100 - Five Steps to a Winning Marketing Strategy with Racheal Cook of Promote Yourself to CEO
LISTEN TO THE EPISODE HERE:
If you have struggled to come up with a solid Marketing Strategy for your Business and you feel overwhelmed with all the platforms you could be on, today’s episode is for you!
Today, we’re joined by an amazing guest, Racheal Cook, the founder of the CEO Collective, and host of the Promote yourself to CEO Podcast. Rachel is an award-winning business strategist and she is on a mission to end entrepreneurial poverty for women in business.
We loved our conversation today, we talked about her experience with a burnout in the Corporate world, her journey of building her business, and the 5 Steps to a Winning Marketing Strategy!
Connect with Racheal:
Promote Yourself to CEO Podcast
Transitioning from Corporate Burnout to Entrepreneurship:
Rachel's personal experience of burnout and dissatisfaction with the corporate grind led her to explore alternative paths. She emphasizes the need to prioritize personal well-being, health, and family while building a business.
Identifying the Need for a Different Approach:
Through her own journey, Rachel discovered that traditional entrepreneurship advice often promoted a hustle mentality and overlooked the unique challenges faced by women entrepreneurs. She recognized the need for a business model that allows individuals to prioritize their lives and well-being.
Overcoming Constraints and Embracing Opportunities:
Rachel's unexpected pregnancy with twins became a defining moment in her entrepreneurial journey. Despite the challenges, it motivated her to find a way to build a business that aligns with her priorities. She encourages others to embrace constraints as catalysts for innovation and success.
The Significance of Email Marketing:
Rachel highlights the enduring importance of email marketing in an era of ever-changing social media platforms. While social media can provide initial exposure, relying solely on these platforms is risky due to their evolving algorithms and the shift towards paid advertising. Building and nurturing an email list remains a vital asset for sustainable business growth.
The Rise and Fall of Social Media Platforms:
Rachel discusses the cyclical nature of social media platforms, where organic reach diminishes over time as platforms prioritize profitability through advertising. She emphasizes the need for entrepreneurs to be adaptable and focus on long-term strategies rather than relying solely on organic social media reach.
Creating a Thriving Business and Life:
Rachel and Danielle both emphasize the importance of creating a business that supports a fulfilling life beyond work. They encourage entrepreneurs to prioritize self-care, personal passions, and relationships, ensuring that their business aligns with their desired lifestyle.
Comprehensive Marketing Strategy:
Racheal explains that a comprehensive marketing strategy encompasses the entire customer journey, starting from the moment someone discovers your brand to when they become a loyal paying client and advocate for your business. It's essential to focus on owning the majority of the marketing process rather than relying solely on social media platforms, which can be unpredictable and subject to sudden changes or shutdowns.
Five Stages of the Buyer Readiness Process:
Racheal outlines the five stages of the buyer readiness process that inform her marketing strategies:
Attract
This stage involves getting your brand in front of new potential customers for the first time. Effective attract marketing relies on strategies such as search engine optimization (SEO), particularly valuable for local businesses, and leveraging other people's audiences through guest appearances, interviews, networking, and referrals. Additionally, Racheal highlights the current opportunity for discovery on TikTok as a platform with significant organic reach.
ENGAGE
Once people have become aware of your brand, the goal is to engage them further and encourage them to explore your offerings. This stage emphasizes the importance of collecting contact information, such as building an email list or capturing leads through form submissions for high-touch service-based businesses.
NURTURE
Nurturing potential customers involves building relationships and trust through ongoing communication. Racheal draws parallels between effective email marketing subject lines and captivating video hooks on platforms like TikTok or YouTube shorts. Developing strong marketing skills that are transferable across platforms ensures consistent attention-grabbing content.
CONVERT
The conversion stage focuses on turning engaged leads into paying clients. Racheal advises businesses to have a clear call to action and a streamlined process for potential customers to make purchases or request consultations or proposals.
DELIGHT
Delighting customers after the sale is crucial for fostering loyalty and transforming them into brand evangelists. Providing exceptional customer service and offering additional value through follow-ups, exclusive content, or loyalty programs can help create enthusiastic advocates for your business.
While new platforms may emerge and gain popularity, Racheal emphasizes that the core marketing strategies remain consistent. Rather than getting overwhelmed by constantly shifting platforms, focus on your ability to capture attention and apply your marketing skills across different platforms. Being an early adopter can have advantages, but the key is to adapt your strategies to new platforms rather than relying solely on specific platforms themselves. Developing a comprehensive marketing strategy involves understanding the different stages of the buyer readiness process and tailoring your efforts accordingly. By focusing on attracting new audiences, engaging potential customers, nurturing relationships, converting leads, and delighting clients, businesses can establish a solid foundation for success. It's essential to choose one strategy within each stage and commit to it for a significant period, optimizing and expanding as needed. Remember, marketing skills are transferable, and adaptability is key in navigating the ever-evolving landscape of digital platforms.
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TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:00] Danielle Wiebe: If you have struggled to come up with a solid marketing strategy for your business and you're feeling overwhelmed with all the different platforms that you could be on, then today's episode is for you. I am joined by my amazing guest, Rachel Cook, who is the founder of the CEO Collective and the host of the Promote Yourself to CEO podcast.
[00:00:22] Rachel is an award-winning business strategist, and she is on a mission to end entrepreneurial poverty for women in business. I absolutely loved our conversation. We talked about her experience of burnout in the corporate world, her journey of building her business, and then we dive into really tactical marketing strategy and she shares her five parts of the marketing process, and you guys are gonna get so much out of this. So make sure you have a notebook and pen because you are going to definitely want to write notes for this episode and I am so excited to dive in.
[00:00:55] Before we do though, a reminder that we have our free [00:01:00] organic growth workshop that is happening next week on September 28th at 12:00 PM ps. We are gonna be talking about how to get massive exposure for your business and how to grow your business through the power of collaborations and partnerships. So you can register for that by going to businessbabescollective.com/workshop. All right, now let's dive into the podcast.
[00:01:24] Welcome to the Business Babes Collective podcast. I'm your host, Danielle Wiebe. In this podcast, you'll learn tangible business tips and strategies on how to grow successfully and sustainably. We'll also interview seasoned entrepreneurs, so you can listen in on their stories and see behind the scenes of what it took to grow and scale their businesses. Let's dive in as we discussed the wild, exciting, crazy, challenging rollercoaster ride of entrepreneurship.
[00:01:54] Welcome, Rachel to the Business Babes Collective podcast. I am so excited to have you on the [00:02:00] show and be a guest with us.
[00:02:01] Racheal Cook: Oh my gosh, I'm so excited to chat again. Danielle, we had such a great conversation when you were on my podcast, and I know we're gonna have an amazing one here.
[00:02:09] Danielle Wiebe: I'm so excited. Well, can you just share a little bit more about you, your business, what you do? You have some incredible things going on with your own business and own community, so share a little bit of background for our listen.
[00:02:21] Racheal Cook: Sure. So everyone who's meeting me for the first time, I am the founder of the CEO Collective and host of Promote Yourself to CEO podcast. I have been working with women entrepreneurs for over 15 years now to help them build more sustainable businesses, and honestly, my business journey is probably similar to a lot of women who are listening, which is, I went straight out of getting my MBA into corporate consulting where I proceeded to get completely burned out, working 80 plus hours a week.
[00:02:55] Consulting was very much, you're living out of a suitcase, you're on the road, you're boots on the [00:03:00] ground in front of clients all the time. I would have one day a week where I was home and I was so exhausted that I barely got to see my husband, who, we had just gotten married. So just getting married and barely seeing your new husband, not such a great thing.
[00:03:14] And after a few years of that, I finally just hit a wall where I was like, I have got to do something differently. And what really did it for me was, this was 2007, and I was realizing this was not working. And I started looking around and I realized everyone who was further in that career than me was miserable.
[00:03:35] They were miserable. Everyone was divorced, everyone was seeing their kids shuttled back and forth. Everyone had the Rolex and the BMW and the big house. And they worked 80, a hundred hour weeks. They were never home. They were missing out, you know? And I just realized this is not what I'm trying to do here.
[00:03:58] Danielle Wiebe: Right.
[00:03:58] Racheal Cook: I don't just wanna climb this corporate [00:04:00] ladder so I can make all this money and not have the life that I really want. So for me, that was the foundation of me starting my business, was me realizing the corporate grind was not for me. There had to be a way to do it differently. And because I went full steam into burnout, I had adrenal fatigue, I was severely burned out.
[00:04:20] And anyone who was not experienced adrenal fatigue. You basically are struggling to function. Like I couldn't get out of bed. So that kind of put me into a, a year of figuring out what the heck I wanna do when I grow up.
[00:04:35] Danielle Wiebe: Mm-hmm. . Yes. Question we all ask ourselves.
[00:04:37] Racheal Cook: right. And I took a medical leave of absence because my health had gotten so bad. So I was on shortterm disability and during that period, I went to a bunch of doctors and they were just like, Oh, just take all this medicine, You'll be fine. And I realized, I was like, You know what? I don't wanna medicate myself because this isn't working. I wanna figure out what will work for me.
[00:04:55] Danielle Wiebe: Mm-hmm.
[00:04:56] Racheal Cook: So I ended up on a yoga mat as you do, crying to your [00:05:00] yoga teacher and said, I, I don't know what else to do. This is what I went to school for. This is what I thought I wanted. And she looked at me and she said, Rachel, do you think you could help me with my yoga studio? And I was, Ah? What?
[00:05:14] And she said, Yeah, I've only had it open for a little over a year. I don't think I'm doing very well. I don't know if I'll be able to keep it going. Could you help me out? And so that to me was a light bulb moment where I realized I was working with small business as a consultant, but that meant that they had small teams of like, A couple hundred people, um, compared to owner operated micro businesses, really had small teams. They might have had a few contractors and like maybe one or two employees.
[00:05:42] Danielle Wiebe: mm-hmm.
[00:05:42] Racheal Cook: And to me that was the light bulb moment I needed cuz in 2007, 2008. One, there were not the resources that are available now. There was no social media. Facebook was just opening up to the public if you weren't in college, right.
[00:05:56] And there just weren't resources for people. And what [00:06:00] I found as I continued on my own journey and decided, Oh, I can help my yoga teacher and her studio, which turned into a lot of yoga related business. I found that the information that was out there was from a very privileged man's perspective.
[00:06:15] Lot of the coaching and advice for entrepreneurship was very much hustle mentality. Work, work, work, work, work. And I was just like, there's gotta be something else. I remember going to conferences and trying to find a mentor for myself, and nothing they were saying made sense for me. I was, they were like, Well, you just do this, this, and this. And I was like, But what if I physically can't do that because I have a health condition? And then I got pregnant with twins, six months after I officially went all in on my business. Which is great timing, by the way.
[00:06:48] Danielle Wiebe: Yes.
[00:06:48] Racheal Cook: If you're, if you're starting a business and you get drunk one night and forget to manage stuff, then you find out you're gonna have twins. I remember [00:07:00] looking at my husband and going, What am I gonna do? And we decided to continue and I was just like, There's gonna be a way for me to do what I wanna do.
[00:07:07] Danielle Wiebe: Yeah.
[00:07:08] Racheal Cook: And in a way it, it, I mean it truly was the catalyst. It was the blessing and disguise because while I did not plan to get pregnant, much less with twins, it gave me a set of constraints that really have dictated how I've worked with women entrepreneurs over the last 15 years.
[00:07:25] Danielle Wiebe: Wow.
[00:07:26] Racheal Cook: Because I found so many women entrepreneurs, like me, started their business. The traditional way of working is not working for them.
[00:07:35] Danielle Wiebe: Mm-hmm.
[00:07:35] Racheal Cook: Right? And there's a myriad of reasons it might not be working for them. Maybe like me, you ha you know, you have a chronic health condition, that means you cannot work 10 hours a day.
[00:07:46] Like that's just not physically okay for you. Maybe you have kids, and the idea of not being around for them or having to put work before your family is not okay [00:08:00] for you. And I just found that the more I talked about that the more women were coming to me because again, there are just not many people talking like this.
[00:08:08] Not many people talking about how do you build a life and a business? How do you build a business that allows you to put your life first, your family first, your health first, yourself first? So that's kind of the origin story of everything over here. 15 years later,
[00:08:25] Danielle Wiebe: Oooh, amazing.
[00:08:26] Racheal Cook: Here we are. My twins are about to be 13 years old.
[00:08:29] Danielle Wiebe: Oh.
[00:08:30] Racheal Cook: Um, they are going into seventh grade. Let me just tell you if, uh, they're boy, girl, twins. So it's a very interesting time right now.
[00:08:37] Danielle Wiebe: Yes.
[00:08:38] But it's just wild. It is wild.
[00:08:41] Yeah. Wow. Okay. Well thank you for sharing that. I absolutely love everything that you said because it's so interesting. And I love the timing of everything, cuz we actually just recently did a couple podcasts on burnout.
[00:08:54] I've experienced burnout very significantly a couple of different times in my business when I was [00:09:00] first starting out, and you're so right. Like I remember seeing certain people that I would get kind of caught up with listening to their advice and realizing then having this like aha moment of, wait a minute, do I want that?
[00:09:13] Do I want to be working 60 to eight 80 hour weeks and never have time for like other passions or or family or friends or kids. Yeah, and that was like when I had my daughter, it was like realizing no, absolutely not. And
[00:09:28] Racheal Cook: yeah.
[00:09:28] Danielle Wiebe: It's so encouraging and I think we need definitely more people like yourself who are sharing that it is possible to build a successful, thriving business without having to do that. And I'm so passionate about this, so I'm so, I'm so excited. And I know we're gonna get into like, some juicy marketing things, but like, thank you for starting with that cuz I'm like, Yes, this is so great.
[00:09:49] Exactly what, also, I think my community is really passionate about, cuz a lot of them are moms or maybe they wanna start a family one day. But even if they don't, I mean having other passions and, and [00:10:00] having time for other things that are important to them is so key. Knowing that your business doesn't have to be everything to you. It can be this like beautiful thing that allows you to live the life that you wanna live. So thank you.
[00:10:13] Okay, let's get into some juicy things here. I wanted to ask you about, cuz you are a expert when it comes to a lot of marketing strategy. So tell us what you see in the entrepreneurial space. And how I feel as well is with marketing there's just so many different things that we can be doing, right? It's like all of these different platforms, all of these different ways that we can be showing up, and it's very easy to feel super overwhelmed with it and think, Well, I either need to be all on all the platforms, or we're like, Well, I can't, so now I just feel frozen. In not doing anything. So.
[00:10:52] Racheal Cook: Yeah.
[00:10:52] Danielle Wiebe: I would love for you to just dive in and just share like what has your experience been and what has some of the people, clients that you've worked [00:11:00] with and, and what do you see happening right now?
[00:11:02] Racheal Cook: Yeah. It's so interesting because this ties in so clearly with the burnout challenge, right? When I started my business, I was at a unique point in time where we did not have a lot of the things that are now available. Right?
[00:11:16] Danielle Wiebe: Right.
[00:11:16] Racheal Cook: So, in a way, That was amazing. We were kind of pre-social media. Um, when I started my business, Facebook had just unlocked the ability for people who weren't in college to join the platform. There were no business pages, there was no Facebook ads, Instagram did not exist. So no one was really using that to grow their business. And the one thing we were using was an email list, and that has continued to be hands down, the most important thing that I focus on in my business. And I do think right now, especially because social media has exploded, the email list has become more important.
[00:11:55] What we're seeing right now is what I've watched happen over and over again, [00:12:00] is the rise and fall of different social media platforms. So when Facebook did start allowing people to basically build business pages and market their business online, there was a few years there where any business could go on Facebook and start posting, and they would see an instant uptick in their revenue, they would see more clients coming to them.
[00:12:21] But what happened was, It gradually tapered off because at some point Facebook had to become profitable and then they launched Facebook ads, and the minute they launched Facebook ads, guess what? All that organic reach went away. And so everybody in the social media world has been playing this game of kind of cat and mouse where social media gives the business owners this promise of free, organic, build community, get in front of all these people.
[00:12:46] All you have to do is create content, but at some point, these companies have to become profitable and they are all doing it through advertising. So at some point, all that organic goes away. Because if they [00:13:00] don't become profitable, guess what? That business dies. And we've seen this happen. We have all seen the rise and fall of organic Facebook.
[00:13:07] We are seeing the fall of organic Instagram. It is, it has been happening for the last two years as ads have become more prevalent. We are in the rise right now of, of TikTok, I think is the platform that is getting a lot of organic traction. But I guarantee, that period is going to be 18 months at the most because they've already put the infrastructure in place for advertising, so,
[00:13:29] Danielle Wiebe: Oh, right.
[00:13:29] Racheal Cook: We're at a time where people need to, they need to disconnect these platforms from their marketing strategy. Because if your focused so on the platform that you are dependent on it and you don't have a full comprehensive strategy based on assets you own, your business will not make it through that next update that that social media platform pushes out.
[00:13:53] Danielle Wiebe: Yes. I love that you're talking about this because I think it's so key because I think a lot of people, they see, [00:14:00] okay, they think about marketing and they automatically go directly to social media, right?
[00:14:04] Racheal Cook: Yeah.
[00:14:04] Danielle Wiebe: They're automatically thinking, Okay, so my marketing strategy is showing up every day on Instagram or trying to build a TikTok following, or, or Facebook like now
[00:14:15] Racheal Cook: Fill-in-the-blank.
[00:14:16] Danielle Wiebe: Basically, yeah. Either groups or advertising . So I love that you're saying this. So can, can you explain for people who maybe are new to this idea, or maybe they've been taught in the past, that all they need to do is just be consistent on this one platform and, and that's how they're gonna get all their success.
[00:14:34] Can you explain to people what does like a comprehensive marketing strategy even look like? I know you mentioned email list, which I'm so glad you did because, Yes, a hundred percent. I agree with that. Um, so tell us like a little bit, how do you explain it?
[00:14:48] Racheal Cook: So an, A strategy is not about the specific platforms, it's about the overall process you are taking people through from the time they first hear about your brand and your business, and you, very [00:15:00] first exposure to you. All the way through to happily paying client who's now like a brand evangelist going out there talking about you.
[00:15:07] Danielle Wiebe: Mm-hmm.
[00:15:07] Racheal Cook: So when I create marketing strategies, there's five parts of the process I'm putting in place for each of my clients. And the best part is once you understand these, you can really mix and match platforms based on what is working.
[00:15:19] Danielle Wiebe: Right.
[00:15:19] Racheal Cook: And you are building a strategy where, Own the asset. So you own the majority of what's happening and you're just using these other platforms like social media as a, as a amplifier as opposed to the whole thing. And I think that's really important, because if you don't own it, then they can shut down your account tomorrow and you'd be screwed. You'd be in in a lot of trouble.
[00:15:44] So let's walk through those first, those five steps, cuz I think that'll be helpful for people to understand where this is coming from. This is all based on the idea of a customer journey, of buyer readiness, and we all go through this process. It [00:16:00] does not matter what you're purchasing.
[00:16:02] We go through these different stages of awareness and consideration when we are making buying decisions. The first step is attract. This is where you are getting your your brand and your business out in front of new people for the very first time.
[00:16:15] Attract marketing is huge. This is what we would call, you know, top of the funnel. This is where you're getting in front of those people for the very first time. So attract marketing really comes down to just a few key ideas. One, which is huge, is search, search engine optimization. If you are not thinking about search engine optimization, especially if you're a local business, you are missing out.
[00:16:40] Danielle Wiebe: Yes.
[00:16:40] Racheal Cook: You don't, you don't have to be a brick and mortar.
[00:16:43] Danielle Wiebe: Mmm-hmm.
[00:16:44] Racheal Cook: Which I think a lot of people think local, they think, Oh, I don't have a storefront, but let's say you're a wedding photographer in Richmond, Virginia, you wanna make sure when people are searching wedding photographer, you're popping up because you're in their area, right? And search engine [00:17:00] optimization is a huge part of that. It's making sure when they go to Google, when they go to YouTube, when they go to Pinterest, they're typing in some keywords and they're finding you.
[00:17:08] So this is really helpful for local based businesses, but it's also helpful for businesses that are very specific and very niche in what they do. And the best part about it is, it's organic. So once you optimize for it, you don't have to pay for it, right?
[00:17:23] Danielle Wiebe: Mm-hmm.
[00:17:23] Racheal Cook: you're, you're not paying to get that. So that's one amazing option.
[00:17:27] Another amazing option that is my personal favorite is called other people's audiences, other people's audiences, is anytime you are getting in front of someone else's audience. So this could be like we're doing right now.
[00:17:40] Danielle Wiebe: Mm-hmm.
[00:17:41] Racheal Cook: Danielle is in front of my audience on my podcast. I'm in front of her audience on her podcast. So, doing an interview, guest teaching, guest speaking, being on a stage at an event, hosting workshops for somebody or hosting an event for somebody else's community or, or business or what have you.
[00:17:58] This also includes things [00:18:00] like networking and referrals, which I think a lot of people forget. Like things that worked 20 years ago still work. Most of my biggest speak opportunities have come from networking, have come from the people I know in my business circles. Referrals - amazing way to get in front of other people's network, other people's audience.
[00:18:20] So that's hands down if you are a thought leader, if you are an expert based business, if you are a coach, if you are doing some sort of transformative work, other people's audiences, amazing.
[00:18:30] Now I will say another thing that I have added to the attract bucket here is discovery. This does not happen often. I alluded to it already. Um, I think TikTok is in that window right now where it is an amazing discovery engine. Will this flip at some point as a prioritized advertising more? Probably. But right now what I'm finding, and I, I'm about four and a half months into my own TikTok experiment is 90% of the videos I'm posting on TikTok are [00:19:00] getting out to the for you page, not to my followers.
[00:19:03] Danielle Wiebe: Mm-hmm.
[00:19:03] Racheal Cook: So that means it is prioritizing pushing content into new potential people's feeds so that you can grow your own audience. And I think that is so interesting. It's, I haven't seen this in a long time, so it's a window right now. TikTok happens to be, the one thing that I'm seeing is like an amazing discovery platform.
[00:19:22] And then finally advertising.
[00:19:24] Danielle Wiebe: Mm-hmm.
[00:19:24] Racheal Cook: which love hate relationship with it, right? Like it works one minute, and then the next minute there's an iOS update and all your ads kind of fall off a cliff. So,
[00:19:34] Danielle Wiebe: Can ask you a, a, just cause I'm curious and I love, I absolutely love everything that you just said. I'm just curious, do you think, cuz as you were talking about that, because we were talking about how like Facebook used to be that and then Instagram and now TikTok.
[00:19:47] Racheal Cook: Mm-hmm.
[00:19:47] Danielle Wiebe: like, do you think there's just gonna be kind of. Almost like a new thing every maybe three to five years of like, okay, this is like now the platform that's like starting to take off, that's starting to like give you some more organic reach and then it's kind of [00:20:00] gonna like shift into something else. I just was curious like what your thoughts were on that? Cause as you were talking I was like, yeah, it almost seems like we've gone from like, okay, Facebook then Instagram, now tikTok. Clubhouse had its moment as well and it's so interesting.
[00:20:13] Racheal Cook: I mean, there's a, there's a bunch of people who say marketers ruin everything . And it's true because the minute they start doing ads and they push down organic reach, it either forces you to get really, really, really, really good at just that platform.
[00:20:28] Danielle Wiebe: Right.
[00:20:28] Racheal Cook: Which it's hard like trying to.
[00:20:31] Danielle Wiebe: Learn a new platform.
[00:20:32] Racheal Cook: Yeah. Well, like we don't know what Facebook is working on right now. It's not like before they push out an update or change their algorithm, they're gonna call us and say, Hey, small business owners, by the way. You're gonna find out because it, it takes like three to six months and then you're like, What happened?
[00:20:47] So this is just, this is a cycle that is going to repeat. Just know that it is a cycle that's going to repeat. And there is something to be said about being kind of an early adopter on some of these [00:21:00] platforms, but here's what really matters. It's not the platform. It's your ability to show up and capture attention.
[00:21:08] So the things that have helped me to jumpstart TikTok have been the fact that I've had a podcast for over five years. Because I've done all these interviews, I can record a bunch of videos really quickly. Because I know how to craft a hook. That first sentence you say when you're creating a video, I can do that really quickly.
[00:21:24] So now it doesn't matter if it's TikTok or any other platform, I could be using the same type of approach to creating content on YouTube shorts, which is also on the rise or anything else. It's the same core strategies, just a different platform to put them on.
[00:21:38] Danielle Wiebe: I love that. That's so, so good because I think a lot of people need to hear that of like the more longer term strategies and the more, like you said, having a more comprehensive marketing strategy is going to help you no matter what you're doing.
[00:21:52] Racheal Cook: Yeah.
[00:21:52] Danielle Wiebe: Moving forward. So
[00:21:54] Racheal Cook: absolutely. And it's one of those things where just know, like marketing skills are [00:22:00] transferable across platforms. If you can learn like, think about email marketing, which is a nurture, the nurture part of this, right? So step three here, if you can write a great subject line to get people to open your email, you can write a great hook to get people to keep watching your video on TikTok.
[00:22:17] Danielle Wiebe: So good. And I've noticed this too, even with titles of my podcast episodes and how certain ones, like depending on the type of, Yeah, like hook or intrigue, that's there, those ones get downloaded more than others. It's
[00:22:28] Racheal Cook: absolutely.
[00:22:29] Danielle Wiebe: Yeah. So I love that you said that in it. I think that's really encouraging cuz I think people. Think that, you know, well, I have to be like on this platform that platform, all these different things. So I, I know you're gonna get into your five types,
[00:22:40] Racheal Cook: Pick one.
[00:22:40] Danielle Wiebe: So go into your five types and then.
[00:22:41] Racheal Cook: Pick one. So I'll say as we go through these five categories, like five stages of the buyer readiness process of the customer journey, only pick one strategy to start and then layer once you have optimized it.
[00:22:53] So, Of the track strategies I just gave you. Search. Other people's audiences. [00:23:00] Discovery advertising, pick one. Pick one to start. Commit to it for six months. This is the furthest away from the sale, and often it takes the longest to get to the sale, but this is where you're starting to plant the seeds for the business.
[00:23:13] You're gonna get three to six months from now. So just keep that in mind. So the next step is those people have now heard of you, they, they know a little bit about you and what you're up to, but they wanna know more. So they're effectively going from being kind of like window shoppers, like imagine we're in the mall, like circa 1998 and we're cruising around, we're looking through the windows to see if we wanna go in and look at anything. We wanna get them from walking past us to walking in the door.
[00:23:38] And that's where the engaged Step uh, comes in. This is them effectively walking through your virtual door and saying, Hey, okay, this is interesting. I wanna learn a little bit more. And at this point, we want to exchange contact information, because if we don't exchange contact information, we are gonna hope that the algorithms magically show us to them again [00:24:00] one day.
[00:24:00] And that's just not how it works y'all. Like you have to exchange contact information. So this can be, like I said, building an email list is hands down my favorite for a lot of us. For some people, especially if you're a higher end service provider, let's say instead of hundreds of clients a year, you only need a couple dozen. Then maybe you don't even really need an email list yet. Maybe you mostly need to focus on just getting people to request a proposal or request a consult.
[00:24:26] So depending on your type of business, people who are more high touch service based businesses, their focus is usually just getting people to enter their information on a form. Get a request for proposal. Request for more information. Request for consult, right?
[00:24:42] For people who are starting to build out other business models where you do need to make more sales, you're talking to more people. Email list. You're getting email subscribers. What's amazing now is now you have control of that information, right? So when you own an email list, you own that information, [00:25:00] right? You can follow, you can go into your email subscriber program, like I use Convert Kit, and I can go through and say like, Oh, who checked out today's email? Let me send out five quick personalized messages to those people. Right. So there's so much more you can do that once you have their information.
[00:25:17] Danielle Wiebe: Yeah, I love that so much what you just said, because it's like going that step further, which a lot of people, they're just kind of like putting out content, sort of leaving it there. But I love that you said that, because, for someone like myself, and I think a lot of people listening to this as well, is we really, I crave that in, personalized connection and engagement with people. And so I love that you shared like that one tip is just so amazing, just seeing how people are doing, checking in with them. You never know where that can lead to.
[00:25:49] Racheal Cook: Absolutely. And I think this is one of the biggest mistakes I'm seeing in marketing right now is everybody wants to make it like automated systems. Blah, blah, blah. Funnels. If you
[00:25:58] Danielle Wiebe: Go viral.
[00:25:59] Racheal Cook: [00:26:00] Yeah. Stop it. Just stop. Stop trying to do the things you think are gonna scale. Just stop it because the things you think are key to scaling are actually holding you back from scaling. Cuz at this point in the game, we've already, we've all been on a million email lists.
[00:26:14] You know, why am I sticking around? Why am I on this list? What does that person actually have anything to say that I care about? Do they even care that I'm here? And this is something where you can stand out really quickly with email and literally, I look through mine all the time. I'm looking for people who are taking actions.
[00:26:31] I tag people to see like where they are, and you can get so much insight about what people actually want from you with email. So once they get into your email or they request a consult, request a proposal, request more information, depending on what's the priority for your particular business. Again, The fewer clients you need at a higher price point, you probably just want them to go straight to booking a consult. If you need more people, cuz you're selling courses or group or info products or anything like that, you're probably building an [00:27:00] email list.
[00:27:00] The next piece of it is nurture, and this is the dating period. So remember this. Marketing is like dating. We don't walk up to people and propose on the first date, right? We're gonna walk up to them and invite them to get to know us, to build their relationship, to build that connection. And nurture marketing is that dating period. It's where you're showing them how you can help them, but also providing a lot of value so that they're interested.
[00:27:26] It's all about helping them see like, this is the person that can help me. This is a person I trust. This is a person I like. This is a person who's aligned with what I think or what I believe. And so that nurture period is so crucially important. Nurture is mostly gonna be what you're like if you're sending out email newsletters, that's nurture. You're warming people up, you're building the relationship.
[00:27:49] If you are publishing a podcast, if you're writing a blog post, if you're doing a video series, I consider that nurture first. Yes, it can also attract, but primarily [00:28:00] it's hitting your audience first. Right? When I send out my podcast every week, the first people who download it are my subscribers, are the people who are on my email list. Then it might get out further, but it's primarily nurture.
[00:28:12] Social media is also nurture, and this is where most people are getting it wrong. They think that all they need is social media, and if it was 2012, if only it was 2012, it was 10 years ago, then all you needed was, you know, to be on social media. You didn't need anything else.
[00:28:28] But that's not the world we're living in right now. So you have to remember that 90% of what you post on social media, if it does reach anybody, it's reaching the people who already are following you. It's not reaching new people. This is where it's different on something like a TikTok, because 90% of the people who it's going out to are people who don't know you.
[00:28:48] So that's the, the relationship there. So if you're using something like a TikTok to attract, then you're getting them to your email list, but then nurturing them via email, via podcast, via Facebook, [00:29:00] via Instagram, cuz they're moving into your other ecosystems. So that's the nurture. That's where most people are gonna hang out and spend most of their time.
[00:29:08] Three to 5% of those people are probably gonna become clients. So your goal then is to invite them and tell them what the next step is. How can they work with you? And the invite piece is really important because I find, especially women, we tend to have like a major issue with the idea of sales, of selling what we have to offer.
[00:29:26] Like if I was selling someone else's thing, it's no problem. I'll like shout it from the rooftops. Like, Oh my god, Danielle made this thing. It's the best. You have to go get it right now. But if I'm selling my own stuff, suddenly it's a PS in the bottom of a, an email newsletter and no one saw it. So invitation is so huge.
[00:29:44] Invite is so huge, and when I work with my clients here, We work on having very clear, dedicated invitation to work with us to take the next step. It cannot be buried in a PS in your newsletter. If you're only telling people [00:30:00] once in a while how they can work with you, then a lot of them have no clue. They're missing the message. They have no idea. So this is really, really key, is to be explicitly clear how you can get more.
[00:30:11] Danielle Wiebe: I love that because also I think we think that we're being pushy or salesy or whatever that is, but really we're not serving our client the best way we that we can if we're not telling them how, how to work with us, or if you have a product based business, how to buy. Like someone might be like, But how do I buy? Like, how do I work with you? How do I, And so if we're not doing that, then we're actually doing them a disservice. So I love that you said that.
[00:30:39] I also wanted to point out so that people didn't miss it, the percentage of people that will actually become clients. Because I think often people get discouraged when they're not seeing the sales that maybe they're expecting.
[00:30:52] Racheal Cook: Yeah.
[00:30:52] Danielle Wiebe: But maybe their expectations are not necessarily in line what's with what's realistic for the size of [00:31:00] community potentially that they currently have. And so then they think like, Oh, what I'm selling isn't working, or nobody, nobody wants to work with me or no one wants to buy my product. But, if we are realistic with those numbers and that conversion rate, then we can very much see like, okay, it's not an issue of this, it's maybe an issue of I actually need to get more people into the funnel, which is what you talked about at the beginning, right?
[00:31:23] Racheal Cook: So, Exactly, Exactly. And this is, uh, by the way, I have a resource for everybody if you're not sure about those conversion rates, um, the get paid calculator. There is a whole part of it that is about the audience you need in order to hit the sales you want.
[00:31:36] Danielle Wiebe: I love it.
[00:31:37] Racheal Cook: And we look at the different rates of conversion because some conversion rates are much higher, right? Those, uh, service providers who, let's say the wedding photographer, Richmond, Virginia. If she's looking to book 20 weddings a year, she probably only needs to talk to 40 people. So does she need to have a massive, huge audience? No, cuz she doesn't need that many sales in order to hit her revenue goal.
[00:31:59] But [00:32:00] let's say instead of having a wedding photographer, we're looking at somebody who's selling, um, an online course for a couple hundred dollars. Like different ballgame. They need a lot more people because those are not gonna convert at at as high of a rate. When you think about it, it there is a relationship between how high touch something is and how high the conversion rate is. So the higher touch, higher conversion rate, lower touch, lower conversion rate.
[00:32:27] And when you understand that, Then you realize like there's, I can't tell you how many people have come to me to work with me over the years. And if you thought that their business success was based on Instagram followers, you'd think they're millionaires, but they are not. Cuz they are, they don't have the model that matches what works for them. They don't understand how the numbers work. So, Yeah, Check out the get paid calculator for that.
[00:32:50] Danielle Wiebe: So good. I love that. Oh, so valuable.
[00:32:53] Racheal Cook: Final thing though.
[00:32:54] Danielle Wiebe: Oh, yes. Final thing.
[00:32:55] Racheal Cook: Before we leave. The fifth part.
[00:32:56] Danielle Wiebe: Yes. Fifth part.
[00:32:56] Racheal Cook: Before we forget. I can't let you forget Danielle.
[00:32:58] Danielle Wiebe: Oh my goodness. [00:33:00]
[00:33:00] Racheal Cook: this is delight. Delight is the fifth part of this process. So we had a track, engage, nurture, invite, delight. Delight is the, Redheaded stepchild of marketing because most people ignore this. They only focus on acquiring new clients, and then they don't take care of the clients they have. And how many of us have experienced this? Where somebody's marketing is like amazing and we're just like, Oh my God, I can't work, wait to work with this person, or join their program, or do whatever.
[00:33:30] And then you get in there and you're like, What? That person's not even involved. There's nothing there. And delight is so important because the foundation for every business isn't the one time purchase. It is the repeat purchase. It's a lifetime customer value. It's getting people who become brand evangelists, right?
[00:33:52] So you don't just want people to buy from you once. You want them to come back again and again. And how do you do that? You create an amazing experience.
[00:33:59] Danielle Wiebe: [00:34:00] Mm-hmm.
[00:34:00] Racheal Cook: an amazing experience that delivers on the promise, that delivers on the transformation that you promised, and then you make sure that you make it so amazing. They get the results they're looking for, right? When they get the results they're looking for, they're more likely to leave a rave review. They're more likely to send you referrals, and they're also more likely to give you the repeat business. So you can't neglect that.
[00:34:24] There are so many businesses out there that again, they don't need to be the superstar, millions of people following them on social media. They need that core, solid group of a hundred or 200 people who are constantly like excited about what they're doing.
[00:34:39] Danielle Wiebe: Mm-hmm. I love that. So good. So good. I, And I am really glad that. Like, Yeah. The last step, because I think like you said earlier of referrals is we just forget about that because it's like such a foundational business practice that has been around since businesses have been around. [00:35:00] And that used to be the way that people would grow their business. Like the one and only way.
[00:35:06] So if it's been around for that long, It's still a thing. It's still some, someone's almost like. I have people within my community too, which is like, that's literally how they've grown in their entire business. They're not even active on social media. It's like referrals only. Like what a beautiful place to be in, because everything else after that is just like throwing, you know, um, what do you call it? More gasoline on the fire or something like that.
[00:35:30] Racheal Cook: Yeah. And so just imagine if you're someone who's. I'm really not into social media. I don't wanna be on social media. I don't wanna be constantly churning out content. Okay, So focus on another piece of this and referrals. Again, this is where it becomes like an infinity loop, right?
[00:35:46] Danielle Wiebe: Yes.
[00:35:46] Racheal Cook: The referrals are the result of delight, become the attract strategy, and then you work people through it. So I have a lot of cl, a lot of clients who, when we start going through what their marketing strategy should be, we realize, hey, if [00:36:00] most of their clients are coming from referrals, we can cut out most of the stuff that's not working for them.
[00:36:05] Danielle Wiebe: Mm-hmm.
[00:36:05] Racheal Cook: and instead we can treat it differently. So, for example, I have a client right now who, you know, yeah, people learn about you and they wanna come check you out online, but instead of treating social media like something she's gotta turn out content for, instead we, we treat it kind of like a showcase. Like a portfolio,
[00:36:21] Danielle Wiebe: right.
[00:36:22] Racheal Cook: Of her best stuff. And then people see like she's on here. Um, there's great content when they go to the site, but it doesn't have to be like constantly creating new stuff.
[00:36:32] Danielle Wiebe: Yes. So good. So good. Oh, thank you so much for all of that value. I feel like if you're listening, go back, listen again, take notes. Take all the notes and um, so before we wrap up and I'm gonna ask you where people can find you, cuz definitely there's gonna be so many people like, where can I find more of Rachel? I need more. So you have been able to accomplish a lot. You've been in business now you said for 15
[00:36:59] Racheal Cook: a million [00:37:00] years, 15 years,
[00:37:00] Danielle Wiebe: a million years in the digital space, a million years. And so what are you the most proud of, of your entrepreneurial journey so far?
[00:37:08] Racheal Cook: Yeah. You know, I think about this when you, when you ask me this question, there's so many things that come up. I mean, I'm the breadwinner from our family. My husband retired his job as a teacher I think, eight years ago now, and has been kind of stay at home dad homeschooling our kids for the last few years. I'm proud of that. I'm proud that I could take my 94 year old grandmother across the country to see my cousin graduate medical school.
[00:37:32] And for me it was just like, Hey, let's do it. And it's never a question of do I have the time? Do I have the money? It's always like, hey, this is what's important to me. I'm, I'm most proud that I'm able to live in alignment with what matters most to me.
[00:37:47] Danielle Wiebe: Mm-hmm.
[00:37:47] Racheal Cook: and have success on my terms, because I think that's what most women want. I think while the money is great, I mean, it's an amazing tool that gives us a lot more options. It's the freedom we really want, and [00:38:00] for me, that's what I'm most proud of, is that I have that freedom. It was very deliberately designed to give that to me, and if anyone is hearing this, it it, it has to be deliberately designed.
[00:38:12] It will not happen by default. You have to claim it and build everything. You have to engineer your business to give you the freedom you want.
[00:38:21] Danielle Wiebe: So good. Where can people find you? Where can people get more of you? Tell us Your podcast, podcast, website, all the things.
[00:38:29] Racheal Cook: You can find us over on promote yourself to ceo. Come listen to Danielle's episode, it is amazing. We talked so much goodness about collaborating and
[00:38:37] Danielle Wiebe: mm-hmm
[00:38:38] Racheal Cook: again, that attract marketing piece. Getting in front of other people's audiences and inventive creative ways to do that. Um, we talk a lot over there about how to grow your business. In a very sustainable way, so come dive in. It's like a masterclass every episode, and then you can find me over at theceocollective.com. That is our website for all the things. You'll find the [00:39:00] podcast, you'll find all the links to my social, et cetera.
[00:39:03] Danielle Wiebe: So good, so good. Thank you so much for your time. Thanks for being with us today. So, so grateful for you and thank you.
[00:39:10] Racheal Cook: Thank you for having me, Danielle. It was so fun as always, and I look forward to hearing from everyone in your community.
[00:39:20] Danielle Wiebe: If you love this episode, make sure you screenshot, post and tag us on Instagram @businessbabesco.. Want to know when the next episode goes live? Subscribe on your podcast app and while you're there, leave us a review. Until next time, keep dreaming big, setting goals and taking action.