646: Mindset, Market, Message, Medium, Money, Manage, and Measure: Get Your Messaging Right for Your Funnels with Trish Saemann

Speaker 1 0:00 Marketer of the day. Episode 646, mindset, market, message, medium, money, manage and measure. Get your messaging right for your funnels with Trish. Salmon.

Robert Plank 0:18 Hey everyone, and welcome back to the marketer of the day podcast. We're here with Trish salmon, and we had trish's husband on a little while ago, and you can find his episode at marketer of the day.com forward slash 395 and Trish and Brian are both with go beyond SEO, which is a digital marketing firm, and they're also with creative clarity, which is a business coaching and entrepreneurial education company, and Trish is a graduate of the internationally recognized Goldman Sachs 10k SB program at Babson College, and we're going to have a lot of fun. Trish is a straightforward person. She's a results focused marketing expert, and she's intent on helping entrepreneurs get more clients that they love. So if you're if you don't want any more clients, if you don't want a business, if you hate making money, then shut this podcast off right now. But if you're the least bit curious about what more things are possible, then sit up. Pay very close attention. Take lots of notes. So Trish, how's it going today?

Speaker 2 1:16 It's going great. Thanks so much for having me.

Robert Plank 1:18 Glad to have you. So what is your focus and what is the difference between you and Brian in your agency?

Speaker 3 1:26 Oh, that's a really, that's a really great question. So our focus is, we do like to work with entrepreneurs, but not exclusively. There are some people who, you know, they have a marketing role inside their organization. We can help them out where the big difference between Brian and I lays is more in the operations versus the actual marketing messaging. Messaging is definitely more my my speed, whereas the operations and funnel creation, things like that is more in Brian's camp. So we're very complimentary, which, it's been really fun working with him,

Robert Plank 2:00 yeah, and especially where I don't know if you've if you have this issue, but there are just some parts of marketing where just I can't wrap my head around it, or it's it's not very exciting. So for example, in my case, like I'm, for whatever reason, not great at traffic, not great with the affiliate stuff, but I am great with more, like the copywriting, conversion, getting web pages and getting back back in membership sites working. So that's kind of weird, right? How? Like, there's just some aspects of marketing where our brain just won't cooperate, and that's why we sometimes need other people with those complementary skills.

Speaker 3 2:38 I completely agree. You know, what's most interesting thing about marketing, to me is that it's so broad. It's like saying, Well, I'm a biologist. Okay, so do you study animals? Do you study plants? Do you study the species? Like, what part of it do you study? Same thing with marketing, there's everything from affiliate marketing to market research to messaging to branding to building those funnels and conversion rates and things like that. There's so much to cover that it's pretty rare that you'll find any one person who can truly drill down on all arenas. I mean, just pens with your company's name on it is a form of marketing. So there's there's all different kinds of things as to how to get your message across. And then I can actually understand why a lot of entrepreneurs hire marketing experts, because they're an expert in their field, but not necessarily in marketing, and there's so much ground to cover. So yeah, I completely agree with you that there are certain aspects where some marketers might be more of an expert in, say, digital, whereas other marketers might be more focused on funnel creation and research things like that.

Robert Plank 3:39 And you say that your expertise is in messaging. So what does that mean exactly?

Speaker 3 3:44 So I think where people make huge mistakes with regards to messaging is that they try to cast a wide net. In other words, they speak a broad message. They don't fully recognize that a message is really a form of communication to a person. So oftentimes, what they'll do is they won't figure out who exactly it is that their audience is, and then they don't craft the message to that person. So as a messaging expert, it's not just a matter of determining who the market is, but how best that person receives information. So what medium and also what exactly is being said to get them to, you know, take an action, buy your product, buy your service. So crafting that message is, there's other components to it, but that's really where, where I shine is how to communicate effectively to people, so that they actually take an action and buy a product or service,

Robert Plank 4:37 and that right there, what you explain. I think that's so important that sometimes we need to go back to elementary school in terms of our marketing, right? It's really easy to get caught up in the mechanics and the funnels, and I'm just going to charge ahead and do all these things, but it's really easy to forget that we're talking to people we're dealing with, people we like, people are. Landing on our websites trying to solve a problem. So it's so important to tune into, who are we talking to, who are we trying to solve this problem for? So that way, when they they come to us, they can see that, well, you have this problem, and we want to give you that solution.

Speaker 3 5:16 Oh, I completely agree. As a matter of fact, I really love the elementary school analogy. I think you're spot on. Imagine a teacher in second grade that walked into a classroom and started speaking about, say, her accolades and where she graduated college. I see a lot of business owners make the mistake of talking about what's so great about their company, which is awesome, and I'm sure you worked very hard to get there, but when you consider the audience of a room full of second graders, is that really the information that they need to actually connect with you? It isn't you know. What they need to do is, you know, get better at reading or learn math. And then take that analogy one step further, you're going to have a classroom, say, of 25 students, and the needs of those students, there are some general needs. They all need to learn, but how they learn and what they learn and what they learn is going to be a bit different. You're going to have some students that have been reading since they were three years old, and you need to challenge them and bring them something that's more suited to what their abilities are and where they are in their learning or in their career. If you're going to take the analogy further, conversely, you're going to have some children who, maybe they have dyslexia or something else, where they're going to need a different kind of marketing or different kind of education, so that you have to customize for them. When you niche down inside your business and you know exactly who it is that you're talking to, you can craft your message more appropriately, and it will connect with those students, AKA your potential clients. So I love the elementary school analogy. I think it's perfect?

Robert Plank 6:41 Well, I love how you ran with that, and that makes perfect sense there. How the end by doing like, kind of doing that like, kind of observation and knowing what the range is, and knowing you know are, how advanced is this audience, that way we're not boring them. But then also, how, how simple are new or under developed or uneducated. Are some of our audience members that way we know how beginner down we need to go, that that keeps us from second guessing. It keeps us from casting too wide a net, and that keeps us from becoming too focused. So in your in you know, in your profession and your work, you do this sort of messaging thing. So do you have any fun stories or case studies that kind of show off your talents or explain some of these problems that you're solving?

Speaker 3 7:32 I don't have any case studies that are specific to it, but I have had several experiences where tweaking the messaging was really kind of what made the big difference. And ironically, one of the one of the ones that I love to share, is a company that I was working with that is a professional advertising firm, and I came in really more as a digital marketer, and I went into critique their website, and one of the mistakes that they made was one of the ones I just kind of highlighted, which is they start, they opened with a bunch of their accolades, which, again, accolades do matter. But when you're considering speaking to an audience, you actually have to make sure that they are aware that you can solve their problem. Just think about it in conversation, if you were to say, go to a networking event, and the way that you opened your conversation, where you were talking about where you graduated college, or how nice car you drive, you'd probably lose your audience. As matter of fact, they might not even really like talking to you what you probably should do, and you should do this in all of your marketing as well. Is open with So tell me more about you. It's not just polite, it's good business. You want to ask people a bit more about them to see if what you do is actually beneficial and can help them, because that's really more of what they're interested in. And what if you can't help them? What if you have a conversation with somebody, either digitally or in person, and they're not a good fit for what you do, what you've now done when you communicate effectively is you've given them the tool to refer you as well, like, Hey, I don't actually need what you do, but my friend John does. John desperately needs what you do. So while I don't have any specific case studies, I did work with a couple of other colleagues to help tweak their messaging so that they were a bit more profitable, and because we were doing some white label work for them, ultimately we ended up getting more business too.

Robert Plank 9:21 Super awesome. And, yeah, there's so many advantages to being being clear about what problem that you solve, because as you're explaining that, what's going through my mind is, if you if you meet with that person, if they're a lead online, or there's someone you meet at an event, whatever it is, not only is there that aspect of now, now you're known for something, you're branded in a way they can refer you to someone else, but also you're not wasting time on each other if nothing can be done, or if it's it's not a good fit. Like you're not wasting time on them trying to fit a square peg in a round hole, and then they're not wasting time on you. Explaining their problem to someone that can't really necessarily help them.

Speaker 3 10:04 That's exactly right, and I have found that again, when your messaging is off, if you haven't figured out who your target market is, you haven't figured out exactly what they need to hear, you can actually run down that rabbit hole, not just verbally and not just in time, but in money as well. You can actually be sending out with a bullhorn this loud, wonderful message that nobody is connecting with, and that can be very costly too. So that's another thing that people need to consider, is that, am I targeting the right market, and is my message appropriate? And if those two things aren't working, everything else is just going to end up costing you more

Robert Plank 10:40 money. And that's a little bit reassuring, in a way, because some people out there might be busting their tails saying, I'm setting up the websites, I'm paying for, the ads, I'm doing, the content marketing, I'm networking, I'm getting the traffic, I'm doing all this stuff. Nothing's working. It might be that they're they just need a little bit of tweaking, right? It might, it might be that, well, just, just throw out the the accolades, or have them later, or don't go for this market, go for that market, and you can reuse a lot of the work that you've already done up to this point.

Speaker 3 11:11 No, that's absolutely true. And one of the other things that I see, that I feel, that people should be mindful of, is maybe your market, your message is actually correct, but you're not telling them what the next step is. Like, a lot of times, you'll see like, Hey, we're great, or we can solve your problem, and then the conversation stops. Imagine, for example, I love analogy. So imagine, for example, you're hosting a party, and you, you know, say, you tell everybody about the party, but you don't tell them where to RSVP or when it is. You just say there's a party happening like they don't your audience or your invitees. In this case, don't know what the next step is. Like, you need to be able to put the pieces together. Who are you targeting for your party? Is it Halloween party, or is it a little kids party, or is it a roller skating party? Like, what is it and when is it? What's happening and what's expected, and RSVP let us know that you're coming. You know what I mean? Like, you need that kind of closed loop in all of your messaging so people not only know who you are and who you're targeting what you do, but then how best to engage with you. So I found that a bit out there as well, that people lose money simply because they didn't ask for the sale. They didn't say, come on board. You know, give us a call. Fill out this form, make an appointment, visit our showroom, whatever it is, make sure you have to include that that next step, like we just tell them what they need to do,

Robert Plank 12:29 right? Have that call to action, and that's great, because it solves that, that problem of, if I have that web page or that article or that video or that conversation or that presentation or that presentation, or whatever. How the heck do I end it? Will end it right? What, what the next step is. And as a buyer there, there have been so many times when, when I've been having to look for what I'm supposed to do, or like, like, say, I go to a web page and I'm like, Okay, there's this live event coming up. There's this conference, looks really cool. And all I'm doing is searching all around saying, like, Okay, where is it? Is the date passed already? Like, is it? Is it close to me? Where's right? Tell, how do I get to it? And I'm looking on this whole web page, and they did all this work and all this fancy graphics, and I'm just, like, all I'm looking for is when, when is it? Where is it and and maybe the price, and it's like nothing else matters unless I get a few handfuls of information there.

Speaker 3 13:26 Exactly right, exactly right. You can appreciate the esthetic only in as much as you can engage with it. You know, if you don't, I mean, just because it's pretty doesn't mean it's actually going to sell, if it doesn't tell you what to do or where to buy. So, yeah, again, just another thing that I see. So, you know, again, this is part of the reason why marketing can be complex. There's so many things to think

Robert Plank 13:47 about, right? And then, like you, you alluded to just now, is that sometimes it's easy to get distracted by the fancy website designs or the fancy tools, or say, you know, I need this, this one click this, or tagging these leads or this funnel, and it's like you can have all the fancy esthetics, but if you're lacking in the foundation, that really sucks.

Speaker 3 14:09 Yeah, it really does it. And not only that, but it sucks your money away. And that's where people you know you can and make no mistake, I have tremendous respect, and I think there's an important need for design, but if you don't have the fundamentals to your point, if you don't have the fundamentals of knowing it is who you're marketing to, that's what I see, too. Is that these beautiful esthetics here, in many ways, you're like, well, this, this website is just so beautiful from a beautiful website I've ever seen, it's gorgeous, and I love it. And you have to ask yourself, are you the business owner? Are you the target market? Is it you were trying to attract? So when you're actually building your site, you have to consider, am I attracting myself, or am I attracting people that fit within this demographic? And therefore the design might need to change a bit to suit them, not necessarily to suit me, like maybe my favorite color. Is purple, but my target demographic is more blue and orange, which, if you go on my website, my website is mostly blue and orange, and my favorite color is purple. There's no purple anywhere, because it isn't I'm not attracting me. I'm attracting a specific kind of demographic. It isn't about at the end of the day, it really isn't all about you at all. It's really about how best to serve your client base and determining who they are and and how best to communicate to them. So I love design. I think to your point, having a really strong design esthetic does matter. So long as it communicates effectively. You always have to do clear over clever and clear over creative. It has to come first,

Robert Plank 15:40 right? I agree completely, and it kind of, it messes you up a little bit, doesn't it? Because, like, I've I've been through that. I've been through creating the fancy website and working really hard on it, but then when I actually split test it and track conversions and things I noticed, well, when I have no logo, or I shrink the logo, or I have less graphics, or I have big, giant text, for some reason that converts more, and it's a little bit painful to let go of some of those things that look really good, and sometimes I end up even building an ugly website. But then I have to tell myself, well, which do I want? Do I want a beautiful website that doesn't make money or an ugly website that does?

Speaker 3 16:20 You got that right. And it's, it's so true to even think of it in terms of, you know, creating anything if it's supposed to have a function, like, if its function is to just be beautiful, then have a sculpture. You know, it doesn't necessarily have to function in any medium. It can just kind of sit there and it could be looked at and appreciated. But when you think of things like, say, architecture. Architecture typically serves a form and a function. You do want it to be beautiful, but you have to have doors, you have to have windows, you have to have accessibility. In some way, your website needs to be accessible as well as beautiful. So if it doesn't have accessibility, people don't know where to go, or where the bathrooms are, where the stairs are, then you're going to run into problems, and people are going to be less inclined to enter into that architecture, or the architecture of your site. It needs to have function as well as form.

Robert Plank 17:15 That's a really good point that, and it's like that the having function and form is important, but the way you describe it there form definitely becomes secondary. What's the point of a beautiful bridge if it collapses? What's the right of your beautiful building if I can't get to the bathroom?

Speaker 3 17:32 Right? Exactly, right. Websites, not unlike architecture or bridges, are artwork, yes, but functional art, you know, not unlike even clothing too, like, you know, you can have a beautiful shirt, you know, made of silk or whatever other material is appropriate for you, but you have no place to kind of pull it over your head or button it around your neck or something along those lines. Like, if you can't actually get into the outfit, what's the point? So it needs to flow with you. It needs to be a part of your business, not independent of and it needs to work with the people who are going to be quote, unquote wearing it or using it like your customer base. And I'll tell you right now, there's nothing more frustrating than knowing that this company has something that you need or service that you provide, and you can't navigate their site. It makes me feel anyway that I don't even want to call because if they can't even get their website right, why am I going to think that they can actually that they can actually solve my problem? So there's like that added bonus to where, if you I mean, think about it, even if you go into a restaurant, or if you go into a clothing store or some other kind of retail establishment, and all the staff are kind of looking at their phones or looking at one another, and they're not engaging with you. Even if the place is beautiful in the food. It's great. Do you want to stay? You don't right, like you don't feel like your experience is going to be what you need it to be, whereas other places well oiled machines, you walk in, they address you, they take your order, they thought, solve your problem, and then away you go. You walk away thinking you had a great experience, and you spent probably less time in there than you had if they weren't a well oiled machine. And again, you can appreciate the esthetic, and you can appreciate the restaurant or the clothing store, whatever it is, even more when it actually serves your purpose, but just pretty. And you know, great food or whatever it is, great clothing by itself is never enough. They need the process as well. They need to feel like it's functioning for them as well. And your website should function the same way. Function the same way. Frankly, your business should function

Speaker 4 19:25 the same

Robert Plank 19:25 way, right? The well oiled machine. And what you're going to, what you're making me do now is from from now on, when I visit websites, definitely in any website today or this week, I'm going to be noticing, well, What? What? What? Sort of pisses me off about that website, because it's easy to to focus on the mechanics and say things like, well, your your website needs to be secure and not show an error saying it's not SSL. Or it's easy to say, well, your site needs to have a fast load time. But I mean all those little tiny tidbits. And rules those change over time. But if the overall strategy is to focus on having a smooth process, then who cares about what what regulations or what trends come our way and what little tidbits we need to readjust on it's about if I'm at some sort of webpage, and if there's something about that that adds some bumps in the road or makes it not a smooth process to get to where I need to go. Maybe that's a mental note we should leave for ourselves. And if we go to some web page and it's really easy to find what we want, maybe we should pick up on that too and see if we can absorb that and apply that to our own business, our own websites.

Speaker 3 20:36 Oh, I completely agree. I think that people kind of major and minor thing, and they, and to use yet another cliche, they step over dollars to pick up pennies, so don't get caught up in the small stuff. Well, you know, get a professional come in. They'll, they'll fix the small stuff, like your SSL. And it does matter, but it doesn't necessarily matter for the user experience and making sure that your your site functions in a meaningful way to them. Still be beautiful. It can still have your branding. It can still have something fun, or kits that makes you unique. Absolutely want to have those things. But at its core, it needs to function for the end user, the person who has Googled you and found your site, and they want to go on and they want to see if you can solve their problem. If that problem is, where's the local ice cream shop to I need a lawyer, whatever the problem is, they want to know as soon as they get to the site, that they are in the right place and that they can find exactly what they need, and if not, they will navigate away. Everything else is secondary.

Robert Plank 21:32 Well, you make it sound so simple, and you've given us a lot of things to think about and apply to our website. Again, a lot of things could be thought of as fundamentals, but, but I would, I would guess and to say that that at least 80% of the things that we've discussed today, a lot of people either are completely missing out on maybe they're not aware of it, or they they are sort of applying it. But maybe need to take another look at their websites and and make sure that it's 100% there. So we mentioned that it's important to know our audience so we can craft a message based on what their problem is and how we can help them. But also in that range of your audience might consist of many different people with different skill levels, so we need to think of it like going in as that second grade teacher in that class, where we specifically know who we're talking to, but there might be some of those variations, but we definitely don't want to be in Vanity mode and talk about our accolades, because that's going to fall on deaf ears. They care more about how you can solve their problem, not about your credentials. And that's good for everyone involved, because that way everyone can make sure that they're a good fit. If they're a good fit for you, then it's clear on how they can take action. If they're not a good fit, then they can maybe refer you to or they can refer someone else to you if they know someone who is in need of that specific problem that you might be able to solve for Person B, but not for Person A. And you mentioned how important it is to have that call to action, to tell people what they should be doing. What's the next step in that analogy of, what if you had a party but you didn't tell anyone where it was? Well, you might be doing the same thing in your email marketing or in your web pages. That's not clear what I'm supposed to do when I go to do your web page. Well, that's a really important thing to revisit, and it's all good to have a beautiful website, to have that good form, but function comes before that, because otherwise, what's the point of having that website? It's, you know, to make money and to get people to take some kind of an action. So we discussed a lot of myriad of different fundamentals here, but people here listening might be wondering, well, how can I apply these in practical terms? Like, there's a lot of things here and there, but how do I go from point A to point B? So it's my understanding Trish that you can help us on an easy way to create an effective marketing plan. Is that right?

Speaker 3 23:54 Yeah, actually, I wrote this at the behest of a couple of my professional colleagues, because, not unlike our conversation just now, I'd throw out a couple of things here and there, and one of my good girlfriends said, you know, can you just write this out? Can you just, like, hammer this out and just put it into, you know, consumable form? She's an attorney, and she's great with words. Clearly, she's an attorney, but still, just didn't really know where to begin. So I did actually, so it's, it's something that you can download for my site. So it's called, you know, the seven steps and seven keys to creating a marketing plan. And you can find it at Trish, salmon.com that's, and I'll spell my last name because it's a little hard to sell sometimes. It's Trish, T, R, I, S, H, S, A, E, M, a, n, n.com, that's all one word, forward slash 7s, e v, e n, and I'll say it one more time. So it's Trish, damon.com. Forward slash 7t, R, I, S, H, S, A, E, M, a, n, n.com. Forward slash. So that forward slash 7s, e v, e n, so yeah. Yeah, it's comprehensive, completely

Robert Plank 25:03 free, awesome. And since just so we're on the same page when you say a marketing plan, that's because different people have different ideas of what that is. What does that mean? Exactly once they go and sign up and get these seven keys, what will be the tangible results?

Speaker 3 25:17 So what they would need to do is go through each of the seven steps and apply them to their own business. So for example, we start with mindset. Are you in the right mindset, and what does that look like with regards to your business? And one of the things that we touched on here, and although I didn't call it mindset, it's really more, are you in service to your customer? Is your marketing and your messaging and the direction that you're taking all of your marketing focus on them and not on you. And then it goes through each step and touches a bit on market. It touches on message and on medium. And then it also talks a little bit about money and how to manage and to measure all of your marketing too. So it's just a step by step plan on how to actually pull your marketing plan together, so that'll be effective for your

Robert Plank 26:03 business. Awesome, sounds amazing. All the M's, right?

Speaker 3 26:06 Yep, all the M's. I did it easy that way, so that it was easy for people to remember

Robert Plank 26:10 Awesome. Well, sound sounds great. So the place to go is Trish, salmon.com, forward slash seven. And if you were like me, if you're blown away by some of these, simple concepts and these things that maybe we used to do them and forgot about them, or we need to revisit them. Maybe we say, well, that thing that I stumbled on accidentally, with that that mindset or having or being in service to customers, I did that accidentally. Now I need to go back in and do it deliberately. Well, it helps to get that full complete roadmap, as opposed to just the tidbits here and there. So the place to go is Trish, salmon.com, forward slash seven. So you can get those seven keys to creating a marketing plan. That way you can make sure that you have all your bases covered and whatever other analogy we're gonna throw in here. I think we're, I think we're at about 30 or 40 analogies conversation, but, but that's only fine. It makes things catchy, makes things memorable, and and we all need to be catchy and memorable in our own marketing. So you owe it to yourself to check out the seven keys to creating a marketing plan. And that's Trish, salmon.com, forward slash seven. And thanks so much, Trish for hopping on and making things fun. Make things simple. Really appreciate it. Oh,

Speaker 3 27:20 thanks so much for having me. I love this conversation, so thanks so much. I really do appreciate it. And and Robert, you're a tremendous host, so thank you very much.

Robert Plank 27:28 Thanks. You're too kind. Check out the latest episodes of our podcast on the web at marketer of the day.com and subscribe to us on iTunes at marketer of the day.com/itunes or search the phrase Robert plank in your iTunes app to find us. There

Speaker 4 27:46 you.