Mia Fileman 0:05
This is Got Marketing? – a podcast with ideas, strategies, and tactics to help small businesses create smarter marketing. I’m Mia Fileman, a professional marketer, and the founder of Campaign del Mar. In this show, I chat with creatives and strategists about the different aspects of marketing, but without the fluff. Let’s dive in!
Hello, friends! Welcome back to the Got Marketing? Podcast.
It's absolutely no surprise that I love marketing campaigns. I love reading about them. I love unpacking them. But the truth is that small businesses don't really know what a marketing campaign is. They don't know how it's different to "always on" marketing. I thought that's what I could talk about today.
I have invited someone very special on the show today. That is Lauren Fraser. She is the director and head of strategy at LMF Marketing – a digital agency. She works with established businesses in the wellness and lifestyle space. Her and her team focus on crafting and managing wholistic marketing strategies that take into account the big picture. This enables six-figure businesses to scale further with effective digital strategies behind them. Let's get into it.
Welcome, Lauren!
Lauren Fraser 1:28
Thank you very much! It's great to be here!
Mia Fileman 1:32
I really appreciate you coming on. I want to share how we connected which was on Instagram. I just massively fangirled over you and your content.
Lauren Fraser 1:44
Thank you! That's so nice to hear! I was the exact same - good old Instagram connecting us.
Mia Fileman 1:51
I know. It's so nice, isn't it? For all the downsides of social media marketing, there are some real upsides, right?
Lauren Fraser 1:59
Definitely. When you keep front of mind that social media is for being social, that's when you definitely get the biggest reward out of it – all these great connections of course,
Mia Fileman 2:10
Surprise, surprise.
Today, we're going to talk about the difference between always-on and campaign marketing. Why don't you start us off? Do you want to shed some light? What exactly is always-on marketing?
Lauren Fraser 2:28
Yeah, this is an interesting one because I do find it's definitely something that's grown as the digital space has grown. Traditional marketing really focused on your campaigns. Always-on is about we’re always on in the digital space. We are always jumping online. We’ve always got access to social media, Google, et cetera. Always-on marketing is about your business showing up and increasing your visibility and always attracting new people or working on that acquisition constantly because the digital space is always on. You, as a business owner, also need to be always on. It's an interesting change in marketing, I feel.
Mia Fileman 3:20
It's an ongoing noncampaign approach that aims to create that consistent presence through continuous marketing activities.
Lauren Fraser 3:32
Yes, 100 percent.
I like to think of it as you're focusing on acquisition and retention with always-on. You're just being constant and consistent. One of the big things I do say to clients is this is where your brand and your brand awareness is really crucial because it feeds into campaigns. I'm sure we will dive into that more, but with always-on, you look at things like, “How is your ideal audience using the online space? Therefore, how do you need to be using it as well to make sure you're showing up across platforms at different stages of their consumer purchase journey?” It's ongoing, always optimising, always testing, and using data as much as possible to feed into all of that.
Mia Fileman 4:32
Right. Okay. What are some examples of always-on marketing?
Lauren Fraser 4:36
Actually, before I touch on that – because, otherwise, I'm going to go backwards – think of always-on as remaining consistent with your social media presence. You're just active. You may not necessarily be trying to elicit a response. You're maybe not getting people to sign up or make a purchase necessarily, but you are remaining consistent. They know about you. You're still building connection. You're building that trust, et cetera.
What I was about to say was, also, really thinking about your retention. Always-on marketing should be looking at what happens once someone's become a customer client and looking at how can you re-engage with email marketing, how you can be gathering reviews as well. It is the full process you're touching on.
Mia Fileman 5:34
The whole customer journey, the whole experience from the awareness stage, all the way through to the post-purchase stage which, as you said, is so overlooked.
Lauren Fraser 5:43
It’s so overlooked, yeah. This is one of those ones that has so much value in it, if you do it well, because all of it is interlinked. If you're building reviews on Facebook, or on your Google My Business listing, they have a positive impact on the performance of your campaigns. If you're running Google ads, the amount of reviews makes your Google Ads cheaper. All these things that are interlinked to bring it together, if you are working away and ticking at it.
Mia Fileman 6:15
That's why I prefer "journey" versus “funnel.” My journey is actually a cycle graph. After post-purchase, you go back to the start. All of this great post-purchase experience feeds into new acquisition of customers because, as we know, it's the social proof, and the reviews, and the testimonials, and the case studies that really helps new people to go on to purchase.
Lauren Fraser 6:46
Definitely!
There are a lot of marketers out there. There definitely are a lot of methods that can be applied for campaign marketing, but they really do look at just "You’ve got to have this conversion rate happening. You need this amount of traffic. We'll do a little formulation, and then we can guarantee these results."
But that's not taking into account the big picture. It's not looking at that actual cyclical journey that's going on. Personally, for sustainable growth and creating a sustainable business and brand, you need to be looking at the big journey and having the "always-on." You are being consistent in how you're showing up. You're really resonating with your audience. You're building a brand. You're not just flicking something on and off based on formulas or a method that’s proved to work.
Mia Fileman 7:51
At any point of time, you are going to have customers at the awareness stage, at the consideration stage, at the “just about to purchase” stage, and at the post-purchase stage. Always-on marketing allows you to reach your people where they are. We need to be able to walk and chew gum as marketers, so that we have channels and tactics happening at each stage of that customer’s journey, so that we can help nurture people to the next stage.
I think that the reason why the post-purchase part of the customer journey is so overlooked is because, these days, the purchase happens before the journey even starts for the customer. If I think about my online program, the customer pays for it before it even starts. But, for the brand, it's like, “Well, that's done. That's a sale. Move on. Next!” But the journey is only just beginning for those customers, so this is an opportunity to spectacularly fail, if after the customer has parted with their money, that you've just dropped the ball.
Lauren Fraser 9:09
Yeah, 100 percent!
It happens so often. You can think of your own experiences when it happened. There's a great lead-up or you come across and you've got a great initial experience. You're like, "Yeah, this is awesome! Take my money!” and then it just goes to shit after that. You're like, “Actually, I'm really not happy with that.” That's when that buyer regret comes in. Unfortunately, you maybe don't become an advocate, or you may even speak badly of it, especially when you're handing over money. You do want to know that you are valued as a customer and there is something there to follow it up and then hopefully bring you back as a customer as well.
Mia Fileman 9:55
Correct.
There is so much overmarketing happening at the moment. That's a whole other episode about how some brands, especially the online business brands – I like to call them "gurus" – are so good at selling and they are so good at marketing, but what they are selling is essentially a turd that has been polished high. It is so underwhelming when you actually go and buy this $49.00 marketing strategy template and you realise that it is stuff you could have Googled, added in a Canva document. and it really ruins it for the rest of us, don’t you think?
Lauren Fraser 10:44
Totally! Most definitely!
Again, there are formulas and models that work in certain situations if you're hitting all these benchmarks, but the high majority of the time, marketing is not a one-size-fits all – even within the same businesses, similar structure, or industry. You've got a lot of different moving pieces that will impact those templates and what a lot of the gurus are spruiking. A normal business owner is not going to understand or realise that they're unique and need unique solutions to see actual growth.
Mia Fileman 11:25
That's so true.
Things that worked for me last year don't work this year – let alone another business in another industry in another country. A lot of these gurus have US-based businesses – and we are totally digressing here, but that’s okay – and they're giving advice based on a population size of 350 million versus us here in Australia with 20 million. All of these live masterclasses and live launches and "come to my live masterclass!" I don't know about you, Lauren, but I've had a live masterclass where five people have come. Great! If I can convert one of them, I've made one sale!
Lauren Fraser 12:07
Yeah, it is! It’s always unique.
This really does tie back into why the always-on marketing is so powerful because you're purely focusing on your business and on your data. You're optimising based on the results you're seeing for your business. It's so true.
Essentially, you're not applying some out outwards formula or you're not listening to anyone else. It's really looking at yourself. When you understand it – the data you're looking at, and you know what you should be looking at – then that's when you see true results and real growth.
Mia Fileman 12:53
Absolutely.
Let's share some examples of always-on activities, so the listeners can really wrap their heads around what we're meaning.
Lauren Fraser 13:02
Yeah, definitely SEO. This is a big one.
I am a massive fan and advocate for SEO. The reason is I just know how powerful it can be. Everyone is using Google. We know that. Focusing on your SEO – again, this isn't a one-size-fits-all, and it's not something you can do once – you need to be constantly optimising to be improving your presence within the search engine which is what SEO is – search engine optimization. It literally means ticking away on your website, making changes both on the site and off it – but this is also another conversation to dive in because it's such a big channel, SEO.
Because people are always using Google, and you always want to be showing up in front of them, I consider SEO to be the best channel for always-on marketing. But again, what that looks like is different for every business. How much effort is required is going to be different for every business. This is where it's at least worth talking to a specialist in SEO to understand whether you need a little bit of help to start ranking or if you’re in beauty or skincare – which is extremely competitive and crowded – and you may need a lot of support to get ranking. That one can vary.
Email – definitely an always-on. It’s not just thinking about your automated series which can be your abandoned carts, your nurture sequences from initial subscribers, but also thinking about your monthly campaigns as well because you need to train people to expect email from you. You can't just jump in once a year and expect amazing results. They need to know you're going to be emailing and that you've got value in your emails and it's worth opening.
They're two really big ones I think a lot of people overlook. As we touched on before, social media marketing, definitely, just to remain active, have a presence, build that social proof, but how you use it again would depend on your business, what you offer, the space you're in, and that kind of thing.
Mia Fileman 15:41
Yeah, awesome. Great examples.
It's so interesting to meet a marketer who has a favourite channel because they're all my children. I can't pick a favourite, especially as an integrated, multi-channel marketer. Well done you!
Lauren Fraser 15:55
I think it's just because it's so powerful. I guess they all are but, for me, SEO has helped build my business. Most of my inquiries are organic. I don't have to really do a lot. Once you get that momentum, once you’re just ticking away, delivering content, it's great. You don't have to work your butt off like you do with social media in order to see results or generate inquiries. See? I'm a big fan.
Mia Fileman 16:26
Yeah. Usually, when someone asks me, it goes something like, "It's definitely email, but also Pinterest, and then PR and, also, I love lead magnets." “So, you don't have a favourite?” “No, I don't.”
Some of my favourite always-on activities are definitely email marketing.
I love lead magnets for lead generation as a really great evergreen marketing activity. It's all well and good to get all this wonderful traffic to your website, but I really like to capture those website visitors and get them on to an owned channel like my email list. A lead magnet really helps me to do that. I have about three lead magnets on the go at any time, but I invested upfront to create them. I think they are really high value, but now I do nothing. I just sit there and nurture my people for me.
I love podcast episodes. I love to chat. I think it's a really great way to reach customers in a new way. You're literally in their ears which I think provides a new sensory experience. There's a lot of trust between a podcast host and their listeners. I think that that's pretty special.
Blogs, to your point, which really help with your search engine optimization.
Lauren Fraser 17:57
Totally.
It's really interesting, I think, for podcasts, because they've just absolutely skyrocketed in popularity over the past few years, but you do so quickly build that trust. I've recently bought these like supplements because I was listening to this health podcast. I fell in love with the brand through the podcast content they were delivering. It's powerful.
Mia Fileman 18:27
Very powerful because I think it's long-form content, we are so conditioned to these social media micro-moments. “Here's a story. Here’s a 30-second reel or a 15-second Reel.” It's really hard to build relationships and connections in 15 seconds.
If you think about back when I ran a traditional agency, I used to meet with clients face-to-face for an hour. By the end of the hour, they were a client, essentially. Now, it could take six months before someone comes and purchases with me because it is so much harder to build relationships versus staring at them in the face, in the eyes, and going "I'm a good human. You're a good human. Let's do good human marketing together." I think podcasting really starts to bridge that divide between social media and face-to-face.
Lauren Fraser 19:24
This is why, again, with the "always-on" marketing, keeping in mind for your business, who is your ideal audience, and where are they consuming content? Because maybe you've been writing blogs for years, and it's not gaining the momentum you expected because maybe you should be on podcasts. You could be doing a different channel, switching that approach with what your evergreen marketing is, but it's the right format for your audience, so it's going to have the results you're chasing.
Mia Fileman 20:01
Always be meeting your people where they are. It’s very, very, very important in marketing.
All of this that we've discussed about always-on marketing can sound a bit exhausting. Literally, in the name, it’s “be always-on,” but actually a lot of the examples that we shared can actually be set up once and work for you and be automated or be set up as evergreen. Or you can invest the time upfront to really lay those really solid SEO foundations and then just do a check-in with those. Would you agree with that?
Lauren Fraser 20:41
100 percent.
It doesn't need to be hard or overwhelming. A lot of business owners do. They hear all these things from all these different experts, pieces of advice but, at the core, it's really understanding who you are as a brand; where your audience is; and, as you say, just laying some foundations in place – whether that is a lead generator and testing it with a small audience first, people who represent your ideal audience, and then you may be able to get that set up, then put a nurture sequence in place.
As you said, once you've got it, minimal tweaking moving forwards. You don't have to be doing it all the time. Even with monthly email campaigns, that could be one email you're sending. It may include your blog that you've written once, with a little bit more content added in to add a bit more value. Your social media posts can be that blog reworked into multiple pieces.
With your always-on, it's about being really smart with how you're doing it. You don't have to do everything all at once but start laying the foundation. From there, you can test, optimise, evolve, especially if you're repurposing content. It could actually be really easy to add in Pinterest as another channel potentially or YouTube videos as another channel. It can really grow. It doesn't have to be hard by any means.
Mia Fileman 22:24
I'm a fiend for repurposing, recycling, re-whatever-ing my content.
If I sit down to write a single piece of content, I'm getting mileage out of that. There is juice to be had. Honestly, I never sit down to write a post. It's just not how I approach my marketing which surprises people because I think that that is how a lot of small businesses approach their marketing. "What do I post today?" I actually always start with the hero content.
It's an article which I can then get published. I do a lot of PR. I repurpose that as a blog. I repurpose it as an email. I chop it up and make it three social media posts or do a whole podcast interview as the hero content. That's the theme. If I'm going to go to the effort of creating any content, it is going to be put to good use.
Lauren Fraser 23:20
Yeah, and as it should be.
I think a lot of people shy away from doing that. They’re like, “They'll see me saying the same thing again and again.” No, actually, such a small amount of your audience will see it which is interesting because people consume media in different ways.
The way each platform may show your content will be different as well. If you do a post on Instagram now, maybe one percent or maybe up to five percent of your audience will actually see it on their feed. Definitely don't hesitate to be repurposing. You can just take it, adapt it to suit the platform you're on – whether that may be a short post, if you want to put it on Twitter, or expanding on it, if you put it into a lengthy YouTube video.
Don't shy away. Get mileage out of it.
Mia Fileman 24:22
Also, repetition and consistency are your friends in marketing.
Back in the 1960s, or the 1970s, there was a Rule of Seven which was that consumers needed to see something seven times before they took action. I read a recent study that said that now the Rule of Seven is the Rule of 30 because of digital noise and saturation. It is so naive of us to think that just because we posted about something once, three times, five times, that our customers or our audiences have seen that message and are already tired of it.
I seriously say the same things all day, every day. I'll say something that I've said a hundred times and people go, "That's so interesting!" I'm like, "You haven't heard me say that? I say that every day." That's how it works.
Lauren Fraser 25:21
It's so true.
As another example, running Facebook ads, you can track the frequency. I find it so interesting with the different campaigns we may be running and the frequency that works to achieve conversions. Sometimes, maybe three times they need to see that particular ad. For other businesses, we've had 21 times as the frequency that converted best.
Don't be scared to keep hammering home your message or to be saying the same things, showing the same imagery, driving home your brand and your offer because people take time to think it through, make a decision, and then eventually convert.
Mia Fileman 26:16
I love politics – not because of the politics. I love politics because of the campaigns. I love campaigns.
I think a good analogy is like a politician running for office. They have the same messages, the same stump speech, the same little spiel that they do everywhere. They literally travel across the country, to different town halls and different media outlets. They will do seven interviews in one day. It's all the same content – slightly modified for radio, for TV, for print. That's how they reach the people. They take that message on the road. That's exactly how we should be looking at our marketing.
Lauren Fraser 27:00
Yes, definitely!
Expanding on that, I think something people forget in the digital space is your website. It's your shopfront. You need to think about how you would respond in the real world if you came across a bad service, no follow-up, or let's say it's a really poor website with bad experience and people bounce off.
It's like being in the real world where there's a cafe to choose from on the strip. Do you go into the nice one with good music that's inviting? They've got a menu out front compared to maybe the one next door that's shitty and broken-down tables and chairs and isn't inviting and doesn't work.
I think a lot of established businesses potentially have forgotten that you actually need to be putting your best foot forward in the digital space and looking at all of these things that come together. Businesses in the real world have known this for a long time. That's how you’ve got to stand out. You need to do the same online as well.
Mia Fileman 28:11
I know. It breaks my heart that you go to so much effort to get the customer to go to the website only so that you can disappoint them there. It took a lot for them to get there. They saw your Reel. You danced and you pointed your little hiney off there. They clicked on the LinkedIn bio, and they got there. Then, it was all very underwhelming, so I absolutely agree.
All right. Now, campaigns, the love of my life! Seriously, it's not healthy the relationship that I have with campaigns.
Lauren Fraser 28:45
Everyone's going to have a passion. That's absolutely fine.
Mia Fileman 28:50
Seriously. It's what I do on the weekend. I consume campaigns and talk about what I loved about them and what I think they could have done better. Anyway, a campaign, for me, a good definition – and it is very hard to find a good definition of campaigns, but the one that I like the most is – "a connected series of actions leading towards a desired outcome." What do you think, Lauren? Is that a good definition?
Lauren Fraser 29:19
Yeah, most definitely. I really do think of campaigns as you're trying to get a certain response. As you say, you're trying to get a desired action or outcome, and that may vary, but you want to elicit that response out of them.
Mia Fileman 29:38
Correct.
I think what I love about campaigns so much is that a good campaign – the integrated marketing campaigns, the ones that I trade in – are driven by big ideas. I love big ideas because this is where we start to see insights and deep insights – not just shallow, scratching the surface. This is really juicy stuff that resonates with customers and their needs. When you take that big idea and you amplify it across a clever mix of channels – ideally, a smart mix of paid, earned, and owned channels – it creates a multiplier effect.
There is an Aristotle quote which I will totally botch, but it is "the sum of the whole is greater than the sum of the parts."
Lauren Fraser 30:30
That sounds familiar.
Mia Fileman 30:34
That's exactly how I feel about campaigns.
Doing blogs, sending emails, updating your website, and doing some social media – individually, great. But when it all comes together in a cohesive, big-idea, compelling campaign that is what makes people sit up and take notice.
Lauren Fraser 30:58
That's what's really exciting about them. When it's done well, as you said, you feel that response. You feel that connection. You want to be a part of it. It's fun and exciting when you achieve that – from both a consumer point of view and as a marketer. When you see it all come together, people are connecting, engaging, responding, and taking whatever outcome you were aiming for, it's so exciting.
Mia Fileman 31:30
So exciting.
The quote is: "The whole is more than the sum of its parts." I did butcher it, but only slightly.
Lauren Fraser 31:41
The general message was there.
Mia Fileman 31:42
That's actually a really good point that you made about campaigns. It is short term.
You go hard for a certain period. You really go all-in – just like a politician running for office. The election is the all-in. They get more and more grey hairs as you see them progress through the campaign.
But then, you pull out and that is a really great way to re-strategize, recharge, reassess, go back and think about what worked, what could be improved for next time. I think it's a much more sustainable way to approach your marketing.
Lauren Fraser 32:33
Yeah, definitely.
That campaign mode? You can't be in it all the time. It's not sustainable. That is where you see business owners burn out. You're trying to do all the things. You're showing up all the time. Instead, it's taking that step back, having your foundation with your always-on marketing in place which is sustainable. It's hitting the right points at the right time. Just be doing the acquisition and doing the retention. When necessary – maybe at launch time or Black Friday, Christmas, whatever it may be – you ramp it up because your audience is ready for it. As you say, you jump all in. You go all-in across channels.
Mia Fileman 33:25
Generally, campaigns are where you will see your biggest uplift in sales. Always-on activities give you that nice baseline. Great, it's ticking over. It's keeping the lights and the doors and that whatever happening. But it's the campaign where you get the serious peaks, and businesses need those peaks.
I guess what we're saying is that you need both – always-on and campaign marketing.
How on earth do small business owners manage both?
Lauren Fraser 34:01
This is a tough one. Again, it's going to be different for every business owner based on their industry, their structure, their resources, experience – all those things. I really do believe in the early stages of business – up to 12, maybe 18 months – that honestly a lot of the marketing, you do need to hustle. You really need to put in that legwork yourself as a business owner to create content, to show up on your socials, to try and get that always-on foundational stuff in place.
As you said, you're establishing that baseline. You get those initial sales or clients coming onboard. Then, I think you get to that stage where things are pretty healthy. They're going pretty well and you're ready for that campaign. You're ready to get to the next level – to drive up sales, conversions, et cetera.
Dependent again on your business, it may be time to then look at working with an agency or a marketing specialist who can help you really execute something very strategic because some business owners may have a real grasp on their marketing, and some may not. It takes a lot of your resources to do a campaign, so you want to make sure you're going to see results from it. Even if you just initially have a consult.
I get a lot of inquiry that does reach out to me. I say to them, “Look, I don't think you're ready for it. I suggest you go and do this over the next six months – whether that be creating content for your website, or I reckon you need to do this for your SEO side – then come back to me and we'll look at it.” But it is hard to say when exactly. I think you need to do some hustling first, establish a baseline, get some always-on elements happening with your marketing, and then start getting strategic with the campaigns.
Mia Fileman 36:11
I completely agree.
Look, I'm a professional marketer. I outsource so much in my business because even the parts that I can do, I don't have time to do. I need to play to my strengths. I outsource SEO. I outsource some of the copywriting. I outsource most of the graphic design because I can't draw a stick figure. I think it's so important for brands to know enough to be dangerous, you can't be a good customer if you have zero understanding of how it works. I'm sure this frustrates you too, Lauren.
I used to run an agency. When customers would come and say, “Look, I know I need marketing, but I have no idea. I don't know how much it costs. I don't know what's involved.” I think it's really important to be a good client and at least understand what's involved so that you can properly brief your agency and get the best out of them.
Lauren Fraser 37:15
Yeah, that's a big part of it as well because, unfortunately, the digital space, there's a lot of cowboys out there still, to be honest. Like there's a lot of dodgy people who do give the industry a bad name.
As a business owner, you really do need to understand to some extent what's involved – “What are the metrics? What are we tracking?” – so you can make sure, when you do partner with an agency, they're doing good work that is actually helping you.
I've taken over campaigns from a lot of big and small agencies, unfortunately. You’ve just got to wonder what they were doing with the fees they were being paid by business owners. You definitely want to, in those early stages, do what you can to learn. There are so many free resources out there. Everything is on Google. If you want to know anything, you can find something on Google – an article or a YouTube video – to start equipping yourself with that – even base-level marketing knowledge.
Mia Fileman 38:22
Or you could pay and upskill in particular areas. Learn and know enough to be able to brief a team member or to outsource to an agency and not be hoodwinked with crazy prices. I completely agree. I think you definitely need always-on and campaigns. I actually think you start with the always-on exactly like you said because that lays the right foundations.
In terms of how you manage both, we spoke about a few things that can be set up as evergreen – like, lead magnets, email sequences, your SEO foundations – so that once you have those ticking along, you can step away for some time from them to focus on building a heavy hitting campaign.
I think that is the journey that entrepreneurs should really look at taking. Start with those foundations get particularly the owned channels really singing. Have all of that set up before diving into a campaign.
Lauren Fraser 39:34
Yeah, most definitely.
Ideally, it is looking at partnering with someone who can with you as well. When you do start working with a marketing agency, it’s about making sure it's really aligned with not only where you're at but where you want to go. This is something I say to my clients.
I'm not in it for the short haul. I don't just do campaigns. We do the always-on marketing as well because that's how you grow. As you say, you need the foundations. You need that ticking along. You do a campaign. You see that surge and uplift. You've got a new baseline. Your always-on then has also probably grown and evolved with you. It's constantly evolving. If you can work with someone who really sees that potential, they're also going to help you make sure what you're doing now is going to be helpful and relevant in 6, 12, 18 months. You can't just look at what you're doing with your marketing over the next one to three months. That is micro in terms of how you're thinking about it. You got to think long term and to try find partners or specialists or, as you say, looking at courses that'll help you upskill over time.
Mia Fileman 41:07
When I was in corporate, we were planning for the next year. Obviously, that was pre-COVID. That has thrown a wee spanner in the works.
Lauren Fraser 41:17
A little bit!
Mia Fileman 41:18
But we would build our campaigns 12 months in advance. Our marketing was set. It wasn’t like, “What do we do tomorrow?” However, unfortunately, exactly what small business owners tend to do is this really scattergun approach to the marketing which is they wake up in the morning and say, “What am I going to post today?” which is a really reactive way to approach your marketing as opposed to that proactive way.
Lauren Fraser 41:46
That’s when it becomes exhausting – when you’re working like that.
Mia Fileman 41:51
Yeah, there is no plan and it’s all just flying by the seat of your pants. You’re also like, “Well, what do I post today?” as opposed to having the foresight to set that all up and to create that hero content that we spoke about earlier. You’re like, “Well, that’s right. I wrote the article which is then going to get repurposed into all of these different pieces of content. We’re good.”
Let’s go back to talking about working with an agency and outsourcing because I think that this is such an interesting thing for small business owners or established businesses who are on the cusp to outsourcing. I hear often – and you’re probably the same – that they don’t know how to choose the right supplier to work with. They’ve maybe been burned in the past. I think that there is a real lack of responsibility on the part of the brand to say that it’s all on the agency or the consultant or the contractor. I really question the brief. How good was the brief? How good was the communication between you and the third-party supplier? Did you send them a good brief? Because I have a saying – shit in, shit out.
Lauren Fraser 43:10
I like that.
Mia Fileman 43:13
This is where it’s so important that you upskill to a certain degree to understand – “What is a good brief? What are good benchmarks in my industry? What is a good result?” – so that you can manage your expectations.
Lauren Fraser 43:35
Yeah, totally! That’s exactly what happens. I feel like, at times, likely without it meaning to, but there is a mentality. Business owners sign up with an agency. They’re like, “They’re going to take care of my marketing now. I don’t need to think about it.” Hang on. No, you’re the business owner.
You know your business intimately. We need to work together on this because I’ve got the strategy and experience and ideas, but there’s no one who knows your business like you. You need to have that input and work together. Unfortunately, lots of cowboys out there who are like, “I want your money! Sign on! We’ll do whatever.” No, actually, as a business owner, you want to know where you’re at and your numbers around that.
Have a clear idea of where you want to get to so you can have some really clear high-level dialogue with the marketing partner. You can say, “This is where I want to go. I know this is where I’m at. How do you see that happening as a marketing agency?” I feel like then it comes down to “Is there a vibe and a connection?”
When you are outsourcing, you are paying someone, you are trusting them with your brand. I think you really need to make sure you’ve got a connection there that you do vibe with them. If that’s not right, definitely be aware of that and use it as a bit of a warning sign to shop around because there is no shortage of amazing digital marketers out there. It’s about finding one that sees your brand, the potential of your brand, and really connects with you to achieve the goals that you, as a business owner, have outlined.
Mia Fileman 45:39
It’s so important to have that personality fit with your clients. I’m at a stage now where I don’t work with anyone who is looking for a fully outsourced solution, who is not willing to have some skin in the game, and is like, “I just want it done for me. I don’t want to think about it. I don’t care.” When the invoice comes, they go, “What’s this invoice? Why did this take so long? How did you do this? Tell me everything?” No.
I’m with you. I want to partner with my clients and customers – and they’ll mostly students for me these days – and that we make this beautiful marketing magic together.
Lauren Fraser 46:24
Yes, 100 percent! That’s actually some of the most rewarding times I find in my business. It’s having those strategy sessions with a client and having those catch-ups and being like, “What’s going on with your business? How is it going?” All of these leads that I’ve seen coming in from the Google Ads or the Facebook Ads or wherever. Are they converting? What is that doing for you and your business? That’s when it’s really exciting and rewarding. It’s like, “Cool. This is why I do what I do.”
Mia Fileman 46:59
Totally. Well, I think that that’s a great place to leave it for today. It has been such a pleasure. You’re such a clever cookie, Lauren. I’m so glad that you said yes and are on the show.
Lauren Fraser 47:11
No, thank you so much, Mia! It’s been an absolute pleasure!
Mia Fileman 47:16
How can established businesses who are looking to work with an absolutely kickass digital marketer reach out to you?
Lauren Fraser 47:24
Best place is the website which is lmfmarketing.com.au. You’ll find all the info there. You can even book in a call. We can have a chat directly. Otherwise, yeah, jump onto Instagram – lmf_marketing. You can follow along and even reach out via DMs there.
Mia Fileman 47:45
Yes, I highly recommend following Lauren on Instagram. Instagram has become incredibly boring, but I love Lauren’s content. It is always just so on point.
Lauren Fraser 47:56
Thank you so much!
Mia Fileman 48:00
All right. Have a lovely rest of your day and thanks for tuning in, everyone!
Thank you!
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