Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Welcome back for another episode of the Unscripted Small Business Podcast. I'm thrilled to introduce today's guest, Angela Frank. Angela is the founder of the Growth Directive, a marketing consultancy helping brands create sustainable marketing programs. To date, Angela has helped generate over 50 million in client marketing revenue. She is also a fellow podcaster and hosts her own show called the Growth Pod. Angela is a wealth of knowledge and I'm so excited for you to hear her insights. In this conversation, Angela breaks down what it really means to be a fractional cmo, how to identify the right marketing channels, and why having a clear strategy is the foundation of successful growth. We also dive into the power of organic social media, the growing role of AI in marketing, and how to build trust with your audience in a noisy digital world. Whether you're an entrepreneur, founder, or marketing leader, this episode is packed with insight to help you focus your efforts and build a brand you love. Let's get started.
[00:01:09] Speaker B: Angela, I'm so excited to have you in the studio today. Thanks for being here, Abby.
[00:01:13] Speaker C: Thank you so much for having me.
[00:01:15] Speaker B: So when I saw that you specialize in marketing, I loved that I saw the word fractional because I had another guest on the show recently who was a fractional cfo. Can you tell us more about about what that means in terms of marketing?
[00:01:30] Speaker C: Yeah. So a fractional CMO gives you all of the same high level marketing strategy as an in house cmo, but generally you're spending a lot less for that same strategy. So instead of having someone in house and they're bogged down with all this team management, they're coming in and doing the highest leverage work for your brand, especially as it relates to marketing.
[00:01:54] Speaker B: Very cool. And we know that marketing can get really expensive, right, with all the different strategies and things that you have to implement.
[00:02:02] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. Some of my clients are spending upwards of a million dollars a month on paid ads. And so having the right strategy is critical for any business, but especially when you're spending so much on your marketing.
[00:02:15] Speaker B: Absolutely. Well, Angela, tell us about your background. I'm curious to learn more about how you got into marketing.
[00:02:21] Speaker C: Yeah, I got into marketing actually when I started my Etsy business way back, almost 11 years ago now. And when you get into business, you realize very quickly that no matter how great your product or service is, people need to know about it. And so the same happened to me. I opened for business and I said, now what now? Now how do I get sales actually? And so that's when I really started learning everything that there is to learn about Marketing. And not only that, but how I could be super effective with virtually no marketing budget.
Flash forward a few years and I realized that loved selling on Etsy, but like products aren't my thing. And so I went into corporate, had a few marketing roles as a marketing director, moving up the ranks, really learning what works for different size companies as well. And then I made the transition back into my own. And so that's what I do now as a fractional cmo, helping businesses with their marketing strategy. Just making sure that instead of throwing things at the wall, you have something that actually makes sense given your business goals.
[00:03:33] Speaker B: Yeah, that's wonderful. Well, congratulations on the career change. I'm sure that you've learned quite a bit in that experience, especially even starting your own business. What was that like when you had your Etsy business? What were some of the things that you learned just from opening that up.
[00:03:49] Speaker C: Yourself so much from not only marketing, but also operations and sales perspective? I was learning everything from scratch. I didn't have an entrepreneurial background. I thought maybe I was going to be a civil engineer when I went to college. But when my husband joined the military, I realized that I needed something that would travel with us. And so I was learning marketing, sales, e commerce. I was learning, you know, how to package and ship products. And so there was so much to learn and it was certainly, certainly a lot for one person. But I'm very grateful that I have that experience because I see those things coming through with the businesses today. You know, there's no new challenges in business, even if it's a new challenge to you, like somebody else has been there. And so having that perspective has been really great.
[00:04:38] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. What size businesses do you typically work with and is there a specific industry that you like to kind of stay within?
[00:04:46] Speaker C: Yeah, so a lot of my consulting clients are health and wellness brands. But my niche is really a strategy that I implement. And that strategy works across not only health and wellness, but service based brands, small brands, big brands. And so while me as a consultant, I focus on health and wellness brands, generally making at least eight figures. My strategy works for brands of all sizes. And so something really exciting that I've been working on recently is a membership program for entrepreneurs who are working to scale to their first seven figures. Maybe you're first starting out and you're wanting to have a strategy behind what you're doing from day one or maybe you're mid six figures and you really just want to find that next growth unlock. So that's a product that I'm working on now and I'm so excited about it because now I can help, you know, more than just eight figure plus startups.
[00:05:37] Speaker B: That's super exciting. Is it going to be app based or community based?
[00:05:42] Speaker C: It's community based in Circle. But the cool thing about Circle is there's also an app so you can take it with you if you're commuting. You can listen to the videos as you drive and so very excited about what we're working on there.
[00:05:55] Speaker B: That's so exciting. I'm definitely going to have to download that and be part of the Circle membership. That's wonderful. Tell us about this strategy. I'm so curious because I know in your bio you also kind of talk about wanting to be really budget friendly for entrepreneurs and how a lot of times entrepreneurs like you mentioned are spending a lot more on their marketing than maybe they need to be at that current moment. Tell us more about that strategy.
[00:06:18] Speaker C: Yeah, so the strategy is the marketing ecosystem strategy. And all that means is that there's a through line with everything that you're doing in marketing and anytime that you introduce something new, it's laddering up to the goal that you have for your brand. So of course everyone wants to grow their business, but the first thing that we want to start with when it comes to creating the ecosystem strategy is what is your big goal? You know, I was talking to somebody yesterday and their next goal post is a liquidation event. So they want to be able to scale and sell off some of their company stock to their employees. And even though they're pretty early on less than a million dollars a year in revenue, you know, they have a guiding light for everything that they're doing with marketing. And when you have that guiding light, you know what makes sense and what doesn't make sense. And so that's where we start and everything falls down from there. So if your goal is to grow your revenue, let's say to a million dollars, then you need to pick one marketing channel and scale it all the way to a million dollars. And so that's what I talk about inside the membership program. It's actually free. I'm so excited about it. So sorry to bring it up again, but it's focusing in on that one thing that's having the highest impact in your business and your marketing. A lot of founders, I find, throw things at the wall, just kind of like trying to be everywhere all at once and seeing what sticks and what works. But you're actually shooting yourself in the foot when you do that because there's really one marketing channel that has the growth that you need to hit that goal. And so when you focus all of your efforts and your budget on that one channel, you will get to your goal much faster. And so that's the entire core component of that marketing ecosystem strategy.
[00:08:08] Speaker B: Now this actually makes so much sense because I even think about a lot of times with entrepreneurship. Many entrepreneurs have lots of business ideas that they want to pursue. And so sometimes it's hard to just pick that one thing to start with. But that's what we're always told, right, is like pick that one thing and just go all in on it and just kind of see what happens from there. And so I love that you're using that approach for marketing. So that kind of leads me to my next question though, is how do you help businesses figure out which channel or which platform is that appropriate one to start with?
[00:08:40] Speaker C: Yeah, so it's actually really easy. If you're not starting out, you already have a lot of great marketing data available to you. Maybe it's not all in one place, but you can go out there and find it. And if you're just starting out, you have a bit more of an advantage because you know where your prospects are hanging out and so you can spend all of your time devoted onto that one channel. So it really just comes down to understanding where your ideal customers are online or in person, and going all in on that. With marketing, there's a lot of FOMO fear of missing out on not having, you know, a presence on Instagram and a presence on threads. And now there's blue sky. You want to be everywhere because you feel like you might be missing out on business. When you focus on that one platform that's going to bring you results, then you'll get to where you're going a lot faster.
[00:09:34] Speaker B: Are there any websites or platforms that you've used to really help businesses find exactly where their target audience is hanging out?
[00:09:43] Speaker C: So when it comes to determining where your target audience is hanging out, what we do first is we focus on your ICP or your ideal customer profile. When you spend time understanding the type of person that's a best fit for your product or service offering, you'll be able to find out where they are online with a quick Google search. You know, you just want to look at the demographics of the platform using a real life example. Someone right now that I'm working with offers a wellness retreat space. And so they're, they were doing the throwing things at the wall, seeing what sticks method. But what we're doing right now is focusing on LinkedIn, because we know that the business people that they're trying to connect with are on LinkedIn. Meanwhile, I'm working with another startup that's focused on consumer healthcare products. Well, of course, like, as a consumer, I'm hanging out on LinkedIn, but what we're focusing on is meta, because the type of client that they're going for is most likely hanging out on meta. And so there's not a lot of, like, you know, you're not really going to trip up. If you have a solid understanding of who you're trying to reach, you can figure out where they are online. And if you're not very versed in all of the marketing platforms, you can just Google and say, or use ChatGPT. What's the best marketing platform for somebody who is trying to reach, you know, X, Y and Z criteria?
[00:11:10] Speaker B: I love that you bring up Chat GPT because I use it all the time and it's terrible. I feel like I've just had to stop shaming myself now for wanting to use AI because it is a tool and it's a really good one. Are you utilizing ChatGPT at all to kind of help with some of the marketing strategies?
[00:11:27] Speaker C: A hundred percent. If you would have asked me this question last year, I would have said absolutely no. But ChatGPT has really improved with our output and so I use it as a tool. Like you said, you don't want to replace yourself in your marketing because it still needs that human touch. But even things like on HubSpot yesterday, I was working on adding an embed on my website and I don't know code. I'm not like a website designer, but I kind of knew the basics and I could give the code to ChatGPT and say, hey, this is the issue I'm seeing. Like, why is this? Why? And ChatGPT is like, oh, actually what you need to do is xyz, here's the rewritten code. And I'm like, great. And I got it working, which is amazing because otherwise I would have just had to abandon ship. That's what a year ago me would have had to do. So when it comes to using ChatGPT for your marketing strategy, you can ask it questions to help you get a better understanding only of your ICP like we just mentioned. But you can use it to refine copy. You can use it as a tool to improve sales processes. There's really no limit to what ChatGPT can help you with. Currently, when you're using it as a.
[00:12:41] Speaker B: Tool when it comes to the copy side of creating ads, like, let's say, for Facebook or things like that. Are you running into any issues with utilizing copy from ChatGPT and how it's ranking within those algorithms?
[00:12:55] Speaker C: Yes. So when I use ChatGPT for copy, it's always a starting point. You need to bring in your experience and understanding of what performs well for you. Anytime that you're using ChatGPT, there's one client that I'm working with, they sell a diet education product and we'll use ChatGPT for new ideas when it comes to hooks for our ad. So they're not writing. ChatGPT isn't writing the entire ad, but rather giving us some hooks or headlines to work with.
The rest of the copy is based on what we know performs well for them. Given all of the testing that we've been doing for the last year and a half.
[00:13:39] Speaker B: Very cool. What are some of the fundamentals when you're helping a business create a marketing strategy?
[00:13:47] Speaker C: So the very first start step of any marketing strategy is that goal. What is that next goal post for you? When do you want to get there by? And then we figure out how we're going to get there through marketing. The next thing we want to take into account is your icp. A lot of brands don't have as refined or honed in of an idea of their ICP as they need to. And so that's always the next step. Who is the one person that you're trying to reach with your brand and how are you helping them? We take all of that information and we create a one page brand guide that they can give to their team, they can give to any contractors. And this is the start of that ecosystem strategy where now everything that you're doing from a marketing perspective is looking and sounding the same. After that, it comes down to choosing the right channel and testing to see what works on that channel. Anytime that you're creating a marketing strategy, there's going to be a lot of upfront work that needs to be done. And over time you create a flywheel effect where you say, okay, I actually have, you know, six months of learnings now because we've been intentionally testing and learning what works and all you have to do is do more of what works and less of what doesn't and a year from now your business is going to be in a completely different place.
[00:15:08] Speaker B: Yes, absolutely. And I, I love you know what you're saying about how it, it takes a lot of work at the forefront Because I think that a lot of times we'll think like, oh, I just need to go to Facebook and create a quick ad. And then you're pouring all this money into it, but it's not showing you that you didn't do that. Research on the forefront.
[00:15:25] Speaker C: Yeah, 100%.
[00:15:29] Speaker B: What? Over the course of just being in consulting, has there been any specific strategy that stuck out to you and kind of took you by surprise?
[00:15:39] Speaker C: So when it comes to a surprising strategy, what I'm seeing work right now for a couple brands that is really surprising to me is Reddit and you, I don't know, like if you're familiar with the Quora strategy where people would go on and answer questions on Quora and like position their brand as the solution. But that was popular quite a few years ago. We're seeing that come back now and be really popular on Reddit where you create essentially spoof accounts and then you go on subreddits where your ideal client is hanging out and like answer their question and then try and get them to engage with your brand.
So I don't know how long that will work for, but that's something that's really surprising to me because I thought that died out when Quora became less popular.
[00:16:27] Speaker B: That is interesting. And now we have threads too. Are you seeing kind of a similar, similar strategy for threads as well?
[00:16:34] Speaker C: So on threads I'm seeing a lot of founder led, like thought leadership and the faces behind the brand promoting the brand and just sharing, you know, what they're learning in real time and more of, you know, more of like a traditional social media marketing message. It's less, I don't know, like Reddit seems a little black hat to me that you're like pretending to be somebody else and you're pretending to not be affiliated with the brand. And on threads I'm seeing people be a lot more open and honest.
[00:17:05] Speaker B: Do you have any strategy that's not necessarily ad based for entrepreneurs that might just be starting out and they don't have a very high marketing budget?
[00:17:15] Speaker C: Yeah, I think organic social is a really great place to start for any brand. Organic social is great because a lot of social media platforms, if they're working for you, they're going to work even better when you introduce ad spend down the road. And so if you're not somebody who's looking to run paid ads right now, find a platform and run with it. For example, for my consulting business, I'm a hundred percent on LinkedIn. I don't have to use any paid spend because my pipeline and my capacity fills up using just my organic social media posts and a connection bot that I have sending out connection requests to people with my ideal client profile. So you don't need paid ads to be successful. You just need to focus on one platform, especially if you are not yet to seven figures. I've seen a lot of brands scale beyond to multi seven figures, which is one marketing channel. So pick one and own it.
[00:18:13] Speaker B: I've seen in the past too, a lot of businesses have a blog where they'll talk about different topics and then that's how they'll kind of create some of that SEO. Are you utilizing any SEO strategies or more so just kind of focusing on the different social media platforms?
[00:18:27] Speaker C: Yeah. So SEO is great. My, my, I guess piece of advice to any marketing channel is what role does it play given the context of your broader marketing strategy.
So for me, SEO plays a really important role with some of my clients and a much less important role for others. I would say that if you're considering using SEO, it's great because then you're getting more organic traffic. But it's not something that you can flip the switch on and get immediate interest. So it's something that you need to commit to for the long run and it can be a great way to diversify some of that organic traffic. But again, do you have the bandwidth? Do you have somebody on your team who could support that? And what role does that play into your marketing strategy? Those are all questions that I would want to have answered for someone before recommending SEO.
[00:19:20] Speaker B: Wonderful. Well, I will definitely be sure to link your website in the show notes so people can reach out for your consulting because I feel like you just have so much knowledge to share when it comes to marketing strategy.
[00:19:33] Speaker C: Absolutely. And actually the membership has a free marketing office hours, so there's a free version of the membership and you can come and get group advice once a month. So you can come and say, you know, I'm, I'm focusing on this. Do you think it's the right direction? So I'll provide you the link so you can link that.
[00:19:51] Speaker B: Wonderful. So I want to talk about your podcast as well, because you, you host a podcast, tell us what type of topics that you talk on about on your podcast and what kind of guests that you have.
[00:20:02] Speaker C: Yeah, so I talk about growth marketing. So marketing that actually moves the needle in your business and brings you more revenue. The guests that I have on also speak on topics related to that. It's very. No nonsense. Get to the point. Here's a problem that you may be facing. Here's the solution. And here are a few things to keep in mind when you're implementing this. So it's meant to give you the tools that you need to grow your business and be a successful marketer.
[00:20:31] Speaker B: Very cool. When did you start your podcast?
[00:20:35] Speaker C: Last year. So it turned one in January, and we're recording this in March. So, yeah, just over a year.
[00:20:41] Speaker B: That's amazing. What's been one of the biggest things that you've learned from starting a podcast?
[00:20:47] Speaker C: I love podcasting for the networking element. I have been someone who's worked from home for 10 years, and so, and we've moved around a lot, so it was always, you know, do I create a local community just because we're going to move again, and then I'm going to have to miss these people, and it'll be really heartbreaking.
So podcasting has been a great way to meet so many amazing, inspirational people online and learn from them. It's almost like a consulting call. And sometimes if I'm, like, really enjoying the topic, I'm like, okay. And then I ask questions that are more and more aligned with, like, the problem that I'm going through. And so you can kind of see that in some of my episodes where I'm like, that's interesting.
[00:21:29] Speaker B: I love that. Well, and I'm sure a lot of times the problem that you have is a problem that a lot of people are having, and that's super beneficial for them to hear that as well.
[00:21:37] Speaker C: Yeah, a hundred percent. And at the end of the day, with my podcast, I'm trying to serve my audience first and foremost. So if I know that it's a problem that not a lot of people in my audience are having, I don't ask the question. I try to keep it, like you said, very relevant to the people who would also be experiencing that same problem.
[00:21:56] Speaker B: Absolutely. I love that. You also mentioned that you've kind of been online for the last 10 years. So you were online prior to Covid, so you've really seen, like, quite a shift in how the landscape has been over the last decade. What has been one of the biggest changes that you've noticed with everything kind of turning virtual?
[00:22:16] Speaker C: Yeah. I think that pre Covid, it was a lot easier to just show up online and be like, here's what I have to offer, and here's why you should buy it, and people would buy it. Whereas now it's become so much more common. You have to spend a little bit more time creating that trust on the front end before somebody feels like, okay, I don't think that you're just trying to shill a course for money. Like, I actually think you know what you're talking about and can help me. And so that's the biggest difference that I've seen. There's just a lot more noise in the marketplace. And so naturally, consumers are a little bit more cautious before they're making a commitment.
[00:22:54] Speaker B: How can you start to build trust with your consumer?
[00:22:58] Speaker C: So the first thing starts with that marketing ecosystem, making sure that everywhere that you're showing up, you look and sound the same. And so making sure that you're using, you know, a tone of voice. These are the words we say, these are things that we avoid saying. And this is what we're trying to show up and educate people on. That's first and foremost. The second thing is actually speaking to their pain points. So a lot of the things that, you know, I talk about as a marketer will be different than somebody who's selling a toothbrush. We'll talk about. But at the end of the day, the goal is the same. If you're selling a toothbrush, you're going to say, hey, do you have bad breath? Like, that kind of sucks. Here's some ways that you can fix your bad breath or prevent it from coming back. Whereas, like, for me, I talk a lot about, for my consulting agency relationships and how those can be really exciting at first, but then, you know, after an agency gets you a few quick wins, they start to get kind of lazy and they start doing the bare minimum to keep your monthly retainer. And so I share a lot about, like, you know, that's painful because they're actively paying for their agency and the wasted ad spend. And so there's ways that people can work through that.
[00:24:10] Speaker B: Would you say that that's one of the biggest pain points that you're kind of noticing within your company?
[00:24:15] Speaker C: Yeah, for consulting especially, because once brands start to get up to that mid six figures and then beyond, they're us hiring help. And so the pain point quickly becomes like, how do I get this person producing at the same quality that I was? Because I need them to help me. Because I'm only one person. I can only do so many things, but I feel like anytime I bring somebody on, the quality of my marketing drops. And so that's a huge pain point that I think any brand whose marketing has as it's growing.
[00:24:48] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. How do you help businesses kind of stay in alignment across all the different platforms when they're Trying to find their voice. And I also think about aesthetics too, because I think that we're kind of culturally shifting into a very aesthetic type of culture. So keeping the branding and all of those things all in alignment.
[00:25:09] Speaker C: Yeah. So when it comes to sounding the same, I'll start there first. I like to keep it very simple and effective. So I say pick five words that explain your brand. So maybe you're authentic, approachable, relatable, guide and friend. Like you're trying to portray like this very authentic version of you. Well, by naturally creating that list of five words, you're not going to use super technical industry jargon. You're going to guide yourself to be more relatable. When you're writing your marketing, when it comes to the overall aesthetic, things like using the same colors are important, important. Using your logo is important.
When you're talking about creating an aesthetic, this is something that grows with your brand as, as your brand grows and evolves. And so that's something that's going to change slowly over time. Meaning, like you're not going to create this huge moment of like, is this the same brand or not? Because people will either grow with you or they'll find you at whatever level of aesthetic that you're at and they won't know where you came from. So when it comes to creating that overall cohesive look and feel and sound, you just want to make sure that you're keeping a few basic things in mind and that'll get you most of the way there.
[00:26:29] Speaker B: I know that you mentioned that you work a lot within like the health and wellness space. Are you finding specific colors or even just kind of different types of content that's posted that's working really well within that space.
[00:26:44] Speaker C: Yeah. So when it comes to using colors in your marketing, something that I learned like five or six years ago is try to prioritize colors that are eye catching in the feed. So humans are naturally drawn to bright reds, bright blues, bright greens and yellows. And so if those are in line with your brand aesthetic, try and use those as much as possible because a lot of people are just using whatever color they think looks nice. And in social media driven world, anything that you can do to give yourself a bit of a leg up is great because now somebody's stopping to look at what you are sharing online.
But when it comes to choosing colors, like if you're choosing colors for your brand, I like to keep it simple. I'm not a brand, you know, designer or marketer. Just find something that looks good given the context of your brand. I really don't think, like, if you're like, oh, I am gonna go for, like, blacks. I don't think that's going to be a make or break when it comes to your brand because you have so many opportunities to connect with people online that whatever makes sense given the context of your brand is a fine color. I know people are. I had a conversation with somebody in my marketing hours, you know, two weeks ago, who was like, somebody advised me to use purple on my website and we're using blue. Like, do you think that that doesn't give, you know, like, do you think that's going to hurt our customer base, given that we're in healthcare? And the answer is like, no. You can pretty much use any color that looks good for your brand if you want to give yourself a bit of a leg up using those bright colors in the feed, like I mentioned. But color theory is something that, like, you can look into, but it's not a make or break when it comes to conversions.
[00:28:31] Speaker B: I love playing around with branding on Canva too, because they give you that option where you can kind of build out your own branding tool. Do you like to use Canva or are there any other different platforms that you use to kind of help with posting and branding?
[00:28:46] Speaker C: Yeah, Canva all the way. When it comes to video editing, we used to use Premiere Pro from Adobe. My husband does all the editing. So sorry. It took me a minute to get there, but now we're switching to Cap Cut just because that it streamlines the video production process a lot more.
So those are the two tools that we use the most when it comes to social media production.
[00:29:10] Speaker B: I love Capcut. I didn't realize it was part of ByteDance until we got the TikTok ban a couple weeks ago. And then I was like, wait a. I can't edit in Cap Cut anymore.
[00:29:19] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. It was so funny because my mom is, like, learning about YouTube herself. And so she literally, like a week before the band was like, okay, I'm gonna learn Cap Cut. And then she gets the band notification. And I'm like, I'm so sorry that you just started learning this and now we don't know. But it came back and we're all, okay, so.
[00:29:41] Speaker B: Oh, I love that. I love that she's learning that. That new skill too, because. Because it's. It's tough sometimes to learn all of the different platforms and I feel like they're ever changing. Have you found that there's one specific platform and I know that you kind of Deal with all of them. But is there one that you really love or gravitate towards for even just your own business?
[00:30:00] Speaker C: For my own business, it's LinkedIn all of the way. That is my one channel that I focus on. But that doesn't mean that it's right for every business. So when it comes to finding a channel for your brand, it's really whatever you find is working. Double down on that. That and then once you have the means, you can expand to other platforms. It's not like this make or break thing. If it's working for you, just keep doing that. It's working.
[00:30:26] Speaker B: Do you like making videos? It sounds like you, you're more like the, the blogging type type stuff with LinkedIn. I feel like that's the type of content I see on there a lot is more of like the, the blog post type stuff.
[00:30:37] Speaker C: Yes, definitely blog posts. I like being like making the videos. I don't like editing the videos. That's why I'm so thankful that my husband does that.
Thing about LinkedIn is they are, they are also doing short form now. So LinkedIn is now TikTok and so we're actually working on mapping out what that strategy will look like for the consultancy.
[00:31:02] Speaker B: Wow, that's crazy. I didn't realize they had started incorporating video on the platform now.
[00:31:07] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, short form. I don't, I'm still trying to understand like how we did. Okay, to preface, we did a short form test for the growth directive in like August or September last year and it seemed like it got a lot of views, but that the, the views were from like a lower quality prospect, which is fine. But we're trying to reach a very targeted ICP on LinkedIn. So we've taken some time to sit and map out what that looks like, focus heavily on the pain point. And so we'll be reintroducing shortform starting actually next week on LinkedIn. So you can check in when you hear this episod and see how it's going.
[00:31:48] Speaker B: Can't wait to check it out. When you're creating those types of marketing strategies and you're testing them, how long do you typically spend testing the marketing strategy before you know it's either going to work or it's not going to work.
[00:32:01] Speaker C: Yeah, so it depends on the platform. But having said that, there are always early indications on if something is working or not. So generally speaking, you won't really know how well something's working in the first two weeks, except for if you have one post that got a Few likes and one post that didn't. Well, now let's focus on the one that got a few likes. And so when it comes to testing and learning what works, making sure that you give it enough time to breathe, but that you're also paying attention to the metrics during each stage of that testing, so early on, are you getting that engagement kind of mid. Are you getting people reaching out to you? And then are you closing sales or like actually generating revenue for your business? And obviously, like I post a LinkedIn post that's not immediately going to generate revenue, so you need to pay attention to how things are, you know, moving through the funnel. And those lagging metrics are just as important as those early engagement metrics.
[00:33:02] Speaker B: After you post something like, let's say you, so you ran this test, you post on LinkedIn. How long does the post stay relevant before you now have to create something else?
[00:33:13] Speaker C: So for LinkedIn specifically, we post, the ideal posting schedule is every day of the business week, so Monday through Friday.
That said, right now we're posting once a week and it's working fine. So it, it's all given the context of your business and your strategy. But at the end of the day, like, if it's been a while since you posted something and it works, just post it again. Like, people attention spans are so short. You don't want to be posting the same stuff over and over and over every week. But you know, if it's been a few quarters since you posted something and you know it was like a great post, just repost it.
[00:33:56] Speaker B: Yeah. Recycling content, do you find that you're able to kind of recycle one piece of content across different platforms as well?
[00:34:05] Speaker C: Yes, 100%. So we were testing it to YouTube earlier this year, and while that's now on our back burner, all the videos that we created, I've taken the transcript from we're reposting on LinkedIn as LinkedIn articles. I'm putting into ChatGPT and asking for content pillars. We're going to be repurposing those concepts into short form. We repurpose them into text posts. Like, you can use the same content over and over and over again, even if it's not like copy and pasting verbatim. There's so much value in having created something long form. And actually we're doing this with podcast guesting as well. So last week I had somebody reach out and said, hey, loved you on XYZ podcast, you know, can I book a call? And I went, great. I've Pulled the transcript from that podcast. We're implementing it just like we do our YouTube videos now into our content and saying, you know, you know, what are topics that someone want to resonate with? What can I speak on in short form? How would you repurpose this in a carousel post? And we're using ChatGPT to grease the wheel and kind of do the framework for us. And then I'll go and create the script and shoot the video and we'll put it all onto our content production pipeline.
[00:35:17] Speaker B: That's so cool. I, I feel like too, like a lot of times when we think about creating content, I know for myself, I'm like, oh my gosh, this feels exhausting. And I haven't even started yet because I just feel like taking the time to make that one piece of content and then I'm gonna have to go back and make another video, you know, a week later in all. So to know that I can use something, spend the time, but have multiple pieces of content out of just that one thing is huge. And I'm sure for a lot of people that's kind of relieving as well. So you don't have to, you know, not all of us need to be influencers every day in some of these topics.
[00:35:53] Speaker C: And I love the long form to like short form text post pipeline because not only is it relevant on LinkedIn, but like if you're, your primary platform is Instagram, you can go live and do a long form content live stream on Instagram that can live on your feed. You can clip that up, you can take concepts that people have resonated from that and now make it into carousel posts or other types of informational posts. So this, I think that there's a lot of like, oh, long form content. Well, I need to do a podcast or YouTube, but there chances are like you can do long form in whatever social media platform that you're currently going all in on and it can work for you.
[00:36:36] Speaker B: Yes, I've, I've definitely noticed a change in Instagram from just like the 32nd reels to now. It's like over a minute you can post in there, which is so crazy because. And I even remember back in the day using Snapchat and you would have to hold the button and then it would every 10 seconds like swirl around. I'm like, oh my gosh, it's gonna take me forever to make this post. Yeah, wonderful. Well, I want to touch back on your book.
What are you hoping that readers take away from your book?
[00:37:06] Speaker C: Yeah. So at the end of the day, I hope you have a high performing marketing strategy that's working for your brand. It goes through step by step, the entire ecosystem strategy that we only had time to scratch the surface on so far in this episode. And it gives you all of the step by step, like, here's how you create your brand goal, here's how you create your tone of voice in I think like a hundred pages. So it's meant to be a very short read, very impactful, and at the end of it, I hope that people have that high performing marketing strategy that they can begin implementing in their brand.
[00:37:42] Speaker B: I love that. And where can we purchase the book?
[00:37:45] Speaker C: On Amazon. I'm actually reworking the book right now to just beef it up a little bit. So actually if you want a free copy, just DM me on LinkedIn and I'll send you some that I have and you can get in before it all's taken down for the rework.
[00:38:03] Speaker B: Wonderful. Well, I will put your LinkedIn in the show notes as well so people can reach out for that, that free copy. And I'm definitely excited to read it.
[00:38:11] Speaker A: Great.
[00:38:12] Speaker B: Do you have any last pieces of advice for entrepreneurs when it comes to just their overall marketing strategy?
[00:38:20] Speaker C: The biggest piece of advice is you do more by doing less. And even if it feel against the grain or like you're missing out on business, really focusing in on that one core offer for your brand, the one marketing channel and the one person you're trying to reach, that is how you will learn what works and get to that goal that you have when it comes to growing and scaling your brand.
[00:38:45] Speaker B: I love it. I almost feel like you answered my last question. And this is a question that I like to ask all my guests to fill in the blank. You have to blank to blank.
[00:38:55] Speaker C: You have to do less to do more or scale faster I guess would be more would be the marketer version of that.
[00:39:03] Speaker B: I love it. Well, awesome. Angela, it's been so great having you in the studio today. Thank you so much for being here, Abby.
[00:39:09] Speaker C: Thank you so much for having me.
[00:39:13] Speaker A: Thank you so much for listening. If you found value in today's conversation, make sure to subscribe, rate and leave a review. And as always, don't forget to share this episode with anyone that you think could benefit. And for more information about today's guest.
[00:39:29] Speaker B: Be sure to check out the show notes. We'll see you next time.
