Latest / The Confident Entrepreneur With Jennifer Ann Johnson / Avoiding Marketing Pitfalls and Building Lasting Client Relationships with Amy Bright
Transcript
- 0:37Jennifer Johnson: Today we welcome back into the studio Amy Bright.
- 0:39Jennifer Johnson: Welcome, hi.
- 0:41Jennifer Johnson: So Amy is the owner of Amy Bright Creative and I know last time we talked, we were in studio.
- 0:46Jennifer Johnson: We talked about the trends for 2024 in marketing.
- 0:50Jennifer Johnson: Yes, today I want to talk about as a business.
- 0:54Jennifer Johnson: There's so many things that are being thrown at us all the time in the marketing realm.
- 0:59Jennifer Johnson: You can do this, you can do that on and on and on, and there's like what do we listen to?
- 1:05Jennifer Johnson: What do we do?
- 1:06Jennifer Johnson: What are the mistakes that we're making?
- 1:08Jennifer Johnson: Because I'm sure we're making a lot of them as business owners.
- 1:13Amy Bright: I know I make plenty, that's for sure.
- 1:15Amy Bright: I think that's part and parcel of being human.
- 1:18Jennifer Johnson: It is, and we learn from them.
- 1:20Jennifer Johnson: Every time.
- 1:21Jennifer Johnson: I keep a running tally of like okay, well, this magazine or this didn't work, so next time I know I'm not going to do that, or I should have changed the message on that kind of thing.
- 1:32Jennifer Johnson: So I want to just do some step throughs today about things that we're not hitting the mark on, that we could be doing better at, because it's only going to help our business.
- 1:45Jennifer Johnson: Right and the messaging.
- 1:49Jennifer Johnson: Let's start with messaging.
- 1:51Jennifer Johnson: What are we doing in the messaging area that maybe we're just not hitting it quite out of the park?
- 1:56Amy Bright: Well, and I'm going to touch back on something that you just said in terms of maybe oh magazine, that didn't work or what have you, I think one of the biggest mistakes, and bring me back to the messaging, if I go down a trail, we always go down trails and we never find our way back.
- 2:12Jennifer Johnson: What were we talking about?
- 2:15Amy Bright: Put a pin in it, I've got it.
- 2:16Amy Bright: So I think one of the biggest mistakes that people make as business owners is believing that things are going to happen overnight, that if they put something out there, oh my gosh, people are going to flood their online store, they're going to flood their brick and mortar store, what have you.
- 2:34Amy Bright: It just doesn't happen that way.
- 2:36Amy Bright: Everything related to marketing and advertising is relational, and I think the last time I was on your podcast, I brought up a little bit about that relationship.
- 2:46Amy Bright: It's almost like dating or a church that you want to attend or a business that you may consider doing business with.
- 3:02Amy Bright: If you have no awareness that that business exists, you'll never become a customer.
- 3:07Amy Bright: And so what we commonly call traditional advertising, such as magazine print advertising, tv advertising, whether that's digital, placing ads through streaming platforms or radio or podcasts or what have you I think what people forget is that somebody will hear or see or experience your message in one place one time, and then they'll forget about you because they're onto the next thing.
- 3:41Amy Bright: There needs to be a saturation throughout many different platforms and media types in order to reach enough people and to make people remember you, because in terms of psychology, it takes seven to eight repetitions before anything ever even registers in your brain.
- 4:03Amy Bright: So when people say to me, oh, I tried that and it didn't work, I'm like, well, how often did you do it?
- 4:11Amy Bright: How long did you do it?
- 4:12Amy Bright: So I think one of the common mistakes people make is that they want everything overnight.
- 4:18Amy Bright: And I had a prospect.
- 4:21Amy Bright: I start everything I do with my business with a discovery call.
- 4:25Amy Bright: It's a free call, it's just a conversation, it's to help my potential customer vet me out or my company, and it's also about me vetting them out to see if we're going to be a good match.
- 4:38Amy Bright: And I did have a prospect say to me not long ago to see if we're going to be a good match.
- 4:43Amy Bright: And I did have a prospect say to me not long ago starting a brand new business in a market that, quite honestly, I don't know if the type of business he was talking about starting would fly in that market.
- 4:52Amy Bright: It was a very local service business and he asked me well, if we build a website, how many visitors can you promise me every day or can you guarantee?
- 5:04Amy Bright: And I said I don't think we're a good match, because if that's what you're looking for first off.
- 5:10Amy Bright: Sure, we can create a beautiful website that has an excellent call to action and has all the right messaging, but I can't guarantee you, based on your product offering or your service offering, that people are going to want that.
- 5:25Amy Bright: So if you're looking for immediate hits, there are people out there who will tell you they'll get immediate hits and they'll do all sorts of Magic, not magic.
- 5:35Jennifer Johnson: What do you call that?
- 5:36Jennifer Johnson: Smoke and mirrors?
- 5:37Jennifer Johnson: There you go.
- 5:38Jennifer Johnson: That's where I was going with it.
- 5:40Amy Bright: Dark web stuff, you know, and they can make it look like they're doing all these things for you, but the reality is putting a message out there that resonates with people who are going to buy right Takes time, slow down people.
- 5:56Amy Bright: You know, I understand.
- 5:58Amy Bright: I feel the same way.
- 6:01Amy Bright: I've been in this industry for over 25 years, but when I started this business, there's a sense of urgency, like, okay, I got to make this happen, I got to make money, and it just doesn't happen that way.
- 6:14Jennifer Johnson: Slow and steady wins the race.
- 6:15Jennifer Johnson: Right, that's right.
- 6:17Amy Bright: The tortoise and the hare story exists for a reason.
- 6:19Jennifer Johnson: And it's so hard as a business owner, right, because you're like I'm grinding away at this, so I'm just going to say blogging.
- 6:28Jennifer Johnson: Okay, I'm going to bring up blogging.
- 6:30Jennifer Johnson: I'm grinding away at doing this blog and I do it every day.
- 6:34Jennifer Johnson: I'm not seeing anything off of it.
- 6:36Jennifer Johnson: It's not intended to anything off of it today.
- 6:40Jennifer Johnson: That's right, right, that's right, Right, that's right.
- 6:41Jennifer Johnson: It's supposed to be so that people can you know, let's say, somebody is searching a certain topic that you've done a blog on, and they stumble across it and they may that may be a tripwire for them to go oh, wow.
- 6:56Jennifer Johnson: I think these are great people.
- 6:57Jennifer Johnson: I'm going to work with them.
- 6:58Amy Bright: Right.
- 6:58Amy Bright: Or they say oh, now I know that place exists because they wrote this wonderful article that really served me, that really met a need.
- 7:05Amy Bright: I was online searching for something very specific and here's an article that really helped me.
- 7:11Amy Bright: Awareness Exactly One time of awareness, does not a conversion make.
- 7:17Amy Bright: That's great.
- 7:19Amy Bright: But now at least they're aware that you exist.
- 7:22Amy Bright: And then you know hopefully there's some you know, if you have a way of tracking who your visitors are.
- 7:30Amy Bright: And there's, you know, all sorts of fancy things you can do with IP addresses and all kinds of technology you can use to do that IP addresses and all kinds of technology you can use to do that.
- 7:37Amy Bright: But generally speaking, when people are looking for speed over accuracy, it makes me nervous and it's a very hard thing to explain to people.
- 7:49Amy Bright: Same thing with building a website.
- 7:50Amy Bright: Sure, you can have the greatest website in the world, it can say all the right things, but the idea is you have to drive traffic to it, and driving the traffic to it is what begins to build that awareness and that confidence.
- 8:03Amy Bright: And oh, I've dipped my toe into this pool of an organization and I like them.
- 8:12Amy Bright: I can relate to them, I like what they stand for.
- 8:15Amy Bright: Someday, when I'm ready to purchase what they're offering, I trust them, and that does not happen overnight, you're right.
- 8:25Jennifer Johnson: Know, like and trust.
- 8:25Jennifer Johnson: It's the customer journey, and it takes time.
- 8:29Jennifer Johnson: You have to think of it in the terms of oh, yes, well, I'm a customer too of brands.
- 8:34Jennifer Johnson: What does my journey look like?
- 8:36Jennifer Johnson: And it's so individual.
- 8:39Amy Bright: Dale Carnegie is famous for saying the one thing that people are interested in more than anything else in the world guess what Themselves.
- 8:47Amy Bright: So you have to really tune into.
- 8:50Amy Bright: I call it the WIIFM channel.
- 8:52Amy Bright: What's in it for me?
- 8:53Amy Bright: And so if you have something that you're trying to get people to buy, whether it's a widget, a service, a product doesn't matter, a book doesn't matter.
- 9:07Amy Bright: Having a message that resonates with your target audience is what's going to get them interested in you.
- 9:14Amy Bright: Much like again, it's like dating.
- 9:17Amy Bright: I see this person is, oh, they're interested in, they're obsessed with sports.
- 9:22Amy Bright: Well, I'm not, so probably not going to work out.
- 9:25Amy Bright: You know what I mean.
- 9:27Jennifer Johnson: It's kind of that old 80-20 rule 80% when you advertise, 80% of it is what's in it for me.
- 9:33Jennifer Johnson: What am I getting out of this?
- 9:35Jennifer Johnson: The other 20% is actually selling them.
- 9:38Amy Bright: Right.
- 9:38Amy Bright: It's saying I've got the thing for you.
- 9:40Amy Bright: So people that come out of the gate like buy my thing, buy my thing, buy my thing, is very off-putting.
- 9:47Amy Bright: Think about going to a party.
- 9:49Amy Bright: This is an analogy I use with clients a lot.
- 9:51Amy Bright: If you go to a party and say you've got a pocket full of pocket, full of you know something you're trying to sell, and you go to every person in that party and say, hey, look what I've got, you want to buy this, you want it.
- 10:02Amy Bright: Like the guy with the trench coat.
- 10:04Jennifer Johnson: Oh my gosh Right yes exactly.
- 10:07Amy Bright: I mean you're going to run the other way as fast as you can.
- 10:10Jennifer Johnson: Yes.
- 10:11Amy Bright: And it just you know, as opposed to the person trying to sell the watches in the French coat or whatever just having a conversation.
- 10:23Amy Bright: You don't even know they sell watches.
- 10:24Amy Bright: You just want to get to know them.
- 10:25Amy Bright: And then they're like oh, by the way, what do you do?
- 10:26Amy Bright: Oh, I sell these amazing watches.
- 10:28Amy Bright: Oh, really, Tell me more about that.
- 10:29Amy Bright: You know what I mean?
- 10:30Amy Bright: It's a relationship.
- 10:31Jennifer Johnson: Absolutely.
- 10:32Jennifer Johnson: Is your closet overflowing?
- 10:34Jennifer Johnson: Or maybe your kids' closets are as as well, or maybe you just want to redecorate your house.
- 10:38Jennifer Johnson: If you're wondering what to do with all that stuff that you've accumulated, bring it all to true fashionistas, or even ship it to them For free.
- 10:45Jennifer Johnson: They'll sell your unwanted items for you by taking away all the hassle and doing all the work, and all you have to do is sit back and collect your money.
- 10:52Jennifer Johnson: You can reach out to them online at truefashionistascom, or come into the store or check them out on Facebook or Instagram.
- 10:59Jennifer Johnson: That's truefashionistascom.
- 11:01Jennifer Johnson: Welcome back, friends.
- 11:04Jennifer Johnson: We are back in the studio with Amy Bright at Amy Bright Creative and we're talking about marketing and marketing things that we're not quite getting 100%, that we can do better, right Things we can do better.
- 11:18Jennifer Johnson: So the next thing I know we were talking about messaging and it kind of goes along with your brand voice and all of that all tied together.
- 11:32Amy Bright: Consistent messaging across every channel.
- 11:36Jennifer Johnson: And I like consistency.
- 11:38Jennifer Johnson: Let's talk about consistency and using your voice.
- 11:42Amy Bright: I will use an example, not a specific brand, but there's a very interesting thing happening with commercials right now.
- 11:51Amy Bright: Whether it's commercials that are being served on streaming platforms or on traditional TV, it doesn't matter or YouTube or what have you?
- 11:57Amy Bright: Just the video and the audio.
- 11:59Amy Bright: So many drug companies right now.
- 12:02Amy Bright: I've discovered this formula and I'm like that's really interesting.
- 12:05Amy Bright: They're all following a similar formula.
- 12:06Amy Bright: I've discovered this formula and I'm like, wow, that's really interesting.
- 12:08Amy Bright: They're all following a similar formula.
- 12:09Amy Bright: So many of the drugs today have like a three-syllable name and they have a little jingle with the three-syllable name.
- 12:15Jennifer Johnson: Now that I say this to you.
- 12:16Jennifer Johnson: Oh God, I'm thinking one right now.
- 12:17Jennifer Johnson: Can I say it?
- 12:19Amy Bright: I don't know, can you?
- 12:20Jennifer Johnson: It's my show.
- 12:21Jennifer Johnson: I'll say it, it's your show, oh, oh oh Zempit, oh, oh, oh Zempik, Right, right.
- 12:24Jennifer Johnson: Right.
- 12:25Amy Bright: Yes, and now that I've said that you're going to start noticing it more and more.
- 12:28Amy Bright: And then the branding, and I think it's genius I'm not putting it down whatsoever because they've given you an earworm.
- 12:36Amy Bright: Earworm, they've also given you a visual worm, because they've taken their logo, which has typically two to three very distinct colors, which has typically two to three very distinct colors.
- 12:46Amy Bright: And in the commercial you'll notice every prop.
- 12:49Amy Bright: It's so orchestrated, of course, because it's production, but every piece of clothing, glasses, jewelry, everything in the shot is somehow an iteration of the brand coloring.
- 13:05Amy Bright: It's brilliant.
- 13:07Jennifer Johnson: Oh my gosh, it's like being in Toastmasters.
- 13:10Jennifer Johnson: Someone said the other day I can never listen to somebody speak again without critiquing them or listening for ums and ahs.
- 13:19Jennifer Johnson: Now I'm going to be watching these drug commercials, because that's all that's on TV, yes, and I'm going to be like it's very formulaic, and I don't have anything against the formula because it's apparently working.
- 13:32Amy Bright: And so you look at that and talk about brand consistency and boy, if you visit those websites, it's the same thing.
- 13:39Amy Bright: You're going to be flooded with the brand colors.
- 13:41Amy Bright: And a lot of people get stuck with a brand.
- 13:44Amy Bright: They think, oh, it's a logo and some colors.
- 13:48Amy Bright: No, there's a lot more to it than that, it's a brand voice.
- 13:50Amy Bright: Well, what does that mean?
- 13:51Amy Bright: I don't understand what that means.
- 13:52Amy Bright: It's about everything.
- 13:55Amy Bright: It's the essence of the brand.
- 13:56Amy Bright: It's kind of like a personality, everything about what I know about Jennifer Johnson.
- 14:02Amy Bright: You love the color pink.
- 14:03Amy Bright: Whenever I see pink, I think of Jennifer Johnson, and you're bubbly.
- 14:07Amy Bright: You have a color pink.
- 14:09Amy Bright: Whenever I see pink, I think of Jennifer Johnson and you're bubbly.
- 14:15Amy Bright: You have a certain personality that everything you touch kind of brings that along with it.
- 14:19Amy Bright: That's what branding.
- 14:19Amy Bright: That's a very diluted way to talk about branding.
- 14:22Jennifer Johnson: But it helps us make sense and wrap our brains around it.
- 14:24Amy Bright: Right.
- 14:24Amy Bright: And so when you see something that is indicative of brand X, your brain thinks, oh, brand X, Think of any major brand in the world.
- 14:36Amy Bright: And then to parlay that, they're putting that in all of their advertising, all the coloration, the music, the feeling, the sense of what people get when they engage with your brand.
- 14:49Amy Bright: And you look at major brands like Coca-Cola, Does Coca-Cola really need to advertise?
- 14:56Amy Bright: I mean realistically plenty of people love Coke.
- 15:00Amy Bright: But you know why they do it Is to keep that brand on top of your thought process Top of mind Yep.
- 15:05Amy Bright: Top of mind Yep.
- 15:07Jennifer Johnson: That makes complete sense.
- 15:08Amy Bright: So I think what a lot of people do we're sort of covering a lot of things and circling back is thinking, oh, I'm going to put this really cool ad in a glossy magazine and people are going to be knocking on my door.
- 15:22Amy Bright: No, it doesn't work that way.
- 15:24Amy Bright: It's just they got to know your brand a little bit.
- 15:27Amy Bright: They saw the colors my door.
- 15:28Amy Bright: No, it doesn't work that way.
- 15:29Amy Bright: It's just they got to know your brand a little bit.
- 15:30Amy Bright: They saw the colors.
- 15:33Amy Bright: Now perhaps they see something served on a streaming service that is also in the same vein as that print advertising.
- 15:37Amy Bright: Oh ding, that's two.
- 15:37Amy Bright: Then they hear something on a radio station or Pandora or any of the listening platforms, and ding, oh, that sounds familiar.
- 15:48Amy Bright: There's that jingle or there's that catchphrase or whatever.
- 15:52Amy Bright: So all of that helps lead the customer into the buying relationship with you.
- 16:00Jennifer Johnson: It's their customer journey.
- 16:01Jennifer Johnson: It's their customer journey.
- 16:03Amy Bright: We're back to the journey, and it is a journey.
- 16:06Jennifer Johnson: That doesn't happen overnight.
- 16:07Jennifer Johnson: It can take years yeah.
- 16:09Amy Bright: I mean if you want to get hit on the head by a piano falling out of a high rise.
- 16:14Amy Bright: That's great, but that's not how advertising works.
- 16:17Jennifer Johnson: And you just have to stay the course and have patience with it and know that.
- 16:22Amy Bright: And the people that aren't willing to do that, then I guess I don't know what they do and it does take budget, I will say, and going back to your original question, what are some of the mistakes people make?
- 16:37Amy Bright: If I had a nickel for every client that said, how much is this going to cost?
- 16:44Amy Bright: Well, that's a very nuanced question, because what is your intention?
- 16:52Amy Bright: Who are you trying to reach?
- 16:54Amy Bright: Where are those people located?
- 16:56Amy Bright: How are we going to locate them?
- 16:58Amy Bright: And, knowing, if I could give advice to business owners, have an idea of what you want to spend in marketing.
- 17:07Amy Bright: The Small Business Administration gives like a range, that's these days.
- 17:12Amy Bright: I don't know if it's anywhere from 3% to, I think, 20, don't quote me, but some you know.
- 17:21Amy Bright: Right Some 20-ish, I think percentage of your top line sales, not your income but your actual sales yes.
- 17:27Amy Bright: Should be devoted to marketing and advertising.
- 17:30Amy Bright: Now I tell people that the sweet spot to me is about seven.
- 17:35Amy Bright: You could bring that down to like 3%, but many entrepreneurs just don't have that.
- 17:42Amy Bright: They're not even sure what their top line sales are yet, and yet they want immediate results.
- 17:48Jennifer Johnson: I know that's hard right.
- 17:50Amy Bright: I don't know any marketing person that's a magician and pricing structure is so nuanced.
- 17:55Amy Bright: In my industry it boils down to time and time is money, and so once I understand what somebody really needs, then it's okay.
- 18:07Amy Bright: Now I need to figure out how much time that's going to take, how many resources that's going to take.
- 18:11Amy Bright: I may be on the low side, I might be on the high side, and it's like how much does cheese cost?
- 18:19Amy Bright: I don't know.
- 18:20Amy Bright: Well, what kind of cheese is it?
- 18:21Amy Bright: How much are you buying?
- 18:22Amy Bright: Is it from a special artisan cheesemaker from?
- 18:28Jennifer Johnson: the.
- 18:28Amy Bright: United States, or is it being imported from Europe?
- 18:30Amy Bright: I mean, there's so many variables to cost, but knowing what you want to spend up front.
- 18:37Amy Bright: I have a grocery budget and I can afford this on cheese, and then you can tell the company you're working with this is what I have to spend and in my opinion, depending on the company, the way I operate is well, I can do this with that, right, and if you can work with that, then here's what I can do for you.
- 19:00Jennifer Johnson: Right, and they can start somewhere.
- 19:02Jennifer Johnson: At least Start somewhere Absolutely Well.
- 19:04Jennifer Johnson: It has been a delight talking about small business marketing and the things that we can do better at for this year.
- 19:12Jennifer Johnson: If our listeners want to get a hold of you, Amy, how can they do so?
- 19:16Amy Bright: The easiest thing is to visit amybrightcreativecom.
- 19:20Amy Bright: You can send me a message, you can set up a discovery call.
- 19:23Amy Bright: My phone number is on there.
- 19:24Amy Bright: I mean, it's the one-stop shop to reach me.
- 19:27Jennifer Johnson: Fabulous.
- 19:28Jennifer Johnson: Thank you so much again, amy, my pleasure.