Marketing in Focus: Recent Episodes
Kristin Miller
If you’re like most small business owners, you have a million things to do and not enough time or money to do it all. The tips in this podcast will help you stay focused the next time a can’t-fail new marketing tactic gets thrown your way.
Today let's talk about how to intentionally use social media to guide your followers down a path to purchase. Social media is one of the few tools we have as marketers that supports all four stages of the customer journey.
I’ll cover how to use social media to attract new people to you and convert them into leads; how social can help you close more sales and delight your customers so they keep coming back AND refer you to others.
Links Mentioned:
- Course: Social Media Strategy for Growing Your Business
- Freebie: Guide to Stress-Free Social Media Posting
- Episode 4: Behind-the-Scenes of a Content Marketing Strategy
In all of my experiences when things went wrong, I was always better able to recover from it when I had already thought about what I might do when things went wrong. So today I’m going to share my best tips on how to be prepared, so you can recover faster and with more grace.
- Identify potential areas for where things might go wrong
- Develop a plan for handling different situations.
- Identify business impact: how long would it take you to recover?
- Identify tools needed.
- Craft communications in advance
Join the conversation in the Marketing in Focus Online Community (a.k.a. the Facebook group)
Take a second and think of the emails you are most likely to open. Or the ones you read once you open them because you found it super relevant. The content speaks to an action you’ve previously taken, and tells you how to take the next step. Or teaches something more you could use.
These are all examples of how the sender used segmentation to ensure the message you received was relevant to YOU.
And there is a super easy way to do this. That’s email tags.
Types of Email Tags:
- Context tags provide insights to the individual subscriber, like what interests they have.
- Action tags connect to a specific behavior, like a lead magnet download.
- Temporary tags can be used for short-term things, like watching a webinar for a launch.
Setting Up An Email Tagging System:
- Identify what tags you want for each type.
- Create a tagging structure (i.e. Category_Subcategory_Details or Action_Free Download_Social Guide)
- Add the tags to your email marketing system.
- Review your tags to ensure they stay relevant. Edit and merge as needed.
Have questions about how to set-up or use an email tag strategy? Head over to the Marketing In Focus Podcast Online Community in Facebook. Hit me with your questions. I’d love to help you out!
Being uniquely you is uncomfortable and sometimes darn right hard, but it's what sets you apart from everyone else and creates a deeper connection with your audience.
4 Tips For Standing Out:
- Use your personal experiences to build authority
- Share your value and beliefs
- Let your audience in on your successes and failures
- Share your goals
Links mentioned in this episode:
Marketing in Focus Podcast Community
Peacock in the Land of Penguins
Top 10 Marketing Trends for 2020
- Personalization
- Optimizing For Voice Search
- Video & Live Streaming
- Social Messaging
- Social Stories
- Content Marketing
- Podcasting
- Browser Push Notifications
- Interactive Content
- User-Generated Content
Resources Mentioned:
Episode 4: Behind-The-Scenes of a Content Marketing Strategy
Social Media Guide: How to Create Social Posts in Less Time and With More Impact
Microphone
Answer the Public
Many Chat
Interact
Bucket.io
Ask by Ryan Levesque
There are generally 3 ways to add more revenue into your business, aside from simply raising your prices, and two are often overlooked. So let’s take some time today to dive into the three ways to increase revenue in 2020, including where to focus your marketing efforts to drive results for each.
The three ways to increase revenue are:
- You can find more customers.
- You can sell something better to your current customers (enhanced experience).
- You can sell something complimentary to your current customers.
See full show notes here: www.kristin-miller.com/3-ways-to-add-revenue-2020
If you’re running an online business, content is the heart and soul of it all. This is how you connect with new people, and how you can show up and serve your audience on the regular.
But, it also is one of the most time-consuming parts of running an online business. It takes A LOT of time to produce quality content that will serve your audience well.
Are you sometimes unsure of what content your audience wants? About what will work to pull in new people?
I’ve got you. Last week we talked about how much time you save when you plan, so let’s talk about planning content.
What I’m going to cover today is a way to brainstorm ideas for filling in your content calendar. You can do this 2-4 times each year. And keeping a running list of ideas helps speed up this process over time.
Some ways to keep track of your ideas are:
- Using the notes on your phone
- Using an app like Evernote or Google Doc
- Using a project management tool so you can move ideas to projects
I’m going to go through four different ways to easily look at what content is popular.
Before you start, get organized on how you want to track your ideas. I like to create a different list for each content pillar, or content category (something I covered back in Episode 5 - How to Create a Content Calendar).
Alright, once you’ve organized yourself a bit the first place to go is Google.
- Type in a keyword and watch for the auto drop down options of popular phrases.
- Write down the exact Google suggested phrase.
- Run a search for your keywords and review what pops up on the front page.
- Review the "what others are searching for" section at the bottom of the page.
After you’ve searched a bit in Google, the next tool to use is Pinterest.
- Type in a keyword and watch for the auto drop down options of popular phrases.
- Run a search for your keywords and review what additional words or phrases pop up along the top.
- Review pins for popularity and take note of what is pinned more frequently.
Next is a cool tool called Answer the Public.
- Search for keywords phrases and review the Questions, Propositions and Comparisons sections.
Last, review frequently asked questions.
- Look for questions you answer all the time.
- Search Facebook groups where your ideal customer hangs out for popular keywords.
If you’re like so many online entrepreneurs I talk with, you are most likely a planner. And this season of planning is one of my favorites all year long. Today I want to chat about the benefits of planning, and then how I put planning into action in my business based on everything I learned over the years of running marketing teams.
1. Saves you time by keeping you focused
- Studies show that 1 hour of planning will save you 10 hours of doing.
- That’s a great ROI for your time, and if you weren’t taking planning seriously before, hopefully this stat will help you create a planning habit for yourself.
2. Keeps your business moving forward
- Set goals to push boundaries and gives us space to think about what’s possible
3. Know what’s working
- Gives us something to benchmark against
- Often I find if you’re not sure if something is working, it’s because you didn’t have a plan that included goals of what working means to you
How to put planning into action:
Annual
- Revenue Goals + Budget > Impact Goals [there’s more about this in episode 10]
- Big calendar - launches
Quarterly
- Budget review
- Weekly Content - set topics for the next quarter [learn how to put together a content calendar in episode 5]
- Social media themes assigned daily [don’t use themes in your business yet? Check out the details in my social media guide]
- Lead magnet review
Monthly
- Batch schedule for content creation: Podcast, Lead magnets, Emails, Social media captions & graphics
- Check analytics: what’s working and what’s not, what’s popular
Weekly
- Schedule social content
- Assign daily “top 3” tasks: projects + admin
Daily
- Review schedule for day and adjust if needed
- Check in on emails twice a day (morning and evening)
- Spend time engaging with others on social: 15 minutes in the morning, 15 minutes in the middle of the day and 15 minutes at the end of the day
Want to start the year off strong? This workshop is a can’t miss! You can learn more and register at www.kristin-miller.com/workshop.
While our business plan is the WHAT, and marketing is the ACTION, they are interdependent and must be consistent.
Question #1: What Are You Going To Sell?
Decide what to sell, and for how much, then review this each year for opportunities to grow your business. Will you add a new product or service in order to increase the revenue in your business? Will you make edits to a product or service to increase the price?
If you have multiple products or services, prioritize them and answer the next two questions for EACH of them. You might prioritize them by seasons, or by what you expect to drive the most sales.
How this connects to your marketing strategy:
When business (and life) gets crazy, you'll be happy to have already decided which one should get more attention and which ones you can give yourself more grace on.
You also want to be sure to set a different marketing strategy for each, so if you have multiple products or services, take the time to answer the next two questions for each one.
Question #2: How Much Are You Going To Sell?
You should set two financial goals: one for revenue (how much you’ll sell) and one for profit (how much you’ll keep).
- Write your profit goal at the bottom of a piece of paper (or a spreadsheet).
- Add in all your business expenses above it.
- Add it all together. That’s your revenue goal!
It’s important to be sure the profit goal you wrote down is the same increment of time as your expenses. If you pay annually for your website, but wrote down a monthly profit goal, you’ll need to adjust the expense by dividing it by 12 months.
Now, breakdown the revenue number into how many products or services need to be sold to accomplish that. For example:
- Total revenue * 70% = Revenue from Coaching / Price = # of Clients
- Total revenue * 30% = Revenue from Membership / Price = # of Members
Not sure how to break it out? Look at where your sales come from today. Don't like how it breaks out? Now's your chance to shift your strategy towards what you want to be the revenue driver in your business.
How this connects to your marketing strategy:
Marketing, ultimately, is a numbers game. If you know how many people you need to purchase, you can factor in how many people you need to get in front of.
Question #3: Who Are You Going To Sell It To?
Prioritize who each product/service is a good fit for.
- Is it people that are on your list, or following you, who haven't purchased before?
- Is it an up-level for current customers who could take advantage of another offering?
How this connects to your marketing strategy:
Of the three questions, this one is most vital to driving your marketing strategy. It helps you know where to spend your efforts.
- Need to get new customers? Get to building your email list with a new free resource, social traffic and digital ads.
- Is your best opportunity selling more to current customers? Then add up-sells to the transaction process, have a strong email campaign, or focus on your private Facebook group.
Alright, friends, hopefully this was helpful as we prepare for the new year and new goals. I’d love to hear what your goals are for next year. Send me a DM @KristinMillerMarketing and let me know!
Don’t forget to grab this amazing new free resource: FREE Guide: How to Create Social Posts in Less Time and With More Impact
The importance of a consistent visual brand identity is something that has stuck with me. And what I learned about how to do it, from award-winning agencies and amazing graphic designers, is that it really isn’t that hard. It’s just setting an intentional course and sticking with it.
Visual brand consistency has been an on-going focus for me every time I create a new piece of content. Back in episode 2 I shared how to create a brand guide to keep yourself consistent, and help share your brand rules with others (like a graphic designer or VA).
Today I want to take you behind the scenes with me and tell you how I manage my branding to keep it consistent.
Affiliate links are used within this post to help sponsor this episode. I only promote products and services I use myself.
I use Canva - a freemium tool.
My favorite features include:
Brand Kit section, store all branding assets in one place
- Logos
- Fonts
- Colors
Create graphics easily
- No need to remember size for common graphics
- Free stock photos
- Free stock templates that are easily customizable
Go Pro for additional benefits
- Folders to stay organized
- More stock photos
- Magic resize to instantly resize any graphic
- Ability to upload my own fonts
- Ability to make true templates out of my graphics rather than just editing the same file over and over again
- Ability to set multiple color palettes, so I can have a core brand palette and color palettes specific to products
- Ability to download designs with a transparent background
Once logged in, check out their Design School for some great free trainings.
Try Canva Pro Today Not sure how to pull together your brand identity (and no budget to hire out)? Check out episode 2 for my tips on building a brand identity, and grab my free Brand Guide Workbook to get started!
The ONE tool that will 10x your productivity: a Project Management tool.
Now I know you’re probably thinking that the LAST thing you need is another thing to do every day, and I understand because I had that thought, but hear me out here.
We only have so much time in the day. Time is finite, we can’t create more of it, so we have to be really mindful of how we use the time we have. And a project management tool is going to help you be more intentional with your time.
Save Time:
- By NOT going to constantly thinking about what to do next. Instead you’ll be ready to take action.
- By being laser focused and knowing exactly what to do next.
- Outsourcing tasks, and have visibility into what’s getting done
How to Get Started:
- Find a tool that works for your business, like Asana, ClickUp, AirTable, Trello
- Commit to showing up in your project management tool every day.
- Put all your tasks in the project management system. Be sure each task has an assigned person and due date.
- Make templates of processes you do repeatedly.
- Find the “Getting Started” guide for the tool you chose and dig in!
- Download the app.
Some examples of projects are:
- Content Calendar for weekly blog posts or podcast episodes, weekly emails, and your daily social media posts
- Administrative tasks like documenting your financials
- Projects like new course build-out plan or a project for each client so you can track prep work and follow-up tasks.
Don’t forget to check out the integrations to see where you may be able to streamline even more!
Which project management tool did you pick? Let me know in an Instagram DM @KristinMillerMarketing. I’d love to hear what you chose and how it’s working for you!
The biggest task we have in how marketing works today is content creation. And, with social media, the amount of content we need to create, and create consistently, can be exhausting. One of the biggest struggles in online marketing, regardless how long you've been at it, is finding the time to create high quality content consistently.
Psst….looking for the guide I mentioned in the episode? You can find it here.
Last week’s episode was all about saving time by planning your content out so you can dive right into creation mode, but that doesn't make creation is faster.
One way to eliminate a whole lot of stress (and save a TON of time) is by finding multiple ways to use the content you worked so hard to create. This is a great way to keep your content consistent, helping both your audience and the search algorithms know what you’re expertise is.
And, when you’re repurposing content your audience loved, you’re working to ensure your audience gets your very best tips, tricks and advice.
Steps to Making Content Go Further:
- Determine which content to choose by starting with your goals.
- Gather content you have on your chosen topic and look for pieces that your audience loved, connected with or asked questions about.
- Give it a refresh, if needed, and republish.
- Review to break into smaller pieces for social posts.
- Convert content into another format to give it life and additional reach.
Blog posts can become:
- E-book, guide or webinar by putting multiple posts put together
- Infographic
- Podcast
- Resource section
- Social posts
- Video
Comments and customer service inquiries can become:
- Blog post (FAQ)
- Post-purchase emails with links to relevant blog posts
- Resource Section
- Video
E-books and guides can become:
- A series of blog posts
- Infographics
- Podcast episodes
- Social posts
- Video
- Webinar/presentation
- Workbooks
Webinars can become:
- Blog Post
- Infographics
- Mini videos / video series via email
- Podcast episodes
- Slideshare
- Social videos
- Video tutorials
Video
- Blog post
- Infographic
- Guest Post
- Mini versions
- Social graphics
- Updated video or a video that digs deeper into the topic
- Worksheets
If you need help keeping your content looking consistent while you're putting these tips into action, check out my podcast episode: 6 Tips to Making It Easier to Brand Your Content.
Using content to drive your marketing and sales efforts can be SUPER confusing.
Today we're going to get into the nitty gritty behind using a content marketing strategy because I think understanding the WHY behind the WHAT you’re doing to market your business will really help you navigate if a new tactic is right for your business, and make it easy to measure your results.
You can grab the free marketing guide to help you put this into action in your own business.
What was a bit of a revolutionary marketing tactic in the early to mid-2000's has turned into the new way of marketing. At the heart of it, content marketing is simply giving away value for your ideal customer to engage them in order to get your audience to know, like and trust you. It really is as simple as providing value at each stage, nurturing the relationship with someone from stranger to brand advocate.
So, how do you know if you’ve taken on a content marketing strategy in your business? If you are using tactics like a blog, social media channel, Facebook groups, live video segments, a podcast or really any other method of giving free advice or information out there to draw your audience in - congratulations, you are a content marketer - even if you didn’t know it!
This concept is easy to understand when switch your thinking and approach everything in your business as if it were an employee and give it a job.
In nurturing your audience, there are four jobs: .
-
Megaphone - whose job is to attract people to you and help you get in front of those who best fit your business. Like the person standing outside of a store making you notice them.
-
Greeter - helps create an experience that matches their needs and converts them onto your list so you can stay connected.
-
Sales guru - who takes them on a journey that leads to your product or service as being the solution to their problem.
-
Customer service specialist - who provides such a great experience at each turn that people keep coming back and, even better, tell all their friends about you.
I’ll dig into each of these phases even more in my free marketing guide resource, so if you want more details (including tips on measuring the effectiveness of what you’re doing) be sure to grab that resource. It’s SO GOOD.
Today I want to share with you a system I’ve used that works for businesses of any size for managing brand identity. This system, often referred to as a brand guide, puts producing creative assets on autopilot and is sure to help increase your ability to get things done.
Not only will these tips save you time and allow you to focus your brain power on what you're creating, but it will create expert-level consistency. You'll train your audience on how to read your content. And, more importantly, how to take action.
I want you to listen to this episode and get an understanding of the overall elements of a brand guide. My goal today is to help you put a system in place that helps you speed through the content production or design process faster.
So listen to this episode, and then go grab my free brand guide workbook www.kristin-miller.com/branding. This workbook will go into more detail on each tip and walk you through exactly what to do, including worksheets.
Tip #1: Stop thinking about what colors to use where.
Tip #2: Forget about fonts and styles.
Tip #3: Give your logo room to breathe.
Tip #4: Style your graphics.
Tip #5: Template, template, template! I love Canva.com for this!
Tip #6: Guide yourself.
Every business needs an email marketing strategy as a part of their marketing strategy. Doesn’t matter if you’re an online business, or brick-and-mortar, all businesses need a way to build a stronger connection with their target audience and stay connected with their clients or customers.
Email is such an effective and budget-friendly way to humanize a brand and build relationships. In today’s world, there really isn’t a reason to NOT have an email marketing strategy.
Today, I’m going to run through the basics of getting an email marketing strategy off the ground.
Before we jump into that - be sure to grab my free guide to turning your marketing to-do list into a marketing plan.
You’re going to need four things:
1. Email Service Provider, such as the following popular options:
- MailChimp
- ActiveCampaign
- ConvertKit
- Drip
When comparing email service providers, consider the following:
- Ease of use
- What the platform looks like
- Price: short-term and long-term
- Landing pages
- Compatibility with other platforms (intergrations)
2. Physical Address
3. Lead Magnet, such as:
- Downloadable checklists or templates
- Ebooks
- Cheatsheets
- Guide, like my Marketing Journey Guide
- Resource list
- Workbook
- Quiz
I use Canva to make nearly all of my graphics.
4. Email Plan, such as a plan to email your subscribers every week at a specific date and time. Consistency here will pay off!
Looking to connect off the podcast? Find me on Facebook and Instagram!