Make marketing a priority (and survive) with Jenn Donovan

Today's episode guest is Jenn Donovan, a marketing thought leader, change maker, coach and mentor for small businesses. 

Jenn and I talk about why you need to make marketing a priority and how you're leaving money and opportunities on the table if you're not actively and strategically marketing your business. 

We also discuss:

• How small business owners can make room for marketing
• What some of the common pitfalls are and how to avoid them
• Overlooked and underrated marketing channels and tactics

If  you're looking to grow your business and you've been resisting actively marketing, tune in 🎧

Connect with Jenn:
Instagram  
Facebook 
Facebook group 
LinkedIn 

Connect with me

Website: www.newschoolofmarketing.com
Facebook: @newschoolofmarketing
Facebook group: @newschoolofmarketing
Instagram: @bianca_mckenzie

Work with me:

🟠 NEW SCHOOL OF MARKETING BUSINESS CLUB: a supportive, action-focused community where business owners get weekly coaching, expert feedback, and co-working sessions to stay consistent, accountable, and strategic with their marketing—so they can finally see real results.
https://newschoolofmarketing.com/club

🔵 MARKETING STRATEGY & COACHING: customised marketing strategies, expert guidance, and hands-on support to help business owners attract more leads, increase sales, and grow sustainably—without the guesswork. https://www.biancamckenzie.com/coaching/

⚫️ CHECK MY WEBSITE: https://www.biancamckenzie.com/

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Transcript

[00:02] Bianca: Welcome to the New School of Marketing podcast, the place for smart, simple strategies that will amplify your business results, sharing practical tips, insider knowledge and actionable advice. Because marketing is something that every business owner can do. Now, let's get started. Introducing your host, Bianca Mackenzie. Mum, lover of snow, sports, camping, horse riding and in demand launch strategist and Facebook Advertising Knowledge bank.

[00:32] Bianca: Welcome to the New School of Marketing podcast. I'm Bianca Mackenzie and today I'm talking about making marketing a priority and surviving with Jen Donovan. Jen Donovan is a marketing thought leader, change maker, coach and mentor for small businesses, an international keynote speaker, bestselling author and podcaster of the Small Business Made Simple podcast, plus two more podcasts. You're a busy girl. Founder of Social Media and Marketing Australia, as well as founder of the extremely successful community Facebook Group. Buy from a bush business with over 367,000 members and the co founder of Spend with US Australia's answer to Amazon, but only for rural and regional small businesses. Jen takes her clients from invisible to invincible using strategic marketing principles and is also a community leader and a community believer and is on a mission to ensure the lost art of human to human. Marketing and community are seated firmly in everyone's marketing strategy. Jen lives on a farm in the riverina of New South Wales with husband Mr. Farmer and their three children. She also has ten jokes, two peacocks, four guinea fowl, one dog and one cat and several pet lambs. Sounds like a busy household. Welcome to the show, Jen.

[01:50] Jenn: Thank you so much, Bianca. Goodness me, I need to put that bio into Chat GPT and say, can you condense this and make it easier to read?

[01:59] Bianca: Well, you've just got so much that's going on in your life, it needs to all be in there, right? I mean, wow. How do you find a time?

[02:08] Jenn: Look, you do, you find time for what you love to do, don't you?

[02:11] Bianca: That is true. That is very true. Well, I know what we both love doing, so let's talk marketing. I really love talking to fellow marketers and literally nine out of ten times I learn something new or I get a different perspective. I have kind of got like an old school marketing background. So let's talk about marketing. Can you, in your words, tell me what you think marketing is, or what is your take on marketing? Because I love to hear this from other people.

[02:44] Jenn: Yeah, look, my take is really simple and I think every time I talk about my take on marketing or my definition of marketing, I reckon people want to throw wet socks at me. But basically my definition of marketing what is marketing? It's everything. It's the way you pick up the phone and speak to a client or the way you answer that phone. It's the way you answer that email. It's the way you show up online. If you live in a rural or regional or a small community like ourselves. It's the way you are in the supermarket. Unfortunately, we are always on. Everything says something about you and your business, whether you meant it to or not. And that's the crust of why I say marketing is everything. People are judging you, people are making assumptions about you even when you're not wearing your business hat. So you really do have to sort of think about marketing as the everything. And I think that people want to throw wet socks at me because they're like, well, what does that mean then, Jen? But I guess it just means that you need to be aware of the way you are doing business all of the time. And again, if you live in small communities, you're never off. There's a reason why my girlfriends and I take off to a different town to have a weekend away or a night away or something like that, because we don't want to be known. Not that we play up, but if I snort too hard because I'm laughing so hard in the pub, I don't want everybody to see that or witness that. Because you can never switch off when you're in small communities. Marketing is everything.

[04:21] Bianca: I love that. And actually you are so right. I forgot about this. I grew up in a small community in the Netherlands and I hated it when I was like 16 years old because everyone knew everyone and everyone knew your business. Not great. Yeah, not great for 16 year olds. And yeah, then being swallowed up in the big metropolis of Melbourne, you can kind of like fly under the radar. And now we've moved to a small area in Tazi and yes, I literally said to my husband, I'm like, I can't go to Bunnings and my trackies, what if I bump into someone? And it is like that? You bump into people all the time, like you go to a festival, half of daycare is there and half of school is there and yes, it is like that. And when you don't live in a rural or regional community, you don't realize that and you don't really think about it. But it opened my eyes.

[05:20] Jenn: It's a very harsh reality, but it's also a great thing as well. But yes, that is the way it happens when you don't live in a big capital city, I guess, or even in capital cities. They have particular communities. But yeah, no, a good thing or a bad thing? Not quite sure. We can discuss that more as the podcast goes on.

[05:41] Bianca: Yeah, no, I think it's great. I really love it and it has opened my eyes again, but it really brings home that marketing is everything. And you know what? Like I said, nine out of ten times, learn something new and it's not something new, but I completely forgot about this. It's not something you think about when you don't live in a small community that marketing is everything. And it doesn't mean that you have to go out full face of makeup and things like that. But I do think twice about I will put jeans on instead of my trackies.

[06:19] Jenn: I know myself. If you hang out on social media, even with your personal hat on, sometimes people will say something or there'll be an article or something, and I get on the computer, I'm like, typing my angry response back because I totally disagree with this person. And then I sit there and press the delete button because I'm like, what will that say about me for someone that doesn't know me or only knows me in a professional context? Like, can't write that delete, delete, delete scroll by. So it's kind of that thing that sits on my shoulder because everything you say and do says something about you regardless of whether or not you meant it to. So, yeah, that's the type of thing as well. So it's not about full faces of makeup or wearing jeans or tracksuit pants. But it is that image, I guess, the branding.

[07:07] Bianca: Yeah, it's the full kind of picture. And I really love that you're bringing that back to it. Is everything just like a little bit further about this. Why should people or businesses make marketing a priority? Why is it so important to think about everything?

[07:28] Jenn: Yeah, so I guess why do you make it a priority without marketing? It's really hard to grow a business. You probably could grow a business without intentionally doing any marketing if you are super good. Just like you could probably get to, I don't know, the middle of central Australia without a map. The map will help and the map will get you there. It's probably a direct route and lot quicker, but you probably will get there eventually by yourself. So it's the same with marketing. If you do have a marketing strategy, if you do it strategically, you will actually get to where you want to get to in your business, which is often for small business owners. That freedom, that elusive freedom. I love that meme that I see every now and then on social media that says, I quit my job, quit my 40 hours week job to work. Twenty four, seven in my own business. Like, we didn't really think about it very well. We thought, you know, you know, working in corporate, we'll go and work for ourselves. But of course you get here and you realize just how much work it is to work for yourself. So we are looking for that elusive freedom, I guess. So marketing will help get you there. It'll help get there a lot quicker. And really, if you want to grow your business, more people need to know about you. The right people need to know about you, of course, that the people have got the money to buy whatever it is that you're selling. If you learn to sort of market yourself, you can get there quicker, you can find those people quicker, you can grow that profitable business quicker, and then whatever the goal is to employ someone so that you can take time off or work through your business three days a week. So you can have two days off, whatever that looks like. Marketing will help you achieve all that a lot quicker than not marketing.

[09:18] Bianca: Yeah, I agree that I actually would almost say that you can't grow your business. I'm literally throwing it out here that you can't grow your business without marketing. I think a lot of people forget that marketing in a way is also talking to the right people.

[09:34] Jenn: It's everything. And people will say, well, I don't market my business. It's just done on word of mouth. It's just like the word of mouth is marketing. And imagine if you put some systems or processes in place to amplify that word of mouth and that's the way you grew your business. One of the things that really gripes me, and I've seen it a lot lately and I think it's because we are going through a harder economic time and people are tightening their purse strings. But some of the Facebook groups that I hang out in, I hear this comment of I've never had to market my business, but things have gone a bit quiet. I need to learn a little bit about what marketing will work for me. And I love that they've asked the question, but to me the palm slap is you think it's a good thing they've never marketed your business. Imagine all the money you've left on the table that if you hadn't marketed your business, you would be so much further along. Like you've kind of rested on those laurels and perhaps it is the word of mouth or something like that that you've rested on. But imagine if you had a focused on marketing and grew your business with word of mouth at the same time. The world's your oyster if you sort of do that. So I find that comment really frustrating. It's just like, well, I can probably tell you how much money you've left on the table then because you haven't done any marketing.

[10:56] Bianca: Yeah, definitely. And I would probably also say, well, you have marketed because otherwise nobody would know about you. Like having a car signage on your car or like a sign on your gate or something like that. That is marketing. Or telling your neighbor or whoever that is marketing. Yeah, definitely. So I know we all busy. Well, I'm not as busy as you from your bio, but how does a busy small business owner still make room for marketing? Because I don't know, I was at a networking event recently and people just get that, oh, I have to do marketing. And they're like, how do they find time? Because it's not their thing. So how do they make room for marketing.

[11:46] Jenn: Yeah, and I guess that's the big question. Does it have to be their thing or should they be outsourcing it? And I would say if it's not your thing and you have the ability to outsource your marketing, you should look at that. I'm not a big fan of outsourcing your marketing because I'm such a big advocate for human to human marketing and your brand voice and things like that. And I think sometimes it's hard to someone else to replicate that. I know there are certainly some people out there that do it really well, that get people's voices. And that's where I feel you really need to make sure the person who you outsource it to knows you, knows your brand, knows your tone of voice, how you would talk, how you would speak, because that's what you're putting out there. So if people meet you at a networking event, like you were saying, you sound the same, they feel like they already know you, which is the power of marketing, of course. So I think that that is a decision that needs to be made. But it's a bit like doing your bookwork. You can't run a business and just never touch your finances. And if your listener is thinking to themselves oh, I don't like well maybe you should. It is one of those things that we have to do as a small business owner. We need to do our finances and therefore marketing is the same. It just has to be. Nothing will become a priority unless you make it a priority. It's like me trying to give up sugar or give up PEPSIMAX. It'll never happen if I don't make it a priority to make it happen. So marketing is just the same. But I also think that people overthink marketing as well. What sort of marketing would work best for them? Or take social media for instance. They think they have to be on Facebook and TikTok and LinkedIn and Instagram and all the things. It's like well no, you don't have to be on all the things. You have to be where your people are at the end of the day. So yes, they might be on multitudes of platforms, but choose one, get really good at one and repurpose the content to other places. If you want to be on multiple platforms, if your customers are more likely to like email, or they're more likely to read the classifieds in your newspaper, your local newspaper, or they're more likely to listen to podcasts, and therefore maybe you should be putting some sponsorship into a podcast, you know, they really like and listen to religiously. So it's kind of knowing that customer really well. And I think that kind of goes back to the marketing basics, which I'm sure that we all talk about a lot is who is your who and where do they hang out? But I also think I was on a podcast a couple of months ago and someone said to me, well, okay, I've got three minutes a day to do my marketing, what am I going to do? And I'm like, pick up your phone, press live, and go live for 60 seconds. Your marketing is done. You're marketing for that day. Then you can tick that box and hurry on. So it doesn't have to be bigger than Ben Her. It doesn't have to be creating big email flows or trying to find the right image to put on Instagram or something like that. It can be as simple as going live every single day with whatever it is that you're trying to sell or whatever it is that you have to say. And you can't get much simpler than that. I know people hate video, but I guess you have to sort of work through that as well. And that's probably a different conversation. But I know myself book work isn't something that I love. So twice a week I've got an appointment in my calendar that says, do your book work monday afternoons and Friday afternoons. Big yellow thing, a big yellow appointment in my Google diary. It just is that constant top of mind reminding. It's just like, oh, I haven't done my book work. Yeah, okay, I need to do that.

[15:47] Bianca: Yeah, it's one of those I don't know, the way I think about it is like, well, you can choose not to market, but at some point your business will dry up. So yes, I know it might be frustrating and sometimes people do make it bigger than it needs to be, but yeah, I don't know. I think if you put the foundations in as well with a strategy, it makes it so much easier and you can then at some point also work with someone who can put in some automations in place. Like you can automate some of this stuff now, it doesn't have to take as long anymore. I did that. I was talking to you before about a local farm that I helped recently with their website, and they only service, like, the local community because they have chucks, so all the eggs basically are allocated go to restaurants, so there's no extra eggs, but they do beef and lamb boxes. And they were posting it in a Facebook group, getting people to send them a message with an expression of interest. And I'm like, why don't you put this on an automation? Why don't we get mailer light, which is what we signed up for. People can put their email address in. You can just email like one email to all of these people when your boxes are available, put a buy button in there and done. Rather than the way they were doing it was Excel spreadsheet emailing all these people individually. Then I'm like, oh, that just sounds painful.

[17:16] Jenn: Yeah, the overwhelm and therefore that you can see then that they would just go, oh, this is too hard.

[17:22] Bianca: Yeah, well, there's ways to make it easier and it crosses over from marketing into other areas. But it doesn't have to be hard. It can be easier in terms of like yeah, sending one email rather than copying pasting and sending or BCCing and actually being doing illegal stuff because you're not supposed to do that.

[17:49] Jenn: Yeah. And I love that. That's just such a great story to share though, because we all start at the start and I'm sure that was a really good system for them when they only had 2345 orders. But as your business grows and that's why US. Marketers, we talk a lot about when the pain is so great, the solution, they'll find a different solution. So clearly the pain got so great of, okay, this system that worked at the start is no longer working. Now we need to find a different system, we need some help. I don't know what that is. So they employ an amazing person like you to come and solve that problem for them. And I think that's the evolution of business. Whereas you don't have to start with all that tech, you don't have to invest in a Bianca or a Jen at the start. But when the pain becomes too great and your business has outgrown where you started, that's where you sort of get to sort of look outside and get outside help and look for different systems to make business simpler.

[18:45] Bianca: Yes, I 100% agree. And it should be a priority. I think we've just gotten I don't know if you see it this way as well. I think we've gotten wrapped up with the used car salesperson, image sales and marketing. Yes, they are very much linked, but not the same. Or maybe it's just because we love marketing so much.

[19:12] Jenn: Maybe I just yeah, maybe I've got it.

[19:14] Bianca: Marketing is amazing, but literally, marketing is just talking about what you do to.

[19:21] Jenn: The right people at the right time. Yes.

[19:24] Bianca: And to have a business, you need to do that. People need to know about that. There's no point in setting up a business. If you set up a business and you have it inside a completely gated complex and nobody's ever going to be there, you don't have a business because you got no traffic, you got nobody.

[19:39] Jenn: That's right. And as business owners, we all get to a stage where we're like, oh my gosh, my customers are driving us crazy. But with our customers, we don't have a business. So it's a bit like need to do what we can do. But if you're listening to this and you're looking at your business and you're like, well, I've hit a plateau or I'm not growing, that's when you need to turn around and say, okay, well, what's been my marketing strategy? Is that where I can start to help make my business get over this plateau or continue it to grow.

[20:12] Bianca: Yeah. And one of those things, the marketing strategy. You can get help with that and do the execution yourself. But yeah, working with someone like yourself or me or someone else helping you with a marketing strategy, just finding out what you need to do when it's like a roadmap, like how you were saying you can get to central Australia. Yeah, get a roadmap and then you can execute that roadmap. It doesn't have to be full on outsourced. And I do this with my because you were saying your financials and your bookkeeping. I don't do my bookkeeping, but I do look at my numbers and I do put all the bits together, but then my bookkeeper finishes it off. So yeah, you don't have to do all of the steps.

[20:55] Jenn: That's right.

[20:57] Bianca: Which is great.

[20:58] Jenn: Exactly.

[21:00] Bianca: This is so good.

[21:01] Jenn: Cool.

[21:02] Bianca: Well, let's chat a bit about other stuff we don't like about marketing or not about marketing, about what we see in the landscape. What do you see are some of the common marketing pitfalls that businesses should be aware of and how can they avoid them. I think one of them is already the multitude of platforms they could be on. But there's other things, too.

[21:25] Jenn: Yeah, I thought this was such an interesting question because yes, I think it is the choice. I think one of the pitfalls is the choice of where we can show up what marketing we can do. I'm writing a marketing book at the moment, which maybe not will come out by the end of the year. And it's a marketing tip book. So all the different marketing tips that you can do, all the different marketing strategies, and I think I'm up to like 109 of them. So I get that the landscape is really busy. There's lots of choices out there, but I think it all comes back to your marketing basics. And I know I've already mentioned them once. Who is your who? Like, who is the person? Who is your buyer? And I think that anyone who's done that exercise in the past really needs to do it again because we're all changing. I'm not the same buyer I was three years ago. Pre pandemic. I'm probably not even the same buyer I was twelve months ago. So if you haven't changed your marketing for your buyer, your new buyer, then that's probably a little bit of a sticking point for you as well. Who is your who? And also, where do these people hang out? And I think we've gone past the ability to just say something like, my person hangs out on Instagram, because now you might say Instagram is like, okay, do they watch stories? Do they watch your live videos? Do they scroll the feed? Or are they addicted to reels? There's choices within choices. So that's kind of where the overwhelm happens. And I think that's a real pitfall because then it becomes I don't know, it's too hard. I'm just going to slap up a post here and there, which is probably the second pitfall. And I know we've already mentioned it a few times, and that's a strategy. There was a really interesting post on a Facebook group a couple of weeks ago that was like someone posted anonymously, but they're like, everyone talks about strategies like a brand strategy or a marketing strategy. What's a strategy? And I thought that was such a cool question because I'm like, yeah, it'd be like I started my career out in law, so it'd be like me bringing all my legal jargon into my marketing business. People just wouldn't understand what it was that I was talking about. But a strategy is just a plan, and it's a plan to help you reach your business goals. Is everything you're posting on social media or every email that you send out with your business hat on helping you get to your goal? If not, why are you doing it? Type of thing. That to me is kind of like the very bottom end of what a strategy is. But there are a lot of small business owners who what's coming up. For instance, let's take Father's Day, they might be in ecommerce and all of a sudden it's Father's Day week and they're like, oh my gosh, what am I going to do? I need some stuff to put up on social media. Whereas that sort of stuff should have been planned six weeks, eight weeks prior. So if you had a plan, you would know that that's coming up and you would have on your plan, think about stock for Father's Day, what marketing are we going to do for Father's Day? What do we need to get locked in, what do we need to write? All of that sort of thing. So I think that's what a strategy can help you with is somewhat the overwhelm, although it's a lot to sit down and do a strategy, it is the thing that can help you be less stressed. And also that whole, I've got to do something, so I'll just do anything just so I can tick the marketing box. I think that's the pitfall, and probably the last pitfall, is the inconsistent pitfall. So whether that's being inconsistent with your brand, so inconsistent as in if I went to your website or I went to Instagram or I went to TikTok or I went to Facebook and you just don't gel. You're a different person on all of those platforms in voice, in tone, in branding, or inconsistent with the way I guess you do your marketing. So you're like, right, I'm going to do a newsletter every month and then it's like six months on and you haven't done another one, but you promised you would do them every month. So you've kind of lost base a little bit with your audience because they're kind of like, oh, I thought you were going to do that and you didn't do it yeah. So I think they're the kind of pitfalls. And the last one I'd probably say is us small business owners. Probably not us. You and I. Bianca. But some small businesses hide behind their products and services. And if you want to stand out in a crowded marketplace, no one does business like you. No one talks about whatever it is that you do like you. So you got to show up, show your face, show your voice, get out there and be that human person who people can get to know, like, and trust. Because we do business with people that we like. We don't often do business in small business capacities. We don't do business with people we don't like. Yes, we still go to Woolies even though we hate them. We still go and go to McDonald's because they've got clean toilets, even though we hate them. But small business owners, we don't lend that same excuses to. If we don't like someone, we just don't go back.

[26:47] Bianca: Oh, yes. And we will tell everyone else not to go there either. It could be quite detrimental for businesses.

[26:57] Jenn: Or even if we don't get the opportunity to get to know you, I like your products, but I have no idea who the person is behind that business. That's probably one of the things I find the most frustrating with working with small businesses, is go to send them a little voice message over Instagram or LinkedIn or a little video, and I don't know their name, and I can't find it anywhere. I don't know what they look like and things like that.

[27:25] Bianca: It is a bit tricky like that. And I've worked with a few businesses here locally that they have a lot of resistance. I'm still working on it. Even just one photo, and it doesn't have to be like, smack bang right in front of your face. You can be doing the thing that you're doing, like working with whatever you're working with. That's fine. People do. And especially service based businesses, I found. Look, I like to know who I'm buying from when I'm doing, when I'm shopping online and buying from an Ecommerce store. But with a service, I don't know, it feels a bit more personal. And I want to know who the person is. And I know we don't really get to know them from just a photo, but I want to at least hear your story. Even hearing you talk, you can build that relationship without having a photo or showing your face. Because I know for some religions, that is not an option. But you can still build that closeness, like by even voice recordings or telling your story.

[28:38] Jenn: There are ways, definitely. So I guess two stories around that, like one story is a couple of weeks ago, I started to work with a client who had been out of business for about 15 years due to some personal circumstances and some things that were going. On in their life. And so one of the first things we did was we Googled her name. Now, three photos came up under her name. None of those photos were her on Google, and her face was nowhere to be found. Now this person is going into a business where her face and her profile will be the thing. Like, she is the product that you buy. So it was kind of like radio that's number one thing we need to start doing is getting your face out there, your profile out there, your story out there, because people are actually buying you. It's not like she's an accountant and they're buying a service. They're actually buying she's a performer, so they were buying the performance type of thing. And the second thing is I'd say about that is I had a really funny thing happen to me. It was years ago now. It was during the pandemic. And of course, I had a client who was like, can we have a chat? And she's like, I live near you, so would you have a coffee with me? Because no one was having human contact or had been a while. I'm like, yeah, sure. We're out of lockdown. Let's have a coffee. And I walked away from that with the most bizarre feeling that I just couldn't articulate at the time. And I remember hopping in my car and just having that time to reflect, and I'm like, wow, I get it. She listens to my podcast. She knows all my kids names. She knows what I did on this weekend, or she knows all this stuff about me. And I knew nothing about her because it was the first time we'd met. And so that power to her. I was her friend that she listens to every week, but to me, she was a new client that I had to get to know, and it was just a really powerful reminder of what showing up can bring, that she was like, oh, my God. I'm meeting one of my best friends that I listen to every week, and I was like, I'm meeting a stranger.

[30:44] Bianca: That's amazing. I've never thought about that.

[30:47] Jenn: It was really weird. I couldn't articulate it until I gave myself time to think about it, to work out what had gone on that day.

[30:54] Bianca: But that was it. Well, yeah, no, now you say it like, I've got people that I have never met in real life, but that I have been on zoom calls with or even just in groups, or that you follow and you kind of do think, yeah, I know you, and it feels like you've already met each other. When you finally meet each other, it is kind of weird like that. Well, there you go. There's so many options to market ourselves, to show up. I don't think people should get hung up about the heart. Everyone needs to like you. I think it's more about the you put yourself out there and you will attract the right people to you. And it's not about being liked by everyone. And that's another thing that sometimes business owners, I think, can sort of like, yeah, but I can also help them. But it's not about that. It's about helping the right people and not being everything to everyone. Because then you really.

[31:57] Jenn: That'S a whole other podcast episode right there.

[31:59] Bianca: Yes, I know. Okay, so let's talk tactics. What are some overlooked or underrated marketing channels or tactics that businesses should consider exploring? I'm sure that both of us could come up with quite a few here.

[32:18] Jenn: It's definitely not instagram. That's definitely not underlooked, overlooked or underrated. For me, it is probably the power of a testimonial or something like that. I think that as business owners, I find there are a lot of people out there always looking for the new business, always sort of, who's next, who's next, who's next? So that brings up two things. The one, the power of the testimonial. I remember Katrina McCarthy, who has marketing to Mums, was on my podcast a little while ago, and she was talking about I think the stat she used was something like 76% of people will buy on a review or a testimonial even if they don't know that person. So when you're shopping online, if someone else has said, this product is really good, they're more likely to buy it. And yet it's not something as a marketing strategy. A lot of small business owners put much energy into it's. Kind of like, yes, I did that for that client or that person purchased. That excellent. What's next? As opposed to going back and perhaps saying, could you provide a review on that product or could you give me a testimonial from how we work together and things like that. I think that's definitely underrated, and I think it's so powerful. And I think if we look at our own buying habits, we realize that we do look at those reviews, we do look at those testimonials, and they do influence whether or not we buy something. So if you haven't got them, then perhaps that's something that is definitely you are underrating or sort of underestimating for sure.

[34:00] Bianca: Sorry, I'm like, I need to get better.

[34:01] Jenn: There you go.

[34:03] Bianca: Because sometimes it can be awkward and again, like working with a local client, that Farm client, again, I said, can we put some testimonials up? And she's like, oh, what do I do? I'm like, I'll send you a bit of a template for it so you can send that to your customers. And they were happy to provide testimonials. But I think you are spot on with it being underrated and overlooked, but it can sometimes feel uncomfortable, especially for service based businesses to ask for the testimonial. I know that I sometimes kind of go, oh, I should get a testimonial. It either slips my mind or I kind of go, oh, when do I do it? When we wrap up halfway through, like when we get a good result and then I don't do it.

[34:48] Jenn: Yeah.

[34:51] Bianca: Not always.

[34:52] Jenn: Definitely it's something that needs a system behind it, I guess. And it's easier for ecommerce, perhaps, in some ways, because you can set up an automated email that goes out 14 days after they've purchased a product saying, would you like to leave a rating and a review or a review? Type of thing. But I guess it is just that power of asking. I always tell my clients when's the best time to ask for one? It's when they've told you something that you've done really well or thank you for something and then you're like and the other thing I would say is I often write them for them, so I'll often write the testimonial for them based on what they've said to me. And I'll send it to them and say, look, I'm redoing some marketing. Would you mind this conversation we had, would you mind if I created a testimonial? I've written it for you because I know how super busy you are, but feel free to change it any way you want. I just wanted to make it simple for you and nine times out of ten people write back and go, no, it's fine, I get job done for you.

[35:52] Bianca: It should be part of the process. What's another one that you think is overlooked and underrated?

[35:59] Jenn: I had a really good one in my head and I was hoping it would come to me before we got to this conversation again. And now I can't remember what it was. But I think like I was talking about before the showing up, I think people really underestimate the power of human to human interactions and human connections. I would challenge your listener to if it's been a little while since you've shown up, or even if it hasn't been a little while, we are always attracting new people. Hop on your social media and tell them three things that they probably don't know about you. Put a photo up, do a video, whatever it takes, and just kind of like three things that you probably don't know about me, and I guarantee you it'd be one of the posts that will probably get the most engagement for a long time. People really do like to interact with other humans and that know, like and trust factor. And it's something that a lot of small business owners underwrite. They're like, well, why would people want to see my face or hear from me? But you're the person that picks up the phone or you're the person that answers the email, or you're the person that's writing the social media post, so why wouldn't they want to get to know you a little bit better? So I think that's definitely an underrated part of people's marketing as well.

[37:16] Bianca: It's not all about business. Isn't it? I mean when you work. Even the big global corporations are now trying to become more human.

[37:28] Jenn: They realize the power.

[37:31] Bianca: Well, it goes back to how marketing or how business was done a long time ago. You would know the person you were buying from because you would go to all your little shops like you go to the bakery and I love it where I live now. I can go to the post office. I don't even have to say my name. They just walk off and get my parcel. I'm not used to that anymore. But it's almost part of the service. You just know your customers so well that you know what they need, you know what they're there for. And I don't know, it's like being part of a community, like being part of a village, even though maybe the person that buys from you is on the other side of the world, but you're inviting them into your little space in a way. I don't know, I just think back to how we used to do business and people are mostly most people are people. People.

[38:23] Jenn: Yes.

[38:24] Bianca: And they do want that connection. And it is like that. I would not want to buy from someone who didn't have the same values as me, who had the same sort of outlook. And I think that is really important and it's becoming more important in the world that we live in now. It's just more important to have that transparency, to know what is your stance on this or on that. And I know people say don't mix politics or whatever with business, but I think it is important. I think if you have a small business, you need to align with that person.

[38:59] Jenn: Yeah, I totally agree and I thank you so much because that little chat that you just had then reminded me of the other one that I was trying to think of inside my head. And that was the other sort of underrated marketing strategy is people are always chasing the new customer. What about the people who already know, like and trust you? What about the people who already have bought from you in the past? How are you marketing to them? That cold, warm, hot audience type of thing. Like if you're always posting or always emailing or to someone who's brand new, but you forget about the people who have already bought from you. Then again, you're leaving money on the table. I always love that exercise where you can sort of look at your sales and you're like, well, what if I increase? You sort of got this goal to increase your sales and it's like, what if I got everyone who's bought from me to come back and buy one more thing or come back one more time in twelve months? What would that do to your business? As opposed to always be out there trying to attract new customers all the time? I think that is definitely the underrated part of marketing, as well as marketing to people who are already your buyers to come back again.

[40:16] Bianca: Yeah, I 100% agree. You kind of don't have to convince them again. You don't spend all that energy convincing people that they need to buy from you. You won't have to. They already know that you deliver.

[40:29] Jenn: That's Right. I think the statistic is something like it's seven times more expensive to get a new customer than what it is to get an older customer or a previous customer to come back again. And I don't know whether it's seven times more expensive, but it's definitely more expensive than to get someone who already likes you and already enjoys your product or service to come back again.

[40:52] Bianca: Exactly. And as part of your marketing and your service or your servicing and your delivery, if you do it really well, like you delight your customers, they will rave about you. Obviously, if you offer pretty mediocre follow up, then they might not come back. But if you do a really good job, I see that as part of your marketing as well. Like the delivery. It's not just getting the customer and getting the sale. It's the delivery and the after sale process as well. I think that is probably another one that's also overlooked and underrated.

[41:32] Jenn: Yeah, 100%.

[41:35] Bianca: We can probably come up with lots of other ones, but I think we've kind of covered a few of these things already. But any other ranty things? Because I can go on like so many rants. Anything else that you feel like we need to add in this conversation? No.

[42:01] Jenn: I suppose if you're listening to this and you think Jen bianca, I'm already so busy doing all the things marketing I just don't have time for marketing. I don't know how you want to grow your business, but if you do want to grow your business, you do need to make it a priority. There's no easy way to say it to a small business owner other than you just have to. Whether it's like me, where I make a diary appointment to do my book work, make a diary appointment to do your marketing, whether that is you go and outsource it to somebody to do some marketing for you or to write some marketing for you, whether you're much better at talking than what you are writing. So you use, I don't know, things like Otter or Rev.com where you talk to your phone and then transcribe it and break those into posts or into a blog or something like that. But you need to work to your own strengths. But you really do need to make marketing a priority. Sometimes I feel like a really big broken record. But it's just the reality of being in small business. If you look at all the people around you that are building amazing businesses, there is an element that they are spending on marketing, whether it's themselves or a team or an outsourced team. But they are actually doing that. So if you want to be like them, you have to put some sort of time aside to do your marketing.

[43:39] Bianca: I 100% agree. Yeah. It has to be a priority. And like you said, if it is something that is stopping you, I don't know, some people might be overthinking it, they might be just really stopping themselves. I feel like that's most of the time, we're in our own way with this kind of thing, but get some help. And it doesn't mean that you have to outsource the whole thing, because Tasmania is an amazing place. There's quite a few options here for government grants and support, actually. There's lots of support on the mainland as well. Just got to know where to look. But, yeah, there's a lot of support as part of that. I've recently been working with a few Distilleries, as well as some other companies, businesses as well. And all we did was sit down, have a marketing health check. I'm like, what are you doing right now? What is working? Like, a lot of them were not doing a whole lot like some social media, but what is working? What are your goals? Where do you want to go? And it's almost like connecting the dots, okay, what are you doing right now? Where do you want to go then? What's the roadmap to get there? And what we did was literally sit down and made it easier. We sat down. I sat down with the distillery and I said, we need to come up with content. Pillars I know there's like a bit of a jargon here, but it was more of, okay, what are your values? What do you stand for? How can we talk about this on social media? So their platform of choice is instagram. How can we talk about that? How can we talk about your values and all of the things that you find important? And how can we do that? Over and over and over, like the same message, but in different words, in different sort of variations, so they didn't have to constantly come up with content, because in a way, and there's quite a few businesses that do this really well, your content doesn't change much. The words you're saying, the message is the same, but the words you're saying is slightly different. But, yeah, your content doesn't change much. And we just came up with a whole year's worth of content that way. And it was literally the same message around their values, around who they work with and how they do business. When you sit down. Pillars yeah, when you sit down, it just makes it easier. But sometimes, I guess you need to have a little bit of a nudge for that. But, yeah, otherwise you just get what you were saying earlier. You just get this random, like, I need to put something up, and you put something up for the sake of putting something up, but it's not strategic and it's not going to give you an outcome and then you're just wasting your time. I know this could keep going on and on forever, can't it?

[46:33] Jenn: But I think you brought up a really good point just there. Sometimes it's the people you hang around like I'm a great believer in. You are the product of the five people you hang around the most. So if you're hanging out with people who hate marketing, who think marketing is a waste of time, then you need to change your circle of people. Start hanging around with people who love marketing, who do marketing really well, who will then sort of rising tide lifts all boats, who will then kind of encourage you to do more marketing. So if you're kind of in the regs and you think, no one around me does good marketing, change your circle of influence and find people, whether it's online or offline, change people who love small business, who are doing really well in small business and it will probably change your own mindset as well.

[47:19] Bianca: 100%. That's a really good, really good message to sort of end off on.

[47:25] Jenn: Yeah, I asked this, that's my parting wisdom.

[47:29] Bianca: Yay, well that's really good wisdom. Find new friends or two questions that I ask all of my not my listeners, my guests. What are you curious about right now?

[47:46] Jenn: I suppose I sort of mentioned a little bit earlier that I'm writing a book at the moment, so I'm very curious about watching other authors, how they're marketing their books, what's their strategy around self published, other publishing like publishing with publishing houses. So that's really got my curiosity. And again, the five people you hang around the most, for some reason I seem to be surrounded by budding authors at the moment. So that's encouraged me to sort of pull my finger out and write my own book. So, yeah, definitely book writing and publishing and marketing. I guess a tangible product such as a book has really got me very curious.

[48:31] Bianca: Really cool. What's the ETA on your book?

[48:35] Jenn: Look, the first draft has been done. I'm going away on a holiday very shortly. So the second draft will be done away on holidays and then, I don't know, end of the year, maybe October ish before Christmas.

[48:50] Bianca: Might be nice.

[48:51] Jenn: Yeah, definitely before Christmas. But the launch, if it's too late again as a marketer, like, no use trying to market things in November and December. Everyone's got different priorities. So if it was a bit late in the year, I probably wouldn't launch it till the start of the next year, but we'll see. But that's what's definitely got me curious.

[49:10] Bianca: We'll keep an eye out. We have to all go and check out your book.

[49:16] Jenn: I'll let you know.

[49:17] Bianca: Yes, definitely keep us up to date. If you had an extra $5,000 in your marketing budget, what would you spend it on?

[49:24] Jenn: That's a really tough question, isn't it?

[49:27] Bianca: I know I should ask myself one day, because I don't know if I.

[49:31] Jenn: Was really mean, I'd turn it on you and say, what would you spend it on, Bianca? What would I spend $5,000 on? I think that I would spend it on broadcasting my podcast into different areas or doing something with my podcast. My podcast is my hero piece of content. So most things that I do come from my podcast, so whether that meant updating my systems or my mics or employing someone, I'm not quite sure about you, but I do all my own editing. So maybe I might sort of invest in an editor for maybe over the Christmas break so I didn't have to do it or something like that. But because my podcast is my hero piece of content, that's probably where I would spend my money. I am going to turn it on. You can cut it out. You're the editor of your own podcast, but what would you spend it on?

[50:30] Bianca: At the moment, I'm trying to redo my funnels, so I think I would probably spend either on someone who's really good at funnels because I can do it for other people, but I struggle to do it for my own yes, that and or a copywriter to set, like, to write the emails and yeah, sales pages.

[50:52] Jenn: I changed my answer. A copywriter to write my sales pages. I hate sales pages.

[50:57] Bianca: Yeah, they're so tricky. I don't know I find anything to do for myself. I find it really hard. I can see it in someone else else's business straight away. But then when I did sit and sit down and do my own, I just I really struggle. But, yeah, I would probably get a copywriter and like, someone who's really good at launch funnels.

[51:17] Jenn: Yeah, right. Very good. Thanks for answering that on your own podcast.

[51:21] Bianca: On my own podcast, yeah. I actually sit here listening to everyone's answers. I'm like, I don't know what, but yeah, no, I think that's where it would go right now. Well, let's wrap up. Yeah. That's the end of this week's show. If you have any questions about making your marketing a priority and anything else related to social media and marketing, head to social mediaandmarketing.com au. Awesome URL, by the way. Like, that's the best. URL. A really big thanks to you, Jen. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. It was lovely talking to you.

[51:56] Jenn: Thank you so much for having me. It's been such a great chat. Thank you.

[51:59] Bianca: We could keep going for it for days, I reckon. And thanks to you for listening. If you liked the show, don't forget to subscribe and leave a five star rating and review on itunes, Stitcher, Spotify or wherever you heard the podcast. Your review will help others find a show and learn more about the amazing world of online marketing. And don't forget to check out the show notes for this episode@newschoolofmarketing.com, where you can learn more about Jen. Check out Useful Links, download free resources and leave a comment about the show.