Why you Need to Invest in Marketing

If you’re a business owner and not investing in marketing, you’re missing a huge opportunity to grow and scale your business. Every business needs marketing. It took me a while to realize though that not everyone understands what marketing is, and why you need it in your business. I have a background in marketing and PR and it’s one of the many benefits to hiring me as an OBM. I find that usually all of my clients need a little bit of help building out and executing their marketing strategy.

So first, let’s define marketing.

Marketing: the action or business of promoting and selling products or services, including market research and advertising.

I think there are a couple of key words in that definition that make people shy away from marketing -- the words selling and advertising. But to be honest, if you’re in business, that’s a part of it no matter how much you like it or not. It doesn’t have to feel icky or turn people away. In fact, good marketing does quite the opposite.

Here are 3 reasons why you should be investing in marketing in your business:

1. Generates brand awareness

If you’re not marketing your business how do you expect people to find you? You can’t only rely on word-of-mouth to generate business for the long-term. YES, word-of-mouth and referrals are great ways to generate business, but you need to establish yourself in your industry with proper marketing. Part of this is learning to show up where your audience is only. You can learn more about how not all marketing is the same in another blog post I wrote here.

2. Establishes Credibility

When you show up online, you’re establishing credibility in your space. You’re building your reputation so to speak. How do you do this? By providing valuable content and information to your target audience. Show up consistently so they can begin to build that know, like and trust factor with you. Think through your own process before you determine who you want to work with or what company you want to buy from. If you were to google a company, or search for someone in social media and they had either no presence online or an inconsistent one, would you decide to hire them, or would you buy from them? I know I wouldn’t. I am 1000x more likely to invest in a BRAND (person or company) that have established themselves, shows up consistently and provides me free value FIRST.

3. Not all marketing is the same 

I go into much greater detail about this in another blog post, but I want to reiterate that not all marketing is the same. By investing in someone who knows what they’re doing in terms of marketing, you’re going to have much greater success, much faster. I’m not saying that you’ll never have success doing it on your own, but it surely won’t be as quick. There are SO many different marketing strategies you can take action on, but the thing is, just because it worked for Cindy Lou doesn’t mean it’ll work for you. Your business goals, your target audience, and your competitive market is likely very different than Cindy Lou’s. You need someone that can help you design and tailor a strategy and execute tactics specific to your business needs.

While I believe that there are other components that help a business be successful, I truly believe that investing in marketing is extremely beneficial for any company at (almost) any stage of business. It’s worth the investment.

What scares you about investing in marketing?

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Katelyn Hamilton is an Online Business Manager and Get Your Sh!t Together Strategist. She helps busy entrepreneurs organize, strategize and prioritize their business to go from overwhelmed to out-in-front.

After spending 6 years in the corporate world working with multimillion dollar companies, top-rated chefs and celebrities, she launched her own business to find more flexibility and freedom. She matched her corporate salary in just one year of starting her business.

Katelyn is also a soon-to-be wife, stepmom, dog mama of two furry friends, fitness lover, sports fanatic (Go Dawgs) and dreams of living at the beach.

Click here to book a free call to talk more about your business goals and to see if hiring an OBM is the right fit for you.

Not all marketing is the same

Probably the MOST COMMON mistakes I see people make in their business has to do with MARKETING. Marketing is such a blanket statement to so many different types of tactics. And here’s the thing, you don’t have to do them all.

I know it can be tempting when a new platform emerges to want to jump on board, but what if that approach is really not what’s best for your business? We get distracted by shiny objects or new things and don’t want to be late to the game, but what if that’s costing you valuable time and resources?

Here’s the deal. Not all marketing is the same. Marketing tactics should be very specifically tailored to your business objectives and target market. Here are some things to consider:

1. Where does your target audience live?

This without a doubt should be the FIRST question you ask yourself. If you don’t know who your target audience is, that step needs to be taken before you can even determine where they live. Then, figure out what platforms they spend their time on. Do a little market research. ASK people! Think about the type of business you run too. There are platforms better suited for B2B vs B2C. For instance, I rarely tell my B2B clients to post on Instagram. Instagram is a visual platform for consumers. You’re not likely to find facility managers looking for fire protection services on Instagram, right? So think about that for your business too.

2. Do you have the time, energy and resources to put into that platform?

What I mean is, don’t half ass it! Don’t just create a Snapchat and list it on your website if you’re not pushing out consistent content. There should be a strategic approach for every social channel you join.

For example, I have a corporate client in the B2B space who wants to be on Pinterest. Cool, great, lots of benefits to Pinterest. But when thinking about who they’re trying to reach, the majority of their target audience ISN’T on Pinterest. I CAN see the benefit for search, but you have to maintain that account regularly for that to even matter. I did see the need to create an account for ONE specific brand out of the six I manage for them because it’s more visual/design focused. Originally, they had Pinterest accounts for four of the brands, but realistically I finally was able to coax them into turning our focus around on just that ONE brand and doing it well. Because truly, showing up and pinning 1-2 times a week was NOT working in their favor. They did not have the resources for someone to be pinning 5-25 pins a day on four different accounts. Changing the focus to one account made it more manageable, and made a huge difference in the engagement, reach and growth of that one brand.

3. Do a couple things really well.

Instead of trying to be on every platform, and creating all this new content for each platform, simply focus on a couple platforms and do them well! Really ENGAGE with your target audience. Provide a ton of value. Connect with people.

Are you strategic in your marketing approach? Or kind of just throwing shit against the wall and seeing what sticks? I’d love to help you put together a thoughtful, tactical plan to help you achieve the best results possible for your biz!

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Katelyn Hamilton is an Online Business Manager and Get Your Sh!t Together Strategist. She helps busy entrepreneurs organize, strategize and prioritize their business to go from overwhelmed to out-in-front.

After spending 6 years in the corporate world working with multimillion dollar companies, top-rated chefs and celebrities, she launched her own business to find more flexibility and freedom. She matched her corporate salary in just one year of starting her business.

Katelyn is also a soon-to-be wife, stepmom, dog mama of two furry friends, fitness lover, sports fanatic (Go Dawgs) and dreams of living at the beach.

Click here to book a free call to talk more about your business goals and to see if hiring an OBM is the right fit for you.

All things email sequences and automations

What happens to your business if Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. all were to shut down tomorrow? Would your business survive? Do you have another way to reach your audience?

The truth is, we don’t own anything we put out on social media. The individual platforms do. So they can shut down your account at any time, and you’d lose access to your entire audience. But the one thing you actually OWN is your EMAIL LIST. I am a huge proponent of email lists for a few reasons but really at the end of the day it’s because it gives you DIRECT access to your target audience - right in their inbox. With social media algorithms you can’t guarantee your target audience will see your posts (less than 5% of your followers actually see your posts unless you have a crazy high engagement rate). With email you KNOW they’re receiving the email, and you can actually see WHO is opening and clicking through your emails as well. It’s an extremely valuable tool to shape your marketing and grow your business.

So my first question for you is, do you have an email list? If not, none to worry! I’m going to share a few tips about email lists and automations you can put into action now!

1. Selecting an email platform.

   There are so many platforms out there to choose from that selecting an email platform can seem overwhelming at first. But in my opinion there are 3 truly to choose from based on your business type and current status of your biz. If you are an eCommerce brand for instance, I would recommend Klaviyo. It integrates nicely with Shopify and there are a ton of automations that are automatically created for you use as cart abandonment, thank you emails, reengagement and more.

   If you’re a service based business just starting out I’d recommend either MailChimp or ActiveCampaign. MailChimp is free for up to your first 2,000 subscribers, and ActiveCampaign I believe is $25/mo. I currently have my list in MailChimp, but I prefer the automation sequence and all the advanced features in ActiveCampaign so it’s on my list to switch over to soon. It’s kind of a toss up to me which one you choose to start out with, but if you just want to get started and don’t want to do a ton with your list at first except slowly build the contacts, then I think MailChimp is a great place to start.
   

2. Create a freebie to grow your list.

   Freebies, or downloadables are really great ways to grow your list. Create something of value to people that would make them want to input their email address. Because come on, we all know that if you share your email address you’re likely going to get promotional emails for the rest of your life now ;). So this has to be GOOD. For example, I created my Get Your SH!T Together Strategy Guide. I walk you through the exact process I take my clients through to help you organize, strategize and prioritize your business (get yours here). It’s a 13 page workbook that has questions to walk you through each step of my process.

   Now you may be wondering, WHY would you want to give away such valuable content if that’s what you do with your clients? Here’s the thing. You want to give value to people so they learn to know, like and trust you and want to come to you for more. Sure, that process is extremely helpful - IF YOU ACTUALLY DO THE WORKBOOK :) BUT, the secret sauce is ME. Likely people will find some clarity in what you provide but then want to hire you to help them continue to solve their problem(s) and help them even more. So think about what you could create that would provide value to people so they WANT to keep reading more from you, with the goal to eventually hire you.
   

3. Set-up a welcome automation sequence.

Welcome people to your email list! Once they download that freebie, welcome them to your list and create a few follow up emails that give value, but also showcase some of your services and more about YOU. Follow up to offer help for whatever your freebie was helping them solve. Maybe offer them a discount for your services/products, give additional value, etc.

Personally, I don’t like when people spam my inbox every single day once I’ve signed up for their list, so I would suggest a follow up maybe a few days later, then another week later, and maybe one more a week after that? Nurture them. Don’t hard sell to them immediately, but showcase your value and expertise. Automations really make life easier overall because you literally set it up ONCE and then let it work FOR you. So every time someone downloads your freebie, or signs up for your list the automation sequence starts and value-added content is delivered straight to your potential customers inbox and you didn’t have to do a thing. Outside of a welcome sequence, you can also set up other automations for specific events, launches, etc.

4. What Should I send to my list?

Ah the golden question right? What should I send to my list? My clients often tell me “I don’t have anything to send them, so why have a list?”. But you see, that’s where they’re wrong :). I try as much as possible to repurpose my content. So, for example, this blog post is on my website, and also broken down into bite sized bits spread across my social media channels, and it’s also sent out to me email list with a teaser and then “read more” directing people back to my site. This ONE blog post is used to reach people in SO many different ways.

I help my clients find a way to repurpose their content too that they’re already sharing other places and an easy way to do that is through your email list. You can share a killer social post that got high engagement, a blog post, a themed weekly or bi-weekly newsletter with a variety of content, course or webinar launch details, a specific series ONLY for your email list members, exclusive content, etc. Email is a great way to integrate a variety of marketing tactics to reach your target audience, grow your list and increase business and therefore revenue.

5. Other ways to use your list based on your business type.

There are SO many ways you can use email lists. It really is dependent on your business. If you’re an eCommerce biz you will likely rely a lot more on your email marketing to not only reach new and potential customers, but also to re-engage your current customers to create repeat buyers, obtain reviews and pass info along to friends and family. If you’re a service based business, you likely will use this for building that know ,like and trust factor, offering value, sharing info about upcoming launches or new services, exclusive discounts, etc.

Email lists are SO important and such a powerful tool in your business. Remember, you OWN your email list. These are people who have clearly expressed an interest in what you do -  they are your WARM leads. Pay attention and give love to this list and grow it. I promise it’s worth your time, energy and effort, in that it WILL pay off.

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Katelyn Hamilton is an Online Business Manager and Get Your Sh!t Together Strategist. She helps busy entrepreneurs organize, strategize and prioritize their business to go from overwhelmed to out-in-front.

After spending 6 years in the corporate world working with multimillion dollar companies, top-rated chefs and celebrities, she launched her own business to find more flexibility and freedom. She matched her corporate salary in just one year of starting her business.

Katelyn is also a soon-to-be wife, stepmom, dog mama of two furry friends, fitness lover, sports fanatic (Go Dawgs) and dreams of living at the beach.

Click here to book a free call to talk more about your business goals and to see if hiring an OBM is the right fit for you.

The Secrets to “Selling” Yourself on Instagram

Everyone is so sensitive to the word SELL or selling or being “salesy”. We live in a world where products are pushed in our faces all day long. On social media, television, billboards, emails, at work, etc. And we’ve all had those really obnoxious and annoying sales people, or the generic MLM copy and paste messages (I can say that as I have been a part of an MLM),  or the people who just won’t leave you alone. But at the end of the day, if you are a company with a product or service you are selling something to someone no matter how you position it.

Social media can be one of your biggest advocates in terms of generating sales. I want you to stop thinking about sales as an icky term or feeling. At the end of the day, you want to build your know, like and trust factor to make selling seem more like sharing.

Right now, Instagram is one of the most popular platforms for with more than 1 billion users. So how do you get noticed? How do you build a successful Instagram platform that people want to follow? I am going to tell you the secrets to “selling” yourself on Instagram, but first things first, you have to make sure your profile is set to PUBLIC for these tips to work:

1. Write the Perfect Bio

   When you write your Instagram bio, you really just want it to be easy to read and quickly give people an overview of who you are, what you do and how you can help them. Under the Name section, you can customize however you like, but use a name that you want people to identify you as and use keywords for what you do. For example, my name is written as: Katelyn | Online Biz Manager. You do have a character count so you have to be strategic, but this is quick and digestible so that the first thing people see is my name and what I do.

   Under your bio section, use a hashtag relevant to your industry and then bullet out (and spice it up with Emoji’s) what you help people do, your mission statement, or what types of products you sell. My bio reads:

   #OBM & Get Your SH!T Together Strategist👊🏼

   I help successful entrepreneurs:

   ❗️Organize

   ❗️Prioritize

   ❗️Strategize

   Finally, make sure you include a link to your website, or multiple links through Linktr.ee.

2. Set up a Linktre.ee

   Unfortunately, Instagram only lets you list one link at a time in your bio. This is definitely less than ideal as most companies have many things they want to direct you to: website, blog, email list, shop, etc. and it can be a pain trying to change the link every day when you make a new post.

   Luckily there is a solution. Linktre.ee is a website that allows you to use one link to pull up a page where you have buttons that link to everything you want to share with your followers. The best part? It’s free. If you want to customize it a bit more, add animation to some links, remove the Linktr.ee logo and upgrade the analytics, there is a paid version. But if you’re just looking for something simple to give you the ability to share multiple links, the free version will work just fine. I love having the ability to see what links are most popular and engage my followers in many different ways.

3. Use Hashtags and Engage with Your Target Market Engagement

   Using hashtags in your posts are a #GAMECHANGER when it comes to  increasing your post engagement and exposure. You want to make sure your hashtags are targeted. Instagram allows you to have up to 30 hashtags on each post. Make a list of all the phrases and hashtags you think your ideal clients would be searching for. What do you do? What do you enjoy? What services do you offer? Then go search Instagram for the different hashtags and you’ll see all the variations and the number of times each hashtag has been used.

   Make a list of 25-30 hashtags to use consistently on your posts. But when making this list you don’t want to pick the MOST popular hashtags with hundreds of thousands or millions of posts. Because that likely means your post will be quickly lost on the explore page of Instagram and your potential clients won’t be as quick to find you. Do a mix of 5-10k + 20-100k hashtags on your posts. For example, #onlinebusinessmanager has 13.6k posts, but OBM has 43.5k. You want to mix these up, as well as including your own personal hashtag in there such as your biz name too.

   Part TWO of hashtag engagement includes then searching these hashtags and scrolling through them and liking and commenting on people who use these hashtags, as well as clicking on a photo, analyzing the profile of the person who posted it - are they reputable? Do they have a larger audience that you could benefit from? Because if they seem similar to you, you can always go and look at who likes and comments on their photos and then engage with their followers as they would likely be interested in your stuff too if they’re interested in theirs. Engagement is KEY. Try to do this a few times a day and you’ll slowly see your follower count grow ORGANICALLY without using a bot or service to grow your following. Which btw, just don’t do that. Put in the work and be targeted vs. trusting a bot or service to do the work for you.   

4. Using IG stories / Highlights

   Instagram stories is a gold mine. It allows you to give people a “real person” behind the pictures. You are humanizing yourself in a world where social media can seem so “fake” or “picturesque”. Share VALUE on Instagram Stories. Show examples of your products or services - in what you do for your clients day in and day out. THEN save these videos to your HIGHLIGHTS. This is where you can essentially save your stories for people to watch past the 24 hour mark.

   Think about the things you want to share most in your business. Probably tips of some kind, maybe product photos, or information on your latest course offering and then merge that into the results your clients are getting from your course, etc. Stories are a way to build that trust factor to show you are the real deal and not just some girl (or guy ;)) that is trying to sell someone something on the internet and not delivering value.

5. TAKE GOOD PICTURES GUYS.

   Who here loves to look at grainy, blurry, dark photos? No one? Didn’t think so. Y’all. Instagram is a PHOTO app. So make sure you are taking and sharing GOOD PHOTOS. Invest in some brand photography. You can likely find someone to do a brand/lifestyle shoot for $150-250 in your area. Maybe cheaper if you commit to doing them consistently (I recommend 4-6 times a year) and can negotiate a deal. These photos are SO worth it. You can use them on your website, blog, email marketing and over and over again on social. They make you look PROFESSIONAL and people stop the scroll for GOOD PHOTOS. They won’t even READ your content and will scroll right past a shitty photo. It’s WORTH IT.

   I am not saying to get rid of the selfies or at home photos forever. Hell, some of my top engaging posts are selfies.  BUT when you take photos on your iPhone, make sure you have good lighting. I invested in a Diva Ring light on amazon and it is SO worth it. The lighting is NIGHT AND DAY difference.

   Outside of having professional photos and good lighting, look into downloading an Instagram Preset. You can buy them from like $4-7 on Etsy. All you have to do is download Adobe Lightroom CC and load in your preset. What this is, is a custom “filter” that is pre-saved to this app. You connect your camera roll to the app and then select the photo you want, apply the preset and BOOM, a beautifully filtered photo in 5 seconds. This helps to streamline your feed and all of your photos have the same look and feed. Trust me when I say, PHOTOS ARE EVERYTHING.

6. BE CONSISTENT. TELL A STORY. OVER AND OVER AGAIN.

   Consistency, consistency, consistency. How many times do I have to say it? You need to be consistent on social media. I advise sharing every day at least once to Instagram Monday-Friday. If you don’t want to post on the weekends that is totally fine and up to you, but engage at times when your audience will be searching and watching. Test out different times in your posts and see what one seems to get the most traction. Over time you’ll be able to tell what times are best for you. But if you dont post consistently, you’ll never know.

   Along with consistency in posting, be consistent in sharing your story. What IS your story? Were you broke and then you manifested a 6-figure salary? Were you homeless and now you’re a millionaire? Are you a college dropout turned success? Did you leave the corporate world to create a thriving, passion-filled business? SHARE IT. Only about 5% of your newsfeed sees each of your posts. So tell your story and build the trust that YOU built your business and they can too, or you had XYZ problem and your product SOLVED IT. Sometimes you have to repeat yourself a few times for people to actually hear it.

7. Business Page

   If you are running a business on Instagram, make sure your page is set to business. To do this, go to your page and click the three lines on the top right, then click settings on the bottom. Then scroll down and make sure it says Business Settings (if so, then you have a biz account, but if not it will likely say something like switch to business account). You have to have a business Facebook page to link it to, but otherwise you’re good to go. This gives you the ability to look more in depth at how your posts are performing, audience insights and account growth, clicks and more.

   Do you feel like you’re in on the “secret” now? Or maybe you were hoping it was something magical that would grow your account to 100k quicker? Nope. That’s because there really is no secret or special sauce. It’s those small things that you have to do consistently to show up and stand out against everyone else in your industry. At the end of the day though, if you’re doing these things consistently, your audience will find you and your sales will grow. Now that doesn’t seem too salesy, does it?

I hope this was helpful for you! If you want even more great content delivered right to your inbox, sign up for my email list here.

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Katelyn Hamilton is an Online Business Manager and Get Your Sh!t Together Strategist. She helps busy entrepreneurs organize, strategize and prioritize their business to go from overwhelmed to out-in-front.

After spending 6 years in the corporate world working with multimillion dollar companies, top-rated chefs and celebrities, she launched her own business to find more flexibility and freedom. She matched her corporate salary in just one year of starting her business.

Katelyn is also a soon-to-be wife, stepmom, dog mama of two furry friends, fitness lover, sports fanatic (Go Dawgs) and dreams of living at the beach.

Click here to book a free call to talk more about your business goals and to see if hiring an OBM is the right fit for you.