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Joanna Newton: I am
Joanna Newton: so excited to be filming this episode with you today, Michelle. It's actually been a couple of weeks since we have recorded an episode. We've both been traveling doing some [00:01:00] things. We prerecorded some stuff to keep ourselves organized and now. We're fresh off filming, and I'm excited to talk about today's topic because what we're covering is the ins and outs of marketing for female entrepreneurs in 2024. I know you've probably all seen the memes, the graphics people are talking about their 2024 ins and outs, and it got me thinking about the things that I wanna put in the past when it comes to my own marketing strategy and the strategies I build for other people, as well as what's really in and what I wanna focus on doing differently. So Michelle and I, we both wrote up some lists. We're gonna surprise each other with our ins and outs just talk through the ins and outs of marketing for female entrepreneurs in 2024.
Michelle Pualani: Absolutely. I'm so excited to connect again, it feels like it's been almost a month since we've had the opportunity to chat, and even though obviously we've been releasing content and getting things out there, it's so much fun to be in this environment. [00:02:00] So if you are thinking out, trying out a new channel or giving something a go, whether that's a podcast or YouTube or changing your social media channel up for a change, I really encourage you to do it 'cause it can give you a whole new sense of understanding of your industry An opportunity to be creative and really bring a little bit more vibrancy into your work, which is something that I feel like this podcast has done for me. It's reignited a passion and it's reignited interest, and it kind of allows you to explore topics that you maybe aren't normally on the daily basis in your business.
Michelle Pualani: So today we're talking ins and outs of marketing. And I wanna preface from myself with this, is that I feel like marketing is kind of like fashion, where you have people out there who are going to tell you like, webinars are dead, this type of marketing is dead. Don't do email anymore, email's dead. Or it's all about social dms.
Michelle Pualani: the truth is, is that nothing is dead unless it literally is a business that goes out or [00:03:00] down, right? You're using a software or tech platform and then they're no longer available. That maybe can be considered something that is quote unquote dead. But realistically, marketing has trends. It has phases, it has seasons and things are gonna come in and out and ebb and flow, a lot of the larger businesses that we see and that we pay attention to, they are still using very similar tactics that we've seen for the past 10 plus years in the online space. They're not going away. Maybe they're tweaked, maybe they're changed, maybe they're adjusted, maybe they're made more relevant to meet.
Michelle Pualani: Changes in advancements in technology, but realistically, they're not going away. They're still there. They're still active. So just keeping that in mind as we go through this conversation. It's not like this is never gonna work for you. There's all types of brands and businesses doing different types of marketing that work for them, that work for their market.
Michelle Pualani: Some people are more inclined to writing and copy, and some people are more inclined to video and graphics and [00:04:00] visuals. So you have to take all of that with a grain of salt and pay attention and tuned into what your marketing is doing for your business and for your people. Alright, so let's go ahead and dive in with our first, my first in and out, because Joanne and I have come up with these separately and we're gonna surprise each other with them.
Michelle Pualani: I bet we'll probably have some that are similar. But in any case, so the first one for me is. Something that we've seen as a trend for a long time, but I feel like I used to get a lot more advertisements that were very in your face, really trying hard to stop the scroll. Like whether that was a really dramatic entrance or something really pushy or something really aggressive or hey, you know, calling you out very specifically.
Michelle Pualani: I don't think that we're gonna see that in advertising and marketing as we move forward. We're really fostering more authentic, genuine connections and we can see that with the advertising space when it comes to sponsored content, Those [00:05:00] influencers who are getting paid with brand deals to sponsor content, but running the ads through their own channel builds that connection, that relationship building.
Michelle Pualani: So instead of taking that influencer and putting them on the brand's channel where it's disparate, it's not as connected, they're not tuned into the same audience, that organic, genuine, authentic connection where you just feel like you're tuning into someone's natural life. That is really where I think advertising marketing is continuing to head.
Michelle Pualani: Not that this is brand new, but I think that's a big part of where we're seeing again out is the really aggressive, in your face, very colorful, very bold, very like, Hey, you stop scrolling, da da, da, da. More like inviting you into the conversation as if you've been pals for a really long time.
Joanna Newton: That's such a good one to point out. Not on my list. So I feel like this is gonna be a really interesting podcast, but I totally agree with you. I think that consumers of content [00:06:00] are, are so smart, When you try to do a trick to get someone to engage with you, that sometimes oftentimes can end up being a turnoff to that person. It kind of makes you like roll your eyes and say like, why don't you actually give me something real instead of tricking me? To listen. Invite them into the conversation. the in and out that I will share is sort of related. And I'll explain, I think something that's out in 2024 is your traditional, typical brand account. I'm talking about the accounts that have a, traditional looking logo as the profile picture, showing glossy product images and, things like that. I think that's totally out People want to see a real person and instead what's in is an individual led brand account.
Joanna Newton: So a lot of the people we talk to are solopreneurs, [00:07:00] are working for themselves or have small companies, but. Sometimes they want to look like they're a whole brand, right? Speak on behalf of their logo. Talk in terms of we this is actually no, your time to shine, speak in, I terms, show your real life, show what you're doing and invite people in rather than. Give them that super curated, this is my business, this is my brand. I'm gonna get up and look a very, very specific way. Like be your honest, true self. And if you are a larger company, you have a bigger brand account thinking, how do you personalize it? Do you let it be actually a founder led account? Like have it be the founder's voice and the founder's face and the founder's day to day?
Joanna Newton: Or do you pick someone you know in your company to be that voice? A few years ago this is my 2024 in and out, but a few years ago, Duolingo did this with their TikTok account in a really creative way. So when they got on [00:08:00] TikTok. They got really silly and made the owl, the center. They made this big giant owl, the center of their TikTok account, and it went wild.
Joanna Newton: So instead of being like, oh, we're a brand, we're gonna post educational videos and we're gonna speak from brand terms, they made the TikTok account the owl as the subject, as the person people are following and finding creative ways to do that. To get away from your typical, clean, curated, glossy graphic brand account, and to actually show that individuality with having a person, a singular voice, kind of running the tone of your account.
Michelle Pualani: Such an excellent point, and this is something that I'm trying to keep in mind with TBH, our physical product business, and I like to think of. Red Bull when I'm thinking about imagining content for this account. Now, obviously not the extreme sports, not the demographic, not any of that, but Red Bull doesn't put pictures of their product online.[00:09:00]
Michelle Pualani: They don't do that. What they do is they appeal to the target market that they're pulling in of the consumers that they want drinking their product. And they do that by associating and affiliating with extreme sports activity, getting outside doing all of these wild things that you wouldn't think about doing, jumping out of planes, jumping out of helicopters into snowboarding stuff.
Michelle Pualani: You know, so thinking of what is the identity of the brand that you're creating and how you can you do that in a really interesting, unique, and authentic way. I think of Geico, right? The gecko. car insurance, but you are affiliating an entity, a person, and a A something, something that is anthropomorphized, right?
Michelle Pualani: Because they use a gecko. So it's not really, but he has a personality, he's got an accent. He's chummy. Like you connect with that so much more than you would with Geico as a term. Geico is a name. Geico is a brand, and the fact that it's car insurance. thinking of how you can bring that into your brand.
Michelle Pualani: Now, this kind of actually leads [00:10:00] into one of my TBD things that we'll share kind of towards the end. That's not necessarily in in an Out, but we will see how it goes. I think that it's been around for a little while and stay tuned because we'll cover that as we head towards the end of this episode. Now, the next thing in my ins and outs is similar to this, but particularly in regards to social media content that you're creating.
Michelle Pualani: What we are seeing that is out, and I've been hearing this from some larger content creators, is really overly flashy, edited videos putting in the motion graphics, crazy sounds happening all the time. Emojis popping up on the screen. Like we saw a really big trend of that I think in like 2022, headed into 2023.
Michelle Pualani: But realistically, again, that more authentic, genuine connection, which I think also works more for women too in their femininity and how they show up in their brand and their businesses. really focusing on the longer form, talking directly into the camera [00:11:00] is going to be what we're seeing and what we're headed into as we move into this year.
Michelle Pualani: What that can look like, can be different for everyone, whether that is staged and in a more professional setup, whether that is more organic outside in the world. But I think that we're just continuously seeing the barriers of social media being broken down in front of people. People really want that genuine connection.
Michelle Pualani: They wanna see you, they wanna hear you. They want to learn and know about you. You know, it's almost this, what I like to think of is a little bit of that obsessive, uh, celebrity culture. You know how you've al we've always had tabloids, right? You have these celebrities who have these really big presences, presences, is that a word?
Michelle Pualani: They have these, this big presence as, uh, onscreen or in. Fame, popular culture with the award shows everything that they're doing, interviews, et cetera. And we're, they're kind of looked at as like separate. But those who are really successful oftentimes [00:12:00] have social media accounts that give them all the behind the scenes of their normal daily lives.
Michelle Pualani: And people are obsessed with that stuff. They absolutely love it. It's the same with your brand and business. We put on this professional identity, The way that we show up online. And sometimes that can be, keeping our clients, our audience members at arms length. So as you think about your content, starting to engage directly with the camera, doing more of those long form video, talking directly to them, that's what I think we're gonna see in terms of content creation.
Michelle Pualani: And again, getting away from the super short flashy clip. This put everything in just kind of like overwhelm people. I think people are getting a little frazzled with that type of content.
Joanna Newton: I have always hated those videos. part of my company, we do video editing per people, and there are benefits to mindful b-roll and effects in things, especially in like long form content, especially when they're paying [00:13:00] for it too, to like illustrate things. it's kind of what you were talking about earlier, the stop the scroll tactics.
Joanna Newton: Like it's just there. To make you be like, what is that? Versus actually being there to help with the learning so in your content, that authenticity I think is so important that keeping it simple is so important. It'll also help you get more content out there, right?
Joanna Newton: If you're not worried about it being perfectly edited, you can just get it out in the world. A tiny little error or fumble in your words, or not having all the flash can totally get attention. And you also have to think about your target audience, right? Like, is that something your target audience actually works with?
Joanna Newton: I was talking to a client of mine who is, working on a new social media strategy and she's gone through all kinds of strategies She had tried a much more curated, glossy, kind of typical feel in her content and it [00:14:00] got less engagement than like janky memes. Because her audience, it didn't have to look perfect to get engagement because it was relatable, right?
Joanna Newton: And I think that's something that's really easy to forget. We see someone doing something super flashy. We see they're successful and we think, oh, we have to do that. You know, we have to do that to be successful. you know, one of my outs for 2024. I'm gonna qualify this a little bit more, but one of my outs is just following trends. I'm not saying you should never use a trending sound on TikTok. I'm not saying you should never do the thing, but you have to have an authentic, unique content type and voice of your own, You have to have a way that you show up, and that can mean a lot of things, you just need to develop that style, that sort of unique way that you show up in the world for yourself. I think of, Do you know? it's like [00:15:00] Angry Mama or Loud Tutorials, angry Food Tutorials or something. she is a mom. You know, she has a bunch of kids, I think she has two kids and a husband, and she does these food tutorials in her completely messy kitchen and like yells a lot. She just like yells while she does it like, I'm gonna do it this way 'cause that's how I do it. Do you know what I mean? Like that kind of attitude. And she's developed all of these catchphrases, she's done all of these things, right? And she's amassed like over, I don't know what she's at now, but I think I saw a video where she was celebrating having a million followers.
Joanna Newton: There's nothing aesthetic about it. There's nothing that's like anything I've seen anywhere else. she's doing her own thing, she created a unique content style for herself. Now, if there was a fun trend that fit what she did, would she do it? Maybe, I don't know. I don't study her account, so I'm not saying to never do a trend, but you have to develop your own unique point of view, way you create [00:16:00] content, how you do things, and then kind of get consistent with it.
Joanna Newton: Now she has catchphrases. She could create merch that have her catchphrases on it that are hers, right? She's building that uniqueness and. So something to think about, like, yeah, you can look at other people for in inspiration, but what do you wanna say? What do you want your content to look like? What feels right to you and what's gonna connect with your audience?
Michelle Pualani: I'm so grateful you bring this up because we are so often pulled into, oh, this is what has worked for me, and we wanna tap into that. We wanna be able to say, oh, you've reached a hundred thousand followers, 10,000 followers, a million followers. Oh, you have reached a hundred thousand dollars a month in income, a million dollars, whatever that looks like in terms of what you're reaching or stretching for.
Michelle Pualani: But just because it worked for them doesn't mean it's necessarily gonna work for you. There's so much energetics, there's so much personality, there's so much uniqueness, there's so much timing related to that as well. And sometimes someone's gotten through as we're talking about trends, when we're talking about phases and [00:17:00] seasons.
Michelle Pualani: Okay. Sometimes people really came up when the algorithm was favorable to the type of content they were producing at the time, and then maybe that has shifted. Again, if you're trying to just pull from other people, and I have done this too and just fit into the trend model, that will definitely take you to a certain degree they that will get you so far.
Michelle Pualani: But if you are looking to carve out a space for yourself and create a long-term brand, which is where I am, and what I'm realizing is, oh, I need to craft my own unique identity with content creation and I need to find what suits and fits me. I've tried the trends and I've tried, even just recently, I posted a back and forth of a coaching, which I thought I would never do, and that's kind of like a trend because it's a style of content that I've seen before, but doing it in a way that fits and works for me and surprisingly, it did really well.
Michelle Pualani: So just starting to learn where you fit in is so important. And when I think about true thought leadership, which is again, the goal of my brand [00:18:00] is becoming a thought leader in my space and in the industry. It's not going to be through copy and pasting or trying to do what someone else is doing or looking at somebody else's content and just doing the exact or similar thing with your spin on it, it is going to take a little bit more thought, a little bit more intention and almost letting like what's internal to you come out.
Michelle Pualani: And so that's what I'm working on right now is saying, okay, paying attention to what's happening online so that I'm not completely deaf to, you know, the things that we're seeing in social trends and movements, but tuning into what is my internal knowing, saying about where I want my brand to go, how I wanna show up, and what it is that I feel like I'm here to communicate.
Michelle Pualani: Because I think our message is so much a part of our brand. What are we trying to do in the world? What's our purpose? What's our passion? And how can we more intentionally share that? So next one is a little bit more tactical in the ins and outs, but what we are seeing a ton of, and this cropped up in 2023.
Michelle Pualani: Maybe [00:19:00] beforehand, but I wasn't aware of it beforehand, is the many chat. Now this is specifically a software situation, but when people say, comment a certain phrase or DM a certain phrase, and then they're using a software tool in order to send them to an opt-in page or send them to a link or send them to a different type of conversation, maybe a back and forth with a bot type of thing.
Michelle Pualani: That's not something that I had seen previously, and it's become really big and it's. growing people's social media businesses and a lot of women that I follow so massively like it is huge. The people who have the reach and get the engagement and have that comment or that DM a call to action, sometimes you're getting hundreds if not thousands of comments engaging with that.
Michelle Pualani: So not only is it pushing you up on the algorithm, it's helping you reach and engage more people, but you're actually converting those people who are now paying attention to you. So instead of like head to my LinkedIn [00:20:00] bio or something, another term that people have used for a while that's like, check this out or go to this link.
Michelle Pualani: I know I still see some people like link the actual link in Instagram that, which is I get it, but don't do that in terms of, that's just like, that's probably for always an out. But in any case,
Joanna Newton: that's been an out since Instagram began, but people still do it.
Michelle Pualani: Maybe if it's like a super simple link and you are just like, Hey, this is my website, you know, and that way people are kind of getting in tune with that. Okay, that's fine. But if you really want
Michelle Pualani: someone to take action and go somewhere, you've gotta give them something else. So that's what I'm seeing is super in.
Michelle Pualani: I'm seeing it everywhere. And some of our top accounts and female business owners who are making bank off of this evergreen model, because it is an evergreen model, right? You're not technically live launching. For most people that I see, it's usually opt-in to some sort of free asset, whether that's a workshop, whether that's a masterclass, whether that is a guide or audio or something.
Michelle Pualani: [00:21:00] And then taking them through the sales series and doing that in kind of like a deadline funnel type of energy. But in any case, that's a big one that I see as an in and out.
Joanna Newton: a variation of, that was on my list, so I'll share that one next. my out was the phrase. Link in bio. I think that that phrase has been overused, and the truth is, people kind of know your link is gonna be in your bio. I'm 100% with you with that DM comment. That strategy's absolutely fantastic.
Joanna Newton: At the same time, if your link is in the bio and you are on Instagram, people now these days know if you're saying like, Hey, check out the link. people kind of know that it's going to be in your bio at this point. Like there's a, there's a knowing of the platform that it's almost unnecessary. Like you only have so much time that people will listen to your video, read what you do. getting more creative with your CTAs is my in, right? Like [00:22:00] there's things people say that all the time. Comment and like for the next video, follow me for more Lincoln Bio, all of those phrases. People kind of know if they like their content, they're going to follow you. Now you still need to do something to give a really clear CTA of what you want to do, but you can do that in a more intelligent, natural human way.
Joanna Newton: Like what would you say if you were talking to a person in real life, how would you invite them to stay in and leave more? Send me a DM with your questions. That's a natural way to move on. Like, let's talk more, right? Let's chat. Leave me a comment about what you're thinking about, right? share this with a friend who you think needs to hear this.
Joanna Newton: those are all much more natural engaging ways. make sure to check out the other videos on my page because I talk more about this topic. That will lead someone to your profile. They'll watch a couple videos they'll likely follow, right? So those really stiff Lincoln bio follow for [00:23:00] more like very social media hyped phrases I think are out.
Joanna Newton: And we need to focus on really clear, true engagement CTAs that bring us together.
Michelle Pualani: You know, I still see a lot of. Types of brands and businesses in social media and in larger marketing doing certain tactics. And I think an important distinction to make here is how do you want your business and brand to show up? Because there's a hundred million different ways you can cut the cake, and it depends on how you want to be perceived in the online space.
Michelle Pualani: And I have thought deeply about that. Again, there are certain types of avenues of, I'm not gonna use the term unethical, but potentially could be unethical ways of marketing and selling. And some people are fine to do that, and it might be like a flash in the pan situation. It might be an overnight type of thing.
Michelle Pualani: It might be a short term gain. But what does it [00:24:00] do to your brand, to your likeness, to the long term? Really integrity of how you're showing up and not to mention the psychology of what comes along with that. If you get used to doing those types of things and you get those quick wins, what about when you try something that's a little bit more long term and you don't see the success right away?
Michelle Pualani: Do you quit and do you give up sooner? again, thinking about the multidimensional approach to your brand and to your business, how you're creating that, and then how you're marketing it overall. What do you want that to be? What do you want that to look like? How do you wanna show up? And what do you feel good about doing?
Michelle Pualani: You know, when you go to sleep at night, when you are moving through the rest of your life, are you confident with that? again, it's not a good or bad situation, it's more so what is right for you in that instance. keeping that in mind and using that discernment for yourself as we think about some of these topics.
Michelle Pualani: Now, this one is a super controversial one I know because just like I prefaced in the [00:25:00] beginning is that everything has seasons. Everything has phases, and there are lots of businesses doing very successful things with everything that we've talked about as in and out, both right? So there are things that are gonna work for one brand and business and not gonna work for another and vice versa.
Michelle Pualani: And this one is one that I know is super incredibly successful for multimillion dollar businesses. However, I do think that it is more of an out than anything else is long drawn out live launches. I think that what I saw the other day from a really great content creator that I follow, is that he was talking about your individual pieces of content and marketing need to be available and accessible without context.
Michelle Pualani: What does that mean? That means that previously in social media and in our marketing, we were able to do more of a succession, right? It was almost like building, like I used to do a lot of like day one, day two, go back and look at this piece of content. they all kind of worked [00:26:00] together. And now that's not necessarily the case.
Michelle Pualani: The way that social media and the way that some of our marketing platforms are set up, people need to see one piece of content in isolation and make a decision. They're not gonna go back and watch multiple pieces of content necessarily every single time. So you need to be able to say what you're gonna say.
Michelle Pualani: You need to be able to do it in a concise way that does not need context from anything outside of your brand. keeping that in mind, the whole like long drawn out live launch process is incredibly taxing. It's tiring. It can be really frustrating and I. It can really limit your potential for income generation to that period of time.
Michelle Pualani: Again, there are multimillion dollar brands and big businesses that we follow. James Wedmore, Amy Porterfield, lots of those big names who do these live launches. They have the team, they have the finances, they have the experience, and they have the templates from doing it over and over and over again. So they are refining it and [00:27:00] that's why they're able to reach larger numbers every time, and that's why they're able to impact more people every time and it kind of snowballs.
Michelle Pualani: So if you are at that point in your business, that's awesome, but for some of us that are more just getting started, I do think that the evergreen or prerecorded process. Is more profitable, more successful, and more accessible to us on a smaller scale. And so that can look like having, again, that deadline funnel or some sort of time-based setup where someone's investing in you, they're finding you, and then they're learning about you and they're getting converted within a shorter period of time instead of waiting for that one quarterly or annual launch that you do that's really long and you're building up and everything else.
Michelle Pualani: It's not to say that live launches are bad, and it's not to say that they aren't still incredibly beneficial and that you should, if you've never launched anything before, you should probably launch it live to test it out and understand it. But I am seeing so much more success with the Evergreen and the prerecorded content for a lot of the female women in business that I am [00:28:00] seeing, especially in the online and the social media space and the way that they're running their marketing and the way that they're reaching people.
Michelle Pualani: The other thing is that as consumers, like you mentioned. We are getting smarter. We are more aware. We have been through the pandemic, and so we are a lot more familiar with the online space, what's happening, buying digital products online, learning Zoom, et cetera, workshop, webinars, master classes, and so whereas we used to have this model of, oh yeah, sign up for it, anticipate it, get excited, and then go to it.
Michelle Pualani: That's not happening as much again, unless you're a bigger name, unless you have the audience size for it, unless you're really, really tuned into your niche and your marketing and you're really dialed in. Again, there are smaller businesses I see that use this very successfully, but for some of us, I just feel like it's.
Michelle Pualani: Too much for not enough reward. And as a consumer, now you're putting them in a place of waiting and they may find somebody else to solve that problem or to invest in that outcome or transformation that they're [00:29:00] looking for because you're making them wait. So I think that as consumers, we are wanting more immediate things.
Michelle Pualani: I wanna sign up for the webinar, and I actually don't even wanna show up live. I just wanna watch the prerecorded. Like I just wanna watch it after the fact in my own time, in my own setting, and the way that I want to engage with it. And then I wanna make my decision. I don't wanna have to wait a week, a month, a year, however long that's gonna be.
Joanna Newton: while you were talking, you actually made me add another in and out to my list. cause you made me think about something. I think that one thing that is totally out. False scarcity is totally wrong. And I'll tell you, I don't have the data to back this up, in my working experience, I find that when, when creating a marketing strategy campaign, I found men to be much more comfortable with like. False scarcity tactics than women. it gives me the ick, when you say something's limited and it's not really when you say there's 50 seats and that's not [00:30:00] true and all of that. I worked for a company that shortly after this episode, I actually quit, but once I found a new job that parent company kind of got taken over, like I got bought and there was a new parent company and I was like, eventually, somehow everyone got laid off and I was the only marketing person, so I was doing all of the marketing and this is like a, you know, big name brand, right?
Joanna Newton: This isn't like a small company. This is like a big name brand. Millions and millions and millions of dollars of sales a year. I'm the one marketing person and they wanted to have a daily discount so that on the website every day it said, ending today. But it wasn't ending today. It was constantly ending today.
Joanna Newton: And this really, truly and honestly bothered me. I was like, we either have a sale or we don't, and then it comes off sale and I think one of the things with those like live drawn out launches, unless there's actually a reason, [00:31:00] there's a start date and an end date to that launch, it doesn't make sense to me. Now, I think for creators, live launches work when there's a reason. If you're running a cohort based course that has some live sessions in that six week timeframe, makes sense then there's a reason. Then it's our first session is on April 1st, sign up before April 1st.
Joanna Newton: That makes sense to me. Or maybe there's some sort of community involved, like if there's a reason for it to be live, then make it live. But if there's no reason, there's no benefit to being live, then how you drum up success would be more through promotions, You either do a period of time when it's on sale and then it should actually go off sale. Or you do a period of time where if you sign up now you get this extra bonus or you get an hour strategy session with Like you can do sales like that to drive urgency, but false scarcity is totally out. If [00:32:00] you wanna say there's only 50 seats in this program, there should be 50 seats in that program.
Joanna Newton: And then, yeah, sell that all you want, Say there's four seats left, three seats left, so someone got the last spot, but then that should be real. So totally get out of false scarcity. If you want things to drive urgency, make them real offers, right? Actual, real, genuine offers. And I think what replaces that, you know, in my in is just like a true sense of community.
Joanna Newton: If you're selling digital pro products, educational products, you need to build a community around what you're doing. And that's through social media. A private Facebook group, there's so many ways you can do that, but actually building a community that connects with you. when your cohort based class starts, people want that time with you.
Joanna Newton: They're gonna opt in, they're gonna be interested, and you say, I'm actually going live you could get this course evergreen right now at this price or April 1st. I'm gonna be starting this [00:33:00] live cohort that you can join me and I'll be live. And then once you have a community, they might know you do that cohort in April and December. Every year. Then your community that you've cultivated and knows what you do, they have that choice to join the Evergreen because they want it now.
Joanna Newton: Like you're talking about Michelle, like they just wanna make that decision now. Or they can say, Hey, actually I know she does this in April, you know, live every year. I'm just gonna wait because I want that live component. Right? And you have those options for, for your customers. And they're aware of them because there's, there's a community involved and they know what's going on.
Michelle Pualani: One of the things that you're doing really intently with your audience and with the work that you do is building trust, right? You have to build trust and rapport with folks. They have to be able to trust you in order to invest in, you typically sometimes fly by the seat of our pants, like we just invest in something.
Michelle Pualani: We don't really know the person that well. It ends up not working out so great. But you don't want that, right? You don't want that in your business. You [00:34:00] want people to feel like they trust in you, feel like they really respect and have that rapport with you, and that's one. Of the things that Joanna's really highlighting here is that not using false scare tactics, which includes that scarcity When you think of those furniture stores and every single day they're just going outta business and you drive by enough times to be like, oh, well I'm never going in there.
Michelle Pualani: 'cause they're obviously, apparently always going outta business And some people are gonna feed into that and some people aren't. But what are the types of people that you want in your community, that you want in your products and your programs, and for you as a listener, just to distinguish between scarcity and urgency, because they are technically different.
Michelle Pualani: Scarcity is limited space, limited quantity. Urgency is limited time. So urgency is okay to do because you're helping someone make a decision, right? So if you, for example, if someone signs up to something and they have a limited time window to make that decision for them, even though your process is evergreen and they can continue to sign up at a later date, it's helpful to them to put them in the yes or no camp [00:35:00] scarcity in saying there's only one spot available when there's actually a thousand.
Michelle Pualani: That's different. and what Joanne is talking about, where is if there's only 50 seats, that is a real sense of scarcity because you only have so much time. You have only so much bandwidth. Say you're doing a group coaching program and you're also doing one-to-one, with that program, you can maybe only work with 10 people in that cohort.
Michelle Pualani: That is creating real scarcity because you only have so much limited availability and the opportunity for someone to get what they need out of the program. It's important that you have that limited space, So with this is really understanding the why and the intention of your marketing is so critical here.
Michelle Pualani: Because when you can show up with really truly believing in it as well, that makes all the difference in your delivery and whether people are gonna buy into it or not. Now my last thing on the list for ins and outs, and again, this one, I think I ended it with my two more controversial ones, whereas I feel like the other ones were like, okay, yeah, I could totally see that.
Michelle Pualani: Now this [00:36:00] one has to do with marketing and not sales, and I'll clarify why, but I think it is out to not have a website in regards to marketing. And I'll bring up the caveat of the website is that it's not. A platform that is just your home about you contact, like not your old school style website, but there needs to be somewhere that you own, that you collect data, whether that is traffic when it comes to your Facebook pixel or Google Analytics and or, but it should be both opt-ins and emails, right?
Michelle Pualani: Because I think the importance of owning your audience, owning your business, owning your brand is so much more important. It's always been important, but it's so much more important today than it ever has been with the ability to get banned, kicked off of your social media. Platforms are the main channels and streams that you're marketing a certain area dries up for you.
Michelle Pualani: Whether that's collaborations or referrals or anything else, is that you [00:37:00] really need to own the asset of your business. And for me, in the digital space, that means you need to have a URL website in which you are sending traffic to. Do you make sales in the dms? Absolutely. Do you still do a lot of work there?
Michelle Pualani: Totally fine, but realistically, I do think that everyone should have some form of a website. Whether that is just a landing page with an opt-in, whether that is just a link page, you know it, not the link tree situation, but you're actually owning the traffic. It's only gonna help you in your business, even as a creator for you to be able to understand the analytics.
Michelle Pualani: I just had a little consult with a content creator who's kind of newer to the space and they have a good following. They have good engagement. They've started working with brands, getting paid for their brand deals, but they have no information about their audience. No information because they don't have their website properly set up.
Michelle Pualani: They didn't have Facebook Pixel, they didn't have Google Analytics. and [00:38:00] weren't even growing a list. So those assets that you can own in your business are so, so important. So what does that mean when it's in is one, owning that asset, but also really leveraging, and this is kind of a separate topic, but really leveraging SEO and keywords for Google ranking.
Michelle Pualani: I think that there was a time when blogging and articles were like super popular and then they kind of faded out a bit as social media started to ramp up. But I think that we're seeing Google be more important, and I don't know if that has to do with Google offloading aspects of their business model.
Michelle Pualani: Like they're closing down certain avenues, like podcasts, they're closing down. URLs, right? They just shifted over to Squarespace and sold out. So I think that they're really gonna pare down, which is actually an exciting thing, I think for Google as a business and as a business model, is actually getting back to what their main focus is and how they make their money and the way that they're able to support their customers.
Michelle Pualani: I think that's a [00:39:00] really exciting thing. But we're seeing that already with social media and social channels, is like not using hashtags as much and using more the SEO and the keywords. all of that being said is putting those together and thinking of this website, this presence, how do you own it?
Michelle Pualani: How do you drive traffic? How do you kind of capture people? How do you capture those assets in your business and and focus on that.
Joanna Newton: That's such great advice. two thoughts on that. First is every company solopreneur, any of those folks that I've worked with, they make the majority of their money from their email list. And I'm not saying you can't get direct from social media conversions. It happens. It's possible, but normally someone finds you on social media or through a blog post or something like that.
Joanna Newton: They connect with you a little bit deeper by joining your email list through a freebie or opting into your newsletter [00:40:00] or whatever it is. then that purchase decision comes when they get an email urging them to purchase That's when that conversion actually happens. So if you're not taking the time to build that, you know, creating a website, driving traffic to it, building an email list, in that way, you are likely probably not selling as much as you could if you're even selling in your dms. The other thing too is, and, and this is something. That's kind of unrelated, but related is the idea of like using a link tree or some other platform. When you have a website, when you have URLs, when you have traffic to that site, you can use that traffic to do retargeting ads, So that can be huge for your business because if you have a blog, people are visiting, if you have pages, so say you don't get them to opt in and you have their email, you can still find them, through those retargeting ads.
Joanna Newton: But you have to own that traffic, right? That's something that you need. Now you can do retargeting ads to people who've viewed your Instagram videos and things like that. That's a [00:41:00] possibility. But that website traffic's gonna be so much more high intent, Someone came to your website and then they get an ad from you.
Joanna Newton: That's super, super powerful. the other thing too is you mentioned. All of that could go away. You know, you might be able to run a successful Etsy shop with an Instagram or a Pinterest paired with an Etsy shop, right? And be really successful. What happens? Something happens and Pinterest changes or goes away, when Elon Musk bought Twitter, people fled the platform, All of a sudden engagement on Twitter went down. Follower accounts of count went down by the thousands overnight, So you don't control that as much as you do your website, your traffic, your email list. So that website's in a major asset.
Joanna Newton: And I say this as a person who doesn't have a website for my business
Michelle Pualani: Well, I wanna point out that we are discussing marketing and not sales, right? That's a big distinction in this discussion, and that's why it is with a caveat. And I do think that you you can build an [00:42:00] incredibly successful business and successful in the terms of you can make money by not having a website.
Michelle Pualani: But if you were thinking of market. On an overarching scale, and we talked a lot about social media today, but as a female entrepreneur, you may be getting on other people's podcasts. You may be in other people's Facebook groups. You may be coordinating with other larger platforms and actually reaching them through all of these different modalities.
Michelle Pualani: In the online space, there's, hundreds of ways you can reach people in the online space, So making sales is a totally different distinction than it is in marketing. So if you're doing larger efforts when it comes to your marketing, having that website where you are collecting that traffic is super important.
Joanna Newton: yeah, I'll add that. I know we've talked about this on other episodes, but you know, I've built my business with no website. We've built it all through sales, through making connections in that arena. This year we're starting marketing efforts, and that won't start until we have a website, We'll be starting, like our YouTube channel is about ready to [00:43:00] launch. Our website is about ready to launch, and those two things in my mind go together. Once we have YouTube, we need a place to send traffic to that's ours. So we can collect emails. So you can like phase out your marketing strategy based on your priorities, your needs, what you have. But these are things to consider as you grow. my last in and out for 2024, the out is overly complicated funnels. and there's a lot of reasons for this. One, we've talked about people being smart, So when you have like a super smart, flashy, really complicated funnel, a million steps, a million clicks, like people kind of get what's going on. it feels outdated, to be honest, like super, super outdated to me. The other thing too that I think people underestimate is the upkeep of over complicated funnels. you are a solopreneur, or even if you're a big business, you're a solopreneur, when you make one change to one [00:44:00] funnel, you probably have a bunch of other cha matching changes you have to go make. That's a lot of time, A lot of time. If you are a bigger business that has employees, when there is turnover. Those funnels break, it's gonna happen, right? Because there was something someone was doing to keep that system together that they leave.
Joanna Newton: It doesn't happen. It breaks. So I just don't think you need really complicated funnels to sell. Do you need funnels? Yes. Should you have a path for your users? Yes. But have you ever gone to someone's Instagram account that has a thousand different funnels that they could opt into? You don't know as a user which one to opt into, where to go, what to do, like done.
Joanna Newton: Let's go away from that. Instead, as a business owner you focus on. giving real value, if you are a business owner and you are consulting on a particular topic, and you just have a fantastic newsletter that actually has really, really great value in, people are gonna wanna opt in and they're gonna wanna engage with you, And then when you, when you have a sale or a launch [00:45:00] or something new, they're gonna listen because you've provided them true value and connection. and so many people get so worried, is this, is this button optimized? Is this until you have 5,000 site visitors a day, just follow general best practices, For, buttons and things like that. Give value and then the money will come When you're doing six figures a month, you can go ahead and optimize for the button colors and the all the things. But until then, just keep to the basics.
Michelle Pualani: I couldn't agree more. so one of the people that I actually look up to in regards to this is her first 100 K. She focuses on financial education, business advice for women entrepreneurs, and she's wonderful.
Michelle Pualani: And hey, we should get her as a guest on this podcast at some point
Joanna Newton: Oh my gosh, future. I'm putting it out there so that we manifest that.
Joanna Newton: put it out there in the world. She's manifesting like a date with Tim Timothy Shale. Is that how you say his
Michelle Pualani: Oh, [00:46:00] timay.
Joanna Newton: Yeah, I don't know his name. I'm
Joanna Newton: so bad.
Michelle Pualani: Tim
Joanna Newton: anyway.
Michelle Pualani: Ome
Joanna Newton: She's manifesting the world to go on a date with him. I will manifest her coming on our podcast.
Michelle Pualani: I like that. I like that a lot. Okay, so in any case, so she has built up her presence so well on her marketing channels, social media, predominantly TikTok, when she first got started, I think in the 2020 era as well, pandemic era. She was very intentional about how she curated her content to draw on the type of person that she was looking for.
Michelle Pualani: Her ideal client and her audience members when I actually went through her funnels, they are incredibly simple, they're very basic. They're not actually even that I. Well curated, at least at this particular time. I haven't looked at them recently, but they actually weren't even technically that well curated for the page.
Michelle Pualani: They were kind of clunky. And then when she delivered the content, it was in a doc in Google Docs. It wasn't anything fancy. It wasn't anything special, but she had built a multimillion dollar [00:47:00] business in this way. So I think that we get so hung up, and I've done this before in the past too, is that without building the audience, without building the trust on the front end, without actually creating that brand identity and connecting in that way, you focus so much on the back end of your business and you try to optimize and you try to make it look really pretty and you try to do all these things to do really great products, really great programs, really great landing pages and emails.
Michelle Pualani: And if I just get this right, then I'll get people to buy from me. But it's not true. And I have seen the most basic of funnels and the most basic of pages do really, really well because on the front end they have. Really nailed their messaging. They have connected with their buyer and their consumer, and they have convinced them before they even get to the pages.
Michelle Pualani: So a lot of times we're just focused on the wrong things in that way. So I think that's an excellent point to bring up.
Joanna Newton: So, with what you said, I want everyone who's listening to think about the last time they purchased something, what was the deciding factor?
Joanna Newton: [00:48:00] And I'll tell you that a sales page in an email sequence never made my decision for me, Something else got me interested in that product. Now, that sales page gave it a little more credibility to make me feel comfortable making the purchase. The email may have reminded me. To make the purchase, but my decision wasn't made from the sales page or the email.
Joanna Newton: It was from a connection or a need that I had. Right? Like I had a need. This person's telling me they have a solution in a YouTube video in a thing. I then go to their website and I'm like, oh, let me check out that freebie. I get the freebie, I'm getting the emails. But that's not what made me make my purchase decision. It was something else. Either an intrinsic need I had, they were available and they were easy to work with, right? They were easy to get there to that place, and they sent me reminders. They kept top [00:49:00] of mind, but that's not where the decision was made.
Michelle Pualani: We are talking about marketing overall ins and outs of marketing for 2024 for female entrepreneurs. But we have talked a little bit about conversion because marketing does lead into sales, and that's such an important and key component. So we are talking about this conversion piece just a little bit here in this way.
Michelle Pualani: And I wanna highlight that people buy off of emotion and they justify with logic and rationale. What does that mean? Is that they're gonna be emotionally moved to buy from you to make a decision with you, to convert, to become a customer, to become a buyer, a client, a student, whatever it is that you're looking for, based off of some emotional feeling.
Michelle Pualani: And then they're going to justify that off of rationale. And you have different types of buyer personas, which we should totally do an episode about. By the way, There are different types of buyer personas who are going to invest, learn, and make their decision based off of different things.
Michelle Pualani: We'll get into that in another episode, but realistically, people are going [00:50:00] to have that emotional thing that inkling that reason for investing. then again, they justify. So you're totally right. The pages, yes, you need that authority, You need the credibility so that someone knows that it's not a scam. But realistically, all of that decision making is often gonna happen through the emotion, which is such an important thing to keep in mind. Okay. So TBD, faceless marketing accounts, that has been something that I have seen popping up all over the place.
Michelle Pualani: And let me be real, because faceless marketing has obviously been around for a long time. Like that's nothing new again, phases, trends, seasons, but this has become such a big thing on Instagram specifically. So I have no real thoughts or opinions on it right now. I think that, you know, it makes sense to have content that is more aesthetic and people like watching it.
Michelle Pualani: And it's not necessarily someone's face. Exactly. Um, there is a human component, right? 'cause the, the people and the women especially that I'm [00:51:00] seeing often have. bodies, different parts of themselves, their hands are in it or things like that because that does increase the engagement and the paying attention of your audience members and those who are consuming the marketing.
Michelle Pualani: But I'm interested to hear your thoughts on this one, Joanna, as the faceless marketing accounts have kind of come out recently.
Joanna Newton: I love that you brought this up because I actually recently built a strategy for someone around if they wanted to do a faceless marketing account, so I've done a little bit of thinking and research on this. I think faceless marketing can totally, totally work. And I think all of the rules that we just talked about still apply, I think sometimes people wanna build a faceless marketing account because they think it will be easier in some ways. But if you're using stock B-roll. typical motivational quotes, graphics, stock pictures. I don't think you're gonna build anything impactful, But it's about what we talked about earlier, [00:52:00] creating your own unique content. If you wanna create, I saw this video of a woman doing a faceless account the way she had her lighting, you couldn't see her face, but you could like see her body and she was dancing, right? This is a real person behind a real count doing a real thing. She just doesn't wanna show her face. and I was talking to someone today who's thinking about starting an Etsy shop. You could do a faceless account with your Etsy shop, showing your hands, making all of the different things, and having text about what you do, why you do it, and not wanna show you face. I think the point is here, there has to be uniqueness, there has to be authenticity. It can't be stock AI videos and quotes. And then I'd also add, I think your offer and that strategy have to match, If you're trying to sell. One-on-one coaching. I don't think a faceless account is right for you. it just isn't. So I think you just have to make sure that the [00:53:00] two things actually go together.
Joanna Newton: Does that make sense? .
Michelle Pualani: So faceless marketing has essentially been around for a very long time. It just happened to have popped up as this brand new thing where people are starting accounts that don't show their faces, and you can do that in all different ways. Again, there have been, I think, art accounts that have done this for a really long time.
Michelle Pualani: There are lots of food accounts, there are lots of mixing accounts for mixology and drinks and things like that that mostly just show the product itself or whatever they're doing and it together. So again, I don't think it's a brand new concept. I think that it just became this new trend that people were talking about, especially for more introverted folks who don't wanna show up and talk to the camera.
Michelle Pualani: And since we just talked about the fact that doing those more long, candid conversations direct into the camera are going to be very in in this new year. I think that there are people pushing back on that a little bit. So I think it'll be interesting to see kind of where they go and whether they can create, again, a long-term brand of people who are following them.
Michelle Pualani: There's a really wonderful copywriter that I [00:54:00] follow, and all she does is carousel posts with copy on them. She has kind of like a picture of herself in the last slide, but ultimately she's selling copy. So what you said about it has to make sense with what it is that you're offering is huge. uh, Justin Welsh is someone I follow on LinkedIn.
Michelle Pualani: He sells a course on LinkedIn growth and strategy. Does that make sense? Yes. Because he has demonstrated his growth with LinkedIn strategy and engagement. so keeping in mind that the way that your marketing has to tie in with your offer successfully. Al, he actually doesn't sell anything related to productivity, which I thought was really interesting. I was paying attention to this recently, even though that's essentially what he's known for as an expert in growth on YouTube. but he actually sells how to be successful on YouTube because he's demonstrated that success.
Michelle Pualani: So keeping those things in mind, how does what you're marketing tie in with your offer and how do they connect and how do they link and making those two make sense? Now, the last thing that I wanna offer before we wrap up today is a tool [00:55:00] that ties in with this. So sometimes it's really nice to see what other people are doing to learn about how maybe some of the bigger brands you look up to, or even some of the smaller brands that you're like, what are the ads that they're running?
Michelle Pualani: How are they being successful right now? What does that look like? Now, of course you can check their organic channels, but there is something called the Facebook Ad Library, and it's a tool that I love to use to scope out what are other people putting their paid marketing dollars into? Because if they're probably working on a paid strategy, they're likely gonna work on an organic strategy as well.
Michelle Pualani: Just maybe a little bit of a different approach. So go to Google. You can type in Facebook ad library and it'll pull up a page in which you can type in a particular business, a particular content creator as someone that you look up to. And if they are running ads, they will show you active ads that they are running.
Michelle Pualani: So you can look at the imagery, you can look at the video content, you can look at the copy and it'll give you a [00:56:00] good sense of, this is what's working for others right now, and this is how I can maybe replicate it or give it my own unique twist or approach it from my particular direction.
Michelle Pualani: It's just kind of helpful when you're doing that market research and understanding like what's working if you don't have a huge budget to invest in your particular ads to get started. To test and test and test. So we are releasing this episode very close to International Women's Day, March 8th, 2024. And we just wanna highlight for a moment and really celebrate the women in this community and the women all over the world doing amazing, wonderful things. I just found this data point on Statista that so at least in America. There are only 0.36% of people who are entrepreneurs. That means out of a hundred thousand people, there are only 360 of us who are actually creating businesses.
Michelle Pualani: Being entrepreneurs and doing this 0.36% is not a lot. So just acknowledging and recognizing that if you are [00:57:00] working on your business, if you are starting a business, if you're thinking about it, that you are in a very small percentage of people and then being women out of that number, it's even smaller.
Michelle Pualani: So we are here celebrating you. We are honoring you, and we are really recognizing that what you're doing is not easy. You're not in it alone, and that we are here cheering you on and supporting you the entire way.
Joanna Newton: and I'll add to that, that unfortunately a lot of the content and the strategies and the advice out there for entrepreneurs is very male centric, You're getting strategies and advice that I've worked for male, so solopreneurs, and that might not be the way you wanna do things. And I hope that through our podcast, through our content, we're able to provide that perspective to encourage you to mo move forward in your business.
Joanna Newton: And if you look at sort of the theme throughout a lot of our ins and outs that we all talked about today, it's a big [00:58:00] focus on authenticity, true engagement. I. Building a community, being yourself, Doing all of those things, which go against a lot of what a lot of like bro marketer types are going to tell you to do. And we wanna encourage you as business owners to build the business, build the content, build the systems that feel right and authentic to you.
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What is one thing you can do today to prioritize you in business and life?
