Cara Chatellier, Bubbly Creative’s Founder & Creative Director, recently joined host Lorraine Ball on an episode of More Than a Few Words to talk about 4 quick marketing fixes to help business owners improve their strategies.
A Deep Dive
One of the things we do when meeting with new clients at Bubbly Creative is we sit down with them for 2 hours and do a deep dive. When we come out of that meeting, we like to have a big picture of what the client is like and what we can do to help them. At the end of these deep dive meetings, we also always include low-hanging fruit – these tiny, quick marketing fixes that we know are going to make a big impact.
1. Show Your Face
First and foremost, and I talk about this a lot to the business owners I speak to, especially if it’s a solopreneur or someone who has a small business where there’s not a lot of team members, sometimes you’ll go to their website or their social media and see a lot of text-driven posts or stock photos. You won’t see them, you won’t see the team, and you go to the website, and it could be anybody’s business. I always really drive home, especially if you’re not a software company and it’s a very personal, service-based business, that you should be putting yourself in front of your clientele. Show your face! Get a great headshot taken if you have the budget. I am such a big proponent of a professional photoshoot. I think it can be tons of fun and is a great way to showcase who you are, what you do, and how you serve the client. Overall, it helps build trust when you show people the faces behind your business.
2. Google Business Profile
People usually have a Google Business Profile, but don’t really do anything with it. These are free to have, and as we all know, Google runs the internet, so if they have a tool that impacts search results, you want to use it! On Google Business, you can add information about your business, the photos that we just mentioned, and photos of your brick-and-mortar office if you have one. Additionally, you can post on this profile like it’s a social platform, so you can repurpose your social content there. Maybe most importantly, you can get reviews from former and present clients. We definitely see those a lot when it comes to restaurants, hair salons, and spas, but agencies like Bubbly Creative and plenty of female-owned service-based businesses can also use it. Whether you’re a service or a product, you can use Google Business and really leverage what it offers.
With some of the AI search results, you don’t get as much lift from Google Business as you used to get, but you still get lift. If the Google AI tool is looking on the internet for you, when they’re done looking at your website, they’re going to go to their properties. So I would definitely suggest, even if you’re posting what you’re posting elsewhere, just add this platform into your routine. Keep the page vibrant and active!
3. Get Feedback from Your Target Market
This is going to take a little legwork on the business owner’s part. Gather a group of your target market, whether it’s 5 people or 10, and have them look at your content. Ask them to take a look at what you’re putting forward and get feedback from them. Maybe you want to offer them a free lunch, maybe it’s friends of friends or people that are adjacent, but you want to get that firsthand feedback, no pressure. You can get so involved as a business owner that it’s hard to take that step back, so sometimes you just need someone who is not part of your business to take a look.
I’ve become a little bit of an AI geek, so I actually did an exercise where I said, “Tell me about this brand.” I asked it to tell me about what it found, what it was learning, and who the brand is for. It was eye-opening because some of the messaging was great, but some of it was like, “Oh, is that what people think?” It wasn’t necessarily bad, but it wasn’t what I wanted them to think. So now, if you have the human interaction and personalization with this feedback to go with it, you’ve got a great, multifaceted foundation.
4. Put Yourself on Video
Number four is a little tricky for many, but putting yourself on video and talking about your founder’s story is important. I know everyone’s cringing! I’m already telling you to show your face in photos, now I’m telling you to make videos, but the thing is, you can transcribe them. These transcriptions can be turned into quotes for social media, blogs, or other content for social and your website. Obviously, you don’t want these videos to be misguided, so do a little research before filming.
Video content allows you to lean into the personalization. You want your prospective clients to know you and to feel like they can trust you, instead of presenting as a cold, personless environment. So, really, anything that can warm up your business is really important.
Ready to hear more about these quick marketing fixes? Tune in to the full episode here!