialistic values on social media, reinforcing that idea of like the happiness, like all of your happiness around the holidays is tied to these material possessions. Yes. That's not what the holidays are about. I was literally having this conversation with my husband the other day about like, so worried about when we're going to be like opening presents with family. And we looked at each other like, it's not about the presents. Like, why are we talking about it like this?
00:12:38
Speaker
No. And it's funny, I listened to, I was at an event where there was a speaker recently and she was talking about, so she has two children who are graduated, like they're in college now. And she was talking about the holidays and making memories and the things that her kids remember from the holidays. And she's like, you know, we were always buying like the nicest gift, the best gift. Like we wanted to make sure they had, you know, presents and whatnot. And my daughter, if you ask her what she remembers about, you know, her childhood Christmases, she remembers one specific thing. She remembers this
00:13:06
Speaker
she said, I got it at the dollar section of Target. It was a little pop up tent. And she remembers this pink pop up tent, not because of the tent, but because we slept in it. No, the front yard that night. And that's what she remembers. And it's like caring. They did go camping. And she remembers that experience. I love that. I love that. Yeah, I'm
00:13:31
Speaker
God, there's just so much stuff in our house, especially like both my girls and have birthdays in the fall that it's like, you just get so much stuff right before Christmas. I know you can relate to that, but like, we've been trying to think of like, what can we do as like an experience for a gift versus things?
Valuing Experiences Over Gifts
00:13:47
Speaker
Of course, like they're little, like I want to get them presents, like Santa's going to bring presents. Like we want all of that, but like some experiences that would be really fun.
00:13:56
Speaker
In this age where there is this influencer marketing and this constant consumerism being pushed in our faces, it's like, how do we push past that and make sure that that's not the ideology that we're passing through to the next generations? I don't want that to impact me so significantly that it becomes a part of my life. Yeah. No, that makes sense. That makes sense. Who knows? We're just fucking them all up.
00:14:26
Speaker
Right? It's really sad. I've now dropped two f-bombs in this episode. I'll make sure we have an explicit warning. I didn't even notice the first one, so it slid right past me. Oh my gosh. Okay, one more thing back to the opportunities. They were all over the place. Can you tell we clearly are very passionate about this topic?
00:14:48
Speaker
But one more opportunity that you as a service provider in the marketing world can relate to your clients, especially if they're in the e-commerce world and they're selling a product and Q4 is such a big time, obviously, holidays, like end of the year, everyone's trying to reach their goals, they're trying to use up their budgets, all of that.
Preparing for Success in the New Year
00:15:05
Speaker
Use Q4 as an opportunity to catapult you into the first quarter of the next year from a financial standpoint for the business because historically January, February, March are so low for especially the e-commerce world that people, I mean, people just got done shopping until they dropped, right? Like they were just like, they're done with shopping. So your budgets, if you're spending ad money, your budgets are going to go down.
00:15:31
Speaker
Which means your return on ad spend will probably go down a little bit. You're not making as many sales. Use this time to build that foundation to really catapult you into the next quarter so that you don't have to work as hard on getting sales or pushing out marketing. You can kind of focus on a different strategy for your first quarter. And again, I'm speaking mostly from an e-commerce perspective.
00:16:00
Speaker
But yeah, I mean, it's just like, this is a really great opportunity. Yeah, it's smart. And it's also a really easy time to ask for sales.
00:16:08
Speaker
Because everyone is used to being asked for sales right now. So if you're a service provider or you offer a course or a digital product, this is a very easy time to ask for sales because that message is just already out there so heavy. And if you're not e-commerce and you are like a service provider, use Q4 as a way to grow your email list.
00:16:33
Speaker
to, yeah, offer a freebie to get people, you know, excited about the new year. I mean, don't even get me started on new year, new me, like all that crap, but, um,
00:16:46
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, this is a good way to use this these last few months of the year to really prepare you for a less stressful Q1. Well, it's a great time to be planning. I mean, as it's no secret here, I offer marketing strategy plans. Yes, you do. And it's a great time of the year to be providing marketing strategy plans for clients. So if you are in marketing and you do offer marketing strategy plans or really any type of planning intensive,
00:17:14
Speaker
It's such a great time because businesses are looking at their budget and what they've spent this year and they're trying to plan for next year. And if you're going into next year and this budget planning mindset of, okay, I have this plan in place and now I know what my marketing budget needs to look like. It's, you're catapulting yourself to towards success for that January, March timeframe.
00:17:35
Speaker
Yeah, I'm just looking. So one, two, three, four, five, I'm counting how many weeks are left in the year. Um, six, seven, eight. Okay. So there's like eight ish by the time this episode comes out, there's like eight ish weeks left in the year. That gives you plenty of time. If you're listening to this and you're like, Oh gosh, I need, I would love to have a project to like have some bonus money for Christmas to find you a client or to work with one of your existing clients and say,
00:18:01
Speaker
Hey, for like an additional project fee, let me build out a Q1 2024 plan for you. Um, I don't know, like a few bucks, like 500 bucks, you know, like something just to give you like a little bit of that bonus money. Like we've been talking about how you can treat projects as a bonus for the end of the year. Call it a black Friday deal.
00:18:21
Speaker
It's funny because it's way too late in the game to plan a launch for Black Friday right now. That's impossible. You cannot plan a launch for Black Friday right now. So if you are in courses or digital products, it's too late in the game. That's a no for you. But it is not too late to offer a service to someone.
00:18:40
Speaker
Because when you're in the services game, it is much more one to one rather than one to many. And you can tailor your messaging pretty quickly and you can tap into the market that you already have very easily. Yeah.
00:18:54
Speaker
No, you can't. It's true. Gosh, like for as like annoying as the end of the year is as a consumer, when you just have everything literally just like being thrown at your face all the time, like buy this, do this, get this percentage off, save this much, all of
Opportunities for Service Providers
00:19:11
Speaker
that. It is such a big opportunity. Like there is just so much opportunity as a service provider to
00:19:20
Speaker
to take on things or to like plan for the future and to like, it is just, it is the most wonderful time of the year. Okay. It just is. It really is. And let's be, let it be that. Yeah. No, I agree. Um, tangible tip. Oh yeah. Um, Oh gosh, I don't have one. Do you? Yeah. If you're feeling overwhelmed by all the influencers pushing products and feel like you need to buy all of these products,
00:19:49
Speaker
maybe try unfollowing them. Yeah, put them on mute or unfollow, totally.
00:19:55
Speaker
mute is a good idea. Yeah. Um, let's see. My tangible tip would be you don't have to buy it. You don't, you don't have to buy it. I'm saying this multiple times so that I hear it too. You don't have to buy it. If it looks great, you don't have to buy it. Put it in your cart. If you need to put it like my Amazon cart is bonkers. I say for later list is outrageous.
00:20:21
Speaker
So I don't use that, but what's funny is this could be a really good idea for yourself or for anyone really. When my son really wants something at the store, I'm like, I'll take a picture of it. I love that. I'll take a picture of it. You can look at it later. Maybe you can get it for your birthday, but I'll take a picture of it. And then I have all these random photos of random toys in my phone.
00:20:46
Speaker
There's maybe two of them he's ever spoken about after the fact. So I'm like, oh, those are the two that you actually like. Those two items are the things that you like. And if they're in your Amazon list, like you're going to go back into that list and be like, oh yeah, I remember all of these things. I need them all. But if they're not in your Amazon list and there's not like a weird repository and you're still thinking about it, then maybe you need it. And maybe you do need it. Yeah.
00:21:08
Speaker
No. All right. I'm going to go check my Amazon list and see if there's anything that brings me joy that maybe I do. Or maybe needs to get kicked off. Maybe needs to get kicked off. That's true. That's true.
Balancing Consumerism Perspectives
00:21:19
Speaker
Well, this has been fun. I mean, we just, we wanted like, I clearly we, we, and then when I say we, I mean, also me had a very strong feelings about this topic. I literally told Lindsay the other day, I was like, I really need to talk about this. This is just like from
00:21:32
Speaker
a personal standpoint, like annoying the shit out of me, but also I totally get it. I totally understand. I'm here for it as a marketer, as somebody who understands like what a great opportunity this is this season. And gosh, like when I say eight weeks left in the year, like, ugh, that's wild. That's terrifying actually. It is. It is. But well, I hope you have a lovely weekend. I hope the camping goes well. I can't wait to hear about it.
00:22:00
Speaker
Yeah, I'll report back to everyone next week. Yes, please do. And guys, if you haven't yet, please go give us a review. Five stars. Leave us a little snippet. Um, follow us at the business play date. We would so appreciate it. We'd love to hear from y'all and we can't wait to catch up with you next time.