Episode Transcript
[00:00:07] Speaker A: Hi, and welcome to the confessions from the Home Office podcast. My name is Wendy Hill, and I have been working from home for almost 20 years, running my marketing company out of my home office in Greenville, South Carolina. So today's episode I'm going to talk about a free resource that I've created on the wendyhill.com site called the Market Momentum Kickstart Guide. So whether you're starting a company or you're just kind of restarting your marketing or trying to change directions with your marketing, this guide will give you kind of, it's kind of a checklist of everything that you need to think about and make sure that you have in place. And today I'm going to go over all the sections of the Kickstart guide and talk through that. And then if you want to download it, it's on my site and takes just a minute or two to get. So by the end of this episode, you'll be able to hit the ground running knowing all the different areas that you need to focus on when you're getting started with marketing or restarting. So let's break down all the key components in the Kickstart guide. This list has about 1415 topics, so I'll try to make this quick, but all these are really important. So number one is brand identity. When you think about brand identity, you think about logo, colors, fonts. You also need to think about your brand voice and your tone. And I know sometimes people start a business and they say, I don't know if I really need to go get a logo and do all this. Yet as things go along, I'll figure it out. Well, think about the first time you go somewhere and you need to take a marketing piece, or you need a website built, or you need to take a business card to a networking event. You can change your logo as much as you want. A lot of times those evolve over time. I've changed mine a couple of times and changed the color scheme, but you need to get a brand identity together. It kind of is kind of like the framework of things. So definitely think about that and make sure that you get that in place. So the second thing is target audience. A lot of times people will say, everybody's my customer. Well, that may be the case for some things, but think about if you tried to market to everybody how much money that would take. So you really need to think about who's your ideal customer. When I think about with my consulting business, I think about the people that I work really, really well with, and I want more of those people. So you need to think about how, you know, how I found them, what their problems are, what type of industries they're in.
You really need to understand your ideal customer and go from there and niche down. So, you know, I have a ton of people that I could target with my marketing business, but that would take a lot of work and that would take a lot of money.
And so I have certain niches that I go after and that way everything kind of fits nicely with my model and it just makes everything easier and is, you know, more economical.
So number three is your unique selling proposition. And this is also, you'll see this listed as a USP. So what really sets you apart from the competition? So you may say, well, I'm just like everybody else, so there's nothing different about me. Yeah, there is. There may be how long you've been in business. You may have a different perspective from other people. Like for me, I have an operations background too. So I'm not thinking just about the marketing. I'm trying to think about how it's gonna get delivered and can it get delivered the right way and what's going on on the other side of the business. Maybe they need to work on the operations first before they really start focusing on the marketing. So you need to think about what makes you different and make sure that you communicate to that to your audience. That's your unique selling proposition. You know, some other examples would be, is it your customer service? Is it the service after the sale? Is it how you make your products, how you source your products? So just, just think about that. There is something different about your business than your competitors.
So the next area is to think about marketing goals. You need to set short and long term marketing goals. And I would say this, short term, sometimes with marketing, sometimes it takes a little bit longer. I've had clients that knee jerk and if something doesn't work in two weeks, they're stressed out and they want to change direction. And I've had other clients that realize it can take six, nine months for something to really kick in. Now, do you want to keep burning money if something's not working? Probably not. But you need to think about what goals work for your industry. And is it return on investment? Is it customer acquisition cost, is it looking at website traffic and, you know, is it going up? Have you been spending money on ads to drive people to your website and all of a sudden traffic plummets for months? Well, then you need to, you need to change your ad strategy.
You need to look at revenue things like that. So there's all kinds of KPI's that you can, that you can look at when you're measuring short term and long term success.
So the next thing you need to look at is budget allocation and everybody, when you say, what's your marketing budget? A lot of times it's like asking somebody, what's your Apple ID password? They're like, I don't know.
You need to determine what your overall budget is. I've asked clients before, like, what budget range are you thinking? And they think that I want to just spend it all. That's not the case at all. A lot of times companies don't have a budget in place for marketing at all. It's just spend the least amount possible because we've got salaries we've got to pay, we've got other things we got to do. But I'm telling you, you have to spend money to make money. And I'm one of the cheapest people out there, believe me. So I don't want to do that either. But you have to if you really want to make a difference with things. And the other thing that I wanted to say about budgets is this is being recorded in like mid to late August. A lot of people are starting to put their budgets together for next year. If you don't have a marketing budget in place for next year, I would strongly consider, you should strongly consider putting one. And that way you'll know, you know, do you need consulting help? Do you need someone to manage it? Do you need, do you need money for media campaigns? Like for Google Ads or social media ads? Or do you still do outdoor? Are you going to trade shows? Are you doing big events for customers?
You need to think about all those things and get that down. That way it's not so stressful and you're not trying to borrow from other buckets to make this happen. So that's what I want to say about budgets.
[00:06:47] Speaker B: Are you getting started or restarted with marketing? For your business, visit my site, wendyhill.com and download the Market Momentum Kickstart guide. Inside, you'll discover a step by step roadmap to launch your marketing that delivers results. Don't leave your marketing to chance. Firing off bottle rockets is not great for your budget or for your results. Grab your free market momentum kickstart now and launch your next campaign with confidence. Visit wendyhill.com to learn more. That's Wendy with an eye.
[00:07:15] Speaker A: So now that we've caught, we've talked about foundational elements. I want to talk about implementing and getting things going.
So channel selection is really important. Are you going to be focused on social media? Are you going to be focused on emailing prospects and customers? Are you going to be looking at influencer marketing? Are you going to be relying on pitching to the media and having stories written about your business? Or is it more about industry shows and conferences? You need to think that. And that's not the whole list. I mean, there's a million other things you can do, but you need to think about what channels you're going to use when you're marketing your business. And then number seven on the list is website basics. Your website really needs to be the hub for everything. A lot of times people will say you can just use a Facebook page or you can just have an Instagram account and you can.
But the world is crazy and people will report people's accounts and will say that someone's been bullying or harassing or a bot at Facebook suddenly sees something on your page they don't like and they just shut it down and you can't get it back. It happens every single day. People get their LinkedIn account shut down. I had a client once that had to pay a fine to get back into his LinkedIn. So you need to have your website as your hub. You own your website, get your domain, get that built, and make sure that it's not like a brochure or wear site. Don't just throw everything on there, you do. I mean, that's what we did back in 2000. So you need to make sure that people understand who you are, what you do and how to buy from you. You don't know how many times I look at clients websites. I have no idea how I could work with them if it's the first time I've seen it. So you need to think through that and make sure that your website can be a sales tool for you.
So the next thing is content strategy. You need to decide what type of content that you're going to put out there. You know, look and see what's worked in the past.
You need to plan out content. Some people want to have everything in a Google Drive sheet or excel and down to all the graphics, all the copy and everything. Other people don't have time to do that, but you need to make sure that you've got a couple of themes that you're working with. You don't need eight or nine themes that you're promoting to people. People get confused and lost and then they just start ignoring what you're putting out there. So keep keep it tight, keep it consistent, and keep watching to see what works are reels working, the behind the scenes things work, what works, and keep going with that. And then, you know, if things get too much and you need help, find someone who can help you with the content because it does take some time to get it out there.
Social media presence everybody wants to be on all platforms. I shouldn't say everybody. Most people do. They think they need to be on all the platforms. You don't pick one or two that are relevant to your target market. When you've got your, your ideal customer, where are they hanging out? And you need to make sure that you're doing a good job with those one or two platforms. Once that's up and going and you're doing a great job with it and you feel like that's just moving along and you want to add another one, then do that. But don't set up seven or eight different things because you're just going to get frustrated or somebody on your team is going to get frustrated and it's just kind of, it will flop.
The next thing you need to think about is email marketing. You need to select a service that works, something that you understand. There's some that are very easy, some that are a little more complicated.
I use Mailchimp, constant contact, flowdesk, Klaviyo and equip 360 every week for clients and love them all. They all have different reasons why they use those programs. Some have better analytics than others, some have better price points than others, but there's a ton of them out there and you really can't go wrong with any of those.
SEO, that's search engine optimization. You need to make sure that you're doing keyword research and make sure Google has a keyword research tool.
And we could go into so many episodes talking about SEO, but make sure that what you're putting on your website is what people are searching for. And you need to keep your content up to date, and you need to keep checking and see if there's other keywords that need, that you need to add.
If you're a local business, like a retail location or just a local business, I mean, I'm just thinking of something like a farmers market where you would just sell right around in the area. You might need to work on local SEO and there's partners that can do that. I can help with that, but that's a little bit different. But you need to focus on SEO. There's a lot that you can do that's usually not an overnight win with things that could take six months or longer to really start seeing results.
But make sure that that's something that's on your list.
Analytics you really need to look at.
I think Google Analytics would be a great place to start. That's something that you can install and have going on your website so you can watch and see how people are coming into your site, how long they're staying, when are they jumping off, is there some place that they're always exiting from? If you need to tweak that and try to get them to engage with you or to buy something, it takes just a little bit to get things going with Google Analytics and it's like a big rabbit hole you could go down. So be patient with that and get help. If you need somebody to help you with interpreting the results on that.
[00:12:59] Speaker B: Are you struggling with marketing? Visit my site, wendyhill.com, and let's figure out how to take marketing off your list of stressors. Whether you're a startup or an established business looking to outsource, I have solutions tailored for you from kickstarting your marketing efforts to completely outsource services.
[00:13:16] Speaker A: We'll help you tackle your to do list and reduce your stress.
[00:13:19] Speaker B: Visit wendyhill.com today. That's Wendy with an I and let's transform your marketing strategy.
[00:13:25] Speaker A: So before we wrap up, there's just a few more things that I want you to consider. Is one is keep an eye on your competition. You know, I'll think, oh, there's not too many people that are running a small business out of their home, working with clients all over the US. No, there's a ton of them. And so I try to keep an eye on a couple of people that I know do similar things. I think that you need to keep up on that more often than we probably all do. So are they offering new services? Are they changing directions? Sometimes it's good to kind of see what people are doing and try to figure out why there might be something on there that you want to do too. And it's always good information. And I think it's good to not keep blinders on and just keep going down your path. You can learn something from everybody. So even if it's a company where you don't completely agree with everything that they're doing, or you think their approach is a little different, keep an open mind and keep an eye on it because they're competitors. So they're out there talking to some of the same customers, and it's good to keep an eye on what they're doing.
And then I've got two more to talk about. One's marketing tools. You need to make sure when you're running your business that you've got the right tools, like the right CRM or the right social media management tools or the right email marketing tools. Get something that you're gonna use. So there's a lot of them that will offer seven day or even up to 30 day free trials. Do that and spend some time on it and make sure that it's something that you're actually gonna use. Don't just subscribe to a bunch of things and then not use it. So I've been guilty of that before. I've had clients guilty of that before. They get frustrated after 30 minutes or an hour and they just stopped. And so we need to have the right tools in place, but make sure it's something that you're actually going to use and not stay frustrated with. And then the last thing I want to talk about is compliance considerations. So I know there's certain industries where you can't say certain things on social media or you can't email certain things. You need to keep that in consideration and not think about.
I can do whatever you need to. Check in and see what the industry says you can and can't. Your industry says you can and can't do. You don't want to borrow lists from people. You don't want to just grab an old list from somebody and start emailing them. You will get shut down the platforms. The email marketing platforms can tell by low open rates and how many people unsubscribe and report a spam and they'll shut your accounts down. You don't want to do that. So make sure that you take a look at the industry guidelines and follow those and follow the rules. I think that's really important. So the last thing that I want to talk about today is this has been a lot, and I know it has. The Kickstart guide lists. All this gives you a way to check it off and make notes.
Go to wendyhill.com kickstartguide. Download that once you've done that. If you need to book a call after you've downloaded the guide, there's a way at the end of the PDF where you can book a call for a discounted rate so we could go through and talk about some of this. Sometimes you don't need long term consulting. Sometimes you don't need a big package. You don't need a big course or anything like that. You just need something where you can ask some questions. Maybe there's one or two areas where you need some help. We can do that. And then there's the new accelerate program that's starting hopefully the next week or two. That's like a 30 day support program. So a lot of times people will say, I don't need to work with a consultant for six months or a year. I need 30 days of somebody helping me set up my email, or I want to set up a new program, or I need somebody to look at my socials, or I need somebody to look at my email sequences, someone to do a bunch of research for me. That would be perfect.
With accelerate, we always talk about assessing and planning and executing and optimizing. So that's make sure that we go through the process and that everything is strategic and thought out. So that's about it. That's it for today. So I really just wanted to go over the Kickstart guide and I let you know there's options if you need help with anything. And don't get stressed out listening to all of this. I know it sounds like a lot, but you know a lot more than you think you do. And get the kickstart guide, write all over it, start checking things off and you will be amazed how many things that you've already got figured out. So that's it for this episode, and I'll be back soon for another episode of Confessions from the Home Office. Thanks.
