How Startups and Business Owners Can Make Marketing Uncomplicated

WEBVTT

00:00:00.501 --> 00:00:02.103
Welcome to today's episode.

00:00:02.103 --> 00:00:04.586
Our guest today is Christy Mitchell.

00:00:04.586 --> 00:00:11.935
She is a marketing strategist that helps businesses grow by having the right marketing strategy.

00:00:11.935 --> 00:00:12.756
Welcome to the show.

00:00:13.880 --> 00:00:15.246
Thank you so much for having me here.

00:00:17.060 --> 00:00:23.754
Why don't we start out by you giving us just a minute or two about who you are and what you do?

00:00:28.339 --> 00:00:29.544
a minute or two about who you are and what you do.

00:00:29.544 --> 00:00:31.649
Yeah, so I have been running my business full time for about five years.

00:00:31.649 --> 00:00:32.493
It's changed a lot in that time.

00:00:32.493 --> 00:00:43.810
But right now I really focus on helping business owners who are in the professional services space, who have really built their businesses on referrals and word of mouth and it's gotten them pretty far.

00:00:43.810 --> 00:00:45.787
But they're at that point where they're ready to up level.

00:00:45.787 --> 00:00:47.316
They're ready to take it to the next level.

00:00:47.316 --> 00:01:05.918
They would love to be able to get great inbound leads through their marketing efforts and really get that strategic marketing plan in place that's going to help them attract and convert their ideal clients so they're not always having to go out and find every new client or rely too much on those referrals and find every new client or rely too much on those referrals.

00:01:05.938 --> 00:01:06.519
That's great.

00:01:06.519 --> 00:01:13.909
I think that all business leaders and owners need to have a marketing strategy.

00:01:13.909 --> 00:01:17.314
Hope is factually not a strategy, right.

00:01:22.096 --> 00:01:22.337
It is not.

00:01:22.337 --> 00:01:29.224
I always say like we can't do the whole spaghetti at the wall thing, like that's okay for a little bit, but when you're ready to take your business to that next level, we got to stop throwing spaghetti at the wall.

00:01:29.224 --> 00:01:39.509
We got to get that strategy in place so that you know that those marketing tasks and projects that are being executed are all part of that overall strategy, so you can really get the results that you're looking for.

00:01:41.500 --> 00:01:42.501
Absolutely so.

00:01:42.501 --> 00:01:44.766
We're ready to be inspired.

00:01:44.766 --> 00:01:55.051
Tell us a story about some of the best marketing that you've done, that you're the most proud of yes, so a recent project I am super proud of.

00:01:55.671 --> 00:01:58.984
I worked with a professional services business, um.

00:01:58.984 --> 00:02:04.793
Towards the end of last year they had come to me because they had hired an agency and it didn't go well.

00:02:04.793 --> 00:02:09.132
They just didn't get what they were looking for out of that partnership.

00:02:09.132 --> 00:02:12.423
They felt like the agency would just go into the motions.

00:02:12.423 --> 00:02:16.062
They weren't really creating content that felt true to the brand of the company.

00:02:16.062 --> 00:02:23.044
It just felt very cold and corporate and transactional, and so they decided it wasn't working and they needed to do something different.

00:02:23.044 --> 00:02:26.092
So they found me and we worked together.

00:02:26.219 --> 00:02:29.248
I went through everything that they already had going.

00:02:29.248 --> 00:02:30.331
That's my typical process.

00:02:30.331 --> 00:02:33.509
I like to do an analysis and an assessment of everything they have going.

00:02:33.509 --> 00:02:44.925
So I'm looking at their website, their social media, their email marketing, both on the back end I like to look at the data and also on the content side of things to figure out what's working, what areas do we have to really improve things?

00:02:44.925 --> 00:02:54.091
And through that process, what I realized and was able to report back to them was the agency that they worked with did a great job on the SEO side of things.

00:02:54.091 --> 00:02:58.229
So we can see that on the back end, like things were working really well from an SEO standpoint.

00:02:58.229 --> 00:03:08.509
But again, the big area of opportunity was really making sure that the content that was being created spoke to the ideal client, felt authentic and genuine to the company itself.

00:03:08.509 --> 00:03:19.727
And so I take them through my content strategy process, which involves into buyer personas my specific content strategy framework that's proprietary, and then we do content pillars.

00:03:19.727 --> 00:03:35.211
So that whole process really ends up giving us very clear guidelines of what that content should look like going forward to help ensure that it's going to resonate with that target audience and really be effective in drawing them in and converting them at the end of the day.

00:03:35.211 --> 00:03:44.647
So the really cool part about working with this client was we got through the whole assessment, analysis, the content strategy, and then it's okay.

00:03:44.687 --> 00:03:45.349
Now what happens?

00:03:45.349 --> 00:03:49.443
Because I'm not an agency, I don't have a team of people who will now execute the plan.

00:03:49.443 --> 00:03:54.263
I really work with each client individually to say what sort of resources do you already have in-house?

00:03:54.263 --> 00:03:57.731
Where might we need to bring in those execution partners?

00:03:57.731 --> 00:04:05.591
And for this particular client, they had nothing in-house and they had really no relationships with vendors that they felt strongly about keeping.

00:04:05.591 --> 00:04:07.304
So they're like we really need everything.

00:04:08.004 --> 00:04:19.083
And so what I did was I hand selected people from my network for very specific execution tasks that were needed For example, someone to edit and post their podcast.

00:04:19.083 --> 00:04:23.822
Somebody to manage their LinkedIn presence, creating the content and engaging.

00:04:23.822 --> 00:04:28.487
Someone to make edits to the website based on the recommendations that I gave.

00:04:28.487 --> 00:04:35.271
Someone to write email marketing campaigns and create a new lead magnet for them, those kinds of things.

00:04:35.271 --> 00:04:41.319
And so I reached out to the people in my network that I thought would be a good fit, made those connections for the client.

00:04:41.319 --> 00:04:52.613
They loved all of my recommendations and basically immediately hired everybody that I proposed that they should work with, and now we call it the marketing dream team.

00:04:52.740 --> 00:04:53.622
It's up and running.

00:04:53.622 --> 00:04:58.678
The marketing strategy and plan is being executed as we speak.

00:04:58.678 --> 00:05:04.661
They are already seeing positive results for everything that we got up and running and it's just really exciting.

00:05:04.661 --> 00:05:13.228
Now I just need to take a backseat and meet with the client on a quarterly basis to touch base again on those kind of metrics and things just to say, okay, how's everything working?

00:05:13.228 --> 00:05:17.334
Are there any areas of opportunity where we can tighten things up or make some tweaks?

00:05:17.334 --> 00:05:21.528
So it's been a really rewarding process to work with them through that.

00:05:22.992 --> 00:05:29.004
So it seems like the right marketing strategy is to assemble the right dream team, right.

00:05:29.769 --> 00:05:31.293
Yes, yeah, and it really.

00:05:31.293 --> 00:05:32.978
It's going to look different.

00:05:32.978 --> 00:05:34.471
That's what I tell my clients all the time.

00:05:34.471 --> 00:05:46.375
I have certain processes and frameworks that I use time and time again because they work, but everybody's marketing plan is going to look a little bit different at the end of the day, because I don't believe there's a one-size-fits-all model for any business.

00:05:47.355 --> 00:05:58.738
I think it's actually a pretty hard thing for most businesses to pull together the right team because there's so many different skill sets in marketing.

00:05:58.738 --> 00:06:02.232
Marketing is a very broad topic.

00:06:02.232 --> 00:06:09.322
On my show here we have 200 topics outlined that we talk about in marketing.

00:06:09.322 --> 00:06:17.875
So when you think, if you just hire a marketing generalist, how many of those 200 things would they know or be able to execute on?

00:06:17.875 --> 00:06:20.581
No one can execute on all 200.

00:06:20.581 --> 00:06:40.850
And so how do you assemble the right group of people to get the right mix is often the key question, and about 90% of the 6 million businesses in the US are small businesses that have less than 20 people total in the company.

00:06:41.531 --> 00:07:01.725
So, most people don't have all of these resources and skills in-house, so having someone like you who can conduct the marketing orchestra, if you will, of all the team members like that and give them advice and get everyone working in harmony, is amazing.

00:07:01.725 --> 00:07:02.685
That's a great story.

00:07:03.586 --> 00:07:04.206
I love that.

00:07:04.206 --> 00:07:05.267
That's a great analogy.

00:07:05.267 --> 00:07:06.415
I didn't think about it that way.

00:07:07.970 --> 00:07:08.735
Let's make some marketing music.

00:07:08.735 --> 00:07:09.257
That's a great analogy.

00:07:09.257 --> 00:07:09.942
I didn't think about it that way.

00:07:09.942 --> 00:07:10.665
Let's make some marketing music.

00:07:10.665 --> 00:07:11.250
That's a great strategy.

00:07:11.250 --> 00:07:14.579
So let's talk to me a little bit.

00:07:14.579 --> 00:07:20.884
I'm just curious about how you get business leaders excited about marketing.

00:07:20.884 --> 00:07:27.103
You were saying that one of the ways you get them excited is when you give them a strategy.

00:07:27.103 --> 00:07:31.432
Is that because they then can see it come to life?

00:07:31.432 --> 00:07:36.122
Is it because it's more practical, they can see and touch it?

00:07:36.122 --> 00:07:41.802
Or how do you get people excited about marketing through marketing strategy?

00:07:42.850 --> 00:07:53.310
Yeah, I think it really comes down to listening and going back to what I said about creating that authentic customized plan for each individual business.

00:07:53.529 --> 00:08:05.055
So if I'm working with a business owner and they're like, look, it's not realistic for us to put on events, right, let's just say, like we can't do webinars, we don't have the bandwidth, we don't have the time and expertise, that's not something we can do right now.

00:08:05.536 --> 00:08:07.192
That's fine, we don't have to do that.

00:08:07.192 --> 00:08:18.891
It's just one idea in the kind of, like you said, marketing's huge right, there's tons of options.

00:08:18.891 --> 00:08:43.643
And so I think that by listening to some of their concerns or objections or we've tried this in the past or really having that super collaborative approach to figure out what does that marketing plan look like for you, rather than coming in and just saying, okay, we need to do X, y, z, let's go, let's get to it, which I think is unfortunately a lot of times how some, I think especially maybe bigger agencies operate is that kind of one size fits all model let's just do this thing and get it done.

00:08:43.643 --> 00:08:46.014
And that's really not the approach that I take.

00:08:46.014 --> 00:08:52.671
I really like to collaboratively come up with the marketing plan that's going to be right for that particular business.

00:08:53.552 --> 00:09:05.336
Yeah, I think it's hard to have a cookie cutter model that works for all types of businesses across industries, because people have different businesses.

00:09:05.336 --> 00:09:28.474
Isn't one of the hardest things to come up with that custom strategy for each business, because you really have to do the assessment and understand it in order to recommend, like a doctor, and be prescriptive of here's which pieces of the marketing universe you should prioritize?

00:09:28.494 --> 00:09:31.399
Yeah, it is and it isn't.

00:09:31.399 --> 00:09:34.927
For me it's easy because it's like my I feel like it's my zone of genius.

00:09:34.927 --> 00:09:41.288
It can feel hard and it can feel overwhelming to the business owner themselves, because they're looking at this world of marketing like it's never ending.

00:09:41.288 --> 00:09:49.220
There's things that are always changing and new opportunities and how do we know what to focus on and what's going to work for us, and so it's definitely challenging for the business owner.

00:09:49.660 --> 00:10:01.544
For me in particular, in the way that I approach strategic marketing planning, I say it's all about building what I call the organic foundation, and that's your website, your social media, your email marketing.

00:10:01.995 --> 00:10:10.664
If we're boiling it down like those, three things need to be solid in order for you to build on top of that for your marketing planning.

00:10:11.195 --> 00:10:18.504
And the reason I say that is because some business owners think, or maybe they've been told oh, we just need to run some ads.

00:10:18.605 --> 00:10:24.346
We'll do Google search ads, we'll do some social media ads, we'll just run a bunch of ads and we'll drive more traffic to your website.

00:10:24.346 --> 00:10:41.136
But if your website isn't very good and there's not ways for people to click through and learn more and fill out a form and to express interest in learning more or downloading a resource, or if the website isn't created in a way that's going to take them on a journey.

00:10:41.136 --> 00:10:47.035
All the ad dollars in the world aren't going to help your marketing problem in that way.

00:10:47.035 --> 00:11:00.919
You can't just drive more traffic to a website that isn't great, that isn't built in a way that's going to bring people into your world and help them learn about you and have those systems in place so you can capture their information and stay in touch with them and build that know and trust factor.

00:11:00.919 --> 00:11:12.895
So that's just one specific example that I hear a lot in terms of what someone thinks might solve their problem and what I actually see is what's going to solve their problem.

00:11:14.376 --> 00:11:20.360
Yeah, I think marketing strategy is hard for the business owner is definitely what I meant.

00:11:20.360 --> 00:11:25.804
It's not something that, if you haven't done it before, that you would just naturally know how to do.

00:11:25.804 --> 00:11:36.692
It's not something that people normally learn in school, unless they have a marketing degree and a marketing background.

00:11:36.692 --> 00:11:39.500
Yeah, yeah, I don't think there's a cookie cutter approach.

00:11:39.500 --> 00:11:44.264
There are certain things that you're saying, like having a great website is foundational, right.

00:11:44.264 --> 00:11:47.960
If you don't have a good website, it's the front door to your business.

00:11:47.960 --> 00:11:50.046
These days, really, you're going nowhere fast.

00:11:50.615 --> 00:12:04.658
Yeah, and I think too, with the social media and the email marketing pieces as well, like those are things that don't necessarily cost you a ton of money, right, if you have internal resources who can be creating that content, or if you have to partner with somebody externally, it's not.

00:12:04.658 --> 00:12:09.898
Those things aren't usually a huge expense to have up and running and going on a consistent basis.

00:12:09.898 --> 00:12:28.275
But those are again what I think create that organic foundation, that, once you have those in place and you're doing them to the best of your ability and maximizing what you can do from an organic, unpaid approach, that's when you consider amplifying your efforts and maybe doing ads to get more eyeballs on your content.

00:12:30.278 --> 00:12:45.855
Yeah, I think from a reputation perspective myself, and I think a lot of people are programmed by habit in such a way that they're going to check online for the reputation of a business they want to see.

00:12:45.855 --> 00:12:48.240
Do you have a Google business listing?

00:12:48.240 --> 00:12:55.190
And they want to know is your business on LinkedIn, Are you a real company or are you a scammer?

00:12:55.190 --> 00:12:58.355
Because there's so many scammers and not real companies out there.

00:12:58.355 --> 00:13:11.785
So I think it's fair for people to look at people's digital footprint, social reputation, before they really engage, and so I think people have to do foundational work in that area too.

00:13:11.785 --> 00:13:13.960
Which exact things?

00:13:13.960 --> 00:13:16.025
Probably depends on what type of business it is.

00:13:16.025 --> 00:13:19.989
Some things are more important for certain businesses than others.

00:13:19.989 --> 00:13:25.120
If you have a physical location, the Google business listing is pretty critical.

00:13:26.182 --> 00:13:30.570
If you're more of a B2B virtual business.

00:13:30.570 --> 00:13:36.739
I'd say having a great presence on LinkedIn is predominantly important as an example, but some of the other socials?

00:13:36.739 --> 00:13:39.019
A lot of people rely on those as well for reputation.

00:13:39.019 --> 00:13:41.581
So you have to think about which social channels make sense.

00:13:41.581 --> 00:13:49.447
So I think all these foundational things are important for businesses to think about.

00:13:49.447 --> 00:14:05.868
One final question, final thoughts on what business owners and business leaders should do to come up with a successful marketing strategy other than hire you, of course.

00:14:07.395 --> 00:14:07.635
Okay.

00:14:07.635 --> 00:14:12.365
So if they're not hiring me, I actually have a and I will.

00:14:12.365 --> 00:14:17.177
I'll give you this as a resource at the end, if that's okay, a link to my recorded masterclass.

00:14:17.177 --> 00:14:18.922
It's 20 minutes, it's free.

00:14:18.922 --> 00:14:22.068
It's a way to really wrap your brain around.

00:14:22.068 --> 00:14:26.191
Okay, how do I organize my marketing tasks in a strategic way?

00:14:26.191 --> 00:14:27.917
So I go through the marketing funnel framework.

00:14:27.917 --> 00:14:29.902
I boil it down to four key sections.

00:14:29.902 --> 00:14:33.056
It's attract, convert, nurture and then close.

00:14:33.056 --> 00:14:43.889
And really just thinking through your marketing through that lens can be immensely helpful in really identifying the gaps that you have that you need to prioritize and focus on first.

00:14:45.510 --> 00:14:46.251
That's amazing.

00:14:46.251 --> 00:14:51.827
I think everyone needs that masterclass to have the right marketing strategy.

00:14:51.827 --> 00:14:53.883
So thank you very much.

00:14:53.883 --> 00:14:56.543
I will link to that in the show notes.

00:14:56.543 --> 00:15:01.745
We appreciate you sharing your story and these insights with us today.

00:15:01.745 --> 00:15:04.437
Really appreciate you you being with us.

00:15:04.437 --> 00:15:05.383
Thank you very much.

00:15:06.005 --> 00:15:06.488
Thanks, Eric.