115: Showing Your Face, Perfectionism, and Finding the Time [Marketing Q&A]
Welcome back to Making Good, the podcast for small businesses who want to make a big impact.
I’m your host, Lauren Tilden, and this is episode 115.
It’s been a while, but today, we’re doing a marketing Q&A episode.
Today I’ll be answering 5 questions that I received to my Instagram stories. We’re covering everything from improving your marketing, handling fear, the most effective marketing platforms, time, and perfectionism.
Alright, now!
So let’s get into the first question:
#1: How do I get over the fear of putting yourself (and your face) in front of your business?
This is such a great question! And I want to answer this question in two parts. First, let’s talk about why I think it’s so important that you put yourself and yes, even your face, in your marketing.
Then, let’s talk about that fear.
So. Why should we all seriously consider putting ourselves into our marketing?
It’s because people connect with people. We build relationships with people. And we become loyal to people. This is especially true for small businesses… part of the reason that our customers are shopping with us is BECAUSE we’re a small business. Because we’re not the big mass-manufactured corporate option. So reminding them of the human behind things is really important.
Sharing about you as a person – and yes, even showing your face – is something that helps build the know, like, and trust factors that are so important in marketing. When people know, like and trust us – they are much more likely to feel confident making a purchase with us.
And you can take my word for it… or you can look at the data. For most of us, some of our best-performing content is the stuff that has a photo of us in it, and/or includes some personal details or insight from us. Look at your marketing insights, whether that’s on social media, email or another platform… and I would wager that some of your best performing content – the stuff that gets the most engagement and response – is content about you, ideally featuring a photo of you.
Of course, be safe about this. I hope it goes without saying that I don’t want you to put your physical address or share anything super personal that doesn’t feel safe to share.
One bonus tip here on this topic is to get really specific. For example, instead of saying, “I like to relax by watching TV”... say, “you can find me watching back-to-back episodes of Murder, She Wrote”. These both convey essentially the same things, but getting specific gives people the chance to have something specific and unique in common with me. If you don’t LOVE murder, She Wrote, cool! But if you do, you are going to feel more connected to me, even just based off this tiny little thing we have in common.
Okay, so. That’s WHY I argue you should show your face and share about you as a person in your marketing.
Now, let’s get directly to this question, which gets at the heart of something so many of us experience: How do we face the fear of putting ourselves (and our faces!) out there.
The fact is, it’s scary to put yourself or your products and something you personally made out into the world for other people to react to. Let’s talk about Instagram Stories for example. When I show my face or talk to the camera on Instagram stories, a lot of things go through my mind:
Ugh that is really not a flattering angle
Why did I say that?
What is RANDOM PERSON from high school or college going to think when they see this?
I should go put some makeup on
You might have similar thoughts when you put your products out there:
This is so amateur
Why would anyone buy this
Other peoples products look better
The fact is, the mental conversation inside of our heads can be seriously negative and just MEAN. So, what do we do about it?
Well, I’m afraid you’re not going to like this answer.
But the best way I’ve found to handle the fear that goes with putting yourself out there is to simply let it be there.
In the beginning, when I felt these kinds of feelings or fear, I took that to mean that I wasn’t ready. That maybe I needed to learn more, and get better, before I should go ahead and put myself out there. Because the fact that I was feeling this fear must be a sign that I wasn’t quite ready for that.
And I’m going to be honest: This really held me back for a LONG time.
I held myself back SO MUCH from putting anything out into the world because I let my fear run the show – and I took it to be the truth.
But, the most revolutionary thing I probably have ever done in my business is decide that the fear could be there… and I could take action anyway.
I could post the Instagram Stories of my face… even if fear told me I sounded and looked silly.
I could share videos of my work… even if fear told me that other people were better than I was.
I could share my expertise… even if fear tried to convince me I wasn’t qualified.
These days, I’ve come to see fear as a signal that I’m probably on the right track! It usually shows up when I’m doing things that are outside of my comfort zone, and I am constantly working on taking action even (and especially) in the presence of fear.
#2: What’s the most effective marketing option besides email?
Okay, I LOVE THIS QUESTION because the question asker (hi Holly!) has definitely been paying attention to my obsession with email marketing.
So, for anyone new to the podcast, let’s start with WHY I believe so, so strongly in email marketing.
The truth is that the data shows email marketing to be more effective than any single other marketing platform. With email marketing we get better reach (4-5x that of social media), and we see a higher return on investment.
So while I’m not suggesting that email marketing needs to be or even should be the entirety of your marketing strategy, it’s definitely something that I would recommend you prioritize, no matter who you are. If you’re listening to this and you are thinking –
Yeah… but I don’t think email marketing is a good fit for my particular business. Let’s chat! DM me over on Instagram and let’s talk it out to see if I agree :0).
So, back to Holly’s question: What’s the most effective marketing option besides email?
I’m not going to answer this question with a list of most effective social media platforms or snazzy marketing tricks… instead I’m going to give you that super annoying answer: It depends.
And what does it depend on? It depends on two things:
What your goals are. In other words, what do you want your marketing to do for you? Different marketing platforms are good for different things. So looking at your specific goals and strategies will help you narrow down the best things to focus on when it comes to marketing. For example, let’s say you have a good number of customers, but you don’t tend to see very many repeat-buyers, and you think that’s a big opportunity for you when it comes to increasing your sales.
In that case, I’d focus on strategies that are geared toward providing a stellar customer experience and strengthening your relationships with your buyers. This is going to look like email marketing, one on one conversations in the DMs, special campaigns just for past buyers, expressing your gratitude, following up after purchase, etc.
If you are more focused on reaching more people, I’d look at strategies that are specifically geared toward getting discovered by new people. Things like long-form content (blogs, podcasts, videos), SEO and Pinterest are great for this, as are collaborations and PR.
The second thing you want to make this decision based on is:Who your ideal customer is?
The better you know your ideal customer, the better decisions you’re going to be able to make when it comes to marketing… and just about everything else in your business, too.
When you know your ideal customer, you know how best to connect with them. You know what platforms they love and what platforms they hate. You know when and where they show up, and what they’re looking for.
So for example, if you’re trying to select the social media platforms that you’re going to invest time and effort into (and I’d recommend you stick with 1 or 2, 3 at the most), you want to make that decision based on how your ideal customer uses social media, what platforms she uses, and how she shows up there.
#3: What do I do if I don’t feel like I have enough TIME to do everything I want to do for marketing?
YESSSS such a good one. Look, I’m a marketer. I *LOVE* marketing. I think it is one of the most powerful tools that any business or cause has at their disposal to help them make a bigger impact.
However, there’s one thing that I find really annoying about marketing, and it’s this:
With marketing, you never “arrive”. You never check everything off your list and feel like, OK! I did marketing, let’s move on! It’s an ongoing process. When it comes to marketing, we could always be doing more. This is true for every single business on the planet.
So the reality is, it’s very very likely that you’re going to be in the position of wanting to do more than you have time and bandwidth to do. If you are experiencing this feeling of not having enough time and bandwidth… welcome to the club.
The important thing here is to acknowledge that you don’t have enough time to do everything you want to do.
The critical step that not enough of us actually take is to acknowledge our limits… so that we can prioritize what to do within those limits. I tell members of my membership to get super super specific about their bandwidth… to the point where they define exactly how many hours they have each week to devote to marketing.
If you struggle with overcommitting and having way more on your marketing list than you have time for, I’d recommend you do exactly this. Ask yourself, in an average week, how many hours can I devote to marketing? Keep that number top of mind as you move to the next stage.
Now, we’re going to make sure that our marketing activities we’ve committed to easily fit within that number of hours per week.
The next step is to prioritize all of the things we WANT to do when it comes to marketing. I’d recommend you make a list of everything that’s currently on your marketing “to do” list. Get super specific about what needs to get done each week. Don’t write “Instagram”, write “ 2 feed posts, 1 reel, and 3 IG stories”. Don’t write “email marketing”, write “1 email per week”.
After you’ve listed everything out, estimate how much time each item will take you per week. My guess is that you’re going to find that the list of things you think you “should” be doing per week takes A LOT MORE hours than you have allocated for marketing.
So this means we need to prioritize. How do we know which of these tasks to prioritize? By going back to our goals. What is your #1 or your #1 and #2 goals for the year? Looking at those goals, ask yourself – which of these marketing activities are most in service of that goal? Which of these are most likely to move me in the direction I want to be moving?
Choose your top priorities, make sure they fit within the allocated # of hours per week, and stick with that for the month. You can always re-evaluate when the next month comes, but I can’t wait for you to experience the peace of mind that comes with KNOWING you’re doing the things that matter the most.
#4: How do I handle perfectionism?
To answer this question, I’m going to share an excerpt from an episode of the daily private podcast for members of Making Good Happen. (If you’re a member, head to episode from January 7th)
If you’ve ever had a job interview before, chances are pretty good that you’ve come across the questions “what are your strengths?” and “what are your weaknesses?”
I remember feeling like a really “SMART” answer to the “what are your strengths” question was to say “I’m a perfectionist”.
Because I thought it was mostly a strength and spoke to someone’s attention to detail and how much they cared about the quality of their work.
WELL. I’ve come to see that that was DEFINITELY a story I was telling myself… as someone who was (and in some ways still is) a perfectionist.
While aiming for quality is a strength, perfectionism is not.
Because of perfectionism, I’ve spent a lot of my life holding back.
Not putting things out into the world, not sharing my work, not showing up.
Overall.. Not taking action… because I didn’t feel like things were quite right yet, or I wasn’t quite ready yet.
Here’s the interesting thing about perfectionism.
The only way to get better at things… in other words, to get close to “perfect”... is to do the thing imperfectly.
To possibly even be pretty bad at it at first, but still do it over and over again until little by little we get better.
I’ve come to see that there is absolutely no place for perfectionism in the life of small business owner who wants to get results and see growth. Because being a small business owner is ALL ABOUT taking action.
It’s all about trying brand new things, all the time.
When you run your own business, in the beginning at least, you have A LOT of job titles… from product designer to marketer to finance to systems to customer service.
You’ll be doing a lot of things you have never done before… which means you might not be good at them yet.
But the only way to GET good, to GET more capable and skilled at things is by doing them imperfectly.
This concept is perhaps the most true and relevant when it comes to marketing.
Marketing is a creative process.
Often times we’ll have a marketing campaign or piece of content in mind, but then when we try to create it – when we try to write the email or create the graphic, it just doesn’t come out like we had in mind.
So then we have a choice. We can decide we’re not good at marketing, and just not put ANYTHING out there….
Or we can do our best in the moment, put it out in the world, day after day, and week after week, until all the sudden, the things we’re creating look a lot closer to that ideal we had in our heads originally.
#5: What are the top 3 things we should be doing right now to improve our marketing?
We’re wrapping up this Q&A session with a question that I loved! What are the top 3 things we should be doing right now to improve our marketing?
I have to say, the answers to this question came pretty immediately to me, and I stand by them. I think if you focus on these 3 things, you’ll be setting yourself up for a lot of marketing success.
Get to know your ideal customer
We’ve touched on this a little bit, but the reality is that there is no one-size-fits-all marketing solution. Every single business is different, and therefore every marketing plan will be different.
I would argue that the single most important thing that any of us can do to improve our marketing is to really get to know our ideal customer. We want to know as much about them as we possibly can – how they shop, where they shop, where they spend their time online, what keeps them up at night, what their ambitions are, what their values are… and on and on and on.
You might be wondering – well, HOW do I get these questions answered? And there are many ways. You can do Instagram Stories polls if you feel like a lot of your followers represent your ideal customer. You can do a survey sent to people who represent your ideal customer. You can pay attention to questions they’re asking you. And you can do what are called “ideal customer avatar interviews” where you literally get someone on the phone or a Zoom call who is an example of your ideal customer, and ask them as many questions as you can to help you get to know them better.
Getting to know your ideal customer really, really well, will make all of your marketing better. It will help you be able to show up in the right places.
It will help you create products and offers that your ideal customer actually wants.
It will help you write content that resonates and really speaks to people.
I also want to say that this work of getting to know your ideal customer is ongoing. It’s not something you check off your list one time and then be done with. As time goes on, we’ll get to know your ideal customer better and better, so our approach will change, and that’s okay. Just do the best you can at this point, and keep finding ways to learn about them.Get crystal clear on your goals
The second thing that I think is a huge opportunity for so many small business owners to improve their marketing is to get crystal clear on your goals. This might sound simple and straightforward, but the fact is, different marketing activities help us do different things. We need to get strategic about what is most important to us at this particular moment so that we can narrowly focus our efforts on activities that will move us toward that goal.
For example, if you’re focused this year on increasing your sales that come from wholesale accounts, it wouldn’t make a lot of sense to spend 90% of your time on Instagram and 10% of your time on reaching out to and nurturing wholesale customers.
One thing I’d add here is to make sure you don’t have 500 things on your list of goals. I would recommend having one, maybe 2, and 3 at the absolute MOST primary goals for the year so that you can really focus in on those and start to see progress.Show up consistently
This one is the hardest! COnsistency is so, so hard. Why? Because consistency means continuing to do the work on the days where we’re not seeing results or progress coming in. Continuing to send emails even when for a while, it doesn’t seem to be doing anything for us. Continuing to post Reels, even when they’re not getting any traction. Continuing to send wholesale outreach emails, even when we’re not getting any responses.
Marketing success doesn’t come from the one-time-post on a fluke that did super well. It comes from showing up consistently, day in and day out, doing the activities that you know will move you toward your goals… even if you can’t see that in the short term.
So! There you have my answers to 5 listener-submitted questions. If you want to get in on asking questions for next time around, make sure you’re following me on Instagram so you get a chance!
Alright! That’s what I have for you today. You can find all the notes from this episode at makinggoodpodcast.com/115.
Did you like this Q&A style episode? Let me know on Instagram by messaging me over at @laurentilden.
I can’t help but throw in a plug for my membership program, Making Good Happen. Making Good Happen tackles topics like the ones we discussed here in this episode every single day. You have the opportunity to ask me questions, as well as ask questions of the over 60 other members of the program. There are coworking sessions, accountability, events, marketing training, an incredible community, and so much more. Get the details at makinggoodhappen.com.
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