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Episode 161: Marketing in 2023: A Roundtable Discussion (featuring Vanessa Kynes, Becca Campbell, and Dr. Tiffany Eurich)
896 Plays2 years ago
"Everyone is trying to make a living and so they over-exaggerate the power of what they do. Not everything can be a magic bullet that makes you an overnight 7-figure business. Marketing is more like investing. If you put all of your eggs in one basket and there is problem (privacy laws, algorithm shift, etc) you're going to slow your exposure. But when you spread your content across channels, if things slow down in one area, the other areas can hold them up." - Dr Tiffany Eurich
If you are doing something the same way you were doing it five or six years ago, chances are there's a better way to be doing it now." - Dr Tiffany Eurich
Find it quickly:
0:00 - Intros
6:49 - Becca's marketing strategy (content)
8:10 - How to come up with topics for content
10:01 - Choosing your channels
12:00 - Turning a podcast into a blog post
13:05 - How PR fits into content strategy
16:32 - How to splinter content
18:32 - How long does it take to see traction. When to hire a PR person.
22:00 - How to stay in the know about relevant topics (for content ideas)
23:02 - Help a reporter out (to find trends)
24:02 - Biggest PR Impact (from Becca's perspective)
27:50 - What do you need to do PR (does a business need content?)
30:00 - Finding a distinct voice within your industry (how to stand out to publications)
31:31 - What is voice hacking and how to use it to figure out relevant content for your channels
35:00 - How content and ads work together
37:55 - Should you outsource your content?
39:07 - Does content need to be written? What if I'm a bad writer?
41:01 - How ads, social proof and content work together
42:35 - Does my brand need to be national to benefit from PR? Will being featured in big publications help my business?
49:00 - Reddit, Clubhouse and other types of searches
55:10 - If you're starting with nothing, do this...
58:30 - Strategies that compliment each other (such as SMS + email)
1:02:00 - One trend you're paying attention to. One trend you want people to stop.
Show notes and additional resources can be found at: https://daveyandkrista.com/2023-marketing-round-table/
Recommended
Transcript
Diverse Content Needs
00:00:05
Speaker
why we have all these different people working with us, because if you had one thing that was gonna help you with Jack, you had one question, right? But then, okay, then, oh, I have a completely different question, but it's kind of similar. It's like you just needed a little retweeting. It's like the same thing with all these different content pieces is because one person is going to like really need that block. That's all they need. The other person is going to like really need that YouTube. This is the exact same thing that I wrote on the block. I just say it differently, maybe slightly different, and that's exactly what they needed.
Brands at Book Show Overview
00:00:36
Speaker
Welcome to the Brands at Book Show, where we help creative, service-based businesses build their brands and find more clients. I'm your host, Davy Jones.
00:00:46
Speaker
If you're trying to figure out a marketing plan for 2023 and beyond, this is the episode to start
Marketing Roundtable Discussion
00:00:52
Speaker
with. Today's episode is a sort of marketing roundtable featuring PR specialist Dr. Tiffany Urich, Pinterest and content specialist Vanessa Kynes, and founder of Little Z Sleep, The Sleep Sorority, and the course company, Becca Campbell. We discuss the different ways that marketing strategies can help a business win and how these strategies can work together to amplify results.
00:01:14
Speaker
I've never done an episode like this before, so if you like this, want more of these types of episodes, please let me know by leaving a review on iTunes, or sending us a DM on Instagram, or sending us an email.
Encouraging Listener Feedback
00:01:26
Speaker
Be sure to check out the show notes at daveyandchrista.com for the resources that we mentioned during the episode, and we want to hear from you. Let us know what kind of content you'd like to see in the Brands of Book podcast as we move forward. To leave your feedback, just send us a DM on Instagram at daveyandchrista. Now, onto the episode.
Marketing Strategies Explored
00:01:46
Speaker
Tiffany, Beth, Vanessa and Becca, welcome to the Brands of Book Podcast again. All of you have been guests and I just feel like today's episode is maybe one of the greatest episodes of all time. We haven't recorded yet, but to have all of you in the same place talking about marketing together, what more could a listener want? So welcome back. Yay. Enthusiastic.
00:02:12
Speaker
If you are a new listener brand as a book, you should go back and check out the individual episodes each of these guests have recorded because all of them are solid and range, I think, a variety of topics. I think if you just listen to those episodes, that's like a marketing course right there.
Pinterest Marketing with Vanessa
00:02:27
Speaker
But for new listeners, maybe Vanessa, you can kick us off and introduce yourself and let us know what you do.
00:02:33
Speaker
Yeah, well, we are live. I did check. I always check that for you, Davey. Thank you. I'm not new to the podcast, but it's been a while. I'm Vanessa Kynes. I'm a Pinterest marketing expert. I've been doing a lot too with e-commerce marketing and content marketing, specifically with Becca. So that's been really fun. I think that those are really well connected as well. And I'm excited to be here and join the chat.
00:02:54
Speaker
Yeah. And so, Vanessa's recorded a number of episodes with me even beyond Pinterest. And I was going to say, as you introduce yourself as a Pinterest marketer, which is definitely a specialty of yours. I feel like just content in general. Yeah. Yeah. And just seeing the way that those all come together because Pinterest doesn't live in a vacuum and it couldn't exist without the content that is created in the background. So, it needs all that it can get. Yeah. Awesome. Well, Tiffany, how about you go
PR Expertise with Tiffany
00:03:20
Speaker
next?
00:03:20
Speaker
Hi, I'm Tiffany Eric and I'm a communications expert and I specialize in public relations. And so in my business, we do a full range of things with PR from coaching and consulting to help you DIY your own media relations strategy, as well as full representation of brands and clients. And then we also offer other bits and pieces to help the business grow, for instance, like brand imagery and product imagery to help so that Vanessa has gorgeous photos to post into Pinterest.
00:03:49
Speaker
And so I have had the great privilege of getting to work with Becca. And so my company represents Becca and Little Z Sleep and the Sleep Sorority and of course company to media outlets. And so basically look and see what's happening in the world, how to connect what Becca does with what is newsworthy at the moment and then coordinate those opportunities to introduce her into different media outlets. And that has been so much fun. Becca is kind of like the dream client. So it's been great to work with her.
00:04:16
Speaker
I agree, having worked with Becca as well. And Tiffany, I'll say that for people who are, again, just tuning in for the first time, or who may have missed your episode that we recorded together, I think since recording that episode, I still think PR is probably one of the most underutilized weapons in a marketer's arsenal. So, excited to dive into some more practical examples, especially as that has helped Becca and the million companies that she's now running.
00:04:44
Speaker
Becky, you're up. I should mention too, just kind of the, you know, what we're doing today is we're really focusing on Becca and a couple of her companies because we've all worked with her company in different ways. And so we're kind of just talking about marketing in general today and taking a look at a practical examples of how different marketing strategies are applied and how they work together to sort of amplify each other. But Becca, how about you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about all of the things
Becca's Business Ventures
00:05:08
Speaker
that you do.
00:05:08
Speaker
Yeah, this is very bizarre hearing from everyone. I've never been in a room with all of you guys all at the same time. But it definitely, as you said, it feels like we do a million and one things. But essentially, my husband and I, Chad, we have three core businesses
00:05:24
Speaker
Really Little Z's is the primary company and that is us helping families get their babies, toddlers and preschoolers to sleep, which then opened up the opportunity to work with sleep consultants and coach them on how to grow their business. And so that birthed the sleep sorority. And from that, helping them understand how to launch your own online course came the course company when we really began to see the need for other entrepreneurs to be able to create a high quality online course.
00:05:52
Speaker
Those are our three businesses that we're a part of and I've been able to work with all of you on practically all of that. So yeah, I love what we get to do. We just got back from vacation and it was such a really cool thing to be like, wow, I don't dread coming back to work. I'm really excited to get back to it. And a part of that is because while I step away, everything else is running so smoothly that everyone else is doing. So it's a pretty cool feeling.
00:06:16
Speaker
Yeah. And I think it's a perfect business to talk about as an example, just because you do such a good job bringing different tactics and strategies together and implementing them in your business. And you've seen these tactics and strategies work, not just for one business, for multiple businesses. And so I think to a certain extent, that proves out a little bit of what we're going to chat about today.
00:06:37
Speaker
So maybe you could kick us off by just explaining your overall approach to marketing strategy and maybe talk a little bit about how content fits into
Content Creation Strategy
00:06:46
Speaker
that. Content is that. Without going back to the beginning of time with our businesses, but truly when I became a sleep consultant in 2015, I didn't know what marketing was. I actually remember Googling, what is marketing? I didn't know what people were talking about.
00:07:02
Speaker
But I started blogging. That was just a part of like, oh, I've got things to say. I guess I'll just, you know, blog these things and not realizing that was such a good thing to do from the beginning. And so everything that we do really stems from all of the content that we have from the blog to then the podcast and the YouTube channel. And that is truly how we see the greatest way to share what we do, to get other people to share what we do, to talk about what we do and to increase that awareness is by creating
00:07:32
Speaker
really helpful, no nonsense, straightforward content on all of those platforms. So that's really where we focus all of our efforts. And I think everything else from that just kind of like fits in. PR fits in with that and Pinterest fits in with that. And any other thing that we are ever a part of, it's just easy to like look at our bank, like, well, here we go. So let's just create social posts from that. So it definitely is the lifeblood of what we do for sure.
00:07:58
Speaker
Yeah, and so as far as the content goes or content creation, that being at the center, are you thinking about, is that really thinking about topics that you want to cover and then figuring out what the best platform is for those topics? And Vanessa, I'd love to hear your take on this as well as content is sort of being planned.
00:08:14
Speaker
Yeah, well we do generally a monthly call together and we will talk about, we kind of do a range of things. Sometimes we'll look up ideas of what other people have done, but more so what we're doing is we're kind of voice hacking. We're listening to what her audience is commenting about, what problems they're having, and then we generally create a blog post or a content strategy based on the problems that they're having.
00:08:36
Speaker
So a lot of it comes to that and I love it because she deals with such a practical issue. And so there are just 101 ways to talk about is your child ready for sleep training? And there's a bunch of different ways to approach the conversation and the problem that people might be having. So we really never run out of content.
00:08:56
Speaker
We also bring a lot of accessory content, like whether that's talking about like early literacy or nutrition or safe sunscreen for children or even drowning prevention. So there's a lot of side subjects that go into motherhood and early motherhood that we talk about as well. And I think that that really contributes to our audience.
00:09:13
Speaker
Yeah, that's awesome. And as far as like the different channels, like how do you go about deciding what channel you're going to be creating content for? Because Becky, I mean, you're pretty much everywhere, right? I mean, your podcast, YouTube, blog, not on TikTok. That is shocking to me that you're not on TikTok. How did I not know that? I tried.
00:09:35
Speaker
Me too unsuccessfully but Krista Krista's on so that counts for something and I feel like it's being taken care of but yeah not the point the question being like so how do you decide you know kind of what channel you're creating content for and how did you come into Those channels in particular like why why all three of those channels? Why not just one? Do
Personal Voice in Blogging
00:09:54
Speaker
you think people should tackle all three of those channels a lot of lots of questions? Yeah, kind of wound up there and I'd love everybody's perspective on that
00:10:00
Speaker
Yes. So the blog started because y'all are all going to die when I say this, but the company that I got my certification from basically handed you a USB port and was like, here's your blogs. Just pop them on your website. Like that's a horrible thing to do because, and like people still do that. They still like take their USB and like, Oh, here we go. Like I'm just going to put it there. And so as a naive, like very first business owner, I was like, Oh, okay. I guess I just like do this. And so I remember like,
00:10:26
Speaker
copy and pasting and putting it in the, at the time I was using Wix and I like put it in the blog and I was like, but this doesn't sound like me. And so I like went through and edited a bunch and like made it my own in a way. And so that's kind of how it began with someone telling me that you have to do this. And I was like, Oh, okay. And then from there I was like, these are trash blogs. Like this isn't even me. So I stopped doing after like probably two or three, I was like, yeah, this is weird.
00:10:49
Speaker
And so I just started making my own. Now it's 2015. And then in 2018, I had not been consistent. It wasn't like I was blogging every week on my own, but I was in the midst of having two under two and I was like, who has time to write? I don't.
00:11:05
Speaker
So I think I could just talk. And so Chad helped me start the podcast in 2018 and that like, yes, our blog is, is good. And there's a lot of content. I think Vanessa, we have like over 300 posts on our blogs, but our podcast is like what we're known for. And so when we, when Vanessa and I sit down to decide like what should be the podcast, what should be the YouTube, I think, and please tell me if I'm right in this, I feel like the podcast is just,
00:11:34
Speaker
whatever I feel like talking about. Like, Oh, this inspired me. I want to talk about that. And YouTube is sometimes more like calculated decision making. Does that, is that right? And yes, I think, okay. So what we, and what we ended up doing in case your listeners are wondering is a YouTube will go live and then the next week it becomes a blog post. So we use, do you want me to save the software? We use a software called searchy and that's able to turn it into text, but then I take it and I make it more bloggy. Great work.
00:12:02
Speaker
But I will say the podcast we do that as well will turn that into a blog post but it's more difficult because if it's a conversation she's having with somebody it's more difficult to translate it and I know Davey you've done this in the past and so you've you've handled that different ways as well.
00:12:18
Speaker
But yeah, I think there are just always topics that are easier to have a conversation about. Like a most recent blog post is how to connect and make friends with moms when you have a young child. That was a great podcast. A little bit more difficult to translate into a blog post versus like
00:12:33
Speaker
Three reasons to ditch the pacifier, very easy to translate into a blog post. But we do both mediums because we all know that people are listening. Some people love podcasts. Some people just like to skim and read. Some people watch video. So we're kind of catering to different people's way of consuming their content.
00:12:51
Speaker
Sure. And so, Tiffany, as far as these different channels go, does one lend itself better to PR than others? Or does it really not matter? Is it mostly looking at all the content that exists and then repurposing it for whatever PR purpose you have? Tell us a little bit about how PR fits into this.
00:13:11
Speaker
Sure. So Vanessa and Becca have done such an incredible job of looking at all of the different kinds of ways that they could tackle the
PR and Media Connections
00:13:18
Speaker
problem. And I think that that's a really excellent way to look at it. Voice hacking. What is the problem that a client or customer is having or potential client is having and how do we answer that and address that?
00:13:28
Speaker
With media relations and PR we're doing that same thing just on a more external scale and so we're trying to connect to the larger conversation and so if beca's audience is having this particular issue and she's coming up with a solution for it then there is a wider broader national or global audience that we can also guarantee is having that same problem.
00:13:49
Speaker
So sometimes a lot of what I do is looking through what have they been creating? What have they been talking about? What is Becca's most watched YouTube video or her most listened to podcast? Because that gives me some insights on what people want to hear about.
00:14:04
Speaker
And then some of it is just paying attention to what is going on outside in the world. And then how do we pitch that? For instance, Beck, if you don't mind, I'm going to share this example about the melatonin. We've had this conversation about, about Becca's thoughts on melatonin. And one of the things that has just hit, it hasn't even really hit the news cycle yet, but there's
00:14:23
Speaker
been an announcement that I think the American Academy of Pediatrics or something is getting ready to release a study talking about the dangers of melatonin and we're starting to get a lot of buzz. There's been like double the number of poisonings for children under five in melatonin since 2017. They think that everybody being in lockdown perhaps contributed to that you know parents.
00:14:43
Speaker
being like, I need sleep. But paying attention to what's going on in the outside world, looking at those studies, looking at those news stories, and then being able to take that information and say, okay, let's connect what Becca does with this. And then we're going to pitch that out to different people. We have relationships with the media to say, is this something that perhaps you would be interested in covering?
00:15:04
Speaker
So that's the other side of what we do. So we look at all of the different pieces and parts of the content that Vanessa and Becca are creating over here and then we look at what's going on in the world and then we're trying to connect that and create very timely newsworthy stories that a media outlet would be interested in covering. And I also would like to say, Becca's talking about the podcast and how they're known for that. It is the number three globally ranked pediatric podcast. Wow. All right. How did I not know that?
00:15:33
Speaker
I didn't know it, but I'm trusting that you've told somebody yet till that, right?
00:15:41
Speaker
I mean, I'm telling people every day. I love the melatonin thing because I will say if we talk about cross platforms, it's a really, really popular pin on Pinterest that leads back to her blog post. And so it sounds like what we could do as a strategy even to Becca is we can take the conversation about melatonin that we already have and probably come up with five more different blog post conversations about like
00:16:04
Speaker
are there exceptions? Like I know, I think I just posted about this morning, we actually did use melatonin. Yeah, we both both Beck and I traveled internationally this year, we went to England, she went to Greece. And so we did have to utilize melatonin, the whole family, just for I say we did it for two days. What my husband was he's like, this stuff is great. And I'm like, it is it works.
00:16:26
Speaker
So, there are obviously conversations where we don't want people to use it every evening as their sleep training, but there are conversations that can come out of that too. But that helps when Tiffany will talk about something like that, like, oh, this is going to
Repurposing Content
00:16:40
Speaker
hit. One thing that we're really good at with Vanessa is splintering off content, right? Because I already have a very old...
00:16:48
Speaker
I think it was like 2016 blog post about melatonin. And I didn't know what I was doing back then. So I think I just called it like the good, the bad, and the ugly about melatonin. And it was, it was like a top pin that Vanessa did. And I was like, that's from 2016. That's wild. But since then we've done like several other, like a video and other things about it. And I think that's something that you said, Vanessa, is that you can never run out of content, but people think that you will. That at some point, like, well, you've talked about everything, but you can always have something new to say.
00:17:17
Speaker
It says something about repurposing content too. Yeah, I mean, there's a few thoughts. One, just general intuition. Like you admittedly said, you didn't know what you're doing, but you just wrote it anyways, right? And look at the impact that had on your blog. And I think that's for people getting started, that's a huge hang up for people. It's like, well, I don't really know what I'm doing. So I don't even know if it's worth it. But it's like everybody's an expert in their field.
00:17:38
Speaker
Right so if we just use our intuition a little bit even for not doing the keyword research or what not and just start writing you know typically something's going to fall in place like that down the road and then you're gonna learn a little bit more as you go and then to your point about repurposing as well i mean we have a blog that's.
00:17:55
Speaker
probably coming up on 10 years old. So there's all sorts of content that might be a little bit outdated and needs to be updated, but I don't have to write a whole new post. I just need to go back and update that and then I can republish. It's not to a new URL or anything. So anything social that's still shared about it still exists. It shows up at the top of the blog because I republished it to today's date.
00:18:15
Speaker
Yeah. Something I was going to say that you just pinged in my brain is that I hope that as people are listening to it and even thinking about the girls that we have in our sleep story, talking about like, oh, it's hard to make content. It doesn't do anything a month later. Like I don't have a client and I wrote a blog last month. It's like, well, that's not really how it works.
00:18:33
Speaker
But also, I do want to take a moment to say that Little Z's is now seven years old. And in the beginning in 2016, when I wrote a blog about melatonin, I didn't have a content manager. I didn't have a PR person. It does take time. But then when you get to the point that you're ready to hire a full service PR person, it's so much easier to have a bank sitting there of content. So it's worth it.
00:18:58
Speaker
I have a question for Tiffany.
DIY PR Tips
00:19:00
Speaker
I'm curious about this. So you talk about how you provide DIY PR services. And it sounds like, and this may not be your process, but it sounds like maybe you have a listening ear for pediatric subjects because you work with Becca. So I'm kind of curious. What are your strategies? Let's pick something random. Let's say I'm not a keto person. I've never done keto. But let's just go with that. If you were somebody who wanted to talk about keto and why it's so powerful,
00:19:27
Speaker
What strategy do you have for them to find the news, the upcoming news buzz? Because it sounds like this melatonin thing you're hearing. I'm not hearing about it yet, but it sounds like it's about to come out. That's a great question. So part of it is just really keeping your finger kind of on the pulse of that industry and what's happening. And for you, let's say like Keto, if you are a person who's involved in that world, you're probably going to be hearing things and rumblings and things and seeing things that you
00:19:56
Speaker
that you're hearing and seeing before anybody else is hearing and seeing. So if you're an expert in that field, some of that stuff is going to be a little more intuitive. You're just gonna see it and hear it and know it coming. Specifically with the melatonin issue, I was looking for information on that because again, it hadn't hit the news media, but I knew that this was something that was a big topic for Becca because about every six months, I'll sit down and I'll say, okay, tell me everything you've got coming up. What are people asking about? And sometimes we even do it more frequently than that. And I'll say, all right,
00:20:22
Speaker
What are things that you're seeing a lot of people have questions about? That was one of them that she mentioned and so I started researching that. Admittedly, I tend to think research is easier than a lot of people. I have a PhD and so I'm kind of trained for that research and so I have sort of a more intuitive eye, I guess, for looking where to look for information.
00:20:44
Speaker
But I honestly think that just like you do keyword search for building content, if you do that same strategy to do research, you will find and uncover some of these things. So use the keyword strategy just to search Google. You can go to Google Scholar, you can look at medical and pediatric sites, you can look at health and food sites, and look and see what is fresh and new that hasn't hit the media cycle just yet. And so part of it is just kind of knowing what's going on
00:21:10
Speaker
paying attention to those little rumblings that you're hearing and then just taking some time to dig. So every week I have time set aside for clients that I'm just digging into their industry. And it helps too when your clients are kind of all in the same area. And so if you're not having to like look for 9 or 10 or 12 different content areas that you're trying to do research on,
00:21:33
Speaker
It helps to kind of keep that concentrated. And so going back to the keto thing, keto is not my field of expertise. And so I don't have names that would just fly to mind, but probably if you are paying attention to nutrition sites, fitness and weight loss sites and people that are doing studies on that, you're going to find and uncover some of those things. And the media loves it when there's a new study that comes out. And so one just very practical thing you can do
00:22:01
Speaker
is set up Google keyword alerts. I was about to suggest that. Yeah. So or like melatonin or keto, you know, you would go in and what's the thing I'm looking for. And I'm going to set a keyword search and that does some of the work for me and that it's sending stuff to my email when there is a study that breaks like on Google Scholar or something like that.
00:22:17
Speaker
I get a daily Pinterest email of what's going on. The CEO is stepping down at Pinterest and etc., etc. But sometimes it annoys me. I'm like, I need a daily update. Sometimes daily is a lot. What's helpful is to create a plus email so you can do your – it's like your email plus whatever at
00:22:35
Speaker
you know, whatever your domain is.com and it will send it straight to a folder or you can set it to go straight to a folder or you don't even have to do that. You could just set a filter. So anything coming from a specific email address, go straight into folder. That's what I do.
00:22:53
Speaker
That kind of thing stresses me out and then you have to go through in the morning. You just archive everything anyway. This way it goes into a nice folder and then you can just scan and see what looks interesting that day. That's not how you have to start off your days with staring at 4,000 emails.
00:23:08
Speaker
Another strategy that you can use for that I'll throw out there really quickly is something called Harrow help a reporter out. And I sometimes am hesitant to throw this out there because it can be the most overwhelming thing. They send three emails a day. But Harrow is interesting because it's free and people will be sending out its reporters and bloggers that are looking for content experts.
00:23:25
Speaker
for products. And so they will send three times a day an email out that has maybe a hundred different interesting things on it that people are looking for content experts. So we scan those every day. And what that does is it, it's not necessarily the greatest way to get yourself featured, but what it does do is it gives you a sense of what people are looking for and what's trending in the media, what they want to be talking about.
00:23:46
Speaker
And so we have either a couple weeks to a couple of months of lead time. Here's what people are looking at. They're going to be looking at these sleep issues or daylight savings issues or whatever it might be. And so as long as you'll get overwhelmed or bogged down in it, that can be a really great strategy for getting on the front end of a trend when it comes to media pitching.
00:24:06
Speaker
Yeah, that's awesome. I don't think I've ever heard of that site, so I definitely want to check out that. Tiffany and Becca, from a PR strategy, what strategies have you found have been maybe the most high impact for Becca's business in particular? And then I want to scale it down a little bit, talk maybe about how some of these strategies could apply to other types of businesses and for what types of businesses
Benefits of Hiring PR
00:24:26
Speaker
too. But for Becca, and either of you can speak to this, what do you feel like has been the biggest impact from a PR perspective?
00:24:33
Speaker
Hiring Tiffany has been the best, the best in fact, because that is like a whole world that I don't know anything about. So just knowing, having like, I think it's obviously if you're stepping into that role of PR, which is not at all my expertise, like I don't want to pretend that I know anything about it, but also it's having for me, what's nice about this relationship is that there's an advocate, someone who's advocating for me. So for honestly, that's for me, that's my best strategy. But yeah, I'll let Tiffany finish that other half.
00:25:03
Speaker
Well, again, I love working with Becca. She's a dream to work with. And there's so much, like she said, a bank of content to pull from that I never run out of ideas for pitching. PR is kind of a, it's a cumulative process. It's a little bit of a slow burn. And so it's not the thing that you're going to see overnight success from typically.
00:25:20
Speaker
And I think that one of the things that we've done for Becca that has yielded some really great results is just introducing her to people. So just going out to media contacts that we'd be interested in covering the kinds of things that Becca talks about and just introducing her and her qualifications.
00:25:36
Speaker
I'm giving them some ideas just to stimulate creativity. And that was actually how we ended up getting Becca in Parents Magazine, in the print version of Parents Magazine, was just going to the editor and saying, I'd love to introduce you to this client. Here are a couple of ideas that might give you ideas for coverage.
00:25:51
Speaker
And they came back and they were working on a piece on sleep. And so we got back in there to talk about her area of expertise and really let her shine in that area. So I think that that's part of it. But I think the biggest impact is understanding where PR fits in sort of that bigger, broader umbrella of marketing strategy.
00:26:09
Speaker
because we get so fragmented in the online world today that everybody is trying to make a living. And so they have a tendency to maybe over exaggerate the power of what they do. And so everything is like the magic bullet that's going to make you an overnight seven figure business sort of a thing.
00:26:24
Speaker
It does work for some people some of the time, but I think that marketing is more like investing. If you put all of your eggs in one basket and there's a problem, the algorithm changes, privacy laws change, there's a major media shift and that's all you're doing, you're going to slow that exposure and the lead generation is going to slow down in a significant way. And when you do what Becca has done and you are putting all of these different pieces in place and
00:26:50
Speaker
and those different pieces work together in harmony, it means at any time that there's a slow moment in any one of those areas, the others are kind of taking some of that weight. They're kind of picking up some of the slack and helping to continue the lead generation, helping to continue to bring in new customers and clients, which is what you want in a business.
00:27:08
Speaker
And so I think that's been a big part of the impact of that strategy is that Becca already has these really excellent other pieces in place working with you guys. So it was very easy for me to plug into that and say there's this fantastic brand that I can send editors to look at. There's fantastic content social media presence that I can send them to look at. She's got this amazing
00:27:28
Speaker
podcast and YouTube channel. And so it makes my job very easy because all I have to do is take the ideas they're generating and send them to people and try to connect again, what's newsworthy, what's timely, and see how we can plug her into the larger conversation that's going on. Yeah. So a quick follow up about that. As far as what you need to be able to do PR, would you recommend that people really invest any content strategy like that? Like does that really help the PR engine?
00:27:54
Speaker
like can you work with a business that has really no content, is that even possible? Like really what helps there from a PR perspective? Because it sounds like to a certain extent you're going to repurpose like even in pitching a parents magazine let's say just as an example. Like you might have some ideas from content that Beck has done but my guess is that she's either going to be writing something new for that magazine or she's going to be quoted in it or whatnot.
00:28:20
Speaker
I guess what are the foundational pieces that people should have in place to make the most out of their PR efforts?
00:28:26
Speaker
Yeah, great question. And one of the things that you mentioned earlier is that it's kind of like the unsung hero where the secret weapon that people don't know about. And I think what it is is that people think that media relations and publicity is for billion dollar brands. And so it's not accessible to them. And that's actually not the case. And the media loves to pick up small businesses and entrepreneurs and new people and brings kind of some diversity of voices into that. So it really can be very powerful for a small business.
00:28:50
Speaker
I would say that content strategy is not necessarily the most important thing. I don't think that's the key thing that any business has a really robust blog or podcast or any of that. There are lots and lots of businesses that get great PR coverage without having those pieces in place. I think it depends on the business and what kind of business you're running and what kind of clients you're serving and what your overall strategy is.
00:29:13
Speaker
I would say first and foremost, you really do need to have a presence that you can send an editor or a reporter to or a podcast or two that is impressive. If your website or your social is just really mismatched, it's perhaps even ugly to look at, or it's not consistent across the board. If it doesn't represent you as
00:29:34
Speaker
a legitimate expert or business owner or product, it's going to be hard to land coverage because media outlets don't want to send people back over to a blog or a website or whatever that doesn't look professional. So that's important. I would also say that having a clear voice
00:29:52
Speaker
of expertise in your area if you want to be pitched as an expert is really critical. Products are a little different. If you've got a great product, you can send that out. You can get that covered, especially if you've got a product that you're selling with an affiliate link. That's been a big thing we've seen change in the media, is that they're wanting products to have affiliate links so that they're making money off of that. But if you're an expert, I think it's really about having a clear and unique voice.
00:30:16
Speaker
if you are just simply regurgitating what everybody around you is saying and you're just repeating or parodying what the other experts around you are saying, you don't really have anything to add to the conversation. And that's not necessarily wrong. You can still do a great job with your work and do that. But when we're talking about media relations, we're really wanting something that is different or unique or controversial or timely. So having a distinct
00:30:38
Speaker
Voice within your industry and the experience to back that up. I think that's probably the other really key element After that, it's just a matter of technique It's marrying the right message at the right time to the right channel and the right person And so that's all something that you can be taught to do But I think you do need to have a strong brand presence and a strong voice in your industry if you're an expert and
00:31:00
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I appreciate as you talk, you make it sound so simple and I'm like, oh yeah, just go. It's the right message in the right time and just go find the right person, you know? I'm just waiting, you know? I'm waiting for that for you too, Becca.
00:31:14
Speaker
I totally believe that you could teach somebody how to do that. But then as I start thinking about it, I'm like, I don't even know where to start. But anyways, I do have a few more PR specific questions, but I want to come back to a phrase that we were throwing around earlier, and that's voice hacking. And so Vanessa, maybe, I'd love to hear everybody's thoughts on this, but maybe Vanessa, you could kiss off, maybe give us an idea, a little bit more of an idea of what voice hacking is, and just some of the ways that you do it in Becca's business to figure out different content that might be relevant for her various channels.
00:31:43
Speaker
Yeah, so voice hacking is essentially just like looking at what your audience is saying and these could be current customers or people who are on the edge of customers or maybe doubters or people who are struggling whether they're going to make the investment and what they're actually saying. So if someone said, I don't know if this program is going to work for me, my child is a unicorn and is different.
00:32:04
Speaker
what you can do is take that concept and you can use that in an ad. You can say in an ad, add copy, quote it and just say, yes, your child is not a unicorn. This can work for you. And so you're maybe utilizing that on paid marketing copy, on paid marketing digital assets. You can use that as a blog. Will this work for me? I mean, whatever it is, you can turn it into a podcast. Like, hey, I've had this conversation with people saying, this could never work for me. Let me show you why it could work for you.
00:32:34
Speaker
Even in that, I showed you an example of a podcast, a blog, and also I made a YouTube as well, as well as a paid marketing strategy that all come around this one person's quote about being frustrated about whether their child will ever learn to sleep. It's that I think Becca has other ways that she can listen. She can listen on DMs.
00:32:53
Speaker
private DMs on comments on our Instagram. She has a community, her team who are doing coaching calls, they can listen in. So it's again, it's kind of a little bit what Tiffany was talking about, like just listening to your audience and then taking that content and sometimes just verbatim putting it on there because other people are likely thinking the exact same thing, especially when it comes to something so ubiquitous as like sleep training. I mean, we all want to sleep. Everybody agrees that that's a good thing.
00:33:18
Speaker
What's interesting just as you're talking about content in general and we talked about repurposing content, I was just thinking about all the questions that we've sent Becca about sleep training our own children and even from child one to two. I know for a fact that one customer alone has probably sent just judging based on how many questions we've sent.
00:33:41
Speaker
But then also thinking about like, you know, we've had two kids and you think by the second one, we've kind of figured it out, right? But it's funny, one, how much we forget, and then two, the little nuances, I think, from child to child. You know, one strategy that really worked well with Jack doesn't seem to be as effective with Samuel Bennett.
Adapting Content Formats
00:33:59
Speaker
And so again, just going back to like the importance of repurposing content. And as you're listening, you might feel like you've answered that question a million times, but it probably is worth answering again, especially if people are still asking it.
00:34:12
Speaker
And you know, that actually is a great parallel to why we do so many different types of content, why we have all these different people working with us. Because if you had one thing that was going to help you with Jack, you had one question, right? But then, okay, then I have a completely different question, but it's kind of similar.
00:34:29
Speaker
it's like you just needed a little retweeting. It's like the same thing with all these different content pieces is because one person is going to like really need that block. That's all they need. The other person is going to like really need that YouTube. This is the exact same thing that I wrote on the blog. I just say it differently, maybe slightly different. And that's exactly what they needed. And so it's like the differences in the content, also the different types of marketing, which we didn't even really chat about ads. But when Tiffany was talking about, Oh my gosh, I just lost my train of thought. But anyway,
00:34:59
Speaker
When Tiffany was talking about all the different ways that we look at things that we need for PR and how valuable it is for content and the quality of your website, the quality of your business, I get questions from other sleep consultants asking if it's worth doing ads because they need clients, but a simple click to their website shows nothing except for just their services page and an about page, right? But all these things have everything in common.
00:35:28
Speaker
And so no part can really be skipped. And for us, our content strategy, I want to make sure we cover all of our bases because it's going to speak to someone, but all different types of people want different types of content. Maybe we have a super fan out there that listens to the podcast, watches the YouTube and reads the blog, but likely not. So it's just the different people that you're reaching is super helpful.
00:35:51
Speaker
Yeah. And that's really interesting. I've never been the kind of person, like I have friends, you know, who for Lent had given up YouTube because they just, you know, they, they get on there and they just can't stop watching. Like I've never been that person. So I don't even understand, right? Like how, like to me, I'm like, why would I even put anything up on YouTube? No one watches YouTube. And the reality is just, I don't watch YouTube.
00:36:11
Speaker
It's hard not to project in that way, but some of my favorite podcasts, they're actually YouTube channels and that person just happens to take the audio and throw it up on iTunes or Spotify or wherever you get podcasts. That's an interesting insight there. You also brought up ads too and just to tie that back into content.
00:36:28
Speaker
For TILL, you're a much easier client to work with because of all the content you have. It allows us to test different things, especially if something's not going well. We've run stuff to your podcast before. We've run a number of different kinds of campaigns for you. And when clients have no content, you're really kind of
00:36:50
Speaker
It's hard to figure out, okay, well, what landing page is this going to go to? Or what are we doing with this? And from an SEO perspective, it's the same thing. It's like when people have just thin content on their website, it doesn't really matter what you do to the title tags. It's not really going to move the needle. So a lot of times it comes back to, okay, how can we rework the content? Maybe add some content, make this page a little bit more valuable, or make other pages that target other keywords.
00:37:16
Speaker
or other campaigns or other products that you want to sell. So I will say that for anybody listening, I think one of the big commonalities here is content is it's not going to hurt you. It's one of those things that I think you can just take so far, whether it be through PR or SEO or Pinterest or whatnot.
Building a Marketing Foundation
00:37:33
Speaker
Yeah. And it is a slow burn though. It is. It's a slow burn. Yeah. I was going to piggyback it off of that though. Like my personal opinion and the hierarchy of like where you should go first would be like definitely content. And if you're having trouble with that, hire somebody like a Vanessa who can help you
00:37:49
Speaker
map it out think about what you should say help get your points generated i write our own content or i say speak my own content as Vanessa said we transcribe it so i do think just as a quick aside if you have trouble with content figure out what content you could create yourself because i think it's a very bad idea to get someone else to write your content for you
00:38:10
Speaker
That's just not going to help because once you build to the next stage of maybe getting a PR strategy going, you want it to be your own content, obviously. And then beyond that, the furthest step I think would be ad getting paid marketing going. But I think for us, I mean, we did paid ads and then we did PR only because I really didn't even know that PR was an option. Like Tiffany said, I truly thought that that was something that was like, ah, who am I? I can't get into publications. That's not going to be a thing.
00:38:37
Speaker
So we did paid ads first, but realistically, it would have been awesome to start with PR and then dip my toe into paid ads. So I feel like that's the good stepping stones personally. Yeah. I want to come back to PR here in a second too, because I have a few follow up questions kind of along those lines. But to what you were saying, Becca, about starting with content, I 100% agree with that. And when we think content, I think we automatically think written content.
00:39:03
Speaker
just because blogs are so ubiquitous and have been around for so long. But again, to your point, that can be YouTube, it can be a podcast, and then you can transcribe those things so that you get maybe the SEO value and some of the web value from having actual written content. But there are so many ways. I think people who feel like they're not good writers, they just don't create content at all. And it's like, there's other ways to create content. If you can't write, you're probably maybe a good speaker or maybe you're good on camera. And if you're not good at any of those things, well, you need to figure that out.
00:39:34
Speaker
Exactly, you know? And I feel like even in the podcast, when I go back to listen to old episodes, like, you know, I feel maybe more uptight and not quite as good at asking questions as I maybe, or I hope I am now, you know? But if I'd never started, I would have never gotten there. I don't know if anybody else has a thought on that before I ask these PR questions that are burning.
00:39:53
Speaker
just add again, this idea that it kind of all works together. One of the things that I love about Becca's brand is that when you think about having a business, obviously new people to buy from you. So they need to know you're there. They need to like what you're creating, trust that you're going to help them, and then you need to solve the problem for them so that they'll come back and buy again. And so all of these different
00:40:16
Speaker
These different tactics for this bigger marketing strategy all work together really beautifully so through ads and through social and through SEO and through PR It's all bringing those leads in then you've got the social proof there so you can see okay She's been featured here and here and here's this great content this volume of content that she's created And so this is a trustworthy person and then Becca's product itself and we haven't really even touched on this But her actual product that she sells helps people
00:40:44
Speaker
It does an amazing job helping people, so they keep coming back to buy from her again. And then other moms say, I trust her so much. I want to do business like she does business, so I'm going to go become a member of the sleep sorority. And I think that that is such a critical thing to keep in mind. It can feel very overwhelming if you're just starting a business and you're in those beginning stages, but really looking at what's going to do the most for you at this stage of business.
00:41:10
Speaker
How are you going to get that exposure? How are you going to build the trust? And are you selling a product or a service that is going to solve the problem and make people want to come back to it? That's really key. I didn't mention that in what do you need when you're getting PR, but you actually need a good product or a good service that people want to buy.
00:41:28
Speaker
That's helpful business that i do think that that's really important is understanding that it really does break down to very simple things people need to know you're there. I need to trust you and need to buy from you and so how do these different tactics tactics marketing work in each season of business work together for that end.
00:41:47
Speaker
Yeah, one thing that we talk about at Till a lot is bridging the trust gap and how important that is and answering that question. Can this really work for someone like me? And to Vanessa's earlier point about people thinking their kids are a unicorn, and I love that. That goes back to an earlier episode that I recorded with Becca, talking through that objection, parents just thinking their kids so special that this can never work for them, right? Really, I think was sort of a light bulb moment for me in thinking through, okay, what makes somebody purchase?
00:42:15
Speaker
I definitely feel like PR is one of those things and why I called it one of the most underutilized tools or one of those dark horses that I think people just overlook is because it really does help bridge that trust gap. I think maybe some of the questions that people might be having right now around PR specifically is like, well,
00:42:34
Speaker
Becca's brand is more national, her business is more national. Everybody who has kids everywhere in the world can purchase her product. What about for businesses that maybe are a little bit smaller or a little bit more regional? As we talk here, I think about our farm business. We have a meat subscription box, but it's like on one hand, it's like, oh, I'd love, we should be focusing more on PR. On the other hand, it's like we can only handle so much. If we had
00:43:03
Speaker
a million orders right now, we'd just be, well, that would be tough for us. There's not enough cows. Yeah, exactly. That's a whole other conversation about running a business with a physical product that you have to keep alive. Maybe that's for another episode, learnings from that. But point being is, so how does PR maybe play into a smaller business that's serving a more regional or local population, and maybe as a service as opposed to a product? I don't know.
Regional PR Strategies
00:43:28
Speaker
I know there's a lot there, but can it work for everyone, I guess is what I'm asking.
00:43:32
Speaker
Yeah, it can absolutely work. So you pointed out a really excellent concept and that is scale when it comes to exposure for your brand or your business.
00:43:43
Speaker
We mentioned Good Morning America earlier. Everybody, when they think PR, they want to be on Good Morning America. But actually, there's a very small number of businesses that actually tangibly benefit from being on a big national program like that. And you have to keep in mind a couple of things. Who is actually paying attention to that media outlet? And are they your potential customer? I worked with a web designer once who really wanted to be on Good Morning America.
00:44:05
Speaker
I said, who's your ideal client? And she said, it's the vice president of IT who's going to be making these creative decisions and all this stuff. And I said, do you think at seven o'clock in the morning, they're watching Good Morning America? And she's like, well, no. And I said,
00:44:17
Speaker
for this particular campaign, then that's not your ideal platform. However, they may be reading Business Insider on the subway on the way into work or something like that. And so that would be a better place to reach that clientele. So part of it is where's your actual client that's going to buy from you hanging out? Part of it is scale.
00:44:35
Speaker
If you don't have the ability to sell and ship nationwide, then you don't need to be featured in media outlets in this season that are nationwide. And so instead, it's understanding how the principles work at every scale and location. And so your regional area is going to have
00:44:54
Speaker
Regional publications it's going to have media outlets or blogs or podcasts or television stations or magazines or whatever it might be and those can often have a much more tangible monetary effect on your business then a big national publication.
00:45:10
Speaker
So a perfect example of this and i'll use myself as this example cuz i don't wanna give any other businesses behind the scene secrets away but in my business i was featured within a couple of months of each other in force and i was featured in a podcast that was for home status people building farms cuz that's part of my background as well.
00:45:32
Speaker
And it's been two years, I think, since those both happened. To date, it's a 1,072% email list increased from the podcast and virtually zero email list increased from being featured as a Forbes expert.
00:45:49
Speaker
And so people think, oh, I need these great, big, huge, big national outlets. And that's not always the case. And quite often it's those smaller niche publications, more regional publications that you get more tangible leverage from. And so it's understanding, again, where is your client? Where will it benefit you to have your story told and then reaching out there? So it absolutely can work for a small business that's a more regional publication or more regional business.
00:46:17
Speaker
Yeah, that's a great answer. And even the Forbes thing though, I feel like it's still beneficial from, you could put that on your website potentially and say. SEO perspective. Trusted by from SEO. From SEO and for, and it's SEO. So not wasted for sure. Yeah. But revenue wise, probably better from the podcast, which is, again, that's really interesting to me.
00:46:39
Speaker
And I'd say that's where knowing your goals is really critical. Like, what are you trying to get out of this? Are you trying to get customers? Are you trying to do sales? Are you trying to build an email list? Are you trying to build social proof or become a thought leader? Is it SEO? Really understanding what is the goal and the purpose because that's going to direct. If all we're looking at is, I just want to be able to build this social proof and say, I've been featured here, here, here, here, and I'm not worried about it bringing in clients and customers, then you're going to target different kinds of outlets with different kinds of stories.
00:47:08
Speaker
If what you really need is lead generation that's going to lead to sales, then that's a different kind of campaign or a different kind of pitch. Yeah. I'll say too, piggybacking off of that, when Krista made our website, we did the, you know, as trusted by instead of really focusing on like the as seen in,
00:47:26
Speaker
Because at the time, it was like nothing. When it was more like, oh, well, what medical providers or what are the people in your area that trust you? And that was really cool. I've never thought about that before to be like, oh my gosh, yeah, my regional, the local postpartum doula sends me tons of clients.
00:47:44
Speaker
this pediatrician. And honestly, that to me is like more powerful to say like, look at all these pediatricians who trust me versus like, yes, look at all these articles that I've been featured in, right? For my people, right? It's like, do my people really care that I was on Yahoo Lifestyle? Like probably not. They probably would rather that the local doula really likes me. So I think that's a really good point.
00:48:05
Speaker
This is just interesting. Is there anything known as micro PR because I'm about to out myself here, but I love Reddit so much.
Micro PR Techniques
00:48:15
Speaker
If you know my personality, I love researching things into the depths of the depths. I know lots of things about lots of things I shouldn't know about, just random stuff. I don't mean bad things. I just mean random stuff. Ask me about plumbing. I could probably tell you a few things, just from owning an old home.
00:48:33
Speaker
But I use Reddit so much. Everything I Google, I Google the question with Reddit because I want to know what other people are talking about. So that's my personality, but I feel like it's like a form of micro PR because you've got people chatting about one thing and I don't know if that is technically PR, but as we listen to this, I think about that.
00:48:52
Speaker
Yeah, so from an SEO perspective, it's a huge trend. I just saw an article and it might even been The Atlantic, someplace that you wanted to assume to read this article. The headline was something like, is Google dying or Google's big problem or something like that. Basically, the gist of it was that people weren't, at least from what I remember, the thesis of this author was something along the lines of like,
00:49:17
Speaker
people no longer trust the results that Google is giving them. And that's why they put Reddit at the end because they actually want to hear from real people who maybe have used that product or asked that same question. So it's a really interesting phenomenon and I don't have much to add beyond that, but yeah.
00:49:35
Speaker
I want to become a Reddit specialist. Can I work on that? Absolutely. I really think that might be my new niche because it's my favorite. I've never heard the term micro PR, but what you're talking about absolutely falls within that category. The other thing to keep in mind is that reporters are also hanging out on Reddit, looking for information and for experts as well as Quora.
00:49:56
Speaker
So you might absolutely spend some time there and get picked up by a media outlet there that wants to talk with you and interview you. But I think what you're touching on really hits to the heart of flexibility in marketing because the industries are changing at a rapid, rapid pace.
00:50:14
Speaker
I know advertising and social media are changing all the time. So is the PR world. So is media relations and publicity. Two weeks ago, there was a major and this is June when we are recording this. Two weeks ago, there was a major change in four of the country's largest parent companies for media.
00:50:32
Speaker
that is dramatically impacting who we're talking to and what we're talking about and what businesses are gonna need to be thinking about, especially product-based businesses needing to look more at doing affiliate-type sales. And so I think what you're talking about really touches on this idea that you need to be able to be flexible and creative, and maybe you laugh about loving Reddit and wanting to be a Reddit specialist. I think we'd be kindred spirits on this idea of researching things into the depths. People are like, I've never even been to page three of a Google return, and I'm like, I've gone to page 16.
00:51:02
Speaker
It's just my personality. But just being able to say, you know what, maybe this that used to work, is it as effective now? And so maybe we're coming over here to Reddit and we're talking there and we're doing specialty conversations over there and really being seen as an expert or clubhouse or whatever it might be.
00:51:19
Speaker
And I think it's understanding that there needs to be some fluidity in how you're approaching things. If you are doing something the same exact way you did it five or six years ago, chances are likely there's a better way to be doing it now, probably, with the changes you've seen in the last couple of years. I would just like to ask if, Tiffany, you could send me emails three times a day, and maybe everybody, with some of these tips. I'm like, wow, really?
00:51:45
Speaker
Yeah, if you guys want a three time a day email list, I have an entire, I'm adding myself now, I have an entire email that is just for all of the email lists so that when I feel like digging through them, I can go through.
00:51:58
Speaker
I have the same thing. If somebody sent me something three times a day, I think I would like Zillow and subscribe. Oh my goodness. I have a dedicated email for that as well. And it's nice because I just give it a little scroll each day and if it's something looks interesting, click on it. Exactly. I would never make my way to another email. I have to have it all in one place because I would just never, I just would never make my way over there to completely forget about it. I don't know what that says about me.
00:52:26
Speaker
If you sold the sheer amount of email that I get to that email address, you'd be like, oh yeah, I'm definitely crazy. I have 4,000 emails in my inbox. And they're not important things. They're just like... I can just imagine the dots, you know, the red dot at the top. Krista can leave those open. I can't. It's going to drag me crazy.
00:52:44
Speaker
You know, you create email lists, you can create an email address for every one of the different categories of your life that you're interested in. And then just sign up using those different, you can have like five different email addresses. I don't think I would ever look at the other ones. This is why I have people like Vanessa who likes to research and Tiffany who likes to do that.
Local Group Engagement
00:53:00
Speaker
I'm like, great. I'm wondering what we can do, maybe get some of your coaching call girls to kind of keep a pulse on a couple Reddit, like a momming board, a couple things so they can pop in information about
00:53:12
Speaker
It has to be done in an organic way.
00:53:15
Speaker
You don't want to just be like, go check out littlez.com. But I have 100% Becca that in local Homewood groups or sorry, Homewood is where I live. Facebook groups, Homewood mommies is what it's called. And people are asking about sleep training and I'm like popping in your link. Not because I'm just want to advertise you, but I'm like, here's where you get help. I've done it in my Bible study text chains. The micro PR strong. I mean, is there anything more effective than word of mouth when somebody that you trust tells you who to trust? Is there anything that's more effective than
00:53:45
Speaker
And you don't see it. You're not totally aware of it. I guess you're affiliate marketing. You're more aware of it because you can see people linking. But in general, that's what we're doing. We're all just talking. And you're getting these links and these new customers. And it'd just be great if we had a data way of really putting together where they all come from. But we don't always know that.
00:54:05
Speaker
which coming back to the content piece, I get messages from people saying, oh yeah, I sent that YouTube to my friend. Word of mouth is the best, but then the ability for your micro PR people, for all the people out there in the world to know that we have these things and then be their own rep for me without me even knowing it's the best. As we wrap up here, because I feel like this episode could be three hours long,
00:54:34
Speaker
And maybe that means that we need to just do this more often because I've enjoyed it. But I want to go through maybe sort of speed round here a few of the other questions that we maybe haven't really hit yet. And these are more just general marketing questions I think for people who might have them right now and just kind of understanding okay, well, maybe how can I get ahead of the trends or
00:54:54
Speaker
How can I make sure that my business is in a good place heading into the next year? So, let's see. I'm just going to throw a question out there and then everybody can jump in and then we'll go to the next and we'll try to keep it answers to about a minute. Good? All right. Let's start with where people should start if they're starting with nothing. So, softball question here. Making content. Start with the people that you know.
00:55:18
Speaker
I like it okay. Both of these I think are key. All right, so Beckett mentioned content, Tiffany mentioning starting with the people you know. Maybe Tiffany, you could elaborate on that a little bit because we've talked a lot about content. Yeah. So when I started my business, I was a university professor and I left that role to start a business. And for some reason, there was this total disconnect with who to tell my business about. And I thought that I had to make this big splash online, when in truth,
00:55:44
Speaker
All I needed to do was tell family and friends and you know what I was doing because they had family and friends that were interested in that service and needed help with that. And so if you are just starting your business and you don't know where to start or what to do and you don't even have a good and solid service yet, start with the people you know. Tell them how you want to help them. See what they are looking for. Don't create the services that you want to create. Create the services that are going to solve the need.
00:56:06
Speaker
It's what the customer wants. And so just talk to people, you know, just talk and ask them questions, see what they would need and let that organic word of mouth marketing start. Help the people who know you and love you and they will be your greatest advocates as you build your business.
00:56:20
Speaker
Yeah. And just to add to that, I mean, when we started Till Agency, Till basically we emailed everybody, like just each of us, we emailed everybody we know and said, hey, this is what we're doing. You know, it wasn't a pitch like, you know, and can you now sign up with us or now can you become a client? It was just simply like, this is what we're doing. If you know of anybody who might be interested, please connect us.
00:56:38
Speaker
And we got a lot of clients. We got our pretty much base group of clients from that and then it just grew from there and it's probably one of the fastest growing businesses that I've been a part of. And then ironically with the farm business, I feel like part of it has been going out and trying to find people that are elsewhere from just our local community. And so as we've gone back to just being like, well,
00:57:01
Speaker
There's a lot of people out here in Lexington, Virginia, and just Virginia in general, all of a sudden we started seeing more growth, you know? So I think that's such a valuable point. And then of course, content. Vanessa, anything to add to that?
00:57:11
Speaker
I was going to say that, one, my business, people still don't understand what I do. So if I told my friends and family, they'd be like, a what? I have a quilting business. Could you put it on Pinterest? Seriously, that wouldn't have worked as well for me. But for me, it was blogging. But then I would say one of the most powerful tools for me and growing has been podcasting. If you can get on people's podcasts, and that takes a little bit of previous content to prove that you know what you're talking about,
00:57:37
Speaker
That's an amazing way to really grow your business. So an email for just growing your email everything. So yeah blogs just to get the base the website, but then
00:57:50
Speaker
I know there's a lot of value in YouTube. We've started investing in YouTube, so not to denigrate YouTube. But I feel like podcasting is one of those things you can do from anywhere, right? First of all, it's easy to do as the person starting the podcast. And by easy, I mean there's some stuff you have to learn, but you can do it with relatively little equipment.
00:58:07
Speaker
And then whether you're driving, whether you're working out, whether you're just kind of on the go or you're working and you just have that plane in the background, it doesn't require as much attention as sitting down and reading a blog post or watching a YouTube video. So big fan of podcasting. And I don't think I realized how much that helped grow Davey and Krista, that business until kind of well into it. And then some feedback that I've really enjoyed hearing is just from guests who have said like,
00:58:33
Speaker
Hey I've gotten so many inquiries or leads or whatnot by coming on your podcast and so that's something that you know has been special for me but love all those tips going on to the next one as far as strategies that you feel really amplify and compliment each other who wants to start there.
00:58:49
Speaker
I will. So I have been working with SMS, so that's text marketing and specifically for product-based businesses. And I am blown away by SMS. Becca, I have thoughts for you. Let's talk.
00:59:04
Speaker
But like SMS and email compliment each other so well because honestly, at least at this point in history in 2022, the like view through and click through rate is so much higher with texting because we're not quite annoyed and like putting it in a million different folders like we are with email. So the visibility on your promotional whatever your new launch and you release is so much higher with text.
00:59:26
Speaker
an email. But I think you need both because the text, it's expensive to pay for the subscriptions. You can only send to one link and email can convey a lot more information about your launch. So those two I think go naturally together and for e-commerce, I'm just blown away by the results of that. Yeah. Maybe that needs to be a whole new episode just to talk about text messaging, some learnings there.
00:59:49
Speaker
It's like my new something in Reddit, of
Integrating Ads and PR
00:59:52
Speaker
course. Yeah. Anybody else in terms of combinations of things that complementing and amplify each other? I'll say I think ads and PR, go hand in hand, are clients who have or seem like they have a strong PR strategy, whether they know it or not, seem to get better results. And I think in part because
01:00:09
Speaker
Anytime you're running ads to colder audiences, so those audiences that have never heard of you, costs tend to be a little bit higher. It tends to be a little bit harder to break into those audiences. But when you're doing a lot of PR, one, I think people start trusting you more quickly. If I've never heard of a company before and I click on an ad and then I go to their website and all of a sudden I'm seeing featured on badges or a lot of social proof, I'm going to trust them a lot more quickly than a website with none of that.
01:00:36
Speaker
But then also those PR strategies are typically breaking into cold audiences like maybe prior to ads. And so now we're retargeting these people and those ad lists that we're targeting get bigger. So I like that combination.
01:00:49
Speaker
I would say for my favorite, my favorite would be content and email. I love email. That is like my favorite thing. I'm weird about it. I think it's so much fun, but I'm only like, to me, my emails are going to be basically amplifying what our content is.
01:01:06
Speaker
which is fantastic when you feel like you don't have any. Maybe you took a break for a month from content because you're just needing that little reprieve from putting things out there. But hey, I still want to talk to my email list. Oh look, I have seven years of library here that I can call people's attention to. So for me, that's my favorite.
01:01:25
Speaker
And I love seeing, I love the idea of PR and ads together. I think Davie, you hit that right on the head. That's a perfect description of that. I love seeing PR and social working together, not full blown influencer models, but right now finding other experts to connect with in that social world, doing cross brand collaborations. I think that that's really exciting because again, it's about
01:01:45
Speaker
this person has an audience that trusts them and this person has an audience that trusts them and now you're saying, okay, let's trust the other person as well. So you've now just crossed over those audiences, which I think is really exciting. And then also I love seeing some of the more creative things that are happening between content and advertising, especially social advertising and some of the ads that we're seeing now on social and we have been seeing for a while that really have a very
01:02:10
Speaker
content feel to them, not an ad feel to them. So you're scrolling through Pinterest and here's that quiz to find out your house decorating style or whatever. It is an ad, but it feels like the content that surrounds it rather than the ads that are just really jarring and look like an ad and I tend to scroll past.
01:02:27
Speaker
So I love just seeing that creativity across the board in all of these different areas to kind of connect cross borders and let those borders be kind of fuzzy. The barriers can be a little bit porous between these different elements of marketing. I'll let that.
01:02:42
Speaker
Yeah. So I have two more questions here that we'll have to get through. Five minutes. All right. Let's see if we can do it. One, just kind of along those lines of things that we're, we're excited to see. What's one thing that you are really paying attention to in the next year? Just one strategy or one, you know, trend. And then what's one thing that you feel like people are doing that they just need to stop?
01:03:05
Speaker
You're just like, that doesn't work anymore. And if you only want to answer one of those questions, go ahead. And if you want to take a second, I can go. I have something. I'm going to go backwards. Yes. Yeah, go. And I hinted at it. The thing that I think people need to stop doing, and I see this a lot in the sleep consulting world, is I really, truly think you need to stop hiring other people to write your own content.
Authentic Content Creation
01:03:26
Speaker
I see this all the time and I just think it's the most ridiculous thing because to me, again, from building our business on content, I would never want someone else to be writing my own words to go onto my website because then let's say that person hires you and then there's a miss. It doesn't match.
01:03:44
Speaker
that what their voice was to what that was, I think it's really important to get your own voice and your own content. So yes, you could outsource to help someone help you get the ideas and help you plan for that, but it should be all independently your voice on your content. And then as far as something you're focusing on, Chad, who just walked by, he would love that I'm saying this is that we want to try to focus more on our YouTube because it just takes a lot of time.
01:04:10
Speaker
I'm like, eh, it's the last thing. We'll film next month. I know there's a completely different set of people on YouTube. Our comments and our views are completely different than the people that are on Facebook or Instagram or on our podcast. I know that there's an untapped market there and I just need to stop being lazy about it.
01:04:30
Speaker
Something in the ad world that we've really been noticing is user-generated content and that combined with ads. There's a little bit of an influencer. It's that cross with influencer marketing where you have content that's created by your users that you are then running as an advertisement. You're tapping into hopefully that user's audience as well. It looks like content. It doesn't look like an ad in your feed. It helps build trust because it's not just you out there
01:04:58
Speaker
spouting off about your own your own product and how great it is and then in addition that i think you know you get to hear somebody else describe that product and how they use it and how it's been beneficial for them in their own words which is often a little different than how maybe even the business would describe it so.
01:05:14
Speaker
That trend sort of in that direction again coming back to what you were saying Tiffany that where you know it just has more organic feel and I think that's been 10 times true over on tiktok and the results that we're getting for clients over there as far as stopping you know I think coming back to being able to create your own content stopping just like you have a blog post just like posting the link to the podcast I'm sorry to the blog post.
01:05:36
Speaker
as if that's enough. I think that being able to work on some copywriting or at least some hooks is maybe one of the most valuable things that a business can do to get people to click into that post. That's my bit.
01:05:50
Speaker
I would say I'll just suggest since we're running out of time, the one thing to stop and that would be stop throwing things out there without paying attention to the return on your investment of money and time. I know a lot of people are just out there just posting, posting, posting, posting on Instagram and they're really not seeing, they're not seeing customers coming from that. They're not seeing leads coming from that. And for a long time businesses have kind of approached social media like we have to do it because we're scared to not be there, but does it work or not? And I would say no matter what you're doing in terms of content creation or marketing strategy,
01:06:19
Speaker
Pay attention to your ROI. Stop just throwing it out there, hoping for the best, and really pay attention to what gets leads and what gets the results that you're looking for, and then lean into those things and do them really well.
01:06:31
Speaker
Well, we're going to wrap this up. We need to have a read back on the podcast. We need to do this again because I especially like the speed round stuff. I feel like what I'm going to do is next time I have all of you on, I'm going to have a list of 30 questions and we're just going to fly through them real quick. And I feel like each of these, speaking of content ideas, just as we're talking about text messaging and influence marketing and
01:06:52
Speaker
User generated content mean all those have to be their own. Yeah, reddit all those have to be six months from now Vanessa is gonna come on and be like I have the reddit strategy that every business should be using right where I go to relax is that that's where I go to scroll honestly, that's where I get
01:07:09
Speaker
It's good and bad. I don't know if that's where I, I don't know if I've ever heard anybody say that you had to read it to relax. It's like going to the news to relax, I feel like. It's not newsy. If you, you got to, you just, I don't, I could just talk about it. I just don't understand. This is great, baby. Thank you. Yeah. Starting with you, Tiffany, where can people find you when, if they want to learn more? Yeah. That's at tiffanyeric.com. That's Tiffany and then E-U-R-I-C-H.com. Awesome. Becca? Littlez sleep.com. And Vanessa?
01:07:39
Speaker
VanessaKynes.com, K-Y-N-E-S. I also have one of those last names you need to sell. Well, hey, thank you all for joining me on the podcast. This was a lot of fun. I feel like I need to do more stuff like this. And Tiffany, thank you for this idea. I really appreciate it.
01:07:53
Speaker
My pleasure. And they say you should put yourself in a room and surround yourself with people who are smarter and doing greater things. And so it was a delight and a pleasure and a privilege and an honor to get to sit here and discuss with all of you and your incredible brains and all that you're doing. So thank you. Thank you. Well, in that case, I'm crushing it. So I'm looking forward to our next chat. Thanks.
01:08:12
Speaker
Thanks for tuning into the Brands That Book Show. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing and leaving a review in iTunes. For show notes and other resources, head on over to dvandchrista.com.