Sustainable marketing is the name of the game, and I'm excited to have today's
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Alright. Welcome back to the Mindful Marketing podcast. This is episode number three
forty four, where we help you scroll less, connect more so we can grow
together. Jen Sellers, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having
me, Andrea. I'm excited to be here. I'm excited to chat with you because I
have been in your ecosystem for a while. I
remember signing up for your collaborations,
like, database back in the day. And so I'm excited to,
like, talk about your journey and how you got here. But for
those people listening, can you give us the quick definition?
Like, what does sustainable marketing mean to you?
So around here for us, it means creating a
visibility ecosystem. So creating your marketing
foundations, we do it through speaking and collaborations and then using
that to create your marketing assets so that you're not creating them from
scratch every time and you're not burning out on your marketing anymore.
Yeah. Not burning out is, like, the ultimate goal.
So tell us your story. Like, did you have a big burnout moment? How did
you get to today? I kind of hate
content marketing, which is why I'm in the lab
because I'm all the ideas, but I
am not so much of a creator. So I can come up
with all of the ideas for how to grow your business, do creative things
to bring people in. But I really, really hate
creating marketing assets from scratch, especially
graphics and that kind of thing. So as someone who has
been speaking on summits and podcasts since 2015,
I started figuring out ways that I could use that and helping other
people do that too. And that transitioned from
virtual summit search, which is where we have the speaker directory now,
but it's not so much what I focus on because I realized the best way
to get started is proactively through podcasts and being a
guest on there and then going on to other visibility strategies
like virtual summits and speaking in other people's programs and stuff like
that. So that's kinda how we got here. Yeah. I
I'm with you there. I find that so I I
do like creating content, but I find that some
things like the summits and the podcasting, especially when you get the
right one, it adds such, like, a burst of energy
to your business, whereas content creation feels a lot of time
more like the daily, like, input, the daily grind. And
so that's what I like about, specifically speaking, on
summits and things is that, you know, you do it once and then it's like
a flurry of activity and you have all these new people in your world and
you kinda like can chill after and take a break. Do you find the same
thing? Yeah. And the other thing though is even with
summits, which are a finite timeframe of when the
summit's happening, you can still take that content and use
it for a long time. So podcasts are a great way to do that, but
summits even too, because people are probably asking you questions. So that
flurry of activity at the beginning where all these new people are coming in
and they may have new questions that you haven't gotten asked yet, that turns
into even more content. So it just kind of snowballs from there.
Yeah. I love that. Okay. So why do you think
that we as business owners and entrepreneurs,
kind of see Summit since speaking as such a powerful tool for
our community? Like, why do you think it works so well as part of your
visibility ecosystem? It gets you in front of new people. And
if you're doing it right, it's getting you in front of
the right people. Because if you're saying no to summits and
podcast invites that are not your ideal
audience, who are not going to put you in front of dream clients, then you're
saving your time and your energy for ones that are. And that can
do so much more for your business growth and your marketing than putting
out a hundred Instagram posts or a thousand TikToks or
whatever your other content marketing happens to be, but it can also turn into
those. So that's where I see the power of speaking, especially
on my podcasts and summits and other places where you're getting, like you said,
that burst of new audience members, but
also that content for marketing.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So if someone wants to start, where,
where do we start when it comes to like teeing ourselves out? So we do
get that burst of new people and all of the good stuff that comes with
that. Yeah. So when we get started with our clients, we always
send them on a podcast tour and we tend to recommend doing
that quarterly because if you're sending out 20 to 30 podcast
pitches to the Right Fit Podcasts, then you typically are going to
book somewhere between five to seven podcasts each quarter.
And that can differ. Like if a client's like, Hey, this quarter's really
busy. We tone it down a bit. If they're like, I really need, I'm doing
a launch. I want to get stuff going for the next quarter. We do more
of those, but if you're doing it quarterly, you're constantly
getting fresh content coming in. And so that's gonna keep
your marketing efforts really sustainable because you always have new stuff. And
then you can keep rotating that out with your evergreen that you've created
from last quarter's podcast tour and all of
your past speaking opportunities. So I always recommend starting
there with a podcast tour because it is proactive. And then
from there, you're gonna start getting other invites too. Yeah. Y'all
listening, one of my favorite attraction strategies is podcast guesting.
Like, it is my it leans into my preference, which
is, I am just, like, off the cuff talker. So
if you put me in a podcast space and someone's, like, asking me questions and
I get to answer them, it's the ideal scenario.
But I find that it has to be the right podcast. So can you talk
to me a little bit about, you know, if someone's looking for you know, looking
to do this podcast tour, how do we know if a podcast or pitching
is a right fit podcast? Yes. That is a great question.
So when I'm bringing in a client to work on this, I
usually ask them some things. So who's your audience? That's
going to be one starting point. What are your offers and
then what are your goals with it? Because if you're looking
to build authority, I might put you on a different podcast than if you
are trying to get leads or sales from it. The other thing I asked
them actually is, what do you love to talk about and what questions are you
getting? So we take your audience, we take your offers
and tie those into the questions that you're getting, the topics that you could
talk on forever. So like mindful marketing, and then we're going to
bring all of that together to find your sweet spot. And that is going to
tell you what your profitable speaking topic is and what kinds of podcasts you want
to get on, because they need to be ones that are going to facilitate that
topic and really get you in front of the right audiences.
So if you're not getting in front of the right audience and you're not able
to pitch a podcast topic that is going to speak to
them on that particular podcast. So it might be a great podcast, but it's
not the right fit for you. There are plenty of times where I'm doing a
no fuss podcast tour for a client, and I'm looking at a podcast and I
think it's gonna be great. And then I go dig in a little bit
deeper and I go, nevermind. That
topic is not going to fit. So, like, maybe we're talking about life
coaching and this is a tidiness, but
that life coach has a really specific
angle on what they're talking about, and it doesn't really get
into decluttering your house. And so maybe I say, okay,
nevermind. We're not gonna pitch them for that one, but this other one
has a slightly different angle on this, and maybe it's decluttering your
life. And for whatever reason, the topics they've had on before fit
a lot better with that client's topic. So you have to make sure
that you're really customizing it and not just sending out pitches to every single
podcast that looks like maybe it'll be a right fit. You you get really,
really specific, customize your topic, customize the questions that you're pitching
them, and make sure that it's relevant for that particular
audience too. Because what you say to mompreneurs is not gonna be the same thing
that you would say to CEOs of a company with
50 employees. Yeah. Yeah. I think the
customization thing is key. I say this all the time too because, you know, on
this podcast, I get so many pitches that it's
the ones that stand out or the ones that get on the show or someone
I know personally like you. So, like, you kind
of have to do the research or hire someone who's gonna do the research so
that it can stand out. Because I promise you, the bigger podcasts
or the ones who've been around for a while, they get so many pitches that
you kinda have to to stand out and have those those talking
points. What about you know, you you
mentioned having the topic. I think you you talk
you I don't remember how you said it, but it was, like, the topic topic.
Speaking topic. We need to talk more about this because how do you how do
you pick just one? So most of the
time, what I do with my clients is we have a primary
one that you're going to speak on. So for me, it's sustainable marketing.
But you may have some secondary speaking topics. I usually recommend a max of like
three. You can do different angles though. So I may
talk about creating your sustainable marketing system
from the lens of mindful marketing, where you're not trying to do all of the
things all the time, but I also might talk about it from the
angle of you're trying to hire a team member to
do this. So how do you create a sustainable marketing system that
you can pass off to a team member? So you're always making sure that you're
customizing it to that audience and what they actually need to
hear. And I also always recommend
to my clients that they think about it from the lens of what does
your audience think they need? And then what do you know that they need? Because
what they think they need is not going to be the same thing as what
you know they need. So my clients may think
that they need to figure out how to create more marketing
assets. And yeah, they need that. But what they really need is to
create a foundation of material that becomes those marketing
assets so they can have an evergreen library of marketing
content, so they're not creating it from scratch all the time.
So you may have one speaking topic, but you don't have to get bored with
it. I tend to use the same type of topic
for my clients when I'm putting together their podcast tours, but
we customize it to every single podcast and you can change up
the questions because like I said, the questions you're going to ask or
you're going to get asked for mompreneurs is not going to be the same thing
as for stay at home moms. So you can still get
creative with your topic without diluting yourself by speaking
about everything just because somebody asks you for it.
Yeah, a %. And I what I like about what you said
too is you have a focus, but then you can still
customize it depending on who you're pitching and even, like, the shows that
you show up for, which I love. Okay. So let's also talk
about, summits and, speaking as
well because I think that there's you talked about the two pieces.
Like, we start with the podcast tour, then we go into the summit.
Let's actually start there. Why do you recommend that strategy?
It's really just about being able to be proactive. So a podcast is an ongoing
content piece, like a content engine, essentially.
So you can typically tell when a podcast is still
active. They've been publishing regularly. Maybe they have seasons. And so you say,
okay, I don't know when they're gonna start season four, but I'm gonna go
pitch them because they're wrapping up season three and just say, hey, I
know that you're wrapping up season three, but at least then
you know that they're coming back versus a summit.
Some of them are recurring. Some people do a summit. It goes really well.
They say, okay, this is a great lead generation, a great sales strategy. I'm going
to keep doing it. But you don't always know. So
typically, summits, from what I have found, are inbound invitations.
They either have seen you on another summit, heard you on a podcast. Another
reason why I start with podcast tours because a lot of hosts do go to
podcasts to find their speakers. They may
have asked friends or other speakers for recommendations. And
because they know that you want to speak because you told
them, then they're recommending you. So it's
mainly just because podcasts are proactive outreach. Summits
are more passive inbound invites. So it's just a
lot harder to get proactive with those summits because you don't know when they're
coming. You don't know if they're coming back necessarily. And because
sometimes even if a host says, yeah, we're going to do it again next year,
it doesn't always happen. So So that's just the main reason, honestly.
Yeah. So how do you know if a summit is a good fit for you?
Because so this is totally a selfish question, but I get a ton of
invites out for a summit, now that I've been doing it for, like, years and
years. And so sometimes it's hard to tell if it's gonna be
a good fit for me or not. So if someone's getting an invite to speak
on the summit, how can you tell if it's a good fit for you? That
is a great question. Summits can sometimes be hear or miss.
A lot of the time it is based on how well they've
prepared, what speaker lineup they're getting. So if they
are saying, Hey, these are the speakers that I have on and
you take a look at them and the folks that they're highlighting
are maybe not in the same niche as you. Like, you want
them to be similar enough, but not so close that
they're overlapping, and they need to have the same audience. That is the main thing.
So if you work with online business owners
and everybody else is working with brick and mortar business
owners, probably not the greatest fit for you because you're not going to get in
front of your ideal audience. And so so, honestly,
a lot of the time, what I look for is just what topic are they
pitching me for you. Maybe they're pitching you social media, and you're
like, did they actually take a look at what I'm doing right now? Because I'm
talking about mindful marketing, and that's I I can talk about it, but it's not
my focus. And if they don't mention it, it kinda makes me wonder if they
did their homework. Also, if they're asking for a list size, I'm sure that
you get that all the time where you need to have 5,000,
seven thousand. Some people are even doing 10,000 email lists
right now. Or if they're asking you to pay, that's another red flag.
But, honestly, a lot of the time, if they have a speaker info page like
our friend, Krista Miller, teaches over at Summit in a Box, you can tell
pretty quickly if it's a well put together summit, if they have their
systems in place. And that should give you enough information to tell if
it's the right fit for your topic, for your audience.
And just generally, if it's something that, you
know, the timing's right and if they're asking too much for a
promotion and that kind of thing, you just kinda have to gauge your
availability and whether it's the right fit in terms of that.
Yeah. Yeah. And I feel like there's so many different components to
this too. Like, it it almost is like
any anything, like, we're judging to see if it's a good fit. It's like there's
there's complexities to it, but I always like organization.
And anyone who uses Krista Miller's approach, I'm like, okay. Like, you
instantly have bonus points because she's so freaking organized.
Okay. So let let's say we're out here in these marketing
streets. We're podcast guesting. We're speaking on summits. What are some of
the the the metrics that we're looking for to indicate
that, hey, this is working. This is successful. It's growing my business. Like,
what numbers what what are we looking at to see if everything is working?
Yeah. So honestly, that is one of the biggest things that
I see people kind of go off the tracks with is
they go into it saying, Oh, I'm going to get 150 leads
from this, and I'm going to make a bunch of sales. And
they actually just set the wrong goals and that's so they get
disappointed when they get 25
leads and don't make any sales immediately, but they
don't realize, oh, this podcast positions me really well. And by
being able to promote it and say, I was on this podcast, it's a stepping
stone to getting onto other podcasts. Maybe the host knows
people or the host is a summit host too.
And so they might invite you back. So I always
recommend my clients take a look at four different goals and
decide if they're looking for leads, for sales, to build
authority, or to make networking connections for collaborations
and that kind of thing. Because if you're setting the wrong goals,
it's going to backfire on you because you may be looking at the wrong metrics.
So just understanding what you may be getting is
honestly the biggest thing for knowing if it's working.
So a podcast, for example, you may not get a ton
immediately, but you may get a trickle down effect where over the
years or maybe the weeks and months after it airs, people are still going
back and listening and you're getting more leads and more
sales that way. It also might be an audience that is
not quite ready to buy immediately. But if you have a good email nurture
sequence and you're engaging them really well after they get into
your audience, then they may end up converting to sales
then. So it's really hard to say exactly which
metrics to pay the most attention to, but those goals
also help you decide if something is the right fit. Because right now, maybe you
need leads and sales just because you're in a growth phase for
your business. Whereas other times, you may be looking more for that authority and those
connections to then go out and do collaborations later on.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, for me too, it's the relationship building
piece. Like, I get to have conversations with people who would
never, like, have the time of day to just, like, sit down and have a
little chatty chat. So, that's what I love about podcasting
too. Like, once it's done recording, you can always ask, like, who else, you know,
can you connect me to or how else can I support you? And so I
love that as a goal as well. So what about those those
people who may be feeling a little bit
intimidated by this idea of like public
speaking, quote unquote, or where, you know, we're we're putting
ourselves out there when we're guessing on podcasts. We're putting ourselves out there when
we're when we're speaking on submits. How do we get over the nerves of it
all? That is a great question. That is something
so my husband is actually a public speaking coach and he teaches at,
like, university level. So he's got an entire lesson on how
to get confidence with public speaking. And
one is just practice. Like even if you are just getting on the
camera and recording yourself talking, even if it doesn't get
published anywhere and then build yourself up to going live a couple of times for
like two minutes, it doesn't have to be long. And there may be nobody who
even shows up. But the other thing I love about doing podcast
interviews is it feels way less intimidating because you're sitting
here, I'm sitting just talking to Andrea. And so if,
if it was something that kind of scared me, it's
really low key. It's just a conversation with one other person
and you can kind of forget that you're actually going
and talking to a bunch of people. The other thing you can do
is start going for podcasts that have a low
audience. If you, if it still is in the back of your mind and you're
sitting there going, okay, I know I'm just talking to Andrea, but there's gonna be
hundreds of thousands of people listening. Just go on a smaller
podcast to start with. And that way you can kind of work your way
up And podcast downloads and that kind of thing
can be a little hit or miss with how accurate the metrics are.
But if you feel like it's a smaller audience, it's just a mind
game. So that's one way. But really, it's just working
yourself up, practicing. And, like, if you wanna pitch a really
big podcast, don't start there. Start small and work your way up and
just practice. Yeah. That's I love That's the biggest thing.
This is why I like you know, when we're pitching podcasts too, going
after the ones that are a little bit more attainable. Right? Like, not going after,
like, the number one business podcast on, you know, Apple
Podcasts. Going after one where maybe you do know the host so that
could make you a little more comfortable or one that isn't as popular that can
make you more comfortable. Plus you need to practice. It's a skill.
Right? Like, I think I think there's this assumption, especially as
adults. We just wanna show up and be good at everything. Right? We're like, we're
just show up and, you know, we just do the thing, but it definitely takes
time and practice. So I love that advice. I love it. You
also mentioned earlier about this idea of well, your
whole methodology is around being sustainable.
Content creator. And I'm seeing this now more than ever. There are so
many business owners who are burnt out. There are so many content creators who are,
like, taking a break. What are your pieces of advice if
we're, like, starting to put this this visibility ecosystem into
place? How do we make sure that we're not gonna burn ourselves
out? That is also a great question because it is
so easy to be like, oh, we're going to just do a low lift and
then it turns into a really big lift. So usually what I recommend
is if I have a client who has been on podcasts in the
past, we'll start by going to those podcasts first. We'll pull them
into a tool like Cast Magic and
pull out all of the different pieces that we can use for social
media. When I'm doing it for a retainer client, I will
focus on getting at least nine to 12 different pieces of content.
It's like three carousel posts, three quote posts, three short
form videos, that kind of thing. Maybe some longer form
content for blogs or emails or LinkedIn, and
then turning that into evergreen content so they can immediately
start posting those and just rotate out which podcasts they're talking
about. So maybe they have five of them they talk about in one month and
then they rotate onto the next set. And so that way you start
building up that content database
essentially. And so we built that into their visibility
ecosystem hub so that anytime there's something going, oh, shoot, I didn't get a
post ready. You can just go in, grab something that you haven't posted
in six months. No one's going to notice. Or at least if they do,
they're probably not going to care. And so that way you can keep
it really low lift. You create it once and you can keep using it for
years to come. If you're going on 20 podcasts a year,
that is what, almost 200 pieces of content
probably that you can pull out from that. That 200
pieces of content is almost a year's worth of daily posts.
You can easily go and feel your content marketing system for years just by
doing a quarterly podcast tour, Super low lift, and
you don't have to go too crazy with it. Yes. Use the
content you already have. I feel like that should be my mantra
going forward because I think this is where
business owners try to get too fancy is that we just
think, oh, we said it already. But I promise you, you
need to say it again, and I promise you, your people need to hear it
again. So, like, reuse that content. And then, also, if you're
doing the podcast tours and the summits right, there are new
people coming in who haven't heard you say it yet, so use it again and
again. Yes. I love this so much. Okay. Do you have
an example of this kind of like ecosystem working
well? I wanna hear about either you or a client of
yours who had like a success moment from all
of this beautiful strategy. Yeah. So
I'm, I'm kind of the worst at doing it for myself because
I'm sitting there doing it for clients. But yeah, we
just started offering the No fuss podcast tours last year. So like twenty
end of twenty twenty four. So we're still kind of gathering the data on that,
but I've I've seen clients get 25 to
50% acceptance rates from their podcast tour
pitches. And as they start doing that, they're able to
go and create that content bank. And
so when I do it, one, it goes and it builds that
relationship with the host. So honestly, a lot of the
time, podcast guests don't share their content.
But when they get swipe copy and swipe graphics,
they just kinda go, okay. Thanks. And then probably honestly forget
to post it. Like, most of us have the best intentions. We mean to, but
we don't actually do it. So that's why I've got my visibility ecosystem
hub that anytime I get a new podcast guest appearance,
I put it in there, make sure to share it during that week where it
airs to give it a boost. But then I go back and do it again,
and I make sure I'm tagging the host in the post because
then they can go and reshare that if they want to because it gives them
a signal boost. So honestly, that's one of my
my favorite things that comes out of when I share my
content on an evergreen basis is it builds that
relationship with the host and it builds into somebody else's business. Because like you
said, relationships are so key. And
I wanna make sure that I'm I'm not just ghosting the
podcast host who I work with. Because if if I'm doing this
and sharing it, they're more likely to go and
refer me back to other summits and podcasts and just remember
me if they have a collaboration opportunity coming up. So it's a win win.
Yes. I love this. Like, I think that this, this
just goes into like, be a good person. Like be, be a good, be a
good collaborator and more collaborations will come your way. I love
it. Okay. So as we wrap up, I know that
you have this questions generator. I've tried it, but my
dear listeners do not know about it just yet. Give us all of
the details about this questions generator that you have.
So this is part of a suite of apps, like
we're calling them apps. It's essentially just little mini tools that we are
creating for speakers. So this is the first one that we've gotten to release
publicly and it is, it's really fun because
it's super duper easy to use. You literally just plug
in your speaking topic and a little bit of
info about the podcast that you're speaking on. If you want to, you don't even
have to, and it will automatically generate 10 customized
questions that the podcast host can ask you. So when we
were developing this, my co developer plugged in.
I think it was literally, bees are awesome. It was, like, three or four
words, and it came up with 10 podcast interview
questions that we were kind of blown away by. It told a story.
It really dug into some questions that they might not
have thought to ask otherwise. So the way that I use
this is I use it myself when I am going and
creating no fuss podcast tours because in our pitch emails, we
include two to three questions that the host could ask. It
shows one, that you've customized it to their audience. And so it's
really highly relevant. You've done your homework and
two, it makes it low lift for the host. And if they want more questions
they can ask you. So having those 10 questions is really,
really helpful. But also if you're not just guesting on podcasts, you're
also hosting, you can use this for your own podcast interviews. If you're
like, okay, I want something that maybe they haven't been asked before, you
can just plug in the guest topic into the interview questions generator
and get 10 questions that you can ask them on your own podcast. So
it's really multi use, and I've been having a lot of fun with it.
Yes. Use this tool, especially if you're,
like, you're having that struggle where you're staring at the blinking
cursor inside of your Google Doc, and you're like, what what am I even
talking about right now? Like, use the tools to help you get there. I love
this. So I'm gonna put the link in the show notes,
onlinejoy.com/34four. Where else can people
connect with you, Jen? Yeah. You can go ahead and find me at visibility
ecosystem. So visibilityecosystem.com, and I'm pretty
much exclusively on threads right now at Visibility Ecosystem.
Hopefully getting into, like, LinkedIn soon because I'm kind of done
with Instagram. But You're
not the only one. So I will put all of Jen's links
in the show notes, onlinedrea.com/340four.
Jen, thank you so much for being on the show today. Thank you so much
for having me, Andrea. This was fun. Yay. And thank you, dear listener, for
tuning into another episode of the Mindful Marketing Podcast coming
up next in the Mindful Marketing Lab. If you have not joined us yet, please
come on in. Jen's in there. We're having a lot of fun. We're learning all
about marketing. And this, month, we're continuing our
LinkedIn training with two very special trainings. We have a
LinkedIn advanced training and a q and a session, which is right after
this episode. So if you're listening to this on February 11, it's coming out February
12, so you still have time to join. And then we're also doing an advanced
LinkedIn ads training with the amazing Julia O'Hare. If you
are also done with Instagram, this all of this is
for you, so come on in. The water's warm. You can find that link in
the show notes or on my website. Stay tuned. We have more episodes coming out
soon. I will see you next Tuesday. Bye for now.