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162: Mastering Social Media Engagement with Guest Julia Block Pearson · Imperfect Marketing

• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Hello and welcome back to another episode of Imperfect Marketing.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: I'm your host, kendra Corman, and I am extremely excited to have with me today Julia Block Pearson, ceo of Stratos Creative Marketing.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: She is a marketing strategist who focuses on helping businesses improve their relationship with social media.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: So very exciting, and I'm so excited to be talking to you about this topic, because I think a lot of business owners get frustrated with social media because they're like I should do it and they spend all this time and nothing happens.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: So how can they use social media to grow their business?
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: Just yesterday I was speaking to a few people and all three of them out of their mouth came I hate social media and I think that we all have this love-hate relationship with it.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: Many of us love consuming it and because of that we know that it's important for our businesses, but we're like I don't get it.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: It takes too much time.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: Is it really worth it?
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: All of these questions, and instead of Above all things, often we feel guilty because we don't feel like we're doing it right.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: We are spending too much time, Whatever you could be running the gamut of all these possibilities, and so that's kind of why we do what we do is we want to make sure that people who are DIYing their social media have tools to do that, and then the people who don't want to DIY it have the confidence to hire somebody, know how to hire them, etc.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: So that's kind of why we do what we do.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: I love that.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: I think you're 100% right on, because I believe I may or may not have said yesterday I hate social media.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: I don't think a week goes by where I don't say that at least once, right, but it's time consuming and when you're prioritizing your time because, again, none of us have unlimited resources, right?
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: So how can we get the most out of it?
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: I think one of the ways that a lot of people look to identify growth is the number of people following them.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Is that something that you identify as a key indicator, or, and what tips do you have to grow them If so?
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: I personally hate that one, that indicator.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: So I want to be honest with everybody.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: I am not into measuring follower growth as a key indicator.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: I think it is a indicator.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: I don't think of it as a key one, but I do think that's part of why social media is so frustrating is that we don't know what indicators don't look at and the indicators are not clear all the time.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: And I was just on a call for a meta-agencies Metas, facebook and Instagram companies.
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: They know that it's a problem and they are trying to fix that problem.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: And for now, we kind of live in this gray area of we're putting in all of this effort and are we really getting our results?
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: And so that's where, with our clients and with our DIY club members, we figure out well, what kind of results do you want to get?
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: Like, are you trying to get sales or is this just brand awareness?
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: So some of our clients we have taken them on this journey.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: Your social media is no longer necessarily going to bring you leads or conversions.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: What it is going to do is going to be a proof of life, so that when people search you, they find you and know that, like, hey, your business is still running that you are an expert and so sometimes when we make that decision, that suddenly takes the pressure off, because now I only have to create one to two posts per week and that feels so much more manageable than creating daily, multiple times a day, like whatever it is like, depending on your business.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: Like you might not need a whole lot, but you need something.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: And I do believe that you need something because more and more Gen Z, millennials, gen X, use social media as a search tool, so they've got to be able to find you.
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: You don't have to have like a crazy robust, everyday sort of presence, but like you should have something so that they know at least you're not dead.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: I love that.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: I love that.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, social media like.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: You need at least one of those pages existing, because people take that Like remember way back in the day when you needed a website to be real?
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: Well, now you need a website and at least one social media account to be real, Because otherwise they question whether or not you're real.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: What's going on?
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: Are you in business still?
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: All that fun stuff, right?
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and the worst thing that you can do I think, even worse than not having a social media is having an inactive one.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: So if I am, say, looking at a shop or like, say, we have three dogs, which is three dogs too many, so if anybody wants them, you can have them, but we have three dogs.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: So I'm always looking for great rumors or bets and so I go to like, think about how we shop.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: We like might Google it first, we might go to the website, see, but people have a lot of control over what's on their website.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: So then maybe I'll jump over to Facebook and look at Facebook reviews, because that's where I'm seeing, like people showing up with candid comments.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: If I suddenly see that the last post was made in 2017, I'm going to say, okay, did they just like pay for a website to exist for 10 years?
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: Because that is a possibility.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: Like, did the Google, my Business or Google Profile never change?
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: Like when they moved?
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: Like, suddenly it creates all of these questions in my mind which you, as a business, might be like hey, we've been here for 25 years, nothing's changed.
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: But because it's deposited questions in my mind, suddenly I'm not really sure if I can trust the internet.
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: That is correct on behalf of your business.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: So I think I'm gonna go back to what you were saying even before this, because I think it was so important.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: I wanna make sure that I stress this for everybody listening and watching you gotta start with your goals.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: Then you gotta move to your target audience, right?
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: Who ever who your customers are, where are they buying from you If they're not finding out from social media about you and buying online and things like that?
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: You may not have to spend as much time on social media as you think you do, so keep that in mind.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: Think about what your goals are.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: Where are you getting your most business from?
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: I think that that was hugely important and I like to go back to that.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: I teach integrated marketing communications at a local university here in Michigan and I tell that to my students all the time.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: They're like here are my tactics and I'm like what were your goals and who is your target?
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: And then tell me how that makes that happen.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: And then they're like oh yeah, and then they go back and they redo them.
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: Totally and even to go to like your theme of the show, like marketing already is like imperfect, but like if you're not using your goals, you are going to get like bad imperfect marketing.
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: I think you can have like imperfect marketing that is striving to like meet something and, whether or not you get there, like at least you gave it a fair shot, but if you are haphazardly doing it, like, then you're wasting time, you're wasting effort, you're even I would even say like you're wasting your audience's time and energy, which is not helpful to them, and so I think you really have to start with the goals.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: So start with the end in mind, because you might be overworking yourself, quite frankly.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: Well, and I want everybody to be aware Again, start with your goals.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: These are your business goals.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: These are not your marketing goals or anything Like.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: If your marketing goals aren't the same as your business goals, then there's a disconnect there, cause every time I ask a client, I'll be like, or for aspect what are your goals?
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: They're like my marketing goals and I'm like, no, your business goals.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: Oh, really, they're not different, and it's just.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: It's amazing how many people don't know that they shouldn't be different.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: So that's always good.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: Okay, so we're gonna start with our goals.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: We're gonna figure out where our clients and customers are coming from.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: We're going to take a little pressure off if that's in the plan, right, and we're going to post appropriately and not stress out if that's not the situation.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: So let's talk a little bit about that sales pipeline.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: So if social media is driving it, or if it drives some of the awareness, or again, like you're saying, someone goes to the website and then goes to your social media pages how is that helping fill your sales pipeline?
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great question.
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: So more and more the social media landscape is really hard, like we've talked about, you can't really track.
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: This is how you don't like you don't really know if it's working.
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: So the ways that I know it's working is if I am like the very first level and, like I said, we track, follow growth.
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: But it's not the only thing.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: I care more about engagement.
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: I care more about direct messages because to me that's the first step from watching, seeing into like this person wants to interact with me, like suddenly, like they've honored like me with an interaction, with a comment, maybe they've honored me or honored my business, honored our relationship by sending me a DM.
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: I think it's kind of this idea and a lot of marketers talk about marketing being like dating.
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: Like you, you don't want to suddenly ask people to marry you.
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: Like you want to have this like slow progression of a relationship and depending on what industry you're in, it's going to be slower, longer or faster and quicker, but either way, you want it to be this progression.
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: And so if I start seeing like okay, we're getting some comments, we're getting some DMs, we're getting some link clicks, like that's what I really want to see as like the initial stages.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: Another way that I really love building a pipeline on social is using ads.
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: Not necessarily I'm not talking about like click to buy.
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: I'm not talking about like, look at my website ads.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: I'm talking about lead generating ads.
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: So this like subset of ads that I think is really underutilized.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: And if you even have like a proof say, you don't have a ton of time when you're DIYing your marketing you um, have you just like this proof of life plan for your social, that's excellent, and then use your time and your money strategically to set up some ads that are gonna fill your email list.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: I big Amy Porterfield fan, like big email list fan, even in my own business, like we are a social media agency.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: Everybody Like I am a social media agency.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: We do not sell on social because it doesn't work for us.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: We get people into our email list and we sell on our email list and that is where the money is made, and so I think that social media is a great support, but don't ever let it be your end, all be all.
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: I don't think it can be.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: Well, social media is rented land.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: You own email marketing and I tell that to people all of the time.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: I am a big, huge fan of email and email lists.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: You have so much more control over that.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: I was just actually in a meeting and they're like we're gonna run Facebook ads and I'm like, great, let's talk more about that.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: There was no path to conversion, no path to the email.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: And I'm like so you, we're gonna contact that and we're never going to contact them again.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: Like, how does that?
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: work Well, especially like, I think, lead generation ads, like what.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: So, for those of us who are not familiar with it, what it is is we're basically saying I have an asset, like maybe it's a PDF, a mini course, a challenge Give me your email and I'll give it to you.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: And so then I'm collecting these emails.
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: If someone gives you their email, that is a very personal space, like our phones, especially now that we have email on our phone.
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: I'm giving you access to me in my private time and if you're not following up with me, then suddenly, like if we're talking about this progression of a relationship, it's kind of like asking somebody out and then ghosting them, like where it's like hey, like I'm gonna ask you out and then I'm never gonna talk to you again.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: Not only is it amazing?
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: Okay, so I love that and I need to note that really quick.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: Okay, do not ghost people.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: If they gave you their email, they want to hear from you.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: For sure, and you're not bothering them.
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: Right, and if they stop wanting to hear from you, then they will unsubscribe, like, and I think that we also have this irrational fear of unsubscribes.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: Unsubscriptions Unsubscribes are actually like a good thing in my mind.
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: It means that somebody has had the autonomy and chosen to leave that relationship, and usually it's not anything that's personal.
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: It's usually like, for example, I have an 18 month old, I am subscribed to tons of things about 18 month old, but I also still get emails about being pregnant.
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: I am not pregnant anymore, like, and so if I unsubscribe, it's because I that's not like the stage of life that I'm in and that's okay, and so it actually with metrics like, then it actually helps you get like a truer version of your metrics and people are unsubscribing, but then it's also just a really good way to continue that relationship, in my opinion.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: It gives you a cleaner email list and good list hygiene gets you in the inbox more often than if you have bad list hygiene.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: So that's important first off, but you know.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: Second, yeah, I mean, don't be mad at the people I have.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: I do have a list of people I'm mad at over there.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: I'm just kidding because they unsubscribe.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: But it's like when I know you personally and we see each other every week and then you unsubscribe.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: But also like my mother-in-law is on my email list and I wish you would have a subscriber, so there you go, like it's.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: But here's the thing Unsubscribes are not bad.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: They're good, especially if you're making changes in your business, if you're adjusting some business models and things like that, and your unsubscribes don't go down, that's a bad sign.
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: Right Totally, and I think that, especially if you're actively growing your list, there should be active growth and active attrition, like people are coming in.
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: There might be somebody who just wanted your free resource and then they were like JK, I don't want the rest.
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: But the people who have chosen to stay on your list are people who care, like I would say this is In order to keep my email inbox hygiene.
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: Every time I am Bored in like a waiting room, I'll go through my email and like unsubscribe from things.
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: But you better believe that I am still subscribed to like Domino's pizza, not because I eat it every week, but because the moment that I know that I want to order pizza, I'm gonna go look at my email and see if there's like a free coupon, like I'm all about.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: I'm all about Papa John's.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: I need my Papa John's coupons.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: I eat it.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: I eat it like four times a year, three times a year, but I love my.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: I need my coupon when I really need it.
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: And my husband is so embarrassed that I always talked about this.
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: But my husband uses a CPAP.
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: There is a, there is a website called CPAP comm.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: They have, like, monthly sales.
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: Does he need to order things like every month?
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: No, absolutely.
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: He orders them two times a year.
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: But you better believe he stays on that email list and he knows his supplies are running low.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: He will buy during a sale and so that's the thing is.
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: I think people stay on email lists because they want to.
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: Generally, um, those of us who are conscious consumers are staying on because we want.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: Well, and I think that that's a really this is a really important piece of this conversation, because one of the issues that I get from people all the time is I don't want to bother people.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: I get too many emails as it is, but if you're providing value-added content that they want to see, that's awesome.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: And guess what, if they don't want to see it that day because they're not ordering pizza, they can hit delete, right, and that's okay yeah for sure, and like, even you just never know when you're gonna want it, like I, I have a few.
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: There's actually things that I go to subscribe to because I know I want it in the future, like.
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: And so if you stopped emailing me, like that is actually Bad for me, because I know that I want it in the future and I, I want the reminder, and so I think, especially because nowadays, like we have better rules, better ethics around, more and more people have to opt in, to be in a list, and I think that that is a really valuable asset, because Now we know that people wanted to be on there in the first place.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: I, and that is a really another really important piece.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: People need to opt in.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: Do not go into your desk drawer and pull out a pile of business cards and say I'm gonna start emailing people now.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: Um, ask people if they want to get emails from you and actually I'd say, don't ask people to get emails from you.
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: Ask people if they want the value you're going to give them.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: Every week, I give people marketing tips, insights and information.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: That's what they're signing up for.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: They're not signing up for email.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: Do you want some marketing tips and insights that can help you do more efficient and effective marketing?
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: That's a better question.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: Do you want to join my email list?
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: because if you ask me to join your email list, I get too many emails and I don't want any more email lists and like, and then I would also add to that, like, if you Are so like, I believe like ads are a great le generating, ads are a great way to build your email list.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: That's my personal favorite because we do it for so many people but say you're like not into that, or maybe you don't want to spend money on ads, but you are really into networking.
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: You have all these business cards.
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: Don't add them straight like I.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: That has happened to me.
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: It is annoying, like even if I wanted to be on that list, like I'm just annoyed that you did it.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: It's the principle.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: At this point now I don't want your emails because clearly you don't respect my inbox what I would rather is I think what you said, kinder, is perfect.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: Like asking like, hey, do you want the value?
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: But even if you sent me a genuine Google, the Google email, like, not like, don't load me into a software.
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: Like, send me an individual personalized email right that says, hey, I have this lead generator.
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: Or hey, I have this, like.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: Like, ask them to opt in, like, use what you already have, whether you're running ads, whether you have a lead generator or your website.
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: Just say, like, offer them value.
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: Like right off the bat, and say, hey, it was great to me, to our networking event.
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: We talked about XYZ.
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: I have this PDF about it.
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: I didn't know if you'd want it, but here you go, it'll ask you for your email and I'll send it to you automatically.
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: Something like that.
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: People know what they're doing, like, they know that they're opting in and you're gonna keep on emailing them, but then you don't even have to ask them and say, hey, can I put you on my weekly email?
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: Or hey, can I subscribe you?
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: Like.
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: They can then choose, and I really believe that is that we have to give our consumers and our customers autonomy over the choices and the input that we give them.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: So I still remember when, back when we used to do reopt-ins, when we changed systems and things like that.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: This is a long, long time ago.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: Not even gonna mention the year yeah, it did start with 2000, so that's good, but Uh, one of the neat things about that is we they trusted people that had a yes to opt-in and a no button more.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: Then, if you just had a yes button, totally and even I was talking about this with somebody this morning is they're going through like a giant rebrand and the the theme of the business is staying the same, the content and delivery is changing, and so they have this old email list and we were talking about okay, do we?
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: They're just rebranding the email list so they don't technically have to do anything.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: But they were like what do we do?
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: Do we tell people?
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: How do we tell them?
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: Do we need them to opt in again?
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: All these things and we talked about this new strategy that I'm loving is asking putting the unsubscribe button right in the email, where it's like hey, this is what's happening.
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: We want to respect your email inbox because we know it's busy and it's cluttered, but we also want you to be on here.
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: But if you don't want to be on our email list anymore, here's the unsubscribe button.
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: I have seen it work super well.
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: Very rarely do people actually unsubscribe and all of a sudden they trust you more because you basically gave them the way out.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: And they engage more with you.
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: Totally.
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: It's kind of the same theory is, if you give people the option to opt in and out, then suddenly they're going to become more loyal readers, more loyal subscribers, whatever it might be, and in the end you actually win.
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: And so maybe you might be sacrificing five email subscribers, or something like that, who truly don't want to be on your list.
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: But then we just circle back like what is it on the list and what is the list hygiene?
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: Well, and again I think you should.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: I think something important there If they don't want to hear from you, they're probably not going to buy from you, so why waste your time?
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: Also true Right.
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so true.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: So you know what?
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: Put their name on a post-it.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: I'm on a dart board if you're passionate about it and get mad or whatever you'd like to do, but again, move on from that, because I think that that's really important.
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: And in the end, if you do have like a good lead generation, a good lead generation system, you're going to notice that your list is still growing, even though there's some stars.
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: Like if suddenly the people I find, like those of us who noticed unsubscribed more are the people who are not actually actively growing our list, and it's because suddenly, like we're only seeing the decline instead of like the roller coaster line or we're seeing like an upwards trajectory because we're adding more people than the people are leaving, and so that would be.
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: My other thing is, if you are so stressed out about unsubscribes, like, what are you doing to actually grow your email list so that the unsubscribes don't bother you?
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: So I don't know if the unsubscribes will ever not bother me.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: Even as my list grows, I still get, and I tell people this that's good, like it's a good thing.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: I'm glad that they unsubscribed, but I still took it personally, so I get it.
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: I get it.
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: It's totally okay, totally okay.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: I'm like I'm never.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: You just dumped me, kendra.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: All go back to our dating thing.
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: All feelings are valid, so.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: Well, this has been awesome.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: You and I are totally and completely on the same page with this stuff, because I think that it's so important, again, think about your goals, think who your target is.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: Social media is great, but it's really great to grow your email list, because that's where you can sell, that's where you can build that relationship and, again, it's not all about selling all the time, because if you are, then people are going to unsubscribe.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: So I think that that's just really insightful and really helpful.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: So thank you so much, julia, for all this great information.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: Before I let you go, I do want to ask you the question that I ask every one of my guests.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: So this show is called Imperfect Marketing because we both know, and most of my listeners know marketing is anything but a perfect science.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: What has been your biggest marketing lesson learned?
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: I have way too many, but I'll tell you the one that I learned in 2023, since we're closing out the year.
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: I, earlier this year, I launched something and thought it was going to go really well.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: Spoiler alert it did not.
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: And just like every business owner like and I have I feel like it was a great experience because I'm like this put me in the shoes of my clients, like, where we all have launches that just don't go quite as what we wanted them to and it's really disappointing, and so that was like a really good lesson learned.
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: But I think what was even more important was having to figure out like, do I stick with this or do I not stick with this, and how do I figure that out?
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: And I think there is wisdom in leaving things behind and moving on, but I would say I hung on and, just like this month, we finally seen the fruit of our labor and like the fruit of our work, and so I think that one of the things that I've learned the most about imperfect marketing is that it takes time and a lot of reiterations, like we didn't.
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: Just between when we launched in February and now, we didn't just sit on our butts like disappointed or like we were disappointed but we just didn't sit on our butts like just waiting and we like made iterations of things, and I think that that's where I wholeheartedly believe that marketing is anything but science.
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: I always tell you that's kind of like half art, half science, like you got to figure out something in the middle, but that's one of my biggest lessons this year is like choosing to wait it output, not sit on my butt and doing that yes, it's like people when they complain about their job or something like that.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, well, where have you applied?
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: If you haven't applied anywhere, then you've got nothing you can say about it, right?
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: So it's taking action, it's adjusting, it's getting better understanding of your audience and knowing you have a good product and making sure that other people realize what problem it's gonna solve for them, and I think that that's just so important.
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for your time.
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: I really appreciate it.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: As always anybody listening.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: You can contact Julia through the contact information in the show notes and they'll be a link to her website there too.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: Be sure to check it out.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: I think that your insights were spot on and I agree with you.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: I like disagreeing with my guests sometimes, but you and I are on the same page, which is awesome and because, again, it's not perfect, right.
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: But thank you again so much.
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: And, for those of you listening and watching, if you learned anything today, it would really help me out if you would rate and subscribe wherever you're listening or watching.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: Thank you all and have a great rest of your day.