Real Talk No Fluff: Recent Episodes
Real Talk, No Fluff
In this episode, we're going to dive deep into the world of marketing funnels, uncovering strategies and insights to help your small business thrive. We're also welcoming a special guest, funnel expert Michelle LaRue of SonjaBlue Digital Marketing.
You've set your sights on Facebook, Instagram, or maybe even LinkedIn or Pinterest for your business ads. Here's the game changer: it's not about where your ads appear but who sees them. I'm talking about unlocking the power of targeting. In this episode, we unravel the art of targeting, breaking it into two segments: cold and warm audiences.
In this episode, we're discussing the elephant in the room. That's right, folks - we're talking about GA4! We'll cover the differences between Universal Analytics and GA4, and how you can work around them to effectively track your marketing and advertising efforts.
Imagine that you are sitting in a meeting with your boss or client, discussing details of a campaign that you wish to launch. That's when your boss or potential client turns to you and asks, "Can you create a landing page for this?" What is your answer? Yes? No? Do you know what should go on a landing page (or NOT go on a landing page?)? In this episode, we're going to discuss all the details of what makes a website, what makes a landing page, and what the differences are between each one.
In this episode, we're going to talk about Facebook ads. Why Facebook? Because as of 2023, Facebook has about 244 million users. That's 72% of the US population, so let's see how we can take advantage of it.
According to statistics, up to 93% of consumers have made buying decisions based on reviews, and 90% of those surveyed said customer reviews were a factor in their buying decision. In this episode, we're going to talk about the how and why of using customer reviews in your marketing.
You've decided to outsource your online marketing - now what? In this episode of Real Talk, No Fluff, Liz and Ronda discuss the things you need and need to plan for when outsourcing your online marketing.
Are you considering hiring a digital marketing strategist but not sure where to start? If so, this episode of Real Talk, No Fluff is for you. Ronda and Liz talk about how to set up yourself and your new digital marketer for success.
What story does your website tell potential customers about your services, products, and brand? Does your website give your clients or potential clients an incredible sales journey? Is it set up to convert prospects into sold customers? In this episode, our guest is going to help you plan and build an awesome website.
In this episode of Real Talk, No Fluff, we're chatting about processes and tools you can use to streamline your content planning, content creation, and content publishing needed for your online marketing strategy.
We invite you to listen here on our website or from your favorite podcast player. Scroll below for episode summary and other resources.
Episode 16 Summary:
- After you determine what social media and online marketing platforms and tools you’ll use and have developed your content strategy, the next step is to begin executing on creating and publishing that content. Developing processes to do this will help you stay organized, keep from feeling overwhelmed, and make your content creation and posting tasks very manageable.
- Your specific mix of social media and online platforms plus the number of people involved with these tasks will dictate the processes you need to create and follow.
- These processes can include social media post content, social media ad content, business blogs, podcasts, email marketing, photo and video creation, and website updates. They also will involve the frequency at which each of these creation and publishing tasks need to take place for your business.
- We both have some thoughts and advice on identifying and creating processes like these.
- To begin, make sure that your upcoming marketing calendar and content strategy are the foundation for any of your process work. Something like a sale, new service, launch, or giveaway can force a temporary shift in your usual processes.
- Understand the order of your creating and publishing. For example, if your new blog post is going to be newsletter content, shared as a link to your social media profiles, used in a social media ad, and then its content broken out into several individual social media posts or videos, you’ll need to make sure your new blog post is finalized and published before you can get to work on all of the tasks that follow.
- Determine who is going to be involved in the creation and publishing processes and what each will be tasked with. For example, perhaps you have one employee who’s great with the camera and also designing graphics to use on social media, whereas another is excellent at long form content and will be in charge of blog post writing and email content.
- Know that you don’t need to recreate the wheel on your content - That post you’re writing for Facebook also works “as is” for Twitter, LinkedIn, your Google Business Profile, and possibly Instagram. And that new blog post or podcast episode? That can be used as newsletter content or one or more social media posts.
- Scheduling is your friend - Social posts, ads, blog posts, podcast episodes, and email newsletters can all be written when convenient for you, and scheduled to publish at a future date and time. This works nicely with our next tip, which is to batch your work.
- Batch work is also your friend - It helps your focus and it is more time-efficient to stay on 1 task for a longer period of time. Creating graphics or writing social media post copy? Create a week or two’s worth in one sitting. Have your camera and mic set up to record some videos or podcast episodes? Record a few at a time.
- Keep track of when something’s been posted/used - This tip is specifically for content that you can reuse. Your blog posts, podcast episodes, service, and product pages can and should be shared over and over. A spreadsheet is helpful for keeping track of this.
- Be aware of how far in advance you can plan - Some businesses have a pretty steady marketing calendar and plan quarterly or even yearly for their business. But others have a lot more variability in things like inventory or enrollment, which in turn impacts their marketing and content calendar. Sure, you may have a process laid out to prepare social media posts for the next three months, but if things are constantly changing for your business, you can end up redoing a lot of the work to adapt to those changes.
Episode 16 Takeaways: Liz:
Ronda:
Resources: Content Strategy 101, Social Media Ads, Business Blogging, Email Marketing Basics
Listen On: Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Play, and Spotify
Continue the Conversation:
Liz Jostes – LinkedIn, Website
Ronda VanBuren – LinkedIn, Website
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Would you like to be our podcast guest? Or have a question or topic you’d like us to discuss? We’d love to hear from you!
In Episode 14, we discussed what makes up a great content strategy. In this episode, we go deeper into the 6 essentials for planning and developing your social media strategy for your small business.
A content strategy is a roadmap for how you will use your written, visual, and audio content to reach your clients and achieve your small business goals. In this episode, we review the 3 essentials needed to create your content strategy.
Would you like to understand more about your customer’s journey on your website? Like, how did they find your website and what did they do once they got there? If you just shook your head, “yes”, this podcast is for you. Today, we discuss all things website analytics. We invite you to listen here on… Read More »Website Analytics 101: A Foundational Piece to your Marketing
82% of people read reviews about a business, product, or service before making a buying decision. But did you know that reputation management is more than just answering your online reviews? Learn about the other components of reputation management and why they are important to your small business in this podcast episode.
Do you know the differences between landing pages and the rest of the pages on your small business website? In this podcast episode, we explore landing pages, what they are, and why and how to use them in your online marketing.
If there was a way to affordably target your specific customer base with your message, would you take advantage of it? If you are shaking your head yes, then you will want to listen to this episode for an introduction to social media ads.
Business blogging offers a myriad of benefits. From improving your website SEO to marketing, we’re diving into the reasons why you should add blogging into your small business strategy.
Want your website pages to rank well in Google search results withOUT paying for ads? Search engine optimization, known simply as SEO, is how you do that. We’re going to demystify Search Engine Optimization, how it works, why it’s important for your small business, and the basic SEO tenets of on-site and offsite SEO.
Ever heard the phrase, “The money is in the list?” That list refers to your email list. In fact, the global e-mail marketing market was valued at $7.5 billion in 2020 and is projected to increase to $17.9 billion by 2027 (Statista, 2021). In today’s episode, we’re discussing the essential things to know about email marketing and all the ways it can positively impact your small business.
Do you think every social media follower you have sees every post you publish? Sadly, most don't. And it's because of a pesky, top secret thing called an algorithm. In this episode, we break down everything you need to know about algorithms and give you tips on how to use an algorithm to your advantage as a small business owner.